Gawdawful

Except when they didn't, then that was called The Crusades or The Inquisition.


Warrenokie

factfinder

Since I'm wayyyyy too lazy to scroll through this entire thread, I apologize in advance if this has already been covered.

The assertion that 'everyone has faith in something' is true unless one is an agnostic who doesn't know what to have faith in. An atheist would have faith in the laws of nature, the Christian, Jew or Muslim; God of course, the Buddhist....errr...what is it they believe? Oh well, you get the point.

Does that make sense? or am I off base as usual?

NeoApostate

I disagree. As it has already been pointed out in this thread, science is not based off faith. One certainly puts some trust in the laws of nature, but then that trust is based on repeated evidence.

This is perhaps a semantics issue, which is why it needs to be clarified what faith is. Webster defines faith (it's 2-b definition, which I think we are talking about here) as:

We trust in the laws of nature because we have plenty of evidence. We do not put complete trust in them, because once again nothing is 100% with science. If new evidence arises that shows these laws of nature to be untrue, we would cease to have trust in them.

NeoApostate

EDIT: Hmm... odd doublepost

Rational BAC

I notice 4God hasn't been back.

Hey ---don't get too discouraged guy. I know it is a little difficult when it seems like it is 10 against one. But---you should have recognized that this is an atheist forum and you would be outnumbered. It will never be peaches and cream in here for any theist.

You seem like a very intelligent person. I'd recommend to not spread yourself too thin. Pick one of your best arguments and stick with that one. And then take 'em on one by one.

---------------------------------------------------------------

And don't worry too much about typos. Hell everybody misspells here occasionaly ---------even me. I can't remember how many times I have misspelled atheist----many posts I make it ie and then ei several times and never notice until rereading it.----one reason so many of my posts show editing done.

It is that old "i before e except after c" that screws everybody up. "Except in neighbor and weigh" doesn't really cover all the bases does it?

4God

argh.....this stinks....


my comp crashed as i was halfway through my response.....

i started at 8pm!@!!@


...well i can't spend another 2 hours so I'll have to write again on my break tomorrow....thanks all for the responses and i hope my retorts will be adequate.

.....where are the cached files when you need them???

4God

but before i go...

in response to rational....

no discouragement here.....this is more fun than i've had in a long long time.....


....i'll be back tomorrow.

Vorkosigan

Good luck, 4God. If you come back, What did you major in at Brown, and how did you test your own beliefs?

Vorkosigan

Jeremy_the _Atheist

Hello 4God and welcome to the forum.

First of all, just about everyone else on here that posted covered everything that I wanted to say except for this:

Perhaps you had better start with more basic assumptions.

I don't assume myself to be real. I think, therefore I know that I exist.

I assume that external reality exists. I can't prove this but not assuming it doesn't seem very practical.

I assume that external reality is not effected by what I think or feel about it.

I assume that my five senses give me a somewhat accurate view of reality, within limits.

I assume these three things because I have no way of either proving them or disproving them but it seems more practical to assume them.

Everything else must must be varified with evidence of some kind.

4God

Well. I'm very glad that what I wrote elicited(sp?) such response. Like I said, I'm certainly not a Christian who fears intellectual debate. I love it. Why? I'm a sojourner looking for the truth and if God can be proved wrong, so be it.

That said, last night i went post by post and addresssed each responders particular questioons. I don't have the time to do that and seeing as it Christmas Eve, won't really be logged in much until after the New Year. So I'll try to cover what many of you brought up more than once.

1. What is the definition of faith in my first assertion?
2. What "tests" did I perform to prove God? What prayers have been answered?
3. Nessa20x claim that it is me who is egocentric for believing that God created us rather than chemicals
4. Proud Atheist-this is really just a reminder to dissect you ripping of my assertions.


Let's first start with faith. I purposely left the definition of faith ambiguous. I just wanted to see what type of site this was and see if it was your typical atheist site where if one uses a word such as "faith","worship", or the like causes a stir. For some it did, for others it did not.

I'm using the first definition from the Cambridge Advanced Learners Dictionary which states that faith is:
faith (TRUST)
noun [U]
great trust or confidence in something or someone:
She has no faith in modern medicine.
You'll cope - I have great faith in you.
After the trial, his family said they had lost all faith in the judicial system.
Ministers must start keeping their promises if they want to restore faith in the government.

In this manner theist have faith in God, whereas atheists have faith in science. I dare you to say that isn't true. For instance, do I know the exact intricate details of how God created the earth in seven days? No. But I think I can describe to you how He could perform such a feat. Do you know, and is it accepted throughout the scientific community, how the universe was formed? No on that one as well.Therefore, you put your faith in science to ultimately provide the answers(though as of yet unknown) and I put my faith in God for those same answers. Hence, we all have faith, in this sense of the word.
Do many of you lack faith in a god? Yes! Do I lack faith that science is superior to God? Yes! Again, if someone would like to take this up with me, I do not see how you can refute assertion #1

While I'm there...let's look at assertion #2 which I said everyone has a deep desire to know and understand the world around them. I'll call it my Adam Theory. The Adam Theory simply states having been formed in the image of the all-knowing creator of the universe, man seeks to know and be like God in knowing the functioning, utility, and history of the world. One of you claimed that you wished all people were like I claimed-having a desire for knowledge about the world. But you contend that many many people are not concerned with this type of thinking. To that I respond, "you must be speaking of adults." Why? Because if you take a look at a healthy child, a common denomonator among them is their eagerness to learn about the world around them. In my estimation, socioeconomic factors either inhibit or enhance this basic need. In other words, if we all had the necessary time to reflect and research, we would look into "why am I here?" questions all the time. I do not think that only a select few have the desire to look into such things, but that select few have all their other needs met which grants them the time to look into these and other questions.

...with that I'm going to break and continue later on today. nearly 20mins of writing an i've only addressed number 1....