How does one know anything via faith?

[Chriliman]

Is it reasonable to assert that others are obligated to believe as you do on the basis of "evidence" that is only accessible to you?

Nope, they should apply what I've said based on my evidence to the evidence they've received and see if it confirms or denies their beliefs. If it denies their beliefs they will obviously object to what I'm saying. If it confirms their beliefs they will just reflect on what I've said and their faith will hopefully be strengthened from it.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

If others view what I've said a feel it makes sense to them, they will take into account what I've said and apply it their own beliefs and if they determine that what they believed previously doesn't make sense anymore in light of what I've said then they'll feel lead to change their theology/beliefs.

What about changing your theology? Why doesn't my "personal evidence" of Christianity's falsehood obligate you to abandon your theology entirely? Why must I consider your "personal evidence" as an authority when you evidently don't regard mine as such?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Nope, they should apply what I've said based on my evidence to the evidence they've received and see if it confirms or denies their beliefs. If it denies their beliefs they will obviously object to what I'm saying. If it confirms their beliefs they will just reflect on what I've said and their faith will hopefully be strengthened from it.

That's called confirmation bias: accepting only information that confirms or reinforces pre-existing beliefs and ignoring information that potentially disconfirms such beliefs.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

This seems relevant here:

 

[Chany]

I don't assume it will, I have hope that it will.

My point is that you do not know if it will. You have no actual reason to believe, beyond some notion of hope, that simply being honest and sincere in your search for truth will allow you to determine which propositions are true and which propositions are false.

What you are doing is an assumption and this assumption is one that is not rationally justified; in fact, it is irrational. Merely having sincerity when trying to discover which propositions are true is pretty much falsified by the majority of the truth seekers who never find what they seek.

 

[Chriliman]

What about changing your theology? Why doesn't my "personal evidence" of Christianity's falsehood obligate you to abandon your theology entirely? Why must I consider your "personal evidence" as an authority when you evidently don't regard mine as such?

Thats the thing, at one point in my life I did question my theology and beliefs deeply and it ultimately lead me to conversing with atheists on online forums and I realized why their reasoning doesn't make sense, when they kept contradicting themselves in order to hold their beliefs. Then God disciplined me severely for stepping away from Him in my search for truth, but I had to go through that spiritual battle in order to come away with stronger faith then I've ever had before. This is how God can work, He'll allow us to stumble and fall, in order to teach us something profound that only He can teach. I'm sure before this thread, you never considered there could be a problem at the bottom of reason that is the cause of atheist's confusion, yet I've clearly shown there is a problem. So the question to you is, are you willing to consider this problem and apply it to your beliefs to determine if your beliefs are correct?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Thats the thing, at one point in my life I did question my theology and beliefs deeply and it ultimately lead me to conversing with atheists on online forums and I realized why their reasoning doesn't make sense, when they kept contradicting themselves in order to hold their beliefs. Then God disciplined me severely for stepping away from Him in my search for truth, but I had to go through that spiritual battle in order to come away with stronger faith then I've ever had before. This is how God can work, He'll allow us to stumble and fall, in order to teach us something profound that only He can teach. I'm sure before this thread, you never considered there could be a problem at the bottom of reason that is the cause of atheist's confusion, yet I've clearly shown there is a problem. So the question to you is, are you willing to consider this problem and apply it to your beliefs to determine if your beliefs are correct?

I'm not asking whether you've ever questioned your theological beliefs. I'm asking why my "personal evidence" doesn't compel you to abandon your theology utterly given that you seem to think that your "personal evidence" somehow obligates me to endorse it. Essentially, I'm asking about what seems to me to be a double-standard: I am to accept your "personal evidence" and reconsider my beliefs, but my "personal evidence" has no purchase on you whatsoever.

 

[Chriliman]

I'm not asking whether you ever questioned your theological beliefs. I'm asking why my "personal evidence" doesn't compel you to abandon your theology utterly given that you seem to think that your "personal evidence" somehow obligates me to endorse it. Essentially, I'm asking about what seems to me to be a double-standard: I am to accept your "personal evidence" and reconsider my beliefs, but my "personal evidence" has no purchase on you whatsoever.

This is where you fundamentally miss understand my beliefs. I believe it's not possible for me, a mere human, to convince you that God exists, I believe only God himself can convince you and I have hope that He will. This means I don't expect you to endorse my "personal evidence". I do expect you to honestly reflect on what I've said and if God provides evidence to you of His existence then that would be amazing and this evidence would then be your "personal evidence", not mine or anyone else's. God is very personal like that. And I don't endorse your "personal evidence" simply because I don't expect you to endorse mine.

 

[The Cadet]

Because if you continue expecting physical evidence for something that isn't physical(consciousness, God, love, truth) then you'll eventually realize it leads to there being no point to all of this.

