I accept Jesus existed.
I have decided that it is far simpler to accept that the man, Jesus, existed. I won’t ever bother arguing with any Christian apologist that Jesus did not exist ever again. Do you hear that Christians? I accept that Jesus was a historical person.
In accepting this I do nothing but move myself away from a currently controversial (in historical academia) view that Jesus is a complete myth. They can no longer call me a Christ-myther and compare me to holocaust deniers (a very very illogical comparison).
Now with all of that argument out of the way, I can move onto a more simple argument where the Christian apologists have absolutely no leg to stand on. The whole point that Jesus was nothing but an ordinary man, who tricked people into believing he was a man-deity.
I accept, against my critical thinking, that Jesus existed. I in no way at all accept any of the ridiculous stories about him. I don’t accept that he healed people miraculously, walked on water, turned water to wine, created large amounts of food from a small amount of food, cursed a fig tree, or was raised from the dead. These are all completely moronic things to believe and I would be completely giving up on my critical thinking to accept that he did any of these things.
The man Jesus performed zero miracles in his lifetime. He was a plain man who managed to make himself exceptionally famous. That is it. Even in accepting that Jesus was a historical figure I can still point out that Christianity, like every other religion, is complete nonsense. This is simply because of the above. None of those acts performed by Jesus are historically accurate and to argue that they are just makes you completely fucking deluded.
Admitting that Jesus was an historical person makes no changes to my life or belief. A Christian admitting that the above acts performed by Jesus are false makes them no longer a Christian. If they admit that Jesus did not rise from the dead, then the whole point of that religious story is destroyed. That is why they can’t do it. The reason I can’t accept those miracles is because they are outright irrational.
I see we are poles apart (you in Australia, me in UK)….
Is a miracle irrational? What rational reason do we have to suppose they don’t happen? Only if we have faith that we are living in a self-creating universe that chooses to behave according to certain laws and cannot behave outside those laws. But that’s not rationality but simple belief, just the same as someone else will believe that there is a mind behind the universe, a mind that wrote those laws that we are now discovering….
Yes, a miracle is irrational. The reason it is irrational is because there is no evidence for miracles ever occurring. The evidence suggests that the chance of things happening outside the laws of physics is non-existent.
The only way any of the things Jesus did could have been possible were if he was not of this planet and had technology well in advance of what we even have now.
You can argue until you are blue in the face that miracles can occur but the evidence is contrary to that. You can get all philosophical and talk about metaphysics and crap but it doesn’t change the fact that those things are complete nonsense.
If you think about it, over history many things have happened outside of the laws of physics, but then the laws of physics change. We used to think Newton’s theory of gravity was right until Einstein came up with relativity. The laws we develop are our models of reality – they don’t define reality.
But you are right, for him to have done the miracles he would have to have ‘technology’ well in advance of ours. Perhaps the same technology that he used to create the universe?
A miracle is clearly something that happens rarely and is by definition not repeatable. Science is the study of the repeatable, and so scientific evidence by definition cannot detect a miracle. It’s like saying that something that only happens once in the history of the universe can’t happen because we never see it happening.
If you had the choice, would you like to be able to believe in miracles, or would you prefer not to?
I would like to be able to believe in lots of things. Just become something seems nice does not mean I should believe in it because of that. That would make me deluded.
See the comment below in regards to your misunderstanding of Newton’s theories versus Einstein.
the laws of physics don’t change, our theories of the universe change. Newtons laws aren’t WRONG, they are just slightly off when it comes to large scale over long distance, like galaxies. The difference between Newtons laws and Einsteins laws is minute, not a change in the laws of physics. The laws of physics and logic do not change.
I think that the most likely thing is that Jesus was a good magician… We see now of people like David Copperfield making Jumbo jets and the statue of Liberty disappear. If Jesus existed, and he actually performed those ‘miracles’, then Occam’s razor should suggest that Jesus is most likely to have just performed a magic trick.
Miracles are testable by science, even if they are one-off. If it has been measured, then it is testable. The definition of a ‘miracle’ is an event which is not explainable by physics. If we take any of the so-called ‘miracles’ of the bible or the universe, feeding of 5000, creating the universe, creating biological life, parting the water, calming the storm, healing the leper, they are all explainable by science, slight-of-hand, quantum fluctuations, the right chemical combination, mirage or hallucination, lucky… they are all explanations of miracles. IF Jesus existed, and IF he performed any of those so-called ‘miracles’, it is infinitely more likely that it is slight-of-hand or delusion, than it is a miracle.
