I don't have enough faith to be an athiest.

[BRISH]

I heard this on a video clip this morning that I found by accident. It's also a book.
http://lifetoday.org/video//?search=Beth%20Moore

I thought the college statistics were pretty staggering. I wasn't laughing at all while watching it. I take it as a pretty serious topic so I ask in a serious manner:

Does anyone (non-believer) find this author/book/ideals convincing or at least intriguing to you (from this video clip)?

I don't have anything to debate at the moment and I don't want debates going on in this thread. I'm just curious as to what people have to say about the book or the author. Simple opinions. I'm getting the book. It's interesting.

I originally posted this in theology but it only allows believers to post. I want both sides to comment if they choose to. I don't know where else this could go.

 

[explodingboy]

Any chance of a run down, video is messing me around currently.

I could possibly have a stab at a few answers as I doubt it is anything too new being argued, but I'd prefer to have an idea of what I'm dealing with.

 

[K9_Trainer]

Watched the first 7 minutes or so. I'll try to watch the rest later.

But so far, all I see is two sides that are incapable of understanding one another having a go at each other. In this case, the video and likely the book, both have a theist bias. I have a feeling it's going to produce basic atheist premises for why God doesn't exist, and then bash it and explain why it's wrong or how it can't be so with theist reasoning, thus making the atheists look like illogical people. The same thing that Dawkin's The God Delusion does to theists.

It's not intriguing because I've heard it a million times before. I feel like the men in the video either a) have made no attempt to listen and truly understand a thoughtful atheist's reasoning for why they view the universe the way they do or b) only asked atheists who are atheists because they never thought about it. Much like Christians who really have no idea why they believe what they believe either.

The first 5 minutes contains no new counter arguments to atheism, nor does it contain a hint that they understand what they are even arguing against. It starts off with evolution, and how order can't come from chaos without something intelligent to organize it. Yet, do they consider that the majority of physicists, geologists and biologists are atheist? I'll give them credit that it's easy to blame things that you don't understand on a god. It's not easy to gain the knowledge necessary to explain it without one. Hence my own personal position that spirituality supersedes what is physical and can be perceived in this world.

To elaborate on that further to show that there is a potentially permanent lack of understanding...They say that an intelligent, personal being has to exist to bring order to the chaos of the universe. Why are they satisfied with that answer? That's something that I personally don't understand. There IS mystery in the world and our universe, but shoveling it all on God doesn't really solve it, it doesn't truly provide answers. It's just an answer that they are satisfied with for whatever reasons. Maybe it's more comfortable to believe that something human like is responsible and holds the answers, I really don't know, but I can at least respect that view. I wonder who designed god. How did an intelligent, personal being get there? I'm happier just to leave the mystery with the world rather than place it on a god that I can only have faith exists.

I truly don't know what level of understanding is even accomplishable between two people who have such different perspectives of the universe. But understanding can never be accomplished in the first place if the two sides are just going to essentially attack each other by generalizing the others premises and arguing it with their own bias. Faith and spirituality is personal and the reasons individuals have for being atheist or Christian are all different. Very rarely do I even share my spirituality and what I truly believe with other people, nevermind a religious person who wants it only to publish it in a book and demean it.

 

[Im_A]

I heard this on a video clip this morning that I found by accident. It's also a book.
http://lifetoday.org/video//?search=Beth%20Moore

I thought the college statistics were pretty staggering. I wasn't laughing at all while watching it. I take it as a pretty serious topic so I ask in a serious manner:

Does anyone (non-believer) find this author/book/ideals convincing or at least intriguing to you (from this video clip)?

I don't have anything to debate at the moment and I don't want debates going on in this thread. I'm just curious as to what people have to say about the book or the author. Simple opinions. I'm getting the book. It's interesting.

I originally posted this in theology but it only allows believers to post. I want both sides to comment if they choose to. I don't know where else this could go.

Anything with the phrase, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" is something only worth to be considered tabloid apologetics. I simply do not find any type of thought process in this to be interesting at all.

Faith implies blind trust. Non-believers do not blindly trust. You cannot have faith in nothing. You cannot have faith in lack of answers.

Anything else with this type of thinking is just stretching for a response when they have no response.

I also believe that this topic brings in a severe and pathetic misunderstanding of the scientific method.

So as I pass the tabloid magazines in the grocery stores and laugh, so do I do with such thought processes of, "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist".

 

[acropolis]

Video isn't working for me but based on the synopsis by K9 I agree that no, there's nothing new or different here.

 

[Sketcher]

I've heard Dr. Turek speak, and I have the book. I haven't finished it yet, but so far, I think it would be good food for thought for those who think of themselves as intelligent atheists/agnostics. He is very sure of what he believes and why, and for that reason I can see how some could think of the rhetoric as a bit biting. But when answering questions during the Q&A, he was not a jerk at all, even to the unbelievers who were there. He asks them questions back, and he let us know the importance of asking questions to unbelievers who we are discussing with, so that we can get on the same page with what their beliefs are. I would say exercise some patience and read the book.

 

[wayfaring man]

I've watched him on TV some, think he brings up some good points.

Think the name is a bit of a misfit though, maybe should be something more like, "I don't have enough unbelief to be an atheist", or not enough cynicism, or not enough materialism, worldliness, ...etc.

wm

 

[redblue22]

would you believe that some of us actually engage in an honest search for truth by following the evidence where it leads?

 

[Nilloc]

I don't have enough faith to be an athiest (sic).

Sounds like something Kent Hovind would say.

 

[explodingboy]

Well I managed to get all of the first 4mins to run, as thought it is mostly the same old arguments.

It's a great talking point to claim expertise on what the scientists can't, but then he ends it with a great example of perspective bias, As he immediately assigns the characteristics of his chosen deity as being the only possibly option.

 

[BRISH]

Well I managed to get all of the first 4mins to run, as thought it is mostly the same old arguments.

It's a great talking point to claim expertise on what the scientists can't, but then he ends it with a great example of perspective bias, As he immediately assigns the characteristics of his chosen deity as being the only possibly option.

Yeah sorry about that (....giving you a run down. Thanks for your patience)


Thanks for all the honest answers and input. I found the whole thing interesting. Im not agreeing or not agreeing a this point. Just curious. I do have to admit that it irks me some when theres a "scoffing" at something and I hope that came across in my OP when I impressed that I personally wasnt laughing with them. Ill look over the thread when I have time this weekend.

Thanks again

 

[SithDoughnut]

I can't get the video to work properly, but the phrase "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist" is almost always based upon a strawman view of atheism. It is impossible to have faith in the type of atheism that I and most atheists are - it's lack of faith, if anything.

I also notice that it says "despair of atheism" which suggests that this video does not actually involve atheists or anyone who understands atheism. It's the typical "try to fit other belief systems into the boxes I made for them" stuff that serves only to mock.

I'll watch the video if I can later but I'll be amazed if it has anything remotely close to the truth in it.