Hey everyone!
Well, it's been awhile since I've poked around at EvC, and it seems things never change. You continue to confuse and conflate "belief" and "knowledge", Faith.
Faith writes:
I didn't say I need faith to believe in the existence of God, I said I believe that much on the evidence available, which I consider to be abundant and conclusive; what I have faith in is what is revealed about Him, His character, His promises to us, the plan of salvation and so on. I have faith in all this because I'm persuaded by the evidence that I can trust Him.
and, from message 150:
Faith writes:
I did take God's offer seriously because He's God and I know He can save me.
As usual, it seems the the nonbelievers have more of a grasp on this difference than believers. Notice I said, "believers" and not "knowers". You do a disservice to the word "faith" when you fling it around will he, nill he.
KJV writes:
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1, KJV)
I find it interesting that the Bible defines faith in this way, when you blithely use it in another way.
Faith is a powerful thing, agreed? It is, after all, what you have chosen as your screen name on this site (and probably others as well). It is powerful, in that faith allows one to believe in something for which there is no actual objective proof ("evidence" notwithstanding), and which may very possibly turn out to be false. To have faith in such a thing is powerful, indeed. Yet when you begin to dilute and pollute your faith with notions of "knowledge", your faith (or hope, as the Bible says above) becomes impotent. In other words, supposed knowledge of something makes faith in that thing useless. And faith, as a religious tenet, means everything, does it not?
So I think when you confuse belief (aka "faith") and knowledge, you cut your own legs out from under you, and your arguments become as confused as I think, respectfully, you are.
Faith instead writes:
I did take God's offer seriously because He's God and I
believe He can save me.
There. Fixed it for you.