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Old 06-09-2012, 05:20 PM
 
Location: Up above the world so high!
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Is faith ridiculous?

Only to those without any

Last edited by lovesMountains; 06-09-2012 at 06:08 PM.. Reason: spelling
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Old 06-09-2012, 06:06 PM
 
Location: Sierra Nevada Land, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whoppers View Post
Very good posts so far! So many diverse opinions.

I agree very much with Arequipa's observation that it is difficult to justify one's faith by referring the justification to God - it seems to be a case of pushing the case back one level. Let's be honest - belief in God requires faith. .
Not to the spiritual. To the skeptic, yes. There is plenty of evidence. Not the sort that can be explained away. But explaining something away really is just an excercise in mental gymnastics in many cases.

I've seen some pretty bizarre "explanations" of my God given dream by skeptics, which came to pass in all detail eight hours later as one example. IMO skeptics really don't want to awknowledge there is a God so do their best to "explain" any evidence away.
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Old 06-09-2012, 07:15 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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Well, that, if I may say so, sums up the case against 'Faith' of the religious kind. All valid questions are dismissed out of hand with no better argument than the believer believes something else, when it comes down to it.
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Old 06-10-2012, 02:10 AM
 
Location: South Africa
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Quote:
Originally Posted by whoppers View Post
Very good posts so far! So many diverse opinions.

I agree very much with Arequipa's observation that it is difficult to justify one's faith by referring the justification to God - it seems to be a case of pushing the case back one level. Let's be honest - belief in God requires faith. As far as I know, nobody has yet succeeded in proving the existence of God (or gods) - let alone one's particular god, which they honor with a capital "G" in contradistinction to everyone else's gods with a small "g". So when we talk about God, we are engaging in a discussion of faith again. A simplification might be "I have faith in A because of my faith in B".

When I call that "pushing the case back one level", a better way of saying it might be to call it exchanging a mystery for a mystery. The perfect example of this can be found in both Theology and Science and relate to Cause and Effect and the beginnings of everything. Theology sometimes posits the existence of a God because of cause and effect: everything needs a cause (A), and we suggest God as the cause (B). But if one has already stated that they are operating under the law of Cause and Effect, then one can just as well ask "what caused God?" A>B>? We have exchanged a mystery for a mystery. (The typical answer is that the initial Cause - the "Mover" - must be an Un-Moved Mover, an Un-Caused Cause; but this then destroys the original rational - Cause and Effect - which was used to posit the existence of God) Science, on the other hand, suffers from the same problem, in my honest opinion - they have come up with a theory of the Big Bang (or whatever they are calling it now) that suggests that the Cause of the Universe was when certain "stuff" (I know, it's more technical than that - but that's not my department") that somehow existed prior to our current Universe all got together to form the newest musical thing, the Big Band (yuk yuk), but somehow it resulted in the Big Bang instead. And here we are. But just as in Theology, we arrive at the same exchange of a mystery for another mystery. The Universe (A) needs a Cause, the Big Bang (B) is the Cause, but where did the elements of the Big Bang come from? A>B>?

This has always struck me - this exchanging of one mystery for another in the service of Cause and Effect - as the main shared problem between Theology and Religion. Of course, one might state that at our current knowledge we just can't answer the problem but we WILL someday, but we have no assurance of that. As far as I'm concerned, because of this whole Cause/Effect thing - we shouldn't even be here!

But I digress...on something that has plagued my mind for years.
The point was to try and get a little more information on how faith in A can be justified by faith in B.
As far as science goes, the aspect of faith may be a valid point to those that are illiterate in science. There is a demotivation poster that explains this in a nut shell. It is a pic of a Nebula and it says, "No one really knows where this **** came from but I will trust the men in white coats and pocket protectors rather than give up my time to go listen to some dude every Sunday for an hour telling me stuff he does not understand"

Science is not in the realm of faith per se but rather in the realm of trust.

It is science that has brought us to the understanding of the age of the cosmos, it hypothesises the origin thereof, it has adequate evidence of aboigenesis and evolution is a fact.

What have the theists done?

They regress one step back from the BB to first/original cause and sit back fold their arms in a smug attitude of "there now explain that" IOW they posit a god of sorts, an intelligent designer because ALL of them depart from the premise of irreducible complexity. They look at the cosmos, see order, they look at the human DNA, the atom etc. and see complexity and this deduce there has to be a designer.

When we look at the cosmos with an unbiased view is it one of chaos, random chance and adherence to physical laws. The theists then state that these laws were thus instituted by some higher force who itself is exempt form these very laws.

