The Tension of Faith

I have more confidence in people than you do; they've evolved to take care of each other. I wouldn't call it "faith" because it's based on evidence.I have NO faith in an alien overlord who may or may not help us, depending on his whim (grace).

And yet he was a Catholic.It's funny how you can vilify Catholics in one breath and quote them in the next.

I may forget sometimes to say it, but most of the time I very very carefully and specifically do NOT 'vilify Catholics." It is the institution, the Roman Catholic institution, the RCC, and most specifically the papacy, that is the Harlot Church of the Book of Revelation: utterly pagan, superstitious, contrary to scripture, Anti-Christ.Nevertheless the gospel is preserved in the liturgy so that there are some who belong to the RCC who serve Christ, not the papacy, not Mary, not the pagan superstitions, but Christ. Pascal was one of them. He excoriated the Jesuits for their duplicitous sophistries. There always have been true Christians in the RCC. There could not have been a Protestant Reformation if there weren't. I'm often puzzled by the fact that the true Christians don't rise up against the institution, or at least leave it. They'll even defend it though it is contrary to the Bible and even their own commitment to Christ. It has a powerful hold on its members. It took Luther and other Reformers a lot of time and work before they began to see its errors in the light of scripture.Scripture says "Come out of her, My people, lest you partake of her plagues." That is God talking to those who belong to Him but stay in the Harlot Church, which is ultimately slated for God's judgment in the form of plagues.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You continue to claim that the RCC is anti-christ yet as is always the case never provide any evidence and reality says you are once again simply spouting nonsense.The reality is that Roman Catholicism is a Cristian Faith. The Harlot Church is Calvinism, Biblical Christianity and Evangelical Christianity; the Christian Cult of Ignorance.

There is nothing in the Koran or the Book of Mormon that provides evidence of the truth of the religion, nothing, but again there is nothing in any religion but Christianity that offers salvation from eternal punishment. The Koran is full of instructions and commands to be obeyed, but no history, the Book of Mormon is fictional history but it offers nothing as proof of anything.Besides a person certainly CAN assess one body of claims as true and the rest false, there's nothing that requires anyone to accept them all, especially since they all contradict each other particularly in their portrait of the character of God.The Bible is full of descriptions of acts of God and especially of Christ, miracle upon miracle upon miracle, which John rightly gives as evidence of the deity of Christ and reason to accept God's plan of salvation and the supernatural character of Christ. Not so, those are all ridiculous parodies that offer no salvation to anyone. There is reason to believe they were all invented in order to pre-empt the genuine Savior who was promised all the way back in Eden, which was of course known to all humanity even though twisted and distorted by the fallen nature and the demonic "gods" that usurped God's place. Bunch of silly fakes. Christ is the real thing and John is giving the evidence that demonstrates it. there is no comparison between the idiocies of Mormonism and the sterling truths of the Bible, but believe whatever you want. The evidence John gives is sufficient to demonstrate the truths of Christianity but not everyone will be persuaded. Clearly you haven't made a careful comparison anyway or you'd see the absurdity you are claiming. Well, you're completely wrong, your comparisons are absurd.Again, Christianity alone offers eternal life through Christ's sacrifice and John mustered his accounts of His miraculous works as evidence, and there is nothing even remotely comparable in the other religions. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Luther gives the biblical reasons to recognize the Pope as Antichrist. You are right I'm not up on all of that, I'd have to go look it up. For starters, however, the very idea of a Pope or human head of the entire Church, is contrary to the whole spirit of Christianity. The very idea of a "vicar of Christ" is synonymous with Antichrist. Vicar is short for "vicarious" which means substitute, or occupying the place of Christ. That idea is Antichrist.I was once reading a book by a priest that called the Pope "the head of the Church" -- that was back in the early years of my reading about religions and thought I would end up a Catholic -- and the idea bothered me a great deal. Even though I was maybe not even yet a Christian I knew that idea had to be wrong. The next time I opene the Bible it fell open to one of the two verses that say "Christ is the Head of the Church." The next time it fell open to the other verse.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Not according to Jesus, Himself:

quote:

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Matthew 16
17 Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

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The foundation of the Church Christ built is not the man Peter but his testimony given by God the Father and not "by flesh and blood." The idea that Peter was ever a Pope is so ridiculous I don't know how you all keep on with it. He was never in Rome for starters. It is utterly absurd that one Bishop just up and made himself head of the entire Church over all the other bishops of his day, and then made up a supposed lineage back to Peter. The whole thing is a monumental lie.

