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This is a strange question coming from a missionary. But it’s a question that I’ve wrestled with many times in my life — even as I’m serving in a mission field thousands of miles from my comfortable, low-risk life in the United States. I think, What am I doing here? Is this life that I’ve chosen really worth it? And I know I’m not the only one who wonders…
Is faith nonsense?
Why is it so hard to believe in God? If he’s really there, why doesn’t he reveal himself to the world? Why does God hide from us? Why does such an important question — Is there a God and does he care about me? — require
so
much
faith?
As I said, I’ve wrestled with these questions many times in my life. Ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that yes, it is worth it. I do believe in the God of the Bible. I believe in Jesus, his death on the cross, and his Resurrection. I believe God loves me and has a plan for my life. (And by the way, I don’t believe that God hides from us, I believe we hide from him.)
But at times I still wrestle.
God, I’m going through a crisis, why don’t you do something?
God, do you even care about the pain I’m going through?
God, are you there?
Faith is a struggle. The Bible says that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It’s not easy. I know that a lot of the readers of this blog have decided, as I have, that faith is not nonsense. It is worth it. But there are also a lot of readers who are searching. And still others who’ve given up the search.
My advice (not that you asked for it)?
Start searching. Continue questioning. Keep wrestling.
Actually, I hope that all of us — Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Agnostics — keep wrestling. Challenge what you believe (or don’t believe). Don’t believe everything you hear on TV (especially if you’re watching a televangelist).
Read.
Study.
Question.
Discuss.
Wrestle.
My prayer is that you will decide that faith is not nonsense. God is real. He does love you. He does want a relationship with you.
But even more than this prayer, I hope that you continue wrestling.
I admit, I didn’t come up with the idea for this post on my own. Well, first of all I have to make a disclaimer. I read a lot and listen to a lot of “Godcasts.” So, who knows what’s really an original thought and what’s something I’ve read or heard but have no idea where or when I read or heard it? I have a lot of random data floating around in my brain. But in the case of this particular topic, it’s not random data. I got the idea from a great message I listened to from Erwin McManus, pastor of Mosaic in Los Angeles, a few months back. I highly recommend the podcast. Here’s the link.
And now I’d love to hear from you. Is faith nonsense? Has there been a time in your life when you’ve wrestled with this question? What was your answer? Or is the answer still to be determined?!
Thanks for allowing me to contribute to Friendly Christian! I’m excited to be involved in the discussion.
I look forward to your comments…
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I swear, reading things like this, it’s like I’m a different species. A struggle for what ? I see the world, I try and understand it. No ’searching’ for a particular answer, no ’struggle’ to arrive at a particular opinion or maintain an opinion.
Why not cut out the middle man, and just try and understand the world ? Or, if I decide to adopt ‘faith’, why not adopt it in everything ? If it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
Using that understanding of faith, yes, it’s nonsense. More below.
My answer was to try and understand the world through the best methods available. Being ‘certain of what I hope for and certain of what I do not see’ is just about the worst method, not the best. Let me give it a try.
I hope to win the lottery but I do not see that I have a ticket. So I engage in faith, and am now sure I will win the lottery and sure that I have a winning ticket. Therefore, since I am sure these things are true, I will spend all the money in my wallet and max out my credit cards.
Hi Nathan
My personal opinion is that if there is a God (and I don’t believe that there is) then we are as significant to him as amoeba are to humans. Occasionally useful and interesting to look at but ultimately too simple to warrant much attention.
Absolutely right. So many people accept things at face value without questioning them. There are plenty of indifferent agnostics in the world who really should question things more.
I think that unquestioning faith is nonsensical. I have a friend who converted to be a Jehovah’s Witness a few years ago. During one of our discussions I asked him about the well known blood transfusion issue. This went on to the transplant of organs that did not require blood transfusions. I asked if they were acceptable. He did not have a response. He needed to question his Elders in the church (cult) to have an answer.
Surely it’s morning in the US by now?
I think there’s so much confusion about atheism. Christians especially have a hard time understanding where atheists are coming from.
Faith is a difficult concept for people of an atheistic persuasion.
Even for a theist it must require some work because clearly God is not going out of His way to reveal himself on a daily basis anymore.
Some theists may take issue with that for they see the hand of God in everyday events. While I am sure they believe this to be true, skeptics and free-thinkers like will no doubt attribute the same events as natural phenomena.
Who is to say who’s right or wrong?
Worse still there’s no way to determine the truth because of the different magisteria involved: faith and empiricism.
Theists though they put a high premium on their faith still live in a world that is as much ruled by logic & reason.
Theists use logic and reason…they have to! If they didn’t they’d be unable to function in this modern society.
In my line of work I know many Christian engineers and technicians. Faith would not work in matters of electronics and software.
To ‘turn off’ the rational when it comes to matters of God and spirituality is a tall order! I’m sure it must take deep devotion.
I am incapable of such a feat. Which is why I am the way I am.
I consider myself an atheistic-agnostic.
I take this to mean that while I have no evidence for a the existence of any God, I cannot definitively say that there is no God. Further, based on logic and reason, the best tools I have, I cannot accept the the existence of God as described in the Bible (old & new testaments) or the Koran. Still further I don’t even know if the question ultimately even answerable in this life.
I remember seeing or reading an interview with Christopher Reeve shortly after the accident that paralyzed him. He was asked if he personally ‘believed in the Lord’.
I found his answer wonderful and I think it speaks for a lot of my fellow atheistic types. His answer was as follows:
“While I don’t personally believe in the Lord, I try to live my life as though He is watching”
I try to live my life similarly!