Miracles are testable by science… if they have been reputably observed (by more than one book written 1700 years ago), and they are not explainable by any form of science, then they can be deemed a miracle… but absolutely no case has stood up to the criteria yet… what does that suggest?
We certainly make the assumption that the universe behaves in an orderly way, and then we develop theories to model and predict that behaviour. My point is that we cannot claim that something cannot happen because our current mathematical formulation, developed to match the measured data, does not predict it – it may just be that our formulation is not correct (e.g. the revolutionary change in physics in the 1920′s when quantum physics was discovered).
It is also, as you suggest, quite possible for miracles to occur which are explainable and consistent with our understanding of how the universe works – with physics. There is an example where Jesus tells one of his disciples to catch a fish and that he will then find a gold coin in its mouth – with which to pay their tax. fully consistent with science, but we all know that there was some sort of ‘fix’ about it… Nevertheless, it does seem that there are incidents that have happened over history that have passes tests of being deemed a miracle – but of course each of us has different criteria for deciding whether a test is conclusive or not. For example, I find the opening chapters in the book ‘The Heavenly Man’ quite challenging in this respect. If I assume that the author is not a downright liar (and I have no reason to suppose he is) then he describes events that are rather hard to explain scientifically. I won’t go further, but it’s worth the time to check it out.
But suppose we accept for a moment that all the miracles are tricks and conjuring. Where does that lead us? I would immediately ask about motive – why did Jesus bother? Clearly David Copperfield has reasons of fame and fortune – a more comfortable life. But those motives don’t seem consistent with his actions. I’m sure he did miracles to get people’s attention, to cause them to listen to what he had to say. So we could simply do the same today, have a read of what he says. He also did miracles that healed people, physically and emotionally – seems to suggest he cared, and had the power to heal (whether by trickery, hypnosis or ‘spiritual’ power doesn’t really matter).
He clearly knew where his miracles and teaching would lead – getting up the noses of the religious establishment and the Romans – yet he carried on. Is it really likely that he’d have done all that just to carry out a few tricks? Occam’s razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is that he was who he said he was and did what he said he did. It is not reason that leads us to doubt, but emotional difficulty in accepting that there might be a God, which comes from the secular worldview that we are fed with every day.
‘Reason’ is perfectly consistent with there being a creator God, and with Jesus doing and saying what he is reported to have done and said. Reason gives us permission to believe if we want to.
Reason may be consistent with there being a creator God, but when you add evidence to the mix, the consistency is gone.
All you are doing here is stating the obvious. Of course we can’t claim that something can not happen. This is just common sense. It is impossible to prove that something does not exist. I’m just not going to accept that miracles exist simply because I might be wrong. That would be daft and goes against reason and/+ evidence.
No, there is no different criteria for whether something is conclusive or not. There is a scientific method for finding something to be conclusive or not. Of all the claimed miracles none would be conclusively proven to have occurred because they can’t be. Using special pleading and saying everyone has different criteria is not going to get you anywhere.
Why does anyone bother to do anything? In no way while using Occam’s razor would you come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation is that he was and did what he said. That is completely illogical. There are much much simpler explanations than that.
No, it’s not reason that leads me to doubt. It is using reason AND evidence that leads me to ignore exceptional claims that have no evidence to support them. There is no emotional difficulty in accepting there might be a god, there is simply no need to even think about gods existing in the first place.
I don’t have emotional difficulty in accepting that there might be leprechauns. I just don’t think about that.
We’re probably not going to get much further on a blog discussion, and we seem to have reached a stage of straightforward disagreement about what is and isn’t evidence or logic.
But I’d recommend looking at the fairly contemporary ‘evidence’ of The Heavenly Man (it’s a book about the start of the Chinese church in communist China). You may decide that its lies and delusion, but at most you’ll have lost a couple of hours of reading time.
I’d also recommend ‘The Science Delusion’ by Sheldrake. It is not a religious book, and I don’t say that I agree with all he writes, but he does reference a lot of sources of evidence for things that we would normally rule out as non-scientific.
