Faith vs Skepticism - Why faith?

It has never really been explored just mentioned rather briefly a few different times. Percy made some comments in the original deism thread. Bluejay took part briefly at the start of the Immaterial Evidence thread. It is more just the odd comment here and there rather than a conversation but here are some links of the sort of thing I am referring to.From Percy - Message 75 Message 176Personally I think the thing I have picked up in my time at EvC is an acknowledgement that we all hold irrational beliefs of one sort or another. Not necessarily about gods but all sorts of things and all sorts of apsects of life. Some deny these irrationalities or contort themselves in an attempt to justify them. Others accept them. Some simply remain conflicted. A few change their position. Most probably remain entirely oblivious to their internal contradictory beliefs. In my view recognistion of ones irrationalities is something to aspire to. What we do about them (change beliefs, accept contradictions whatever) is then a conscious and considered, even if not necessarily rational, decision. Blue for me. But I don't then go onto make the claim that blue is objectively superior to any other colour. My personal preference has no bearing on any reality external to my own mind. I guess that is the difference between gods and colours. We may however now be straying into exactly the contentious terriotory that I promised to avoid so you can have the last word on this section if you want. I will leave you with my comments to Oni in the Pseudskeptic thread. Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I am genuinely intrigued by those who claim to have faith. I am genuinely baffled by those who claim to have faith in things that they also claim are evidenced.I don't undertand how this "faith" differs from straightforward evidence based belief. In the context of claiming evidence the whole notion of "faith" makes no sense to me whatsoever. Why is faith not evidence independent?I am not in this thread to challenge or debate. I want to understand. See my questions and responses to Catholic Scientist from Message 31 and back.I make the same pledge that I did to him to you. Feel free to answer my questions with no comeback and no fear of any answer being cited back at you in other more divisive or contentious discussions.

The Bibles take on the meaning of the word 'faith' is different perhaps, than your own. If so, then your bafflement might be resolved by merely shifting from your current definition to the biblical definition - when faced with people of faith. Biblical faith is 'defined' as a particular class of evidence which leads a person to eg: know God exists / trust in God / love God. It is described as the substance which powers such things.Thus:- if a person believes in God by faith then all that is being said is that they believe based on evidence - in which case they are being perfectly rational and there is nothing in particular to be intriqued about.- if a person believes in God by faith and says they have evidence which lets them conclude God then they are being consistant and there is no reason to be baffled.- It doesn't in the sense of the mechanics of belief (ie: a person believes something to be the case based on evidence. The more convincing the evidence, the stronger they believe whatever it is) The only significant difference has to do with the class of evidence being dealt with (see above). Faith is 'empirically invisable evidence'. That said, the empirical world does evidence biblical argument and can be said to be evidence of God and what he says is the case. For example:- man sharing a(n arguably) common morality evidences the biblical argument which says all men have a God-given conscience- the world proving itself incapable of avoiding war and getting along with each other evidences the biblical argument which says man is intrinsically sinful and selfish.-If I've missed the point by hopping in so then my apologies. Feel free to ignore the post.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Just to let you know that your post has not been ignored.You raise a number of issues that I have little doubt we will discuss (and disagree on) again at some point. But in this thread I specifically stated that I was asking to understand the thinking of others rather than to challenge.I am going to stick to that stated aim in the hope that others will explain the basis of their faith based thinking too as per Message 26Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

would you read anything with a pre concieved notion of what it means or would you read it first and based on what you've read, form your notion?im sure you would read it first...however this is not what happens with the bible. People are taught all about it before they have a chance to read it. Well take a look at Genesis 2:4
"This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the DAY (Yohm) that God made the heaven and the earth"Here all six creative 'days' are being called by 1 'day'How can that be if 'day' refers to 24hours? There are many other scriptures that also use the word 'day' to refer to a time in history such as "in the 'days' of Noah" or "in the 'day' of the harvest" (the harvest taking place over several weeks)

