The confusion about faith (myths, believe, Jesus, science)
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...and that is why 'faith' is the most idiotic concept - EVER! Please tell us, in what other aspects of your everyday live do you rely on 'faith' to determine what is true or not.
Many many day to day life activities that I do which I believe are a guidance from my faith and it's beneficial.
For example, I was taught by my elders that our faith tells us to save resources and preserve water. It's against our faith to waste resources.
So turn off the running water tap while you are scrubbing and brushing your teeth. Don't take too long in showers. Don't waste water.
This was 45 years ago. Atheists and scientists caught up with it in the last couple of decades but my faith guidance has already put 100 and millions of people on this path 1400 years ago.
So there you go, I put my faith in it - science determined it for me that it's true.
My faith guided me to sleep on my right side. This guidance came 1400 years ago. I put my faith in it without worry about any "evidence". This guidance came 1400 years ago.
Now after centuries, science tells me that sleeping on the right side in general is beneficial as it's puts less pressure on the heart and stomach and enables smoother digestion.
here you go again, I put my faith in it - science determined it for me that it's true.
My faith guided me that harms of drinking alcohol outweighs it's benefits so avoid it. This was guided 1400 years ago.
I put my faith in and never drank. Now, after centuries, science tells me that yes indeed, the social and health, alcohol related problems outweigh it's benefits.
And there you go again: I put my faith in it - science determined it for me that it's true.
There are many more examples, but did you notice that there is actually a possibility that science and religion can actually go hand in hand for believers, instead of having to head-on every time when an Atheists thinks about science and religion?
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).
And you also have no "credible evidence" either that it does NOT continue.
Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
1000 years ago, there was no credible evidence that oxygen exists, which does not mean that oxygen did not exist then.
And you also have no "credible evidence" either that it does NOT continue.
Except we do. We have evidence we as thinking beings are a product of our brains. If this is correct, then when our brain dies, we die.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Except it is, as absence of evidence is what we would expect if something was absent. It is not conclusive evidence, it is not even strong evidence, but it is evidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by GoCardinals
1000 years ago, there was no credible evidence that oxygen exists, which does not mean that oxygen did not exist then.
1000 years ago, there was no credible evidence that phlogiston existed.
Many many day to day life activities that I do which I believe are a guidance from my faith and it's beneficial.
For example, I was taught by my elders that our faith tells us to save resources and preserve water. It's against our faith to waste resources. So turn off the running water tap while you are scrubbing and brushing your teeth. Don't take too long in showers. Don't waste water.
That's common sense not faith.
Quote:
My faith guided me to sleep on my right side. This guidance came 1400 years ago. I put my faith in it without worry about any "evidence". This guidance came 1400 years ago. Now after centuries, science tells me that sleeping on the right side in general is beneficial as it's puts less pressure on the heart and stomach and enables smoother digestion.
here you go again, I put my faith in it - science determined it for me that it's true.
My faith guided me that harms of drinking alcohol outweighs it's benefits so avoid it. This was guided 1400 years ago.
I put my faith in and never drank. Now, after centuries, science tells me that yes indeed, the social and health, alcohol related problems outweigh it's benefits.
And there you go again: I put my faith in it - science determined it for me that it's true.
There are many more examples, but did you notice that there is actually a possibility that science and religion can actually go hand in hand for believers, instead of having to head-on every time when an Atheists thinks about science and religion?
That's not what I'm talking about - as well you know. When was the last time you made a major financial investment without investigating the claims of the financial organisation...just doing it on the claim they made? That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
How could it? Life is, by definition, ended at death. How could it continue after?
Semantic issues aside, you are inappropriately shifting the burden of proof. You are making the claim that something we have not seen, not experienced, and have no evidence for is actually true. Based on nothing, you are making a positive assertion.
The skeptical position is that we have not seen evidence that something is so, therefore it is reasonable to assume that it is not so.
Put a bit differently, there are many, many things that I can imagine. I can imagine that there is life after death, that it is a paradise, a hell, or simply an interminable never-ending existence, like the Greek Hades. I can also imagine time runs backwards after death until oblivion, that we are reborn as souls, that our individuality is obliterated and we join a universal consciousness, or that our individuality becomes transcendent and we supplant god.
