Why is faith considered a virtue rather than the curse it really is?

[Skeptisch]

Every single solitary time I try to communicate with an atheist on the subject of God's purposes for running the world His way, I just get frustrated. It's a losing battle. The conversation just goes around and around and around and around and around. Ya know what I'm saying?

Replace atheist with believer and we finally have something in common!

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)” [Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection]

“You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.” [Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact (New York: Pocket Books, 1985]

Copernicus, you are a great read, oozing with logic and reason. Thanks.

 

[footprints]

It was, apparently, not clear what “faith” we talk about in this thread. It is the faith in a supernatural God. The one God Albert Einstein was very particular about:

“I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
Albert Einstein

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Albert Einstein

Faith is Faith, irrespective of who holds it or for what reason. It doesn't change because it is held by a theist, the same faith is held by scientists, atheists, agnostics, lay people et al. The faith is exactly the same, it is only the belief which changes. If you are ever unsure of this, it is easily measured and witnessed.

I mean, you only have to look at how much Blind Faith atheists et al put in a bloke like Dawkins pertaining to religions, deities et al, to know and understand we are talking about the same faith.

Einstein was good at physics, pretty lousy at everything else.

 

[Katzpur]

Replace atheist with believer and we finally have something in common!

I know. I'm not saying theists are any less flexible than atheists. It's just that some things can't be proven one way or the other and it just gets frustrating after awhile when you think you're making all kinds of sense, but the "other side" appears to be clueless. That's why you seldom find me on these threads where atheists and theists try to out-argue each other. I'd much prefer to debate points of Christian doctine with other Christians. At least we have Christ in common. (Well, maybe not. I'm always being told that I don't believe in the "real" Jesus, so that's sometimes a problem. )

 

[Charity]

Faith is a virtue to those that believe....And a curse to those that don't believe because their compelled by some force to disprove what the Christians believe and we are at peace with our faith....

 

[Copernicus]

Faith is a virtue to those that believe....And a curse to those that don't believe because their compelled by some force to disprove what the Christians believe and we are at peace with our faith....

Don't make the mistake of judging all non-believers on the basis of those who tend to hang out in religious debate forms. We're the worst of the lot.

One of the problems with arguments over "faith" is that the meaning of the word shifts between "trust", "belief in a religious doctrine", "belief without evidence", "belief in a god", and a few other senses. And then there are always those who feel compelled to argue that atheism is a type of religious "faith", which just confuses the issue further. In the end, there is the interesting question of whether or not religious faith is a good thing or a bad thing for our kind of being. I tend to agree more with Dawkins and other of the so-called "new atheists" on this subject--that it is ultimately not a good thing. But, to be honest, I have conflicting opinions about that. The fact that it is so ubiquitous suggests that it has worked out advantageously on some level for us. I'm just not so sure that it is a healthy thing to have a strong fanatical movement of any kind, be it religious or political, in a crowded world that possesses weapons of mass destruction.

 

[meogi]

The fact that it is so ubiquitous suggests that it has worked out advantageously on some level for us.

Or simply bottle-necked.

In the end, there is the interesting question of whether or not religious faith is a good thing or a bad thing for our kind of being.

Religious faith, not so much. Spiritual faith, however, is generally not detrimental and beneficial to the individual in some way. I know it is for my mother.

 

[footprints]

Or simply bottle-necked.
Religious faith, not so much. Spiritual faith, however, is generally not detrimental and beneficial to the individual in some way. I know it is for my mother.

And that is your faith of belief.

 

[Thief]

So let me get this right..................
Someone who is not capable of faith is better off than someone who is?

 

[emiliano]

Until recently Richard Dawkins was professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. His “The God Delusion” just came out in paperback and his latest book, “The Greatest Show On Earth”, is still on the best seller list.

He also says this:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

I see! This makes him a theologian? I red that he is the son of a religion minister that was turned against religion because of this as most of his behavior are acceptable to religion, his several failed marriages do not go well with religion, his fascination with human genetic material neither. I heard him saying in one debate that he nor scientists know how life originally came to be but they will one day, it doesn’t sound to authorative to me.
Richard Dawkins was professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University

 

[Thief]

Replace atheist with believer and we finally have something in common!

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.)” [Carl Sagan, The Fine Art of Baloney Detection]

“You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.” [Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact (New York: Pocket Books, 1985]

Copernicus, you are a great read, oozing with logic and reason. Thanks.

And you are easily duped by an argumentive technique called retort.

 

[Buttons*]

Well.... if I were skeptic about everything in my life, I'd be a nervous wreck. It's much better to keep relationships if I have faith in my partner, it's much easier to have faith in my abilities as a person rather than pick apart everything I do and why. It's also nicer to have faith in myself, because I would be lost without an understanding of who I am, and equally lost if I did not have faith in me.

