The Tension of Faith

Pascal is only known in translation of course since he wrote in French. Maybe your quote is better than my paraphrase but they amount to the same thing anyway. Pascal imputes both the light and the obscurity to the Bible by God's intention. It's pretty clear that it's true even by your own observations.

Once you require evidence for what you believe then it isn't faith anymore. Your religion has a definition of faith that does not exist in the dictionary. The dictionary definition of faith that applies here is "belief that is not based on proof." If you believe it because you think you can prove it through evidence, it isn't faith.We (meaning most of the world) believe the Earth is round because of the evidence supporting that belief. We believe in the germ theory of disease because of the evidence supporting that belief. But we don't believe in any specific religion because of the lack of evidence supporting any one religionIn other words, there are things we think we know because of the evidence. Religions are not one of those things. The "evidence" they present does not stand up to scrutiny, or even look like evidence.But to get back to the original point where you said, "Faith is a gift," faith based upon evidence is not a gift. It's just a matter of viewing the evidence.--Percy

It seems that this god of yours that loves us so much only loves a few of us enough to give this gift to. This is a really, really bad father that is not only incompetent at communication but also has favourite children to whom he gives valuable gifts whilst eternally abusing those he's decides he doesn't like.That's one horrible god you've got there Faith.

Pascal was Catholic. When he talked about unbelievers, he was referring to you.

Faith is only the "preferred result" when there's nothing else. Faith is a last resort, not a glorious ideal.

And yet you have more faith than I do. I expect either the government or wealthier people to take care of the homeless while you sacrifice your own potential retirement money to help them. That takes faith!

The only money governments have to help people is the money we give governments to help people.How much help governments give people depends on what we tell the folk in Congress and the Executive to give to people.Only we can make those things happen.

Pascal belonged to a Catholic organization that was more Protestant than Catholic. He's talking about people who actively deny God, not Protestants.

If you desire to have faith He will give it to you too. Eternally? Are you being abused by God? He says He treats all equally, providing for both "the just and the unjust" It's hard to see how you have any complaints. And again, you could still turn out to be one of the Elect, nobody knows until it's a done deal. If you don't like God you are quite free to ignore Him, even say terrible things against Him, but you've been told the truth so if you go on rejecting it that's on your head, not God's. He sent the means of salvation from Hell, He's made sure you know about it, it's up to you in the end. Meanwhile He's taking care of you as He does the entire human race, fallen bunch of ingrates that we all are, you have no complaint. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

How revolting is that? Your father's love is conditional. Yeh, you know that eternal damnation you're always talking about and that you are saved from? Well obviously not. Can you work out why? You and your kind say that, god himself is mute. Right so the whole enterprise is totally random I just watched an eleven year old child die of bone cancer. It took almost 2 years. It almost destroyed everyone around them. Don't give me that shit Faith. Just don't.

The apostle John tells us that what he wrote in his gospel is intended that we "might beleive" In other words he described evidence for us, to persuade us to believe. Jesus' miracles done in the presence of the disciples he conwsiders to be evidence that should lead us to believe in Him and have salvation through Him. The second quote refers to the fulfillment of a prophecy as evidence to lead us to belief. And those who believe in Christ, put our faith and trust in Him, believe what scripture says about Him because of the evidence given there that supports His identity as the Messiah and Son of God. Really you are simply preferring one kind of evidence over another, that's all. However, there is no evidence that I know of for any religion except Christianity, unless you consider all a religion's followers' claims to be evidence. Hindu gurus and adepts for instance claim to experience all kinds of supernatural phenomena, and there is a lot of agreement among them about that, so you could be persuaded to Hinduism by their claims. I was originally persuaded to the reality of the supernatural and even some idea of "God" from such Hindu testimonies myself. But no religion has a savior from sin and punishment in the next life except Christianity, and evidence for the Savior and salvation is given in the Bible. It's all there, but with so many working so hard to discredit it there's little wonder if you refuse to recognize it.You need evidence in order to believe in the basics, in order to begin to have faith in the things that can't be evidenced. There's no way to evidence the reality of salvation, but John gave evidence from Jesus Himself so that you can trust in Him when He promises salvation. Faith is the evidence of things unseen, but Jesus was seen and did miracles so that we might believe to the extent of having faith in the realities we can't see, on the basis of what trustworthy people tell us. If you refuse to recognize Jesus or John as trustworthy then of course you will not have the necessary evidence to go on and learn about truths that can't be known in any way other than faith. Certainly. That's how we know how the physical universe behaves, and it has led to all kinds of further discoveries.It's also how we know that Jesus is God (yes He said so) and has the power to save us from Hell, promising it to those who believe in Him; and with that knowledge we are equipped to learn all kinds of other things about spiritual and supernatural realities that can only be learned through faith since they can't be directly evidenced. Well, it does to me. The evidence is there, as John says, but many refuse to accept it. Those who do can be said to receive it as a gift of God.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Faith,It’s not a matter of accepting or rejecting what you call evidence from John’s testimony; is that it is not really evidence. Extraordinary claims written by someone do not count as evidence; if it were so, you would need to believe the claims made in the Koran, the Book of Mormon and thousands of other extraordinary claims people have made through time. However you accept the testimony from the Bible while rejecting the other different testimonies from other religions. Somehow you seem to be using this idea as argument for your religion to be believed, but as far as I know the concept of a saviour god atoning through self sacrifice and an eternal punishment in the afterlife are both concepts borrowed from religions predating Christianity. But even if that wasn’t the case, having something that differentiates your religions from others doesn’t make it true. I could tell you that only Mormonism talks about Abraham descendants living in a well advanced society in North America 2,000 years ago, and because this is specific of Mormonism then it must be true.Now, I’m not Mormon and I’m not telling you that you should believe in that; I’m just looking for an example that is just as absurd as the supernatural claims made about Jesus to show you why John’s testimony, and for that matter any book in the bible are not evidence.You can use the Bible as evidence of what were some of the beliefs of people at the time and place were those texts were written, and I think the Bible is valuable in that sense, but that is as far as you can go. Edited by Paboss, : No reason given.

And likewise, we Christians believe the major tenets of our faith because of evidence.But evidence is a funny thing. One person can see evidence as strong and compelling, while another can see the same evidence as weak and arbitrary. Witness anthropogenic global warming, for example. Most scientists are convinced by the evidence that it is real. But a vocal segment of the populace rejects this evidence and its conclusions.

When you say "we Christians" you actually mean the subset of Christians who claim that there is evidence yet never produce any it seems. The fact that people choose to be willfully ignorant does not change either the reality or the facts.

There are several authors in the NT who make claims of the resurrection of Jesus. Yes, that is an extraordinary claim but that does not mean that it isn't evidence.We can also look at the fact that the accounts are not what we would expect from a first century Jew. Jesus isn't glowing like a star. Crucifixion isn't just a method of tortuously killing people, but is meant to absolutely dehumanize and humiliate people. Whoever was crucified would be naked on the cross with people throwing taunts and even objects at them. A Roman citizen could not be crucified. The idea of a crucified messiah was not what any Jew would want to worship. That is why Paul has to write that he is not ashamed to preach a crucified messiah.It is not correct to say that there isn't evidence. We are free to reject that evidence or believe some of it or all of it.