That's ridiculous! The word "faith" is part of human language. But what's more, I'm pretty sure you've entirely abdicated the argument right there. You've essentially said, "I can't say what it means, but it certainly doesn't mean what you say it means!"
This abdicates nothing. You've never heard of apophatic theology?
Apophatic theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I hadn't either, until recently, on CF. It still describes how G-d showed me much of what He showed me over 20 years ago, before, and since. It's valid, and often the best that can be done at any given time.
Faith is of course an entirely human word, and you are allowed to attach to it any concept you wish. Some of those might even be supported by a dictionary
Yet you have demonstrated the what the Bible means by the word is entirely foreign to you. Further, for you to expect me to somehow be able to transfer this to you (especially online) is not reasonable, since it is something that is actively lived out, not merely assented to intellectually.
None of that should be able to stop an exchange of ideas though.
Well, I'll be a little bit more explicit. Faith in god, to a believer, is very much like trust in a person. This is in the sense of faith that this god is capable, trustworthy, and morally virtuous, i.e. somebody you can trust implicitly for anything and everything. This faith gets transposed to any people or books that are believed to speak for this god, whether we're talking about a pastor or a priest or a nun or a prophet, or the Bible itself.
Where it differs from trust in a person, however, is that this faith is trust in a person for which there is no evidence that he even exists.
I saw you touch on this earlier, and took note. You don't know how much validity this line of thought has! One advantage of CF is that there are native Greek speaking believers, who are willing to share some understanding of the language. There are 3 distinct English words all wrapped up in "faith." One of those is this trust you speak of, and the other 2? I forget. :o
No, you can't trust G-d for "anything and everything." He has character. There are things He will and won't do. Faith then goes hand in hand with
knowing Him.
Transposing that same Faith onto others is called idolatry. BIG problem. And while we're at it, our modern society is every bit as susceptible to it as when Israel made a golden calf. I would say moreso, because (apparently) most C's think it's not even a possible problem now
(As evidenced by many threads in the C only sections on CF)
And since atheists like to discuss differences between believers = all of us are wrong, I'll throw you a bone: some even say that trusting in the Bible as one would trust in G-d is idolatry. And
depending on the individual, this concept can also have merit.
Trusting this "person" of G-d when one has no evidence He even exists is not trust. It may be many things to possibly include a stage of growth, but trust is not one of them. Therefore it is not Faith you speak of. (You had some good ideas though)
And that is where the whole thing comes crashing down in a heap of circular reasoning: faith in this god itself is used as justification for this god's existence. The whole thing becomes:
I believe in God.
-> How do you know this god even exists, and isn't a figment of your imagination?
Because I trust that God wouldn't lie to me.
And so the whole thing collapses.
That many who sit in pews on Sunday have nothing more than this, is something you will get no argument from me about. However, if that were all I had, first of all I certainly wouldn't be "here," and second of all, I would have fallen away from Christianity at the age of 4 (which I did)
and stayed away.
And how would you look behind the "non-material" curtain at all? That's my entire point: you can't. It's fundamentally impossible.
To
you. And to science. (Until Wiccan Child finds a way to do so, anyway