All three aspects of the great mystery;
  1. The Big bang
  2. Abiogenesis
  3. Evolution
All have valid conclusions and evidence. The Big bang is supposed to be preceded by something as in their mind, something cannot come from nothing (except when their god does it like speaking the cosmos into existence with a Captain Piccard of, "Make it so Mr Sulu...")

Honest scientists have no answer to what was before the BB as that is not even a valid question. Time started from the BB as we can measure/calculate back to that singularity using the time measuring concepts we have developed. If it is a valid question, the place holder is "We don't know"

Why must "we don't know" = god/ID?

No reason at all other than simplicity in the mind of the theist. It is no more than a god of the gaps argument.

What we have when religion tries to merge with science is a pseudo-science. It piggy backs on the findings of real science and finds ways to still inject their silly archaic thinking in giving us new terms like theistic evolution and driven primarily from the platform of irreducible complexity. These are just cool sounding names for creationism and intelligent design.

Staying with that, we have problems in the human genome where we have badly designed kidneys, wisdom teeth that have no space to erupt other than horizontally and destroying other teeth, and an appendix that serves no useful function other than to be a time bomb waiting to go off and kill you if it bursts.

We have a common passageway of air and food and water consumption where most of us have even chocked on our own spit when mouth breathing. How can anyone ascribe this to an intelligent designer? It simply does not compute.

When we posit that we evolved from a quadruped that stood upright, the result of evolution and change in diet makes a lot more sense than a moronic designer. Evolution does not necessarily follow an intelligent path. It is merely the mechanism whereby species adapt over time to the environment. In our case, we have learned to adapt the environment to ourselves. We really are not that special as this planet really is not conducive to human life outside the tropics w/o our clothing and man made adaptation to the environment. Try going naked into the desert or the cold regions as nature intended. Life will be very short.

So no it is not exchanging one one mystery for another, we are accepting there is ONE mystery and rejecting the now thoroughly debunked archaic explanations.

Perhaps not many of you have seen what I have seen in Africa. In the bush you will find paths trodden and followed by many. They wind to and fro and each pedestrian follows this path as;
  • it leads somewhere they need to be
  • someone else walked here
  • it is safe (no thorns etc)
The black folk where I grew up did not wear shoes, barefoot was the way even back in the 50's-70's. As a kid I too could safely walk these paths barefoot.

Now is that akin to faith or is it based on empirical evidence?





Ever heard of the phrase, "off the beaten track"?

Only when man decided to stop following the "path" did man start to discover what science has taught us thus far.

Science answers the questions of why with a how. Once we know how, there is no longer a why.

Does a 6 year old ask their mommy how a rainbow is formed to do they ask why is there a rainbow?

Perhaps theists should realise, they are not framing their questions correctly...
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Old 06-10-2012, 05:31 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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At the risk of repeating myself, Seeker has it right. We do not understand the science enough to see whether they are right or not. We do take what they say of trust, to a great extent. Are we right to do so? Isn't taking religious claims on trust just as valid, quite apart from trying to get some believable history out of ancient writings? (1)

Yes and no. We can check the methods and the controls of the scientific method and the challenges of the colleagues, above and beyond peer- review and, even then, it must be reproducible and open to check before it gains credibility. It is that process that has shown up the doubtful claims which allow those skeptical of science to point the denunciating finger and screech about 'science hoaxes'. In fact it is the picking up of the claims that don't stand up that makes it trustworthy, quite apart from the willingness to change its mind (which the science - skeptics also love to screech about )

Because the cult and religions and pseudo - sciences and other faith - based stuff doesn't go in for crits and checks. It goes in for unquestioning faith.

I was just doing (for a correspondent) a review of some UFO stuff (2) particularly the reported scripts and the thing that leaped to the eye, ma foi, is that none of them seem to resemble the others, let alone an alphabet. Of course there are explanations - pictographs not alphabets and every darn race in the universe taking turns to visit. That's not the point nor the topic - it is that nobody had even noticed. They had not asked the questions. And it is hard to avoid the conclusion that they prefer to look for reasons to believe rather than for possible queries.

THAT is what is wrong with faith - based cult and religious thinking and THAT is the point I was making above - unwillingness to examine a claim in any depth for fear of causing doubt.

I know how unsettling doubt can be, but, you have to ask the questions. Otherwise one is just willingly fooling oneself. That's the individual choice and, while I think it would be good for the gullible gollums to chew the rationalist lembas rather than the can of worms labelled 'faith', that is up to them.

But, when they come peddling such a ridiculous method of thinking and trying to persuade others that it is just as good as sound reasoning and science -based data, I cannot be so sanguine about it.