Faith is real to me although it is hard to grasp, and each step I take in it requires me to take a chance, and like “Tam” would say “risky business”. I am always amazed by each step that God becomes more real to me, and faith grows stronger. God is truly faithful. I have struggled with this and sometimes still do, just because it is so not how the world thinks as a whole. I know I will not walk away from it, this is my life line. Call it a mental breakdown if it makes you feel better, but of all the drugs and alcohol I have overcome, I never want to get over or cured of this!
Hov-it is morning in the states, but I work a split shift and not always able to get here..missed you all yesterday! LOL driving a bus and wondering what my “buds” are talking about on FC!
forgot to say HI to Nathan..
HI Nathan!:)>-
@hoverFrog
You have to understand the American work ethic, which is rooted in the Puritanism of the settlers that came to Massachusetts, where I reside.
We only blog when our bosses aren’t watching.
:d
R
Robert how true is that?!?!?!
I have often wondered how many are at work, and how many just don’t work?
Hi Robert…are you a coffee or tea drinker?
@darla
I would never belittle someone faith like that!
I can assure you that I would have words with anyone, atheist or otherwise, who would cheapen your beliefs as such!
Perhaps this has much to do with who I am. I’ve never had to overcome such a problem.
Robert
@darla
Actually I have liking for both!
During the warmer summer months I am a tea drinker. Iced or hot with lemon depending upon my mood.
I love Republic of Teas’s Ginger Peach Tea. then there’s the old standby…Earl Grey!
During the Fall, Winter and Spring…
STARBUCKS BABY!!!!
Verona Blend!!!
Make it a ‘black eye’: 2 shots of espresso topped off with 18oz. of brewed coffee!
If you’re gonna be a bear…
BE A GRIZZLY!!! ROAR!!!
:d
R
PS I think the caffeine might be affecting me!
Robert- =))just love you man!
I like both too..have you ever tries PGTips? Awesome tea! And starbucks Verona is my favorite too!:d so here is a cup for you of whatever you like today ~o)
When I think of “faith”, the first image that pops into my head…Indiana Jones when, needing to cross a large gorge, he steps out into thin air over a bottomless cavern. There’s nothing beneath him and then suddenly, *thump*, contrary to his senses, his foot hits solid ground. The bridge was painted to blend in with the surroundings and was all but completely invisible, but nevertheless there the whole time. Now THAT’s faith!
@darla
I made the mistake of skipping my usual Starbucks ~o) and got this dirty dishwater work-provided coffee instead, BLECH! 8-|
Now, how am I supposed to work not being fully caffeinated?
@Polly
There is NOTHING worse than bad coffee…
Dunkin Donuts coffee….:-&
Work Coffee….:-&
Starbucks or Peets….French roast or NOTHING!!!
R
@Robert…
REALLY?? No Dunkin Donuts?? I love their coffee!
The coffee we had in Costa Rica…wow
Polly- starbucks Verona for you my friend!~o)
@hoverFrog
I think hoverFrog said it best unquestioning faith is nonsensical. Why even have a brain? Would a god really want a believer that never really questioned their faith? What kind of god would that be?
@Polly
I have to disagree with the Indiana Jones analogy because that one actually is wrong. Indiana didn’t simply step out into the nothingness simply because someone told him he could (or read it in a book).
He reasoned that there had to be some way to get across, not caving to his senses or emotions alone but employed logic to pick up a handful of sand and tossed it in front of him to “test” (uh oh evidence) whether there was indeed something there.
Faith in your analogy would have had Indiana Jones tossing that handful of sand in front of him, having it fall downards into the abyss… and stepping anyway.
Anyway, there is another kind of faith that I think is actually the most dangerous. That is when you have suspended your own logic and reason then simply turned to faith. With that kind of thinking you have essentially forcibly shut down your own internal checks and balances. Anything is possible for you to do (or be instructed to do) if you have no mechanism to say, “Wait, I may not get 72 virgins if I blow myself up in this shopping plaza.” or “Wait, maybe stem cell research isn’t murder and that any resulting medical breakthrough may actually save lives or relieve suffering.”
I’m just sayin’
:-\”:-\”
oh sorry,
starbucks, bold & black ~o)
next round is on me.
Skeptigator- Bold and black for you! ~o)
@Skeptigator,
That’s just it, I think he only did the sand thing AFTER he took the first step - to show the rest of the way perhaps. I remember it quite distinctly, but I may have to watch it again to be sure.
Ah, yes, we are indeed debating holy writ now, eh?
@Darla
Ah, ~o| good to the last drop!
@Darla, PG Tips is the best. Do they really have it in the land of the free?
@Skeptigator, I heard that a different translation of the 72 virgins passage from the Koran was instead 72 white raisins. The Aramaic word “hur” had been mistranslated.
-http://www.corkscrew-balloon.com/02/03/1bkk/04b.html
A lesson to anyone who places their faith in a text that has been translated several times by different authors.
Also my choice of ~o) at work is strong black coffee. Actually it’s Carte Noire. At home or when I start to float above my chair I start to drink tea, white. I never have sugar as I’m quite sweet enough, thank you.
Faith is a very broad word when we consider that everyone here is motivated by one view or another. You all have to agree (I hope) that we all put our trust in something at one time or another, and that trust offers a particular outcome. We all look forward to that outcome and strive to conform our life to the pattern that will best achieve that goal. So, as far as I can see it, we all practice faith in one way or another.
Whatever faith you practice, there has to be an object of that faith. When a person loses sight or hope of that object it can cause a lot of despair.
When I was born, I was dependent on my parents. I’ve heard when I became a toddler, I became a bit independent…..don’t they all???? My needs were simple, but I still had to trust someone else other than me to meet my needs. Growing into an adult, I finally reached the point where I took responsibility for my own life. Then I became the source of my children’s faith. There are people who will reject food and there are people who will reject God…..who is the object of my faith, and the center of my life.