I don't think that life is pointless without the non-physical. I think my existence is hugely meaningful - to me. I enjoy life. I enjoy living. I enjoy sharing time with the woman I love, and eating good food, and kicking Dr. Kumpel's butt each week at the smash ranking battles. And I think what I'm writing here has a point as well - I enjoy doing it.

Others have had the same "personal evidence"

I haven't.

It's extremely presumptuous of you to assume to know my experiences. I have not had any sort of "personal evidence" which has pointed me towards the Christian god.


However, I can give you a rough estimate of what would most likely convince me that a god exists (or, you know, Vogons), and any God worth their salt would be able to find out exactly what it would take to convince me and provide that to me. For a being with endless power who wants to a have a personal relationship with me, your God is doing a really lousy job!)

 

[paulm50]

When you don't have trust in God. What you see in the world is horrible things happening to good people and amazing things happening to bad people. And you ask yourself how is this fair? But when you trust in God you begin to see the evil for what it truly is and you see the good for what it truly is and you realize what God has done is doing and will do to bring people back to himself in perfect existence. This is hope for the future and faith to persevere and unfailing love.

Like Cain killing Abel, because god showed more favour to one of them.

How do you think that was fair?

Of course I could go on to list more evil, that god takes responsibility for.

 

[Chriliman]

I don't think that life is pointless without the non-physical. I think my existence is hugely meaningful - to me. I enjoy life. I enjoy living. I enjoy sharing time with the woman I love, and eating good food, and kicking Dr. Kumpel's butt each week at the smash ranking battles. And I think what I'm writing here has a point as well - I enjoy doing it.

Thats great, I'm glad you enjoy life. The question is, is it more rational to believe your enjoyment came from a singularity that had to contradict its own existence in order to become a universe? Or is it more rational to believe your enjoyment came from an infinitely timeless entity that is the source of all joy? Keep in mind neither of these concepts can be proven, so they both require you to believe in them.

It's extremely presumptuous of you to assume to know my experiences. I have not had any sort of "personal evidence" which has pointed me towards the Christian god.

This doesn't mean that you will never have such an experience.

However, I can give you a rough estimate of what would most likely convince me that a god exists (or, you know, Vogons), and any God worth their salt would be able to find out exactly what it would take to convince me and provide that to me. For a being with endless power who wants to a have a personal relationship with me, your God is doing a really lousy job!)

Thats a rational thought, which is why I have hope for you and why I believe God knows exactly what he's doing

 

[Chriliman]

Like Cain killing Abel, because god showed more favour to one of them.

How do you think that was fair?

Of course I could go on to list more evil, that god takes responsibility for.

I've already pointed out how your argument is based on why you believe genesis is wrong and how this is a very close minded argument. You've proven my point. I'd suggest for you to try and be more open minded to what others are saying, don't just assume your argument is the best argument anyone has ever had

 

[Chriliman]

Sorry, I just realized this isn't my problem at the bottom of reason thread. I didn't mean to hijack this thread, I lost track of who I was responding to on which thread

 

[paulm50]

This is where you fundamentally miss understand my beliefs. I believe it's not possible for me, a mere human, to convince you that God exists, I believe only God himself can convince you and I have hope that He will.

This is my major beef with all religions. None of the gods provide evidence, it's people that claim to have evidence. Claims that have to be viewed with logic and questions. Because without questioning the leaders of a religion, we end up worse off.

And they end up better off. If only a warn feeling that they're going to a better world.

 

[ken777]

This is my major beef with all religions. None of the gods provide evidence, it's people that claim to have evidence. Claims that have to be viewed with logic and questions. Because without questioning the leaders of a religion, we end up worse off.

And they end up better off. If only a warn feeling that they're going to a better world.

There is plenty of evidence ... but there is no proof.

.

 

[The Cadet]

Thats great, I'm glad you enjoy life. The question is, is it more rational to believe your enjoyment came from a singularity that had to contradict its own existence in order to become a universe? Or is it more rational to believe your enjoyment came from an infinitely timeless entity that is the source of all joy? Keep in mind neither of these concepts can be proven, so they both require you to believe in them.

Are those really my only two options? How did you get to that conclusion? Personally, I think that if neither option is knowable, the correct answer is "I don't know". I don't know about our origins, and I have no problem admitting this.

This doesn't mean that you will never have such an experience.

It also doesn't mean I will. You say everyone has one. I don't know that that's the case. I think it's incredibly presumptuous to take your personal experiences and generalize them to everyone. But then again, I think I've already been over why I think Romans 1:20 is such a terrible passage.

Thats a rational thought, which is why I have hope for you and why I believe God knows exactly what he's doing

Of course, this puts the ball firmly in God's court - if he wants me to believe in him, he knows what to do. This also makes the moral element of Hell completely untenable, but I have no idea if you even believe in hell, so...