None of those things has any evidence for them. None at all. Given that, why should we accept any of them? Isn't it more reasonable to assume that our consciousness is a product of our physical being, and that when our physical being stops, so does our consciousness?
I think "Assume" is the keyword here.
If your intelligence and logic tells you to assume so, then be my guest. You are free to assume whatever you like, and I don't have an issue with it.
However, there is this old scenario that is discussed between the two camps and both pull it in their favor.
A child is raised on an isolated island, will he become a natural believer or a natural atheist?
If we say a natural believer then we can cut him a slack because he will have "faith" to assume that there is an afterlife.
But if he is grows up to be an Atheist who beats the drum of "evidence" (remember, a claim that "there is an afterlife" has NEVER been made to him by ANYONE) - and he assumes that there is no afterlife - then we also need to cut him a slack because, indeed his assumption that there is no afterlife is also based on "faith". He has no evidence to support his assumption that there is no afterlife.
Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
It can be.
"A person is justified in believing that ‘A’ is false if:
(1) All the available evidence used to support the view that ‘A’ is true is shown to be inadequate.
(2) ‘A’ is the sort of claim such that if ‘A’ were true, there should be available evidence that would be adequate to support the view that ‘A’ is true.
(3) The area where evidence would appear if there were any, has been comprehensively examined".
(Scriven, 1966)
Show me a historical publication by a scientist, about 500 years ago to advise the world to save water and save resources? Why didn't this "common sense" prevail into us only until a few decades ago when all world seem to be getting cautious of it?
Why was religious guidance ahead of science?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius
That's common sense not faith.
That's not what I'm talking about - as well you know. When was the last time you made a major financial investment without investigating the claims of the financial organisation...just doing it on the claim they made? That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.
This is it !!
I will probably investigate a financial organisation ONLY when I feel the "need" or "want" of making an investment. If I don't have this "need" and this "want" - then no matter whatever the organisation does, it simply does not interest me.
And that's the scenario we deal with the mindset of an Atheist. There is no "need" or "want" of faith based guidance in their lives - which is there choice and I don't have a problem with it.
If a person has the "need" and "want" of faith based guidance in his day to day life and if his logic and intelligence tells him that there is probably a creator of the universe and there is a possibility of an afterlife - then, he will NOT cry a river about a "scientific, observable, repeatable, tangible, evidence of God.
He will start a journey to search God by his signs.
You can bring the water to the horse but if it doesn't have the thirst, then you can shove the water down it's throat and it wont take it. But if he is thirsty, he will go to the water by itself.
And then we hear the same old crap, "Ohhh we are atheists because the lack of evidence" - it's not the lack of evidence. It's the lack of "need" and "want", IMO.
Last edited by GoCardinals; 01-10-2019 at 11:44 AM..
There are many more examples, but did you notice that there is actually a possibility that science and religion can actually go hand in hand for believers, instead of having to head-on every time when an Atheists thinks about science and religion?
And yet so many rail against science...except of course for those times that it agrees with them.
I think "Assume" is the keyword here.
If your intelligence and logic tells you to assume so, then be my guest. You are free to assume whatever you like, and I don't have an issue with it.
However, there is this old scenario that is discussed between the two camps and both pull it in their favor.
A child is raised on an isolated island, will he become a natural believer or a natural atheist?
If we say a natural believer then we can cut him a slack because he will have "faith" to assume that there is an afterlife.
But if he is grows up to be an Atheist who beats the drum of "evidence" (remember, a claim that "there is an afterlife" has NEVER been made to him by ANYONE) - and he assumes that there is no afterlife - then we also need to cut him a slack because, indeed his assumption that there is no afterlife is also based on "faith". He has no evidence to support his assumption that there is no afterlife.
I have evidence. The evidence that we are a product of the brain. So no brain, no us. The brain dies, we die.
I have evidence. The evidence that we are a product of the brain. So no brain, no us. The brain dies, we die.
You have evidence that everything we can observe as signs of US (our consciousness) is produced by processes in the brain. But you have no evidence and cannot even measure whatever consciousness IS as it manifests as YOU in the unified field. You are willing to accept that YOU (your very Being) is some illusion of brain function. I confess I do not know how anyone can write their very Being off so cavalierly as an illusion.
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