And nor can Speeker SA, I'm sure.

(1) the 'if you don't believe the Bible you must reject every other book..' package, incorporating 'more copies of the Bible than of Caesar's "Gallic war" history.'

(2) Villas Boas, Adamski -Hormet, Rosswell, the Kecksburg 'acorn' and the Edmonton plaque
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Old 06-10-2012, 06:02 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Faith is part of the human experience of life. Everybody has faith in things they aren't 100% sure about, or they can't prove to themselves, and it gives them hope...

I don't know if I truly fit into that definition of faith. Having 'assurance'. If that's the case, I probably don't have faith. Do I have some hope? Absolutely. It feels like it's more than 50/50, so to me that's faith. Someone else might not disagree. Now is my faith strong enough that I'm willing to sacrifice earthly benefits for it's promises? Honestly, it's a question I've tried to avoid to confront for a long time. The cold hard truth is sometimes I feel it is, sometimes it is, and sometimes I just gotta ignore how I feel about it.

I wonder to what extent reading this forum was responsible for Ilene losing her faith. Maybe, she is right...even if your faith is TRUE, sometimes reading something written or said in a skeptical spirit, even if it's not explicitly meant to destroy or harm your faith, can really shake it to the core. Maybe because there's a ring of truth in it, but also maybe because it sounds so persuasive.

I've found that it's not as simple as one side having all the answers and one being totally wrong. That limbo is probably one of the hardest places to be.
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Old 06-10-2012, 06:35 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Trimac20 View Post
Faith is part of the human experience of life. Everybody has faith in things they aren't 100% sure about, or they can't prove to themselves, and it gives them hope...
I can understand wanting to have 'hope', but I'd rather not fool myself.
As I have said elsewhere, nobody can be 100% sure. But we can be 55% or 80%, which is good enough to risk a bet. Or *0% against which is good enough NOT to risk a bet.

Or we can be 50% +/-20% sure/unsure is which case 'really don't know for sure' is a perfectly good answer. One does not have to plump for belief or rejection. Disbelief until better evidence is to hand is perfectly sound logic and is not too unsettling when one gets used to it.

Quote:
I don't know if I truly fit into that definition of faith. Having 'assurance'. If that's the case, I probably don't have faith. Do I have some hope? Absolutely. It feels like it's more than 50/50, so to me that's faith. Someone else might not disagree. Now is my faith strong enough that I'm willing to sacrifice earthly benefits for it's promises? Honestly, it's a question I've tried to avoid to confront for a long time. The cold hard truth is sometimes I feel it is, sometimes it is, and sometimes I just gotta ignore how I feel about it.
I have to say that it is not unreasonable to argue that it isn't sensible to give up (requisite )faith in the benefits of - promised eternal afterlife in heaven, is what we are talking about. In favour of 'earthly benefits'.
One has to be pretty darn sure that one is not losing out in a big way.

I can honestly say that I have enough sureness (and then some) that one is NOT losing out on any sure guaranteed afterlife - promise by giving up a faith - based belief in anything in particular that I can answer 'what if you're wrong?' with 'So, what if I am?'

That's not to say, 'let me convince you'. If you are not convinced, stick with faith. I don't even tell you to apply yourself to questions. i just say that, if you cannot help doubt and question, talk. lt may help you to get tp a place where Faith isn't important and seems a bit ridiculous.

Quote:
I wonder to what extent reading this forum was responsible for Ilene losing her faith. Maybe, she is right...even if your faith is TRUE, sometimes reading something written or said in a skeptical spirit, even if it's not explicitly meant to destroy or harm your faith, can really shake it to the core. Maybe because there's a ring of truth in it, but also maybe because it sounds so persuasive.
Why not ask her? l'm sure she'll be willing to talk. I rather think that she arrived though her own doubts, but perhaps the chat here helped her to clarify a few questions.

Quote:
I've found that it's not as simple as one side having all the answers and one being totally wrong. That limbo is probably one of the hardest places to be.
Until one comes to understand the value of a relative degree of belief rather than absolute faith.

Now I must rush off to the local Buddhist Vihara to give Blugg.
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Old 06-10-2012, 06:36 AM
 
Location: Oregon
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Faith and rationality - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Broadly speaking, there are two categories of views regarding the relationship between faith and rationality:
  1. Rationalism holds that truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma, tradition or religious teaching.
  2. Fideism holds that faith is necessary, and that beliefs may be held without evidence or reason, or even in conflict with evidence and reason.