Faith is a belief without proof, that is a belief without objective verifiable evidence.It does not mean there is no "evidence" just that there is no objective verifiable evidence.DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS?Where God is considered...YOU WANT...objective verifiable evidence.So give me the objective verifiable evidence you have that your parents are biologically related to you, or that your children are biologically related to you.(you don't have any)DO NOT TELL ME YOUR PARENTS OR YOUR WIFE SAID THIS WAS TRUE!They could have told you God existed as well. So exactly why do you believe some things they tell you but not others. You have NO objective verifiable evidence either way.WHY exactly is it OK for you to run your life this way on your faith considering your parents or your children, but it is irrational or delusional for people to do this when they consider their personal expierence in relation to a "God".Faith has great evolutionary advantages.......it allows you to take advantage of the expierences of others without having to expierence it all yourself. You don't have enough time to do that.You cannot test and prove everything people tell you, and if you think you are actually running your life that way, YOU ARE A FOOL!Only two groups on this board have evereything in this universe figured out, the nut bag born again Christians and the nut bag born again Atheists.Psychologically they are basically the same.Edited by petrophysics1, : No reason given.

My parents have given me good reason to trust them, but I don't believe their views on politics, religion and cosmology. Is there any reason I should trust a cherry-picked selection of anonymous thousands of years old authors to tell me the truth about god, cosmology and politics? My father was adopted. He knows I've been trying to track down family on my paternal side. I have known him for about thirty years and I've never known him to lie about anything particularly significant. I have evidence that would suggest he would likely have told me if I was chasing the wrong paternal line. I don't run my life basing decisions on my parenthood. More importantly I don't insist that other people respect my beliefs about who my parents are. And if I do want them to adopt a certain policy based on them believing my parentage I will expect them to demand birth certificates and DNA testing.You want to believe in God? Go right ahead. You want me to respect that belief? I'll need evidence. You want to make social policies on the back of that belief? I'll definitely require evidence.If I came onto this board and said "I am the great great grandson of Darwin and I demand Administrator status", then a lot of people would say that being related to Darwin is irrelevant to Admin status - but let's assume it wasn't. I'm fairly sure that Percy would request a little more than my word on that fact...unless I had demonstrated several years of honesty with him already. But if it is not possible to verify things in principle - then people can take advantage of your credulity. People who are close to you have things to lose by lying to you (a social penalty), dead authors have nothing to lose socially by misleading me and I'm not going to trust them to give me relevant or useful guidance for living in modern society. Agreed. But if someone tells me something which they themselves cannot know - then I don't trust them. I don't have everything figured out and I distrust anybody that says that they do. In fact if I ask someone "Did Jesus rise from the dead?" and they say "Yes." - then I won't trust that this is the case because they can't actually know that this is true.

That can be said for the fringes of any set of beliefs. Unfortunately, they are also the "loudest," that is they are the ones putting forward ideas that all those in the relative middle have to put up with.

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

Your usual charming self huh Petrophysics. If I was unfortunate enough to be you I might well refuse to face reality. But that aside. By definition my parents are biologically related to me. By definition my children are related to me also. You haven't thought these questions through very well have you? And if I or anyone else had ever claimed that they could or that this is somehow necessary you would have a truly significant and argument clinching point here. As things stand you simply demonstrate your own unique brand of incomprehension and stupidity. Well done. Whilst I could waste my time telling you why atheists and creationsist lie at opposite ends of the spectrum I think I will just revel in the irony of you talking about "nut bags".Keep up the good work.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Hi pussy, Look, we all know the history. Your wife banged some other dude a long time ago and had you falsely raising children who weren't biologically yours, and this has cause great pain in your life and a deep feeling of inadequacy. Probably leading to questions about your own sexuality and has hindered your abilities to perform as a man. And we are all sorry you had to go through that ... truly, we are. But, like Straggler pointed out, you used the words "your parent" and "your children" which kinda makes them belonging to him.And biologically, there is a method to verify (which is sadly the method used to inform you that your neighbor fathered your kids). But there's no method to find out if god is real. So, while people may believe the child is biologically theirs, they do so while also knowing that at anytime, if they wanted to, they could easily check it.Some of us have due to us having rare blood types that we placed in a blood bank in case our kids needed it. But, if you question if god is real, and asked for a method to find out if it's true or not, no method would be available to you, and as such could ONLY be taken on faith.- Oni