All the best
Phil
Yes, I know who Sheldrake is and no I don’t find him convincing in anyway because he makes lots of unfalsifiable claims.
I might read ‘The Heavenly Man’ book but not sure if I feel it’s worth my time. I don’t see how it could contain anything that you would call evidence beyond anecdotal. Even in that case it will be highly unbelievable anecdotal evidence.
I will finish with quotes from Christopher Hitchens, “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.” and Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
“We’re probably not going to get much further on a blog discussion…”
There’s a great podcast out of Austin, Texas called, “The Atheist Experience,” in which people, mostly theists, call in to debate with the several atheist hosts. Occasionally, people call in to thank the hosts, because they were able to escape theism by listening to the debates. I doubt that anyone, in the long history of theist-atheist debating, has ever budged a millimeter among the participants, but the effect on bystanders can be significant.
Keep up the good work.
” I doubt that anyone, in the long history of theist-atheist debating, has ever budged a millimeter among the participants, but the effect on bystanders can be significant.”
Good point!
I suspect that some who ‘escape theism’ are rather escaping the judgemental and legalistic attitudes of some religious ‘enthusiasts’. It’s a pity though to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I say that as one who began as an atheist but moved the other way…
Everyone begins as an atheist.
Can you tell me why you chose to become religious? This is something that is very interesting. Much more interesting than people who are religious simply because of their parents, which is the majority.
Thank you for asking. I’m not sure I call myself ‘religious’ because I think religion is man made, but I do call myself Christian. Anyway, here’s a brief(ish) summary.
When I was a child, I wasn’t taught about God. I did have RE (religious education), which told me lots of incredible (i.e. not credible) stories. These strengthened my slowly developing idea that religion was just a crutch that simple people needed in difficult circumstances; a delusion to help them cope. I knew that science had disproved God, and that the idea of worshiping something supernatural was outdated. At about the age of 14, I and some friends decided to ‘worship’ the ‘Lord High Tiggywinkle’ who lived in the fire extinguisher outside our classroom. Every time we passed we would say ‘ Hail to Lord High Tiggywinkle’. I only passed my RE O-level by skiving off school the day before and reading the gospels to cram with the stories. I was so confident that all religion was rubbish that I stopped entering into serious discussion with Christians, I knew that I could disprove their ideas but since they must need the emotional crutch I didn’t want to take that away from them. So for over twenty years I never had a serious discussion about God, my life was generally fine and comfortable and I had no need or desire to find out about God.
There was a very difficult time when my father was dying of prostate cancer, and when my wife and I lost our first child – died at birth. I wept, but dealt with it myself – and with the help of my wife. I didn’t have or know any God to help me. I didn’t miss him.
How did I come to change my mind?
Some years later I made the mistake of joining in a discussion around our kitchen table about why people weren’t attracted to church, and started to explain why not. They listened, but my open-mindedness was challenged. I was challenged to wonder why otherwise sane people seemed happy to believe in a God, and to explore whether there was actually any sense behind this Christianity business. And to do that properly I had to at least accept that there was a possibility that it might be correct, rather than just trying to pick holes in it.
I had to admit that I didn’t really know what Christianity was, I’d only seen the cringy outside view – the street preacher telling me I was going to hell – the ‘songs of praise’ slot – the open sandals and tambourines. So I started as best I could to find out if there was anything behind the awful image, and the friend from the discussion leant me a book, ‘Beyond Belief’ which gave me an introduction to Christianity. I thought that I’d start to write the counter argument, and that began a process of reading and analysing different books, really thinking about what my outlook on life was, and writing a ‘real time’ journal of my investigations.
I think it’s fair to say that the guy Jesus touched my heart. Someone who goes to the trouble of allowing himself to be nailed to a cross at least deserves a hearing, and I found that he came across as a pretty decent chap. I began to wonder why today everyone seemed to dislike him. Perhaps it was as Ghandi said “I like your Christ, I don’t like your Christians”. So there began an attraction to Jesus, but I needed to know whether there was any factual basis too. I was surprised to find that there was a lot of archaeological evidence for what was written in the bible, and I came across a reasonable sounding scientific explanation for the plagues of Egypt. I found it impossible to doubt that Jesus tomb was empty a few days after he was crucified, and it seemed clear that neither side could have taken the body – it just didn’t match their behaviour or subsequent events. I came from a background of ‘miracles don’t happen’ and so this was quite a challenge. But I began to realise that if God created everything then he could do what he liked – like a computer programmer who planted an ‘easter egg’ in Excel for instance.