Last edited by ancient warrior; 06-10-2012 at 06:37 AM.. Reason: typo
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Old 06-10-2012, 08:58 AM
 
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA View Post
I can understand wanting to have 'hope', but I'd rather not fool myself.
As I have said elsewhere, nobody can be 100% sure. But we can be 55% or 80%, which is good enough to risk a bet. Or *0% against which is good enough NOT to risk a bet.

Or we can be 50% +/-20% sure/unsure is which case 'really don't know for sure' is a perfectly good answer. One does not have to plump for belief or rejection. Disbelief until better evidence is to hand is perfectly sound logic and is not too unsettling when one gets used to it.



I have to say that it is not unreasonable to argue that it isn't sensible to give up (requisite )faith in the benefits of - promised eternal afterlife in heaven, is what we are talking about. In favour of 'earthly benefits'.
One has to be pretty darn sure that one is not losing out in a big way.

I can honestly say that I have enough sureness (and then some) that one is NOT losing out on any sure guaranteed afterlife - promise by giving up a faith - based belief in anything in particular that I can answer 'what if you're wrong?' with 'So, what if I am?'

That's not to say, 'let me convince you'. If you are not convinced, stick with faith. I don't even tell you to apply yourself to questions. i just say that, if you cannot help doubt and question, talk. lt may help you to get tp a place where Faith isn't important and seems a bit ridiculous.



Why not ask her? l'm sure she'll be willing to talk. I rather think that she arrived though her own doubts, but perhaps the chat here helped her to clarify a few questions.



Until one comes to understand the value of a relative degree of belief rather than absolute faith.

Now I must rush off to the local Buddhist Vihara to give Blugg.
Actually, in my case, there aren't too many earthly benefits that I feel I would have to give up to live a truly faith-driven, God-centred life. I'm actually not into promiscuous sex, but I don't like the idea of sex ONLY being confined to marriage, not because I don't really believe in marriage *****, but because I'm not sure I will ever marry or will make a suitable life partner for somebody.

Once you lose the fear of hell and the desire for immortality, you probably don't care either way. I don't know about you, but I wonder how many atheists are truly honest when they say their preferred scenario of what happens after death is no afterlife? I don't doubt many do truly desire no afterlife - heck, there are probably even BELIEVERS who would prefer this, but believe to avoid the less desirable afterlife, but at least a few atheists have said they would love it if there was a God, and Heaven and mansions in the sky or all that jazz and I imagine there's more than have admitted it.

Yes, I have read some of what she wrote. It was her own journey, of course, but I think she was much influenced a lot by some of the posters here. Of course I'm not pointing the finger of blame or anything, people make their own decisions, and I actually think the atheists here don't generally try to push their atheism on non-believers in contrast to the other way around (for obvious reasons). Some certainly fuel doubts, which you would expect them to do, but it's probably more imperative for Christians to save people from hell or death than atheists to save people from ignorance and perhaps bondage, although some atheists are quite evangelical and see religion as a mental disease.

In some ways I'm an 'all or nothing' person, but I also don't know where I operate in the whole atheist-theist continuum. I'm a theist in theory, yet my faith doesn't feel real a lot of the time. I believe in God, but often have doubts about the Biblical God. I said the prayer, was baptized, and a brief time was zealous for the Lord, but like everyone have always had to deal with temptation and have sometimes given in to it. By brief I mean pretty brief. I would say I was an agnostic in my teens, before I 're-committed' at around age 17. In general, my belief in the absolute literacy of the Bible generally left me when I was 13. I strive to seek, I pray for faith, yet I don't feel sure enough about things to be a zealous, committed Christian who goes out evangelizing, and whatnot. Unless I began moreso, will this mean I will slide away, or have somehow lost my faith?

I don't understand it, if I'm filled with the Holy Spirit shouldn't I have at least some security? What a security it would be if it's so easy for the Devil to snatch us away, luring us from the embrace of the Lord Jesus Christ with doubts.

I guess I can't really remain 'on the fence' so to speak forever.
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Old 06-10-2012, 09:19 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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Well Trimac (is the accent on the first or second syllable? ) it seems that the choice is to have Faith that God knows what he is doing and questioning is pointless. Bottom line is that, having Faith in Jesus' resurrection and enough of a decent life not to put that in jeopardy is all you need and the rest can probably regarded as unimportant (though you wouldn't think so to read the doctrinal squabbles of C. Forum ) or to decide whether it is believable on the basis of whatever reasoning - method one uses.

As to the atheist -morality and afterlife -speculation, repost on 'After this life' thread and I'll have a muse about it
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