Of course, a DNA examination is pretty darned good evidence of parentage or lack of but that doesn't mean you are taking your assumed parentage as a given with no evidence whatsoever.I just had some 73+ year old 16mm films converted to DVD. It is darned hard to figure out the various relatives in the films with the meagre notes I have (and my parents very spotty memory) but I can tell which one is my Dad at 16 years of age. He is me! Dammed close to a clone.I think that is not bad evidence that he is probably my father. That and the fact with age I become about as cantankerous as he.

Hi Meldinoor, interesting topic. I'm curious: do you notice the preconceptions that flavor your choice of words? One of them is that there is a dichotomy involved.One of my favorite Non-Sequitur cartoons had two tables, the first has a banner that reads "All your questions answered" and around the corner the second table has a banner that reads "All your answers questioned" -- which shows that both extremes are equally invalid at finding answers. Note that there is no reference to religion or science, but a more generic approach. What we have is a mixture as you alluded: If we eliminate delusion and fanatics from the discussion it comes down to the question of how much trust you can put in a concept representing reality:We do tentatively take on basic faith (lcase) the concept that objective evidence is indicative of reality, and that the experience of reality can be replicated by others having similar subjective experiences of that objective evidence or by some empirical measurement that can be reproduced by others.But once we have exhausted the ability of science to explain evidence we are thrust onto our personal sets of beliefs, preconceptions, and knowledge - our worldviews - for what we think is likely or unlikely to be true.The problem is compounded by the need to have answers, as Larni said in Message 7The need to certainty is not limited to religious types.Somewhat (unintended?) ironically Message 26 states: I am still curious why agnosticism gets such bad press, when it is the basic approach of science.An open minded skeptic can consider concepts that are not invalidated to be possible. we can note that some are not practical to be investigated at this time, and as a result we necessarily don't know the answers. In addition some people may feel that certain concepte are relatively inconsequential one way or the other (such as the immaterial pink unicorn) such that there is virtually no difference whether true or not - and in such situations one can be apatheist (don't know and don't care).We each make our decisions about concepts based on our worldviews, and because those are necessarily different, so are the conclusions.Does this help us to understand reality? Possibly, if we recognize what of our beliefs are based on guesses, assumptions and personal opinions ("overconfidence in poor evidence"), and what are based on (empirical) evidence. Probably the most insidious belief is that one's personal opinions etc. represent truth - and this applies to people regardless of political or religious stripe.Enjoy.ps - kudos for reaching out to Peg.Edited by RAZD, : can't sleep, add clrty

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Hi Peg, good to hear from you again. Indeed I have read the Bible many times. This doesn't change the fact that my interpretation is subject to my personal understanding of the text, as well as any prior preconceptions. No matter how many times I read the creation account and related passages, I will still have my own interpretation that may well differ from yours.I will not take a stand on what the word "yom" (day) meant to the original author(s), as I don't actually care one way or the other. But I do recognize that there are several conflicting ways to interpret the Genesis account.But that's not what my question was about. What I asked you in message 18 was: To which you responded: I don't see how this is anything but begging the question. You assert that the Bible is "true doctrine" without explaining how you arrived at that conclusion in the first place. A lot of people will not accept this conclusion a priori, so in order to convince them of your point of view, you should show them why the Bible is "true doctrine" (perhaps first starting by defining what that means). To just say "I have faith that it is so" will not make it so.Respectfully,-MeldinoorEdited by Meldinoor, : No reason given.