 

[Skeptisch]

Richard Dawkins was professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University.

You got that right. Dawkins, along with Sagan, Dennett, Harris, Shermer, Hitchens and others are trying to tell the world that the scientific truth is the only truth based on evidence. It is arrived at through experiment and should be part our education.

Once we understand the scientific method and we still have an appetite for the paranormal and the supernatural, let’s investigate those. The foundation of our education should be knowledge based and data laced. We should know what the laws of nature are all about.

The door to science based spirituality is wide open. An appreciation of the how lucky we are to be born at all should be part of that spirituality.

“After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?”
-- Richard Dawkins, excerpt from Chapter I, "The Anaesthetic of Familiarity," of Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1998)

 

[Charity]

I even though am a Christian have read many of Dawkins books so let's not forget to credit him with also being a noted British ethologist and evolutionary biologist as well as being a professor...

Dawkins along with his 3 other Horsemen seem to think that science has so completely explained the known universe that there is no room to view life's realities outside the ridigly defined parameters of the scientific method....

 

[MSizer]

I even though am a Christian have read many of Dawkins books so let's not forget to credit him with also being a noted British ethologist and evolutionary biologist as well as being a professor...

Dawkins along with his 3 other Horsemen seem to think that science has so completely explained the known universe that there is no room to view life's realities outside the ridigly defined parameters of the scientific method....

I don't think (at least in the case of Dawkins) that he believes the sciences have so outdone theology that we can dismiss it, but that theology in itself is dismissable on the grounds that it is not based in observable facts. I think Dawkins just applies ocham's razor to everything, which, by chance, I happen to agree with.

 

[Skeptisch]

I think Dawkins just applies ocham's razor to everything, which, by chance, I happen to agree with.

Occam's razor is the principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity" and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest explanation or strategy tends to be the best one.

“What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. If all the achievements of scientists were wiped out tomorrow, there would be no doctors but witch doctors, no transport faster than horses, no computers, no printed books, no agriculture beyond subsistence peasant farming. If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? Even the bad achievements of scientists, the bombs, and sonar-guided whaling vessels work! The achievements of theologians don't do anything, don't affect anything, don't mean anything. What makes anyone think that "theology" is a subject at all?” http://richarddawkins.net/articles/88

 

[Charity]

I don't think (at least in the case of Dawkins) that he believes the sciences have so outdone theology that we can dismiss it, but that theology in itself is dismissable on the grounds that it is not based in observable facts. I think Dawkins just applies ocham's razor to everything, which, by chance, I happen to agree with.

Dawkins more than the others focuses on what makes belief in God, inherently mistaken. Thus came the first successful book 'The Selfish Gene" and thinking in the area of genetics and introduced the "meme".

I find his books interesting....

 

[Quagmire]

I think Skep is making the point there is no personal God.

Yes, and he's trying to use this as evidence;

Also today many of us still believe and worship a God who lets 18000 children die from sickness and malnutrition every single day of the year.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-17-un-hunger_x.htm Presently we can also see what God thinks of the poorest people in the western hemisphere!

At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and good will, actually exists?

My point is that this only works if we presume to know what God's obligations are, what His ultimate purpose for us is, what role suffering plays in that purpose, and in a nutshell, how exactly the universe works.

We don't have a clue to any of the above. Basically it's like presuming to know the answer to an infinite equation based on a few vaguely understood variables.

 

[logician]

Fatith is a curse, because it places unquestioning above questioning.

 

[sonofskeptish]

Yes, and he's trying to use this as evidence;



My point is that this only works if we presume to know what God's obligations are, what His ultimate purpose for us is, what role suffering plays in that purpose, and in a nutshell, how exactly the universe works.

We don't have a clue to any of the above. Basically it's like presuming to know the answer to an infinite equation based on a few vaguely understood variables.

I suppose your correct.... there is a presumption of knowing Gods obligations. Many of us presume an all loving, all caring, all powerful God is an all loving, all caring and all powerful being, and should act the part. Perhaps you’re right... perhaps on bad days His only obligation is to amuse Himself by playing with us ants and slugs (using his magnifying glass and salt sprinkler).


Before you argue we are responsible for hunger, let me direct your response to earthquakes, floods, droughts, etc.?

 

[challupa]

I suppose your correct.... there is a presumption of knowing Gods obligations. Many of us presume an all loving, all caring, all powerful God is an all loving, all caring and all powerful being, and should act the part. Perhaps you’re right... perhaps on bad days His only obligation is to amuse Himself by playing with us ants and slugs (using his magnifying glass and salt sprinkler to burn and melt us).

Before you argue we are responsible for hunger, let me direct your response to earthquakes, floods, droughts, etc.?

Well he is made in our image after all!