Quote:
Originally Posted by phetaroi
I agree with you that faith is not fact. And, as I have said before, my only problem with faith -- which can be a force for good -- is when the faithful can't tell the difference between faith and fact.
Your second paragraph is interesting, because it is incontradiction to several other christian posters here who are always talking about the extremely strong evidence -- or even facts -- they provide here. Except, in reality, what they're providing is not strong evidence...it's really faith. And accepting "signs" -- for many of us -- is not good enough. How are your signs different than the signs Hindus accept? Or Muslims accept? Or even voodoo practitioners accept (and I'm actually being serious about voodoo signs)?
No one here on the atheist is asking for something that every person on earth would accept as evidence of god. We all know how people are. But there is little that people accept on faith alone. I just sold and bought a house. I didn't rely on faith in any way for that transaction. But you want me/us to accept on faith the most important question man has ever asked. I'm sorry, but I won't buy that. I did for many years, but there have been too many broken promises to accept that. Too many vague "if" statements.
But I will compliment you. Unlike a couple of our angry posters, you wrote a post that I felt was serious enough, and good-intentioned enough to take real time responding to.
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I think this is the main purpose of this forum. We should be able to openly discuss our believes and our ideas with the intention of exchanging information and trying to better understand each other. However, as we know, it doesn't always happen. We get into a hosing down contest which leads to nowhere.
So getting back to the top, I would like to respond to two of your points.
First, the green text above.
The keyword here is "transaction".
First, you had a need/want to buy and/or sell the house.
Then you did your research and you made a decision. The transaction happened (the house was either sold or bought), and you knew whether you made a bad or a good deal, after this transaction happened.
You also had a choice to NOT make these transactions.
Now lets try to compare this very basic scenario of our daily lives with theological faith.
In matters of theological faith,
One feels the need/want to find God.
Then he performs his research and makes a decision.
The challenge here is, the TRANSACTION has NOT happened yet - so he doesn't know whether his decision/choice was right or wrong?
IMO, the event of our death, is that TRANSACTION that has to happened before we know whether our decision on theological faith was right or wrong?
It's like, you did all your research and you don't sell the house but you believe you made $50,000 in profit by selling the house, AND you don't buy the house but you believe you bought a house $50,000 below it's market value- and you say that I made the right decision.
Apparently, in matters of theological faith, we don't have a choice to STOP that transaction from happening. The event of death is unstoppable.
So until that transaction happens, we can only wait and we shall probably see.
Second point; how are my signs different from Hindusim or whatever ism.
This is where our own intelligence, logic and research comes into play. These 3 factors vary from person to person.
There is no compulsion upon anyone; however, in my opinion it requires bravery and honesty because our
brains do the intelligence, logic and research part, but the call to faith comes from the
heart. So once one receives that call to faith from the honesty of his heart, he should be brave enough to stand with what he believes in the truth.
And then again, that "transaction" that is has been forced upon us, WILL happen, and it will probably reveal the truth.
And that's why I always say, we should make wise choices because in the end, we shall be responsible for our choices.
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