Eventually in my journal I asked myself the question “so what have I decided” – time to get off the fence – I wrote that I would ‘give God a chance’. And at that moment it seemed like a great weight had lifted off me, and I felt an overwhelming experience of ‘coming home’.
For forty years I had built a consistent worldview from the atheist/agnostic side of the fence, and since 2001 I have built a consistent worldview from the Christian side of the fence. I can see that both are ‘intellectually’ possible and consistent, but at the end of the day my heart knows and my mind sees that there is a creator, and that Jesus is central. I enter the arena of science and religion, god or atheism, not to win arguments, but because I long for others to be able to have the same experience that I’ve had.
Best wishes
Phil
God can’t do whatever she likes. Can God create an object she can’t lift?
Anyway, thanks for the explanation. I can’t seem to scratch the feeling that you are being dishonest, though.
Of course, you are right re gender and ‘omnipotence’.
Intriguing re your feeling. Why would I want to lie? (Why would Jesus want to lie for that matter)
Pity we can’t get together to understand each other more, but it’s a long way…
I have from time to time come across people who claim to have gone from atheist to theist, and yours is the most detailed explanation so far. Thank you.
However, I don’t believe you were ever atheist. The proliferation of religious concepts in place and waiting for ritual in your supposedly secular thinking is telling.
No, the heart cannot think. It’s a pump. If you were raised to approach your right brain as ‘other,’ then you had been set up for failure as a secularist. The sooner you forgive your parents, the better for you.
No, there is no fence; secular morality is the only kind anyone has ever had. Not one idea in the Bible is original. “Eye for an Eye,” for instance, was swiped from Hammurabi.
No, ‘everyone’ doesn’t ‘dislike’ Jesus; dislike is not the only alternative to adoration (as Simplexion explains above). Dichotomizing is a religious function, and you can learn not to use it.
No, I’m atheist and I have no weight on my shoulders to be lifted. Indeed, the whole idea of a weight implies a gravity which, once again, you seem to have acquired from your parents.
No, openmindedness isn’t necessarily a virtue. It more or less got the Jews onto the trains. Some of them.
I’m very glad you’re ‘home,’ but no, I don’t believe you ever left.
There is intriguing evidence that some people who’ve had heart transplants begin to take on characteristics of the donor. I have not researched but I think there was mention of cells similar to the brain in the heart. But you know what’s meant I think
And often people assume religion has come from parents, but it was never discussed and my parents were not churchgoers.
It’s fascinating to hear that you don’t believe I was an atheist on the basis of a very short conversation via the typed word. I wonder if that’s because to believe otherwise would go against your own beliefs/feelings, applying your own outlook and trying to empathise with the words I wrote. I guess we all do that though, which is why fiction sells…
But it’s interesting that I ‘know’, and you ‘believe’ something different – I wonder who is right? I rather think that I am, being in possession of somewhat more evidence on the topic of ‘me’…
My claim is an unusual one, so I probably should be writing a book, not torturing Christians online.
Basically, I’m claiming that religion has components and that when a person claims to have gone from atheist to theist, those religious components were actually already in use by them when they were supposedly atheist.
I listed five above, but you haven’t responded.
Since your use of these supposed components is documented by you in this thread, my familiarity with you and/or your parents is, of course, unnecessary.
The real point of contention for you is whether these are, as I propose, components of religion. If you’re planning to contest that, now’s the time…
How could you possibly know that. Do you have some kind of time machine?
Because miracles do not happen. I do not need to travel back in time to know that. I can happily accept that Jesus, the man, existed. To accept miracles, like what he was supposed to have performed occurred, would be a failure of critical thought.
How do you know miracles do not happen, that is a statement of fact, but I can’t find a single peer reviewed paper that has demonstrated that miracles don’t happen, that is simply an assumption. That it would be a failure of critical thought to accept them is merely an assertion.