I think also that there is a difference between belief and faith. If I look at a chair, I naturally will pick one I believe will support me. That’s belief, once I sit down, that’s where the faith kicks in. I say that because intellect will only take you so far. At some point, true living requires us to put our belief into action….Intellect without action (faith) is hollow and meaningless.
GG, are you saying that you pick a chair that looks sturdy enough to support you (the belief) but have faith that it won’t collapse? You know I’ve been to your blog and the pictures indicate that you’re a long way short of being a hippo. Any chair would do unless it was particularly rickety.
you’re not fishing for complements are you?
I’m afraid I don’t see a difference between belief that a chair will support you and faith that it won’t collapse (or that gremlins or prankster workmates have sabotaged it).
Perhaps a different analogy would help? I believe that I can throw any of my children into the air and catch them (even 12 year old Snarly), they have faith that I won’t let them fall to the ground in a big heap. Both are based on past experience (which is why Little Al doesn’t like being thrown in the air) and require a certain degree of information. One is logical (I know I am physically strong enough to lift my children and throw than a short distance into the air) while the other is emotional (the kids feel that I’m trustworthy enough not to drop them….on purpose).
Does that fit with your broad definitions?
If so then faith in a deity or deities is different from an emotional trust because it is not (as far as I’m concerned) based on pre-existent evidence because you must first have faith in order to rely upon it to give you faith.
Perhaps I am missing the point?
Hi Nathan.
I don’t think religious faith is nonsense because it is based on a personal relationship between a person and their God. God has spoken in some manner to a believer. If God spoke to me of course I would believe he existed.
I did struggle with this question when I was younger, as I was raised in a religious family. God never did speak to me. I turned to reason and logic and found the answers I was looking for. I am satisfied that I have found my answer.
Hover raised the problem of unquestioning faith. We just have to look at world events and see how easy it is for a charismatic leader to take advantage of people and get them to do really bad things.
I think we need to separate faith in God from unquestioning faith in leaders who proclaim they speak for God.
It is never a good idea to blindly obey the instructions of anyone else, be it your pastor, president or parent.
I think the most important faith we all need is faith in ourselves. I think it is when we lack faith in our own judgment that we become susceptible to being manipulated by unscrupulous leaders.
My Christian friends believe that God has given everyone a soul. If a believer is struggling with faith in God I would suggest they look to the soul that God has given them more than to the teachings or instructions of a third party, such as their pastor. Your pastor, or the bible, may be able to provide some guidance but in the end God either speaks to you personally or he doesn’t.
Ed, right on! As a believer I always go to God first. I have faith in Him and He has been faithful to increase my faith in Him by making Himself evident to me in ways that I alone “get”. So when I hear something from my pastor or a friend or read something I don’t understand I, without hesitation, pray about it and see if it lines up with Gods word.
Robert, yes…I use logic, reason and faith. I have to!
Darla, step away from the coffee!@-)
Yes, sometimes we are wrong and our judgment is faulty due to lack of knowledge, experience, etc. But, abdicating responsibility is not better than leveraging whatever common sense we do posess.
At the very least we should always have the courage to demand of anyone who attempts to enlist us in their agenda, to appeal to our reason by laying out the big picture and the evidence they have that theirs is a worthwhile cause.
Whenever someone comes up to me making bold, unverifiable claims and refuses to tell me how it works and instead points to a blackbox and says it’s too techinical to explain, or it doesn’t matter it just works, or whatever, I turn and run.
Always demand that your pertinent questions get answered. Anyone who can’t support what they are saying is either lying or doesn’t know enough for you to trust them any more than yourself.
I apply to the question of the supernatural the same common sense that I would apply to anything else in life. And I don’t find satisfactory answers, rather I find appeals to emotion, especially fear.
What is it with all these attempts at changing the meaning of faith ? ‘Unquestioned faith,’ faith meaning trust, etc.
Nathan gave his understanding of faith in the blog post:
Could someone else please also answer the question, as asked, instead of making up a different question to answer ?
Is this nonsense?
I don’t think that we’re changing the meaning of faith, we’re just trying to clarify what we understand to be the question.
Whatever I hope for is just that: a hope. A desire for some possible outcome in my favour. Some of my hopes are realistic and some are not. If I attribute successful hopes realised to the influence of god then I’m afraid that this is nonsense. I may as well attribute them to the influence of the stars or to the entrails of a goat.
You think ‘being sure of what we hope for’ translates to ‘being hopeful for what we hope for’ ? Go look at the context. Under the paragraph subtitle ‘Is faith nonsense:’
Clearly, Nathan’s use of faith is being sure that God exists because he hopes that God exists and in spite of not seeing indications that God exists. NOT that he hopes God exists because he hopes God exists.
How the heck do you interpret ’sure of’ and ‘certain of’ to mean something other than what they say ?
Sorry, I’ve been in meetings all day, and my computer at home is down until we get some remodel done…..I’ll find time to respond tomorrow….Ben, I think everyone here has good input….faith obviously means different things to different people….that’s what is so good about learning from eachother…see ya’ll tomorrow!
OK Ben, I have no idea how someone can possibly have faith in God given your clarification. Certainty without evidence isn’t rational and certainty in the face of conflicting evidence is simply insane.
Given that I looked for a different interpretation of ‘faith’ that made some sort of sense. If you are convinced that faith equates to certainty then I’d have to take that as nonsense…unless we mean different things by certainty.
To me, faith means something different than it does to Nathan. But that is immaterial. I have to use the questioner’s meaning in answering his question - not my own.
Words are only arbitrary symbols representing ideas. When someone gives a definition of what they mean, I should use their definition in place of my own if I want to understand the underlaying ideas they are trying to convey.
