Is personal faith a debatable topic?

Point taken.I shall limit my discussion to those things that can be empirically refuted.

The important thing to do is to make such people think rather than try to convince them by forceful argument. In any case, it's not going to happen overnight. You need to plant seeds of free-thought.I think there were 2 initial ideas that led me to dismiss religious stories.The first was the commonly held view that not all religions can be right, so why believe any of them.The second idea was why would a truly loving and intelligent creator worry about whether or not you believed in him, or whether or not you subscribed to this religion or faction? Surely it is how you behave that is important. And you should behave the same way whether or not there is a god or reward in an afterlife.These ideas are not unique to me, of course, but I arrived at them by my own thought processes and without any attempts at persuasion, as many others undoubtedly have. But they are good ideas to plant seeds of free-thought in peoples minds.

I dunno, does anything ever work here? The important thing is to not be "challenging their faith". They'll shut right off (as it seems you've seen). Take one step back and have that discussion...Why, if so, would they rather have their faith in demons causing disease over the Germ Theory of Disease when the former has provided all of us with nothing and the latter has saved countless lives. Well, they wouldn't, and they don't. Isn't it because evidence and critical thinking are, in fact, good values and faith alone is not? (rhetorical) I say faith alone because they're not gonna accept that faith has no place, but I think they need to understand that the other stuff should be right there with it.I wouldn't take it further to any conclusion towards them totally dropping their faith, because again that's just not acceptable. But get them to realize that they already agree with you mostly, its just these one or two things that they'd prefer not to accept and they are using faith as a crutch.And I'd leave it at that. They can think that over if they want.If they'd really just absolutely would rather have their faith then there's not going to be very much you can do for them.At that point, no, their personal faith is not a debatable topic.

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ABE:In Message 32, JUC said:

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The important thing to do is to make such people think rather than try to convince them by forceful argument. In any case, it's not going to happen overnight. You need to plant seeds of free-thought.

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That's what I'm getting at.Edited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

I think the general starting point should be to ask the person if there is any other aspect of their lives that have a similarly large impact on their life and the lives of others, that they think faith is appropriate grounds to justify.Most people will understand that especially low standards of acceptance for a certain concept in their lives is unreasonable, and will adjust their view to obtain parity with their other beliefs. For some this results in a modification of their religious beliefs, and for others it results in a massive increase in gullibility. Once parity is achieved however, it becomes possible to objectively determine what standards are appropriate to justify various beliefs.In plainer terms if you can get a theist to agree that claims of magic unicorns and claims of magic gods should be held to the same standards in order to accept or reject, they will either become more open to the existence of unicorns or less confident in their belief in gods. Both of those positions are gains toward the goal of a consistent, reasonable view of reality. Religious faith being relegated to a special case is the first obstacle to overcome.

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Where did you tell us? What evidence would it take to overcome your faith?

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Prove to me i do not exist. And I will let go of my faith.

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

What applies to the proverbial goose ought to apply to the gander as well. For example, elative to the alleged flood, mentioned in the OP, in debating in threads relative to the flood, I referred to the thesis premise of the alleged flood. The thesis premise of my argument was the Genesis record depicting a global flood. One of the tennants of my argument was an alleged canopy.In the course of debating evidence based on my thesis premise, including an alleged canopy, my counterparts incessantly argued that I had furnished no evidence, implying that unless my evidence failed to satisfy their different thesis premise, being the alleged scientific majority debate position.My recourse, then, was to cite their alleged/unproven BB singularity thesis premise on which they based their arguments supportive to the BB singularity thesis premise.Creationists are repeatedly chided for having no model to render our position falsifyable, yet as I repeatedly argued that neither did their alleged singularity thesis premise, which would have had no space into which it could have existed, no time in which to have happened and no outside of in which to expand, defying, in my view, all logic, having no possible model resembling anything observable and therefore being unfalsifyable.
I don't know how may times I've cited this, but each time it's unfalsifyability gets swept under the proverbial (abe: rug by BBist members.)So as we debate two (unproven by definition) thesis premises, the majority membership insists that their thesis premise which assumes a relative (I say relative) uniform thesis premise is the only premise supported by evidence. The possible implications of a global disaster argument/thesis based on the Genesis record thesis premise, relative to dating data, etc significantly affect conclusions relative to the evidence debated.thesis (premise)
Definition So, Hyroglyphx, I've said the above to say that there is an element of faith in both thesis premises. Some of the evidence cited by both camps is the same observable evidence.Observable evidence base on unconventional premises or thesis premises such as the Genesis record are never acknowledged on behalf of creationists. Why? Obviously, because any acknowledgement of evidence supporting ID, particularly from a Biblical thesis premise, implicates accountablity of all to a higher intelligence. Edited by Buzsaw, : as noted in context