I shouldn’t even be answering this.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that something does not exist. The problem with the miracles Jesus performed is that the go against nature. They also have never been proven to occur. “Extraordinary claims require extrairdinary evidence”.
Perhaps the most famous example of proving that something does not exist (contra Simplexion’s false claim that such a thing is IMPOSSIBLE) is Fermat’s Last Theorem. After 358 years, it was finally proved in 1995 that:
There does not exist a set consisting of three positive integers {a,b,c} and an integer n>2 such that a^n+b^n=c^n.
How can you say that miracles do not happen? There are people around the world who have been shown to have cancer, on a regular basis, who suddenly without any treatment no longer have the cancerous cells in their bodies. Would that not be classified as a miracle?
Citations, please.
From Wikipedia: The assertion that you can’t prove something doesn’t exist may be a logical fallacy. Mathematicians frequently apply Proof by contradiction. This is when you assume the proposition (e.g. the negative proposition that there is no Santa Claus) is true. Then you demonstrate from that proposition either that the proposition is also false, or, alternately, that the proposition leads to some faulty conclusion. This is often trickier to perform in the real world outside of mathematics, but it’s always nominally possible. It’s one of the reasons we can pretty much make the assertion, “There Is No Santa Claus” with quite a high degree of reliability, despite it being a negative. For it to be otherwise leads to a whole host of rather unlikely conclusions about the real world.
On the contrary, Santa Claus (aka Saint Nicholas of Myra) is an historical character. So much for your “high degree of reliability”…
Ah, but you will want to make the distinction between “the Saint Nicholas of history” and “the Saint Nicholas of legend” (just like the O/P attempts to do with JC). Fair enough. But do you have the historical depth to be able to “draw the line” between history and legend for either one of those people? That’s a more interesting question…
Wow… you’re an annoying pedant
What’s the matter? We’ve only just begun to address the logic of your position and you’re already finding the temperature to be too hot?
When Einstein says that “The fact that [the Universe] is comprehensible is a miracle,” and Simplexion says “miracles are irrational,” we have a bit of a conundrum. No offense, dude, but I’m thinking I’ll go with Einstein on this one.
That is not what I mean by the term “miracle” and you know that.
So you would like to define miracles as things that don’t happen?
Well that’s convenient.
Or is it that you’d like miracles to be things that science can’t explain?
Well then “something rather than nothing” is a miracle.
Abiogenesis is a miracle.
Fine tuning is a miracle (or, if you prefer, a metaverse is a miracle).
Morality is a miracle.
Rationality is a miracle.
Communication is a miracle.
Language is a miracle.
Love is a miracle.
What exactly do you mean by “miracle” then?
Don’t be daft.
Don’t be illogical. What do you mean by “miracle”?
Same old requirement to define precisely what I mean. Get this same crap when denying the supernatural. Thanks for being annoying.
If you are really exercising “critical thought” — how about applying it to this phenomenon: the evidence that your position is an emotional rather than a rational one (“daft”, “annoying”, etc).
*multiverse
When my son was younger, I spent a lot of time in the company of parents with toddlers. One curious phenomenon I observed was parents training their little ones so that the phrase, “I don’t know,” became eventually a taboo in the child’s mind.
The child might be asked a question to which they had no answer and, being naturally honest, say so. Some parents pounced on this. Some did not. I had a mother who did not; I was allowed to say that I didn’t know, when I didn’t. The conversation could then proceed to what I did know, etc.
I’m convinced that atheism is nothing more than saying, “I don’t know,” when you don’t. Theists don’t ‘know’ that God exists, or that Jesus was divine, or that miracles happen, any more than atheists do. The only difference is that theists cannot say so.
This is, of course, why religion has special concepts associated with it, like faith and belief and miracles.
Five hundred years ago, if a farmer was asked whether the world was flat or round, his only honest answer was, “I don’t know.” This did not prevent him from farming. We don’t need to know everything. It’s really alright to have limits to our understanding.
To be comfortable or not with those limits is, unfortunately, largely a product of our childhoods. To stare into the darkness beyond a campfire and respond with wonder or with fear is always a choice, but the brain makes the one choice easier for some people.