This is the first chance I’ve had to read the comments to today’s post. I’m really glad to see that a good discussion is going. I don’t have time to respond to all of the new questions that have been raised (I have about a 30 minutes of Internet access per day!), but I do want to respond to one comment:
I quoted one of the definitions of faith in the Bible (being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see), but I don’t think that this definition implies that I have faith that God exists because I “hope” he does and despite not seeing any indication that he exists. I see indications that God exists all the time. But it still requires faith to believe in him. Heck, even characters in the Bible were told to “have faith” — and many of them saw God in the flesh! But the point of the post is that at times I’ve had doubts. There have been times in my life when my faith has been challenged. Sometimes a crisis will challenge my faith. Sometimes a deep, thought-provoking question will.
My hope for this post is that it would spur a discussion about faith. Do you believe what you believe because you’ve been told to believe that way? Or have you challenged “conventional wisdom” and arrived at the world view you hold today?
(Banging head into desk.)
You said - no misquoting or taking out of context:
If I substitute in the meaning you gave for faith, I get:
You yourself said that belief in God requires faith. Not that it helps your belief to be stronger, but that it is required. A lot of it is required - ’so much,’ as you said.
Well, if by faith you don’t mean ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’ then you’re going to have to start over and tell us what you do mean when you use the word. Otherwise we’re going to all substitute in our own incompatible ideas of what ‘faith’ means or use the one you’re now disavowing.
That would mean the indications are insufficient to warrant belief on their own, effectively what I was saying. The visual, auditory, olfactory, and sense of touch indications I have suggest to me that my wife exists. The indications warrant belief on their own regardless of my hopes one way or the other. Same for my beliefs about my overly-large stomach.
You know, this is an excellent example of me being wrong again. There was a recent deconvert thread - one of the best ones ever, actually - where the author talked about how much of religious language was NOT about conveying ideas. It was about reinforcing social bonds and providing comfort, devoid of informational content. I vehemently disagreed, because I have so much trouble talking in such a way. It really looks like I was wrong. It appears that it is only my borderline social incompetence / social retardness (depending on the day) that causes me to see things this way. What you’re saying above only makes any sense if he was right. If you’re not literally asking ‘is faith nonsense’ but looking for others to say ‘yes, I doubt too’ so that everyone feels more part of the in-group.
Posts like this or this. I can’t do it. I have to read what you say as what you mean. Too left-brained and a-social, I guess.
The latter with a heavy dose of the former.
Children accept what they are told at face value because they are naturally preprogrammed to do so. “The fire is hot, don’t touch it or it’ll burn you” should elicit an “Oh, interesting idea, I must test this to determine it’s veracity” response. As a person grows older and wiser they begin to question the things that they have accepted as true. We sometimes get burned on the way and sometimes get to reevaluate lessons given.
Where does this come into faith in god? It is impossible to test for the existence of god as you would test a fire for heat. No empirical evidence exists. At least none that I am aware of.
That leaves us with the option of choosing logic to test our assumptions. If x equals y and y equals z then x must equal z. For faith this could equate to God equals love and I feel love so God must therefore exist. Fine, if that is the path you choose but I’d dispute the logic of that any day of the week.
Another option is simply not to apply logic to belief in God. The argument being that God transcends logic, scientific tests and empirical evidence entirely. That faith is not only wanted by God but is needed in order to fully appreciate it’s complexities.
This isn’t something that I could stick to. If it lacks evidence and defies logic I must assume that the assertion is false. No amount of faith that it is otherwise changes that.
Hov, after reading your last post here…I have a question for ya. Have you ever experienced anything that you could not explain? Oh, and Good Mornin’ to ya! Here’s a cup of Jo…~o)
Good afternoon GG, I have never experienced anything that did not have an explanation whether I understood it at the time or not. There are plenty of things that I cannot explain. Women for instance utterly elude my ability to comprehend.
Oh and Bill, your shiny new podcast makes IE7 cry. I can’t even get to the main screen.
Why is it called a cup of Jo? Something else I can’t explain?
I’m reminded of an old adage taught to me by a networking tutor: You don’t need to know all the answers, you just need to know where to find them.
From wikipedia:
“Cup of joe” is an American nickname for coffee. The phrase goes back to the mid-1840s, and is of unclear origin, though it is possibly short for “Old Black Joe,” the title of a popular Stephen Foster song. In any case, it predates Josephus Daniels, the Secretary of the Navy who banned the serving of alcohol on ships in 1914.
Another possible origin lies in the birth of America’s taste for coffee, which developed in the 19th century after tea was no longer available from British merchants. The phrase may have come into the American English language via a misunderstanding of the French word chaud, which means “hot” and is pronounced similarly.
Thank you for that wonderful info HovJo…:d
So in your round about way that we have all come to love, the answer is yes?/:)
Hey, you’re getting close to me in the comments my froggie friend….
And before you say no….
OK, have you ever experienced anything that you STILL don’t have and explanation for or understand?:)
Just because I may not be able to explain or understand an experience/event does not mean there is not a rational explanation. Saying you know everything is a sign you know nothing.
When have I ever said I know everything?
I know enough not to dwell on such rediculous comments
What I was getting at with Hover, was that there are other things in this life that need exploring and that are unexplainable besides God. God seems to be the only one that the atheist denys because of lack of explanation….your knowing everything statement works both ways….;)
GG,
My apologies if you took the know everything comment as directed at you. That was not my intent. I was directing it at myself as well as everyone.
I agree completely everything unexplainable should be investigated. How else can we even approach the truth.
As I said I meant the statement to run both ways or maybe even all ways.
no offense intended.