Hi Melindoor I know what i've said may seem a little ambiguous so im going to give you an example of how the bibles doctrine is openly different to mans explaination of itI'll use the example of the church doctine about the human soul.

quote:

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The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: Nepes [ne′phesh] is a term of far greater extension than our ‘soul,’ signifying life (Ex 21.23; Dt 19.21) and its various vital manifestations: breathing (Gn 35.18; Jb 41.13[21]), blood [Gn 9.4; Dt 12.23; Ps 140(141).8], desire (2 Sm 3.21; Prv 23.2). The soul in the O[ld] T[estament] means not a part of man, but the whole manman as a living being. Similarly, in the N[ew] T[estament] it signifies human life: the life of an individual, conscious subject (Mt 2.20; 6.25; Lk 12.22-23; 14.26; Jn 10.11, 15,17; 13.37).1967, Vol. XIII, p. 467.

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The Roman Catholic translation, The New American Bible, in its Glossary of Biblical Theology Terms (pp. 27, 28), says: In the New Testament, to ‘save one’s soul’ (Mk 8:35) does not mean to save some ‘spiritual’ part of man, as opposed to his ‘body’ (in the Platonic sense) but the whole person with emphasis on the fact that the person is living, desiring, loving and willing, etc., in addition to being concrete and physical.Edition published by P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York, 1970.

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Koehler and Baumgartner’s Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden, 1958, p. 627) defines Ne'phesh (soul) as: the breathing substance, making man a[nd] animal living beings Gn 1, 20, the soul (strictly distinct from the greek notion of soul) the seat of which is the blood Gn 9, 4f Lv 17,11 Dt 12,23: (249 X) ... soul = living being, individual, person.

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This is the correct meaning for the term 'soul' It is the living breathing person. You are a soul, I am a soul. All breathing creatures, including the animals, are souls.Now look at what the bible says about 'souls' 1. living things are souls
Genesis 1:20 And God went on to say: Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls and let flying creatures fly over the earth upon the face of the expanse of the heavens. 21And God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul that moves aboutGenesis 2:7 7And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul2. Souls can die
Ezekiel 18:4 "The soul that is sinningit itself will die.Acts 3:23 Indeed, any soul that does not listen to that Prophet will be completely destroyed from among the people. 3. the death of the soul leads to unconsciousness
Ecclesiaties 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20 says: There is an eventuality as respects the sons of mankind and an eventuality as respects the beast, and they have the same eventuality. As the one dies, so the other dies; and they all have but one spirit [ru′ahh] ... All are going to one place. They have all come to be from the dust, and they are all returning to the dust.But what is church doctrine regarding the soul?

quote:

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New Catholic Encyclopedia states: The Christian concept of a spiritual soul created by God and infused into the body at conception to make man a living whole is the fruit of a long development in Christian philosophy.

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Wiki Link
"The Church teaches that immediately after death the soul of each person will receive a particular judgment from God, based on the deeds of that individual's earthly life.[120][122] This teaching also attests to another day when Jesus will sit in a universal judgment of all mankind.[21][123] This final judgment, according to Church teaching, will bring an end to human history and mark the beginning of a new and better heaven and earth ruled by God in righteousness.[120][124]

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There are three states of afterlife in Catholic belief. Heaven is a time of glorious union with God and a life of unspeakable joy that lasts forever.[120][122] Purgatory is a temporary condition for the purification of souls who, although saved, are not free enough from sin to enter directly into heaven. It is a state requiring penance and purgation of sin through God's mercy aided by the prayers of others.[120][122] Finally, those who chose to live a sinful and selfish life, did not repent, and fully intended to persist in their ways are sent to hell, an everlasting separation from God

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Without me concluding this for you, are you able to see the obvious differences in what the church knows and what they teach? And how their doctrine differs from the bible?If you can see that, then you can see true doctrine. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.