For those of us who respond with wonder, love is not a miracle, since to qualify as a miracle it must be inexplicable. But love makes perfect sense. I was born and so of course I will die; I only exist to compensate for the entropy of my parent’s bodies. The process of reproduction includes chemical inducements like oxytocin, the experience of which we call love.
Do you think I just sucked all the poetry out of it? Not at all. It’s not like I get an oxytocin hit from just any kid, nor just any partner. I’m under no obligation to solve any problem in the most endothermic way; living exothermically is part of my birthright. Thanks to my mom.
That sort of training, by the way, is something else you can observe among parents of toddlers, that training to be cautious rather than courageous. Some of each, of course, is advisable, but there’s such a thing as too much caution, too much fear.
The challenge, of course, when you come across someone wearing a mask, is to be gentle with them. They’re no doubt doing the best they can with what they were given.
In my experience, the only people who claim to ‘know’ whether God exists or not are atheists. This blog starts with someone who ‘knows’ that miracles don’t happen.
The essence of faith is to make a decision on the balance of evidence – which includes experiential evidence. It is a very simplistic view of religion to claim that its adherents ‘know’ that God exists. In my experience they all have uncertainties and doubts, but have chosen to commit to live out their faith on the continuing basis of their evidence and integrity.
Was that gentle enough?
Gentle and usual apologist.
Phil, the ‘gentle’ reference was about how I should respond to Evey in the context of her mask. It’s not a caution about your methods (nor hers, of course) but mine.
As to faith, it’s quite literally and consistently defined in every dictionary on Earth as deciding something is true without evidence. Indeed, to say that faith is based on evidence is like saying that generosity is achieved through stinginess or curiosity through indifference or love through contempt or courage through cowardice.
Faith, like the other key concepts in religion, is ONLY defined by what it isn’t. God is only defined as not finite; miracles are only defined as inexplicable; chastity is only defined as not sexually active, etc. Religion is an entirely negative experience, and not doing those ‘nots’ is, you’re entirely correct Phil, quite simple.
Questions as to what faith IS based on, instead, should follow. (Not practicing faith myself, I can only speculate, and my best guess is that the concept is brainwashed into people. How one escapes that brainwashing, I’m sorry I don’t know, but it happens all the time. I suspect that it includes forgiving one’s parents for that sort of bullying. They were, after all, only people.)
Of course, the words ‘faith,’ ‘miracle,’ and ‘God’ do appear in dictionaries. But do these particular strings of words in there qualify as definitions? Have you defined something by telling only what it isn’t?
Definitions consist of differentiation and integration: how does the thing in question differ from things otherwise like it and how is it the same as things otherwise different.
(This explanation of defining appears in Ayn Rand’s “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology,” which I highly recommend. I also discovered many years later that she lifted many of the ideas in it from Francis Bacon’s 1620 work, “Novum Organum,” which I also highly recommend. The English is quite accessible, unlike that of Shakespeare, his contemporary.)
These religious ‘definitions’ fail that test. They’re basically placeholders for childhood trauma. (And I hope I’m responding gently.)
In any case, it’s important to keep in mind that, if there were any evidence for the existence of God or for the reality of miracles, then we wouldn’t call our relation to that information ‘faith,’ nor would the events any longer qualify as miracles. We would instead use words like fact and science. It is precisely the desire to put these ideas outside regular life that makes them religious.
And the very word ‘religion’ is, unfortunately, merely another supposed defining by saying only what something isn’t.
My gentle comment was a little tongue in cheek about removing masks, sorry about that, as it’s strange to note that U/P you are hiding behind a mask yourself.
However, I’m impressed by the unassailability of the position that you have built yourself. It seems that anything that doesn’t fit is dismissed by either simply not believing it (as in my early life as an atheist), or by setting up a straw may of faith. There are indeed many definitions of faith in dictionaries, and whilst I agree that there is a degree of ‘belief without proof’ it is a further step to claim that to be ‘belief without evidence.
I would suggest that those best able to define ‘religious’ faith are those who have and live it. Here are a few individual’s comments:
Mohandas Gandhi:
Faith… must be enforced by reason… when faith becomes blind it dies.
But for my faith in God, I should have been a raving maniac.
Unwearied ceaseless effort is the price that must be paid for turning faith into a rich infallible experience.