None taken, HN, I was worried that I was coming accross that way which couldn’t be farther from the truth!! LOL All I have is what has happened to me…pretty much like all of us….I enjoy your comments they challenge me
Ben, maybe I’m too right-brained to undertand what you’re getting at
I agree with a lot of what your saying. And I’m not trying to change the definition of faith I gave in the original post. If that’s what it sounded like in my comment, it wasn’t my intention. The only point I was trying to make in my last comment is taking exception to what you said about having faith “despite no evidence that God exists.” Like I said, I do think there’s evidence God exists. That’s all I was trying to say. And later in your last comment I think you say the same thing:
In other words, even with evidence that God exists (and that’s a whole other debate), belief in him still requires faith. That’s all I was trying to say.
But to respond to your last post, my intention was not at all to get a bunch of Christians to post and say, “Yeah, I have doubts too.” That’s fine. But I really meant what I said in the question: do you think faith is nonsense? I answered that I do NOT think it’s nonsense. But I’m certainly not going to bash folks for saying that the DO think it’s nonsense! I completely respect your position. And I think you started a good discussion, Ben. Anyway, I’m going to shut up now. If you notice the link to the podcast from Erwin McManus at the end of my post, he does a MUCH better job in answering the question — Is Faith Nonsense? — than I did.
I’d forgotten the question.
Not really. There are loads of things that I can’t explain.
Experienced? No. Conceptually, yes. To clarify this so I don’t sound like an arrogant pig I would say that I have never had a personal experience that could not be explained logically or scientifically.
Great discussion all.
Has anyone taken a vote on ‘Is Faith nonsense’? - I’m just curious as to what may be the consensus on the original Q here.
It never ceases to amaze me the way some people can make a God out of Reason and Logic and divulge ALL their Faith in it.
I know it’s a tad off track but who amongst us here can reasonably and logically prove their own existance?
Specifically, who can provide a clear rationale for a collection of inanimate atoms forming their own consciousness??
What evidence is there for the original creative ’spark’ of life that resulted in the random chemical elements of protosoic Earth transforming into the miasma of life we know today?
Exactly what started Life on this planet Off??
Show me the evidence by pointing to the scientist who has created life from scratch!
Reason and logic only now please.
Dont just take things on ‘faith’.
We all have faith in something - we can’t live without it.:-?
Oh - by the way someone put me down for a tick in the ‘No!’ column please
Speak for yourself only, please. Some of us live just fine without it - at least the faith described in the opening posting.
Ben, true… but he didn’t say we all have faith in “God” he said in “something”…so no worries here, it’s ok.
Quite right Tam!
I’l say it again… ALL humans have faith in Something! Some try to justify it by resorting to a denial of anything they cannot define with reason and logic and pretend that even though they (nor anyone else) can adequately explain a thing fully using those two tools alone, that someone someday will, so their world does not fall apart and they can continue pretending that they have no Faith at all.
Some, while accepting reason and logic are valuable tools, also recognise the benefits a strong Faith can add to their lives.
Denying something exists might mean it doesn’t exist to the denier but that is a long way from proving that it doesn’t exist in a real, Human, world.
Anyone going to take up my ‘where does Life originate from’ using reason/logic and not Faith as sole justification challenge?:d
OOPS! Pardon me - i meant explain ‘every’ thing not explain ‘a’ thing in the above comment.:”>
I am not ’sure of what I hope for and certain of what I do not see’ about anything.
If I hope the Cowboys beat the Patriots today, I do not become sure of it and bet our bank account to make easy money.
If I don’t see a book in front of me, I don’t become certain there is a book in front of me.
No one knows how life originated on Earth. Therefore, my belief about how life originated on Earth is “I don’t know.’ Very simple, using evidence and reason, and no faith.
Ben, that is sooooo sad….
The Patriots are totally gonna kick butt!:*
Ben, do you realise how poor those ‘arguements’ are logically in proving your ‘belief’? (that you have no Faith as meets that def’n already given?)
While meeting a strict definition of logicality, in that they don’t actually say anything that is ILlogical, they far from prove the point you are so desperately trying and failing to make.
You use a particularly weak form of ‘hope’. the hope a TRUE christian has in Jesus Christ is infinitely greater to them than your hope for the Cowboys is for you.
If you don’t see a book in front of you you are certain that it is not there - even if it is! - and you just can’t see it. There are many examples of people doing this in many areas. They won’t see it till they believe it, and vice versa.
You are sure you hope don’t have this thing we call Faith and you are certain of what you cannot see (your Faith).
Please get out of the blinkers about a kindly old gentleman who wipes out all but a few humans in a biblical deluge. I am talking about HUMAN Faith not what some ’see’ as God here.
You have a bank account so clearly you hope that the bank will remain solvent, at least as long as it takes to get your moneey out of it. You are as certain as you want to be about the banks continued solvency even though you cannot see it at all.
Ditto for the sun rising tomorrow (you hope (to God :-)) it does (or most of us do, most days, at least) - you are sure of what you HOPE will happen (based upon past experience and a trifle of ’scientific evidence’/historical ‘evidence’) and you are so certain it will even though the future is impossible to see for anyone of us, that you keep your savings in the bank and don’t speand it all living it up today which just may be the last day of your life!
You have Faith Ben - we all do - we are human! Denying it is just being blind.
What we put that Faith IN is a matter for more discussion… although i am willing to bet you don’t put yours in everything ‘Science’.
If, as you say no-one knows where life came from on this planet, then it seems to me there is a little more room for a belief in God that you seem to adopt in your own life?
What you put into your belief about that little three letter word is entirely up to you - you don’t actually have to follow what someone else thinks or tells you about it. We have a brain and a heart for a reason - it is up to us to use them both for the purpose they were intended.
Love, Bob:x
Ben, I didn’t have “faith” that NE would kick booty…I “knew” it…aahhhh=d>
lovewillbringustogether==> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
There is a difference in having faith that something proven to be reliable (the sun rising, my bank remaining solvent for another day, etc) and faith in something that is not evident.