 

[Chriliman]

First off, I'll assume that you're an atheist of some description. I'm sure you'll say if that's not the case.

I want to make an important distinction that you should adhere to from now on.

You DO NOT hold on to faith that god does not exist. The very fact that you're an atheist means that you have NO faith in any god/s.

Let me clarify. To say 'I believe there is no god/gods.' puts you in the same camp as any other believer because you say you have 'belief'. Belief equals faith. The burden of proof is then on you to prove the non-existence of god.

You should be saying that you '...DO NOT BELIEVE in the existence of god/gods'. This makes it implicit that you hold no belief and therefore no faith and sets you apart from any theist. The burden of proof is then on the one who makes a faith based claim.

It's a REALLY important distinction, so grad hold of it and run with it.

It's also really important to understand that science CANNOT prove the non-existence of a god any more than a theist CANNOT prove that a god exists. It's about the balance of probability.

'Did you know that there's a chocolate teapot floating around the rings of Saturn? It's totally invisible, but quite a lot of people worship it as a god.'

Let's think about that statement. Can we prove the existence of the chocolate teapot? Nope. Is it true that people devote their lives to it? Yup. Does that actually mean it's true? Nope. Does it have any affect on the natural laws of this world in a way that we can measure? Nope.

Then the balance of probability is in the favour of reason that says 'There probably is no chocolate teapot, unless someone can offer empirical proof'. Until that time, reason and logic is stronger and is the correct position to take.

Except that I can use sound reason and logic to show why I believe in God, you'll just choose to ignore the tough questions that my sound reason and logic present, and you'll choose to ignore the questions because they threaten your beliefs.

 

[ken777]

First off, I'll assume that you're an atheist of some description. I'm sure you'll say if that's not the case.

I want to make an important distinction that you should adhere to from now on.

You DO NOT hold on to faith that god does not exist. The very fact that you're an atheist means that you have NO faith in any god/s.

Let me clarify. To say 'I believe there is no god/gods.' puts you in the same camp as any other believer because you say you have 'belief'. Belief equals faith. The burden of proof is then on you to prove the non-existence of god.

You should be saying that you '...DO NOT BELIEVE in the existence of god/gods'. This makes it implicit that you hold no belief and therefore no faith and sets you apart from any theist. The burden of proof is then on the one who makes a faith based claim.

It's a REALLY important distinction, so grad hold of it and run with it.

It's also really important to understand that science CANNOT prove the non-existence of a god any more than a theist CANNOT prove that a god exists. It's about the balance of probability.

'Did you know that there's a chocolate teapot floating around the rings of Saturn? It's totally invisible, but quite a lot of people worship it as a god.'

Let's think about that statement. Can we prove the existence of the chocolate teapot? Nope. Is it true that people devote their lives to it? Yup. Does that actually mean it's true? Nope. Does it have any affect on the natural laws of this world in a way that we can measure? Nope.

Then the balance of probability is in the favour of reason that says 'There probably is no chocolate teapot, unless someone can offer empirical proof'. Until that time, reason and logic is stronger and is the correct position to take.

Your chocolate teapot analogy really does not work. Belief in God has been held by a great many rational and very intelligent people over a very long period of time. That is not proof but it does indicate there is persuasive evidence for the vast majority of people ... unlike a chocolate teapot floating around the rings of Saturn.

.

 

[The Cadet]

First off, I'll assume that you're an atheist of some description. I'm sure you'll say if that's not the case.

I want to make an important distinction that you should adhere to from now on.

You DO NOT hold on to faith that god does not exist. The very fact that you're an atheist means that you have NO faith in any god/s.

Well aware, thanks. I mean for the sake of argument - if you hold 'A' on faith, and I hold 'not A' on faith, faith offers us no way to resolve this conflict and no way to determine which of us are right. I don't believe that there are no gods, I simply reject the concept as unsupported.

Except that I can use sound reason and logic to show why I believe in God, you'll just choose to ignore the tough questions that my sound reason and logic present, and you'll choose to ignore the questions because they threaten your beliefs.

Hit me up with a PM (this is verging dangerously close to general apologetics) and you can test that theory.

 

[The Cadet]

Your chocolate teapot analogy really does not work. Belief in God has been held by a great many rational and very intelligent people over a very long period of time. That is not proof but it does indicate there is persuasive evidence for the vast majority of people ... unlike a chocolate teapot floating around the rings of Saturn.

.

Believe in Allah has been held by a great many rational and very intelligent people over a very long period of time as well, and that's an idea which is fundamentally irreconcilable with the idea of the Christian god. The fact that a lot of people believe something does not make it more true, and the fact that a great many people believe in God does nothing to change the fact that they have not by any meaningful standard met their burden of proof.