So you keep asserting yet as usual, reality show you are simply wrong and posting falsehoods.According to the Bible (have you even read the Bible Faith?) Jesus said that Peter would be the foundation of his church. Peter is a human.Nor is the Roman Catholic Pope the head of the entire Christian Church. Once again, reality shows you are wrong and simply posting nonsense.And "according to Luther" is simply another opinion piece. Luther's opinions are simply Luther's opinions.

Hi Faith,You were talking about the gift of faith, and I was responding to that. My point was, "Your kind of faith requires evidence, and if you require evidence for what you believe then it isn't faith." You responded to a different point, as if I had said, "You think you have evidence but you don't," which is not what I said. But responding anyway: John, and the other Gospel writers, told us a story, for which there is no evidence. There isn't even any evidence that Jesus was a real person, that he wasn't merely an invention of Paul. Yes, we know you believe your religious book, as other religions believe theirs. Really I am simply preferring evidence over things made up. The evidence of Islam, the same kind of made-up evidence you're claiming for Christianity, is that God would not have a son. How do you weigh the make-believe of one religion against the make-believe of another? Where is it written that a religion must have a savior? The Bible contains stories, not evidence. Some of the stories are about real places (i.e., there is evidence the places existed or even still exist), some are about real people (i.e., there is evidence the people existed), and some are fanciful (i.e., there is no evidence whatsoever that the story is true or the people were real, not to mention any fantastical elements). Wow, two kinds of faith in the same sentence! One kind of faith requires evidence, the other kind of faith does not. Why isn't there just one kind of faith, the kind in the dictionary, the kind that involves the absence of evidence but believing anyway? Let me translate your sentence. John gave evidence from Jesus, a person who cannot even be shown to have ever existed let alone have provided evidence, and based on this fictional evidence we're supposed to trust Jesus' promise of salvation from an original sin committed by other people who also cannot be shown to have ever existed. That's just the made-up definition of faith of evangelicals. The actual definition of faith is believing something in the absence of evidence. People wrote stories about such things. Yes, this is a correct usage of the word faith. You not only don't know if the Gospel writers were trustworthy, you don't even know who they were. Again, in your entire time here you've presented no evidence that Jesus or John were trustworthy or even existed. This is an odd kind of evidence you describe that cannot be perceived unless one first believes that Jesus and John were trustworthy people who really existed. That the Earth is a sphere hurtling through space has evidence available to everyone. You don't have to believe that Galileo or Newton were trustworthy real people to see this evidence. That's what evidence really is. What you're calling evidence is really just faith. Hooray, you've actually agreed with something true. There you go with your two kinds of faith again, one that requires evidence, and one that doesn't. Again, there's only one kind of faith, and if you need evidence for your faith then it isn't faith. We actually believe almost the same thing. I believe none of the world's religions have evidence for what they believe. You also believe none of the world's religions have evidence for what they believe, except Christianity. What evidence? Words on paper is not evidence. I would hardly call seeing evidence where none exists a gift.--Percy

That's you assuming the conclusion, but whatever, Jesus gave the keys to Peter the man, not to his testimony. And then He said whatever you bind - not whatever your testimony binds. Apostolic succession - the Papacy can be traced all the way back to Peter, the first Pope.Here's a list: List of popes - Wikipedia Nuh-uh, you're the one who's lying!