Before anyone of faith jumps up and down and tells me that the works of their particular god are evident I’d like to point out that the sun appears to rise for everyone on the planet at a pretty regular interval (even if that varies depending on where you are) and that your bank (if you have one) has probably been looking after your money pretty well. These things are evident, they are measurable and survive proof of testing. Nothing about the supernatural does this. In fact proof of testing is one thing that the supernatural cannot survive. To do so consigns it to the natural and strips it of its mysticism. I have faith in the natural but not in the supernatural. I wish that faith and Faith were actually different words. It’d make this whole debate much easier to understand.
Isn’t that what Nathan was really asking? Put me down for a “Yes” in the “Is faith nonsense?” poll.
I don’t “hope” that the sun will come up tomorrow, I assume it will because it came up today. I don’t waste my time hoping for a thousand mundane things. I assume the drivers on the road will stay in the correct lane and not smash into me head on. If you call this having “faith” other drivers will follow traffic laws you can call it faith, but to me this takes all real meaning away from the word.
Quote where I said something along these lines, please. Because I didn’t. If I don’t see it, I have no good reason to think it is there. If I don’t see it and am in a position to see it if it were there, then I have good reason to think it isn’t there. Since I’ve never come across an invisible book…
Yeah, I’m the one who is desperate. First of all, my belief that my bank is likely to remain solvent is not based on my hope that it will do so. It is based on the observed evidence of most U.S. banks remaining solvent. Also, you seem to be unaware of FDIC insurance.
Make up your mind. Are you claiming I am sure the sun will rise tomorrow because I hope it does ? Because in the next sentence you are claiming I believe the sun will rise tomorrow because of the evidence of all of the past risings and the understanding of laws of nature derived from those observations.
I do not use faith as described in the OP. My belief that my money in the bank is safe is based on the bank’s track record and FDIC insurance, not my hope that it will be so. My belief that the sun will rise in the morning is based on my understanding of orbits and revolutions, not the hope that it will be so.
Stop trying to tell me about myself if you don’t wish the favor returned.
What ? That doesn’t make any sense at all. An answer of ‘I don’t know’ means that if you make up stuff as an answer, those answers acquire some plausibility ?
If no-one knows whether life existed on Mars, there is a little more room for a belief in Marvin the Martian ?
Very interesting article Hover. It was very informative, but i fail to see the point you seem to be implying it makes?
Is it that man’s knowledge is ever increasing? (a given).
Is it that man can modify life and use existing life to vary the total number of species? We know this to be true for hundreds of years or more through selective breeding programs and simple genetics already?
Is it that man can make chemicals in the laboratory and use them to synthesise DNA, which we have known for some 50 years is merely a long chain of four simple molecules (amino acids) in sequences of up to millions of pairs, up to 95% or more of which seems to be basically just ‘useless filling’ as far as life is concerned (at least as we currently understand the ‘theory’ anyway). Nature does this on her own without any help from man?
Or did you just google ‘life’ and ‘chemicals’ and ‘man-made’ and focussed on the man-made part to somehow argue that science will one day copy what nature has done all on her own without any visible or invisible means of support?? And that this somehow counters my argument that atheists have Faith in Science, or something like it?
Frankly, you’d have to draw a very long, shaky bow to use this atricle to justify that man currently knows where life originates from and that therefore man ( any man) does not currently have the Faith we are discussing, but actual certain knowledge as far as their own life is concerned.
WHICH I POINT OUT AGAIN - is NOT Faith in God but Faith in SOMETHING! Something you are quite simply hoping for(some can use the synonym ‘assume’ if it makes you feel any better), that you are sure of what it is you are hoping for and that you place some, if not absolute, certainty in even if you cant actually SEE it.
Marvin the Martian isn’t real?
As far as I understand the word “faith” it means “Acceptance of ideals, beliefs, etc., which are not necessarily demonstrable through experimentation or reason.” I fail to see how belief without evidence can be applied to a skeptic like me. Of course we probably have different definitions of faith.
This is the closest I can get to the whole ‘faith’ thing. When I see something like the bridge collapse in Minnesota, I believe that if I were in one of those cars, I would find a way to save my daughters and myself. I don’t know how, but I believe I would find a way. Is it really what I believe or more of a sports-psychology self-confidence thing ? Definitely the latter. I can hypothesize how I would answer if someone offered me $100 million to risk it - I would refuse the offer, because my true estimate of our chances isn’t very high. At the same time, though, a part of me really believes I would find a way to live.
HappyNat.
I am not, nor would i ever, equate the Faith I am postulating (stating actually) that we ALL have, to a mere ‘hope’ (or assumption if you prefer the term).
Driving may require a certain level of hope and faith in the skills and sobriety of other road users (road death tolls evidence to the contrary), otherwise we would never get behind the wheel of our cars or let our loved ones on the roads, but i agree with you and Hover - this is a trifling kind of faith to the one I am stating exists and so is not ‘nonsense’, on the grounds that it is something we all do and it would be nonsense to suggest something we all do is nonsense or that means humans are all non-sensical
(you would not have as hard a time convincing me of this as you have with your current arguement!:-) )
What i am trying to make clear (with difficulty apparently) is that as humans we hold Hope in some things (for which we have no hard ‘proof’, merely at best ‘circumstantial’ evidence). That under a strict literal interpretation we are ’sure’ of what it is we are hoping for/about, even if we don’t ever spend much thime thinking about it and vocalising it to anyone or ourselves, rather we just ‘accept’ it. In that the thing we Hope doesn’t jump from point to point on a regular or frequent basis (miracles can happen in our minds sometimes and we may change our ingrained behaviour/Hope, possibly on the basis of new, clear, better logic - or just on blind Faith - each to their own) and that, as per the agreed definition, we are quite certain, in and of ourselves, of something which our eyes are incapable of actually SEEing.