Anglican priest, Michael Green:
“Faith is to commit oneself to act based on sufficient experience to warrant belief, but without absolute proof. To have faith involves an act of will.”
However, Richard Dawkins an atheist with no experience of faith defines is as:
Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
The first two also hint at the joy, and ‘shalom’ of a thorough faith – although not without self discipline and some effort. Again, it is the atheist who paints a picture of faith as being a set of restrictive kill-joy rules, regulations and rituals. Faith is not trying to trap you, but release you. But it is perhaps unobtainable unless you can break four generations of atheist brainwashing…
Nevertheless, I wish you peace and wholeness.
Phil
“There are indeed many definitions of faith in dictionaries…” No, there’s only one.
“I would suggest that those best able to define ‘religious’ faith are those who have and live it.” No, we don’t leave the definition of ‘child molesting’ to child molesters.
“Faith is not trying to trap you, but release you.” From what? From an imaginary trap.
Brainwashing: 1) a claim is made, 2) it’s accepted without evidence.
The opposite of brainwashing: 1) a claim is made, 2) it’s not accepted without evidence. Atheism is the opposite of brainwashing.
Peace and wholeness are not values. I wish you curiosity and desire.
U/P says (falsely): “As to faith, it’s quite literally and consistently defined in every dictionary on Earth as deciding something is true without evidence.”
Making things up, much?
According to WordNet2.1, the word “faith” has four senses.
According to Mirriam-Webster, the word “faith” has three senses — NONE of which are “deciding something is true without evidence”. Goodness, where in the word did U/P’s non-definition come from?
The closest Mirriam-Webster comes to U/P’s made-up “definition” is this:
“firm belief in something for which there is no proof”
Please note the difference between “evidence” and “proof”.
Strangely, there is NO evidence that “belief without evidence” even exists!
This means that U/P believes in something for which there is no evidence.
By his own definition, he has faith in faith.
On the other hand, “belief without proof” is unavoidable!!
You mean that Dawkins’ definition is not in the dictionary? I’m astonished! I wonder if he’s got anything else wrong….
(sorry guys to be mischievous ;o) …… we’re all entitled to our opinions)
I had someone recently raise the issue of the origin of the universe, and he played the card involving Quantum Mechanics/Physics.
I would like to ask anyone here, this following question….not for the sake or trolling or arguing, but rather as someone genuinely interested in your opinions.
As our whole way of life revolves around Time; time being relative, is there not the possibility in another realm/realitlity not defined by time, that God does exist and that these ‘Miracles’ (however you want to describe them) where caused by this alternate realm?
Could it be possible that from this other realm/reality that God has the ability to control/manuevre events in this reality, and that Jesus could do the same?
Indeed it could be possible, and I would say likely. Part of the argument comes from examining ourselves. We are able to decide what to do, what to type, what questions to ask. That cannot happen in a deterministic universe, and so our exercising of free will is an example of something non-material (which might be in another realm) influencing something material. See my post “Can God answer prayer in a universe that operates according to the laws of physics?” for a longer answer…
A potential mechanism is at the quantum level where we can predict the behaviour of large numbers of particles, but cannot predict individual particles – there is something ‘behind’ the particle causing it to behave as it does. (What causes an individual particle in the two slits experiment to do what it does?)
Just like Jonathon, I am just truly interested for the opinion of those of you who do not believe in a creator. Does it not seem to take more faith to believe that everything in the universe just happened to work out just right to sustain life here without any help from some creator; it seems to me that the possibility of that is much worse than all of the parts of a watch being thrown into a drier and coming out as a whole, functioning watch, and I bet no one has been able to accomplish that feat. There are many more parts to our world that would have had to happen just right to sustain life, such as the relative location of the Earth to the Sun, than there are in a watch. If the Earth orbited around the Sun any faster it would be shot out away from the Sun and the resulting drop in temperature would destroy most, if not all, life on Earth. Likewise, if the Earth orbited the Sun any slower it would be pulled closer to the Sun. The resulting heat increase would once again kill most, if not all, life on Earth. If you are truly informed in the scientific aspects of Earth how can you say that it was randomly located here without admitting that you have more faith in the random, highly unlikely, odds of the Earth supporting life than individuals of any faith place in God?