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

So what we have is a "thesis premise" on one side and a mass of scientific evidence on the other.Your "thesis premise" is disproved in any number of ways, and has been for about 200 years. When do you admit that it is invalid? Or is religious belief not subject to disproof by scientific evidence?Even my own archaeological research disproves the belief in a global flood some 4,350 years ago. But I'm late to the issue: the early creationist geologists, seeking to prove the flood, gave up just about 200 years ago. They were convinced by the evidence that the flood did not happen as described.I see your post and the "thesis premise" issue you raise as just another strawman raised so you don't have to face the evidence that the flood never happened.I don't know if "personal faith" is a debatable topic, but when you make claims that can be addressed by science those claims certainly are subject to examination and, if the evidence shows, to disproof. That is the case with the claim of a global flood about 4,350 years ago.* ...an unproved statement put forward as a premise in an argument

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Well Buz, I guess I could say that this thread is directed at people just like you. Your "hypothesis/premis/thesis" or whatever you are calling it today is NOT steeped in evidence, but belief/faith, yet you assert it to be the trvth. You have been shown the evidence to prove otherwise and you have provided NONE: thus admitting that you have no evidence, but you continue to assert that you do. When will you realize it is just blind faith, Buz?Also, I might add, that this thread isn't the place for you to cry about how you failed to provide said evidence for your crackpot idea. Please stick to the topic at hand.

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Truth is evidence independent. Evidence is for a human brain (or rather human belief system) to recognise a truth. There's always a gap between what's inside a human's brain (belief system) and what the truth itself is. When the gap is reduced to 0, our brain hits a truth, yet we can never be sure about if it's truly a 0. That's where the Matrix advocate is coming from.Because each and every human belief system is unique, that's why what's evident to someone may not be evident enough to another.Science is a bit special. Science is about the discovery of existing natural rules. These natural rules can predict precisely for your brain (belief system) to reckon them as the truth. For example, water will decompose into oxygen and hydrogen. You can use this rule to predict that water everywhere inside this universe will decompose so. Before each and every experiment you can expect that the result is so, or to say that no experimental results can falsify your prediction, no experiments can falsify this rule.As a result, the so-called empirical evidence is actually an imaginary evidence which possesses the effect of fooling a certain mass of people's belief systems to belief in something is a truth.God is to give tailored evidence to everyone's belief system to allow it to choose to believe that whether He's a truth or not. He will not give the so-called non-existing 'empirical proof' to a mass of atheists, as people will not need the required faith this way. And without the required faith they can't be saved.Now assuming that you've met with God personally and are 100% sure about His existence, and how will you be able to show others that it is true that God exists?!?!?! You will find that there's not any efficient way for such a kind of truth to be conveyed among humans. Even when you are 100% sure about it, others will have to need faith either to accept or to reject what you said. To simply put, witnessing and testimony are already of the most efficient way for your truth to be conveyed. And coincidently this is what Christianity is, witnessing and testimonies.Moreover, red unicorn may not be unicorn at all if 1/3 human beings buy into your story, including the most intelligent ones such as Issac Newton. To that extent, a skeptic deserves human efforts to dig up the truth behind it.

What proof do you have, as an archeologist who researches observable evidence, that something expanding existed having no space in which to exist, no time in which to have happened and no outside of into which to expand when, in fact, upon such a premise you base your thesis/argument and upon which thesis premise you interpret everything you observe, or is such a belief not subject to disproof by scientific evidence?

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

Oh for fuck's sake Buz! He has NONE, since that is not his field of study. And as long as you keep misrepresenting the big bang theory, no evidence will be found, because, guess what, that's not what that theory says! He also did not base his interpretations on that premise, the big bang theory is irrelevant when it comes to archaeology, and a whole lot of other sciences as well.Sheesh!

You do exist because the Immaterial Pink Unicorn wills it so. You also believe in false gods because she is a wicked trickster. Prove otherwise to me and I might take your requirements more seriously. If your faith is empirically irrefutable then you have no place discussing your faith in this thread. The topic is how to go about challenging those who have faith in that which is empirically refutable.Faith in the biblical flood and things of that nature presumably.

Buz -- the topic was a global flood some 4,350 years ago.Can I take your complete non sequitur response to mean that you have no evidence to bring to the subject of this mythical flood? And that you concede that it was a myth?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

It is exasperating, but I will repeat it yet again. Science is not about proof it is about evidence, the concept of proof is limited to mathematics and judicial proceedings.That having been stated, what proof do you have that your religion, out of several large and thousands of smaller ones is the truth, that your selected part of the major division of Christianity among Catholics, Orthodox, or Protestant, is the truth, that your selection of one protestant sect over all others due to Saturday sabbath instead of Sunday sabbath is the truth, or even that what cult portion of this sect that accepts you or your real master as an infallible authority is the truth?It appears to me that you remain quite unconvincing among this audience. Perhaps it has to do with your narrowness in interpreting reality. To become one of the elected, you have to hold more than just you and yours as worthy of being saved.Otherwise it just becomes someone to dense to understand a rather simple Twilight Zone episode.

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The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas - uncertainty, progress, change - into crimes.
Salman RushdieThis rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us. - the character Rorschach in Watchmen

Buz if you want to start a thread on the evidence on which the BB is founded I will take part in that with you.It has been a while since you and I crossed swords on that issue eh? But it isn't the topic of this thread.