(E.g the future, in just one instance)
And before you start I am NOT claiming anyone is stating they are certain to any provable degree about the future - ok?
I just mean many take it as ‘certain’ that they will Have one. Hopefully, for more than one day anyway. But they cannot actually see that they ‘have’ it in any way possible - in any way that is ‘real’.
Ben,
you said this: ‘If I don’t see a book in front of me, I don’t become certain there is a book in front of me.’ (how do i get those pretty blue boxes around quotes? anyone?). That was not what i was saying.
I am sure that if you don’t SEE a book in front of you, or your car keys, or the assignment/project you need to hand in today or it’s your Fail/job, that you become certain ( because you BELIEVE the evidence of your own eyes) that it is not there. I have never seen an invisible book either!
I did not say what i thought your belief in your bank was based on, i just believe you Hope it won’t go insolvent like any normal investor would do. You have that much Faith in the FDIC huh?
As i have stated in previous post i am not stating that because you Hope something happens I am stating you are sure (perhaps ‘clear on’ is a better way of saying it?) of the ‘Hope’ in your own mind - the Hope does not ‘waiver’. you CAN doubt, but Faith is used to that - trust me.
Now you switch to belief. I accept that the Faith I am mentioning here is not limited to that the OP’er assigns to himself. I never stated it was - just that ALL humans have A Faith - in something.
Your final point really throws logic out of the window. An Answer of ‘i don’t know’ is just that - you don’t know one way or the other ( hence there is room for an alternate ‘explanation’ since you don’t have ANY proof, sufficient to give you certainty.
I was arguing that NO-ONE knows (where your very own LIFE came from) should leave more room for doubt about the existance of God in some form than you seem presently willing to adopt! - Ok?
Hover,
You are seriously saying that you believe ONLY in the things for which you have the actual evidence???
I do not claim that you believe in Santy Claus or the tooth fairy or mythology or religion or the theory of evolution or your own existence or the existance of your own consciousness separate to your physical body, but i should be very interested in how much faith you put into the evidence supplied you by your own human senses and how you or anyone would go about ‘proving’ such evidence to another?
Soomer or later it comes down to pure Faith AND belief in SOMEthing.:)
#%@$@$ reading this made me angry enough I almost threw some stuff here. I cannot read your mind. You can’t just say ‘everyone has faith’ in a conversation where we already have an understanding of the word being used without giving your understanding. Stop being a pedophile*. Define your term, please.
When any atheist claims omniscience, you would have a point. Until then, I am quite happy with giving God, the Great Keno Machine, the Great Pumpkin, and Superman equal weightings as ‘alternative explanations’ that I can’t disprove. Clearly, anyone who disputes that Superman is responsible for the Pioneer anomaly is being closed-minded. We don’t have telescopes continually observing them from all angles.
*For the purposes of this post, a pedophile is one who redefines words without informing the others involved of the new definition.
I accept things that are demonstrable by experimentation or reason. A pedantic example is the chair again. I have sat on a chair in the past so it is reasonable to assume that any other chair of similar appearance will hold my butt off the ground. This is reason and logic rather than faith.
I can reason through the theory of evolution and it makes more logical sense than a creationist argument.
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are real. How else do you explain presents at Christmas or teeth being replaced by money? :d
I suppose if you look hard enough there might be something that I believe in without recourse to evidence or logic but I can’t think of anything.
@ lovewillbringustogether
I think we have gotten lost in semantics here. Perhaps how things are defined is certainly a part of the problem. You can use the same word to mean fundamentally 2 different things (at least in how I define it).
or
Same word but really 2 different meanings. The former is based on logic, reason, past experience, independently testable; the latter is based on faith (not based on reason, logic, human experience, or independently testable).
So when you tell Ben that it doesn’t really matter what his belief in the solvency of the U.S. (I assume) banking system is based on then you are fundamentally dismissing the basis on which you can understand the meaning of his usage of the word belief.
I think you may be trying to broaden the definition of Faith (and even Hope) to the point that it becomes almost meaningless.
Yes.
Then after I accepted the Lord as Lord I found something to hope in and for. Something to trust. Something worth having faith in.
One definition of faith I found (that had nothing to do with God) was…
confidence or trust in a person or thing
Before God - I did not have that kind of faith in anything.
So back to your original question…Yes, there was a time when I believed faith was non-sense. But the faith I hold today is not non-sense. It’s bold. It’s courageous. It is lived out every day in my life as i trust and have confidence in the God I follow…this is my faith.:)>-
My Ben, quite a temper….if you give God could help you with that you know…….:d
Anyway,Tam explained it beautifully…and all I can say is ditto.
I meant to say, if you gave God a chance…he could help you with that….:d
Gee Guys and Gals ( although it seems the gals don’t have quite the same difficulty here) can we all please FO - CUS!
I have NEVER nor do i intend or wish to confused the issue from what was originally posted - OK?
I cannot be held responsible for your own personal misinterpretations! The kind of logic and reason so many ‘depend’ upon really sucks. Can i say it once again so we come closer to general agreement on the term?
Faith - being ’sure’ - of what you Hope for. AND CERTAIN - of what you cannot ’see’.
Nathan clearly stated His Faith was in ‘God’ as he ’sees’ the term.
I, on the other hand, stated that ALL Humans have a similar level of Faith (as meets the given definition) - In Something! Science, religion, your own intelligence that nothing is actually ‘real’, your own sensory system - something!
Was that clear enough for you to actually think about First before rejecting so violently???
Hover, LOOK DEEPER! I am confident you will find ‘it’ if you go far enough ‘back’ in your thinking/ratioanle.