It does mean it isn't evidence if you want any rigor in what you believe to be true about reality. Just because someone told a story doesn't magically transform it into credible evidence of the story's events. Across all the stories of the Bible, which is more fantastical, the Bible or Harry Potter. If you were looking at these two books from the distant future when both their origins are lost in time, why would you consider either one of them to contain any evidence? Obviously both are full of impossible events and are just fiction. One fits the style of fiction known as fantasy, while the other fits the style of fiction known as religion. You're fond of expressing these sentiments, as if to say, "Just consider the unlikelihood of it all, it must be true," as if inconsistency and unbelievability were an indicator of credibility rather than of bad fiction. The mere writing of words is not synonymous with the production of evidence. If I were to write, "The sorcerer disappeared into thin air," that is not evidence that sorcerers can disappear into thin air, or that sorcerers exist.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Nor in the Bible, either. When did this become a requirement of valid religions? Untrue, but when did history become a requirement of valid religious books? And the Koran has the advantage of being written (well, dictated) by someone with actual solid evidence that he existed. Just like all other religious books, including the Bible. This seems to run against your insistence that the Bible is either all true or all a lie. And what is your evidence that what John wrote was true, that he wasn't just passing on stories that were made up? I'd say there is a great deal of similarity between the "idiocies" (your word) of the Book of Mormon and the Bible. It is one thing to truly state what Christians believe, and quite another to provide evidence of which Christian beliefs are true. John did the former, not the latter. Clearly you are a believer with a fog of misplaced faith over your eyes. An equally fervent and rigid Mormon might say the same to you. Since when did the offering of "eternal life through Christ's sacrifice" become a requirement to be a valid religion. Stories are not evidence. Christianity is not the standard by which all other religions are judged.--Percy

That is not a reasonable comparison. We know that Harry Potter was written as a piece of fiction. Nobody after reading it has ever suggested that the story is anything but fiction. The Bible, and specifically the Gospels were written to inform people of what the writers wanted to be taken as historical. It is obviously not meant to be taken as fiction.As I said we can conclude that they got it wrong, or intentionally misled people, (without any discernible motivation for doing so), but it is obvious for numerous reasons that they intended the stories to be believed, and many people of that era, and to this day, believe that they got it right. There is no justification at all for comparing Harry Potter with the Bible. This statement simply shows a view point that is anything but objective. It appears that you start off with the belief that all religion at the outset is fiction. I am not saying that it must be true, but only that it is a reasonable conclusion. We have faith that many historical documents represent an accurate account of events without further evidence. If you write that the sorcerer disappeared into thin air and made it obvious that you meant it to be taken literally, then it is evidence which we can either accept, reject or even be agnostic about.In the case of the Gospels it isn't just one person making these claims but numerous people from multiple sources. Much of it being written while there were still eye witnesses.

'We' don't. We tend to suppose the mundane documents are more reliable than the fantastic - but we definitely don't have faith that they are accurate without further evidence.So if we had a document that suggested wine was purchased by the house of Caligula - we can believe that. It is consistent with other evidence (people bought wine, the Julio-Claudian family was wealthy, people recorded transactions....). If we found a document that claimed Caligula was the God, the Father (Deus Pater - Jupiter) - we'd probably not have faith in that document's accuracy. 4 people. And in fact, we know there were many others. They differ in important facts to the point of contradiction. 3 of them are clearly drawing from the same source material (or two of them are drawing from the third). The Gospels are clearly biased - written by those who are trying to persuade, not just report. Irrelevant. It wasn't like mass production happened, there is no reason to suppose that the texts were written anywhere near where the supposed witnesses lived. Most of the witnesses are unlikely to be able to read Greek. There is no evidence that there was anything *to* witness - and the text is vague enough about time and location to mean nobody could say 'I was there at that time and that didn't happen' - and even if they did - who would record that, and copy that recording over and over again?Also - of the events that are described which we would expect large numbers of witnesses to be able to verify - they don't. No census where people returned to where they born is recorded, no traditional public pardoning of criminals at Passover, no dead bodies walking around, no record of a tumult at the temple. The maji/wisemen's records didn't survive. Nothing from Herod or Pilate (and one wonders who witnessed these conversations and spoke of them later?)