The confusion about faith (believers, verse, confess, religion)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'd be more than happy to concede whatever definition the anti-theist wants to give "faith". So long as they leave room to distinguish "faith" from "blind faith", chances are I'll be able to dismantle their argument/show how their complaint is invalid. Usually it boils down to an expression of evidentialism, which as I've been saying for years now is dead.
This whining about what God didn't do to make things easy for you, Thrill, makes about as much sense as whining because you would have to spend years practicing before you could play the piano or other instruments. Why can't you just play? For those who have trouble with Math, why does it take years of learning and using to be facile with math? Why doesn't it just come naturally? Why do we have to learn to speak, read, and write a language? Why can't we just understand and be fluent with whatever language is necessary? Those skills of language and math that help us to understand our reality must be acquired through discipline and practice just for everyday reasons. Why would you expect the skills necessary to experience and understand God to be easier????
Yes, why did we need to invent mathematics, language (and science and logic)? Why did a god not give us these as tools to understand it's world better? Or give them to us on stones of tablet 4,000 years ago? Why, it is like we had to invent these ourselves precisely because a god does not exist.
I'd be more than happy to concede whatever definition the anti-theist wants to give "faith". So long as they leave room to distinguish "faith" from "blind faith", chances are I'll be able to dismantle their argument/show how their complaint is invalid. Usually it boils down to an expression of evidentialism, which as I've been saying for years now is dead.
I think I told you vic I was told directly by a anti-theist. "although valid we shouldn't talk about it because it gives theist something to use and makes atheism harde to sell."
I have a real problem standing next to a person like that. I have no trouble using that type of person as cannon fodder to throw at fundy theist though.
“Direct evidence” vs “imagination and assumptions” - that’s a good one.
Seriously - just reread your own sentence in the bold above.
And now let’s turn the table and rephrase it
“The belief that life does *NOT* continue on after death is based entirely on imagination and assumption.”
You have a choice to either agree with it OR please provide a “direct evidence” to support your belief that life/consciousness does not continue after death.
Because we have no credible evidence it does continue, so we have no reason to believe it does (other than wishful thinking and our inbuilt desire to continue existing).
I'd be more than happy to concede whatever definition the anti-theist wants to give "faith".
Because we are not using the dictionary definitions?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
So long as they leave room to distinguish "faith" from "blind faith", chances are I'll be able to dismantle their argument/show how their complaint is invalid.
Yes, you HAVE ignored the errors by GC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
Usually it boils down to an expression of evidentialism, which as I've been saying for years now is dead.
IOW, you still do not understand probability. But you can use big words like 'evidentialism' to imply we are are arguing from ignorance. Remember, Mystic was here first, so we are aware of this game.
This is what I have to offer the naysayers, agnostics, doubters, questioners or blamers...or just plain folks in the dark:
Gee whiz...anybody can sit and "Be still..."
I dont give people much of my care listening to their complaints about God or mysteries, when they haven't put in a darn bit of effort....the kind of effort that works....it takes inner
conviction, discipline, deep desire, determination, steadfastness, consistency and sincerity to sit in silence
for hours and hours and hours and hours+.
Then you'll get all you want to know about any afterlife...inside is where the veils are lifted, you bozos.
Do that...put in the time...and then you will be given Insights galore into the entire workings of creation!
There will be no more wondering even about the daily happenings of losing a job, your car getting broken into...or the joys that befall you either.
Life and God are really very simple.
So simple the mind or ego wants to complicate them.
Don't fall for its trap.
Be stll and know...understand...get the whole package.
To me, you that professionally have made a career to put down God or whatever, look like children rubbing their eyes from sleep...complaining and moaning and
carrying on...when you haven't even showered or had your coffee...like big babies.
Do what needs to be done instead using the lazy man's tool...Blame and whining...ha, and at the same time
thinking what the egoic mind wants you to think , lol, that you are so clever and smarter than the other fool.
To me, the shoe's on the other foot!
Many, if not most, of us atheists were once Christians, but you think that we haven't put in the effort? Many of us were very active crusaders for the Lawd, and invested much of our lives in that quest. This assertion of yours is quite arrogant, suggesting that you've done the "a darn bit of effort" and been given some kind of special insights, while we haven't.
I'd be more than happy to concede whatever definition the anti-theist wants to give "faith". So long as they leave room to distinguish "faith" from "blind faith", chances are I'll be able to dismantle their argument/show how their complaint is invalid. Usually it boils down to an expression of evidentialism, which as I've been saying for years now is dead.
I think that basing a discussion on the definition of a word, in this case "faith", isn't productive. The best avenue, in my opinion, is to discuss the epistemology of these beliefs. What process or evidence is best utilized to determine what is true, seems to be a better subject.
I think I told you vic I was told directly by a anti-theist. "although valid we shouldn't talk about it because it gives theist something to use and makes atheism harde to sell."
Oook? Sounds like a motion to keep us all ignorant then, for the agenda of "selling" atheism.
Quote:
I have a real problem standing next to a person like that. I have no trouble using that type of person as cannon fodder to throw at fundy theist though.
You lost me. But I take it you don't want to define "faith". No problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
Because we are not using the dictionary definitions?
Sometimes you (general "you") do, sometimes you don't. But we would need a working definition for the discussion; that's hardly a controversial statement.
Quote:
Yes, you HAVE ignored the errors by GC.
I don't even know what "GC" stands for. But are you also not willing to give your working definition of "faith", lest I prove myself right?
Quote:
IOW, you still do not understand probability.
Nothing I said implies that at all.
Quote:
But you can use big words like 'evidentialism' to imply we are are arguing from ignorance.
Well, I used the correct word (which just happens to be "big"). And no, I haven't accused anyone of arguing from ignorance... Being ignorant, maybe...
Quote:
Remember, Mystic was here first, so we are aware of this game.
There's no game. Evidentialism is a real word, referring to a real mindset. And I only brought it up because that's usually where the attack on "faith" leads - to an invalid and self-refuting worldview.
You lost me. But I take it you don't want to define "faith". No problem.
Faith is what you use when the evidence tells you what you don't want to be true. Faith is the last refuge of those who have had their arguments defeated by logic and reason. Faith is simply the practice of ignoring the supportable in favour of a desired belief.
Sometimes you (general "you") do, sometimes you don't. But we would need a working definition for the discussion; that's hardly a controversial statement.
I don't even know what "GC" stands for. But are you also not willing to give your working definition of "faith", lest I prove myself right?
GoCardinals.
As for 'faith', why should I define a word other people are using? I am merely pointing out how GoCardinals keeps changing definitions from religious faith to trusting a bridge will not collapse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
Well, I used the correct word (which just happens to be "big"). And no, I haven't accused anyone of arguing from ignorance... Being ignorant, maybe...
No, you only used the correct word if we are guilty of evidentialism. You have yet to demonstrate this. But why bother, why not deal with the evidence itself?
As for ignorance, do you mean like your views on cosmology and NT studies?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vic 2.0
There's no game. Evidentialism is a real word, referring to a real mindset. And I only brought it up because that's usually where the attack on "faith" leads - to an invalid and self-refuting worldview.
I know Evidentialism is a real word. But that does not mean we are guilty of it just because you say so.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