Dear Ben, I apologise if my words confuse you they are not chosen to. As above I have stayed constant throughout of my ( the) definition of Faith. Some here have tried to minimise and trivialise the definitions of faith and hope into mere fantasies instead of things that over 50% of the worlds 6.3 billion living humans understand by those terms. that has never been my intent here.
to give you hopefully another way to look at what i am saying that might have some appeal to your logical and reasoning abilities…
Science depends upon a number of basic Assumptions that it is necessary for ALL to agree upon for knowledge and understanding to be valid for all of us.
Many of these assumptions may not have any currently viably ‘provable’ contradictions, however there is little hard proof for any of them - we take them mainly ‘on Faith’
Do i have to explain more or do you want to follow up the thread for yourself and see where i came from?
Yep! I was once an Atheist thanks to Dear Old Dad and my own desire for scientific knowledge as a kid.
Skep - could you possibly show me where i told Ben it really doesn’t matter what he believes about anything, let alone the banking system? (to Him or anyone else?)
I actually think it matters a great deal to him what he believes. It can even determine what he recalls actualy ’seeing’.
Ditto for you and me.
I could get into a semantic discussion over belief vs Faith vs faith vs Belief.. but i’d rather not right now, thanks
Peace all.
LWBUT, you could go off on a whole other tangient here and delve into the philosophy of what is ‘real’. OK I have faith that my eyes convert images of light into messages to my brain whcih interprets them to give me spacial awareness of my surroundings. Could these be fooled? Absolutely. How do I know I’m not being fooled? I don’t.
However, that kind of faith is radically different from the kind of faith that is required to believe in a god.
Being ’sure’ of what you hope for it only reasonable if your hopes are realistic. I’m unsure how you can be certain (with extra emphasis) on anything that you cannot see….assuming ’see’ refers all the senses as well as reason and logic? :d
You are wrong. Many of us do not use this version of faith whatsoever, including me.
hey, i’m back!
LWBUT - in the interests of fair’s fair, Tam said this -
by your definition, you’ve just implied she’s lying - now that doesn’t seem right to me!
another interesting issue this raises by itself is that if
then surely you’ve just relegated ALL faith to being a necessary part of the human condition, and thereby implying;
1) belief in a god has nothing to do with a gods truth of existence or not, rather that a belief in such regardless of truth is an expression of human nature.
and
2)if all faith can be regarded as having a similar nature, it matters not a jot whether you put that faith in a god, science or gremlins - i.e. faith in a god is as meaningless or perfunctory as faith in anything else.
Yeaah, Right Ben - Whatever 8-|
@InWorship - hi if you’re still out there *waves* - hope your work load has got a little less crazy.
ages ago, i had to leave mid-convo…let me know if you wanna pick it up again (and where?!) :d
Sounds like this whole thing has gotten way away from it’s original intent. Ben you will never be able to convince me that you have no faith in something….that is rediculous. You have faith that when you push Submit Comment, it will post on this blog. Faith is the action behind the belief.
GG, that doesn’t always work though. I’ve lost whole posts before.
Lack of faith Hov, lack of faith…;))
You’re only commenting now because I was in the lead on Top Talkers. I’m stopping in a few minutes too as I’ve got stacks of work to do before I go home. :((
Actually, I hadn’t looked, but thank you for pointing that out…..:d
ash - I’ve been busy but lurking. I enjoy the conversation here and totally agree with a few, so they are speaking well for me.
I had forgotten about that, but would be happy to continue the discussion. You’ll have to remind me which post it was in though, maybe we could continue it that post so as not to disturb or “confuse things here
Also, I noticed in my “down” time that my name has fallen far down on the “list”.
So this comment is purely for self gratification
This one too…
Sorry, I’m done now :d
inWorship - given that i’m too lazy to go back and find that particular convo right now, and that i have ‘faith’ (!) that the same issues will always come back up if they’re important, it’ll leave. thought i should say summat lest you thought me rude tho…:)>-
ash - That’s cool. We will speak again…
That sounded very Star Trek
@GG
From my understanding of how computers work, I believe that when I hit ’submit’ the data will go to this website (or be lost in internet traffic) where it will either be displayed or be tied up in moderation or get lost along the way or whatever. What is so hard about this ? It is not based on what I hope or what I don’t see, it is based on what I have seen and know.
I’ll repeat what I said in the first response to this blog posting: “I swear, reading things like this, it’s like I’m a different species.”
I do not utilize faith in my beliefs.
Unless there are any questions i have said all i needed to on this topic/post so this will be my last?
Ben - you HAVE the information - what you DO with it is purely up to YOU.
That invisible book in front of you - the one you cannot (refuse to) ’see’?
To see it and gain the knowledge and wisdom it contains for yourself you just need to open your eyes a little wider.:o… oh, and maybe your ‘world view’/self image/mind… etc, etc.
Or you can stay locked in where you are right now - it’s all up to you and your choice.
If you don’t want to - fine!
If you want to and don’t know how - there is help all about you - just Ask!
Off to the next post i goooo.
Up! - UP!- And AWAYYYYYY!
I’ll stick to a picture of reality obtained without hallucinogenics, thank you. You should try it some time - it’s really not scary nor meaningless.
Well there’s the problem Ben, you’ve been trying to find God while on hallucinogenics.
I figured the hallucinogenics would let me believe in an invisible book on my desk. I really can’t imagine how much mind-altering would be required to get me to find God.
It is actually heart altering…of course science would confirm that the heart is actually the mind
The Bible actually does imply that we should be drunk in God’s Spirit. So I guess you could try that.
Wait! how did this get onto drink and drugs? That’s just like me, late for the best parties. Someone will be having sex in the bathroom next. Tsk!