Mad Kally

All these years I've wondered, but now I finally now the Truth! I am a genius!

Mageth

Not necessarily, a rock is a god if I believe it is one, regardless of what characteristics it has.

No. A rock is a rock, no matter what you believe it is.

Again you assume that this is bet oriented.

I don't have to assume. Read the first chapter, where Satan challenged god's assessment of Job. It's definitely described as a challenge by Satan that god, for some reason, decided to accept.

The fact that many people died indicates that this was not a matter of material possession. Besides, in Christian's eyes, we are only here by the grace of God, so he can do with us what he wants.

Hooray! In the last sentence, you showed that you do understand the main message of Job!

Is it so impossible that we could be pawns like that?

I don't know if it's impossible or not, but it sure would suck if we were nothing more than pieces on a Risk board.

I do not mind a 'lack of belief' but that is far more agnostic than it is atheist...

On the contrary, a commonly accepted definition of atheism is "lacking belief in god(s)". I'm an atheist, weak atheist rather than strong atheist, actually, since I don't actively deny the possibility of the existence of some god or another. Unlike an agnostic, I do not believe that at our present level of knowledge, we cannot know whether or not a God exists. I claim that we can know whether or not a particular god exists, at least to a high level of probability.

...and it usually is not apparent when one such as yourself refers to things like the Christian God as 'imaginary' which you did earlier on in this thread, and basically sparked my indignation.

I said that because I do consider the Xian god as imaginary. I lack belief in god(s), but don't deny the possibility of the existence of some god or another. However, I positively don't believe the Christian god exists. In other words, I'm strongly atheistic about the Xian god (and Allah, and a bunch of other "defined" gods). Therefore, I think the Xian god is a product of humankind's imagination.

Mageth

Oh, I'm fully aware of the dangers that having faith presents - but that does not mean it is a wholly terrible thing.

And I didn't say it was "wholly terrible."

Constant, and unrestrained war would be terrible - but sometimes it is good, and preferable. Can we agree on this one point?

No, I would never consider constant and unrestrained war as "good" or "preferable", or even "necessary". Other, more peaceful, avenues are always preferable to war.

I see faith like war in that sense - much of the time it makes no sense at all, but there is, I believe, such a thing as reasonable faith, and even necessary faith. Some people even consider such faith to be 'good evidence' but it is not commonly accepted as such.

I'd say faith is like war in that it's a waste of time, resources, and humanity.

Evidence of what? Like your rock, belief in something doesn't make it exist, and is not evidence of its existence, no matter how many people believe in it. I call that the "Tinkerbell fallacy", although it has another name.

Can you define "reasonable faith" and "necessary faith"?

You have yet to answer what I consider a very important question in regards to faith, whether "reasonable" or "necessary". There are many different religions/gods to choose from. Why do you have faith in a particular one of these religions/gods? How, using faith, do you distinguish, say, Xianity/Yahweh from Islam/Allah, or from Hinduism/polytheism, so that you put faith in the Xian god rather than Allah, Vishnu et al, or any other god(s)?

There are many other questionable things that many people believe, and which one might say, due to the lack of solid evidence, might require a certain amount of faith to believe in (UFOs, bigfoot, ghosts, ESP, angels, channeling, auras, faith healing, demon possession, etc.) Again, how, using faith, would one determine which of these to believe and which to disbelieve?

Note the elegance, and reliability, of my preferred method. I lack belief in any of the above unless and until I'm presented with solid, verifiable, testable, and/or repeatable evidence. As an example, I do not believe, and I will never have "faith", that John Edward is really communicating with dead people. I might change that belief if some real evidence were presented, rather than the easy-to-duplicate "parlor tricks" you see him performing on TV.