Doctor X

Ozone-Cowboy:

Also, one severe criticism of your analogy: "reasonable belief" is based on science and prior experience with science--that the shute will open because you packed it yourself rather than letting the toothless guy who screams "BELGIUM!" to himself, that a shute will work when opened, et cetera.

Faith does not have that resume.

--J.D.

ozone cowboy

Dang!! There's that science word again. How would you explain existence in another dimension? Some people think there are paralell universes. What about traveling faster than the speed of light? What is the 5th dimension (not the group ok?)? Or the 6th?

Even if you pack your own chute or Bozo did it, you still have to jump out of the plane and trust that it will open. It's still action based upon belief sustained by confidence.

Sorry for the simple examples. I don't have an IQ of 140 or a post graduate degree so try to keep it simple. Some guys are wearing out my dictionary!

Amlodhi

Hello ozone cowboy,

But this still misses Doctor X's point regarding what constitutes reasonable belief.

As a former skydiver, I can assure you that the first jump especially is an act of faith. However, in my case, that faith was grounded in the fact that not only did I understand the physics involved, but I was also able to previously observe the statistically high success rate of the equipment.

In contrast, if you were to tell me to do a door jump without a rig and to have faith that your God would prevent me from doing a bounce, that would require an unreasonable belief on my part and would more closely resemble the type of belief you are advocating, i.e. action > based on unreasonable belief > with no demonstrable evidence of viability.

Namaste'

Amlodhi

Amos

Hello Amlodhi

Sure thing, but when you go to sleep at night it sure is not statistical evidence that you put your trust in. That same God who keeps you alive at night taught you to walk by which it is inferred that if you want to jump out of airplanes you better think of something else and here Gods omniscience made the science available for you to think of something else.

ozone cowboy

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Amlodhi
[B]Hello ozone cowboy,



But this still misses Doctor X's point regarding what constitutes reasonable belief.

As a former skydiver, I can assure you that the first jump especially is an act of faith. However, in my case, that faith was grounded in the fact that not only did I understand the physics involved, but I was also able to previously observe the statistically high success rate of the equipment.
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Hi Amlodhi

First let's make a distiction between faith and belief in order to keep from using the two interchangably. Faith is a noun in English and should have been translated as a verb. Faith REQUIRES action (Your first jump from a plane.)
Belief is an understanding of the principles involed. (The physics part) Confidence is the observation of the results.

You watched others do it so you know that it works. Now came the hard part. Faith. I don't know how many times you jumped but you did learn to TRUST in your faith. You had the reasonable belief but it's necassary to ACT on that belief.

Mageth

Well, then, I guess I and others like me are safe - my lack of belief in god(s) has nothing to do with "willingness or unwillingness". I can't be willing or unwilling to have a relationship with a three-headed being that I do not believe exists.

Mageth

Originally posted by ozone cowboy
A lot of people use belief and faith interchangably. The English doesn't really convey the meaning of faith. I believe that if I strap on a parachute, get into a plane, go to 10,000ft, jump out and pull the ripcord the chute will open. That's belief. If I acutually do it. That's faith. Action based upon belief sustained by confidence.

I don't think God is looking for a bunch of imitation Jesus's. All he wants is trust.

You spend all that time defining "faith" and "belief", but all god wants is "trust"?

What is the "born again" experience? Like a drunk watching the news and realizing that he is the one the police are looking for in the hit and run fatality. Now standing before a judge facing the death penalty the judge finds him not guilty.

That's a bad analogy, even from the Christian viewpoint. God is not portrayed as finding sinners "not guilty", but as finding them "guilty", and choosing to punish someone else in their place. So, in your analogy, the Judge should find the man guilty, and pull some poor innocent guy off the street to die for him. Hardly what I would call just, in either case.

How can God be Jesus and the Holy Spirit at the same time? Try thinking about water, steam and ice. It's all the same stuff but different at the same time.

Another bad analogy. If you have three kilograms of H20, with one kilogram as water, one kilogram as ice, and one kilogram as steam, the H20 in the three states are distinct and different, occupy different volumes and space, and do not mix. In other words, the three are not "One", as the Trinity supposedly is. A molecule of H20 cannot be in all three states, or even two of the states, simultaneously. Your analogy is equivalent to saying a tree, a chair, and a toothpick made of wood are all the same stuff, but different at the same time.

Amlodhi

Indeed. However, in what way does the above equate with religious beliefs?

No doubt, you can perform an action in conformance with your beliefs. Zulu witch-doctors do so daily. But with what result?

Religious beliefs (in contrast to above) are not based on an understanding of the principles involved. This is evidenced by the fact that proponents can in no way agree on what those principles are or how they work. Much as if people were jumping from airplanes while clinging to anything from umbrellas to anvils; not understanding the principles, just acting on faith.

Neither can confidence be shown to validate your religious beliefs. Beyond various placebo effects, (which any self-respecting Zulu witch-doctor can evoke), your "faithful actions" produce no objectively observable effects. For instance, if modern parachutes exhibited the same success ratio as prayer, very few people would jump from an airplane (and those that did would only do it once).

Thus, scientific belief provides us with confidence concerning the results of our actions. Religious belief, on the other hand, has no predictive value regardless of the amount of faith that may accompany the action.

Amlodhi

ozone cowboy

Religious beliefs (in contrast to above) are not based on an understanding of the principles involved. This is evidenced by the fact that proponents can in no way agree on what those principles are or how they work.

Neither can confidence be shown to validate your religious beliefs.
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Did you mean to say religions instead of "religious beliefs"?

What does one use to valdate ones religious beliefs?

I'll be go for a while so don't expect an immediate response.

Amlodhi

No, I purposely used "religious beliefs" because it imparts the proper adjectival modification to the noun "belief" and further serves as a contrast to the adjectival phrase "scientific beliefs".

The word "religions", on the other hand, is a plural abstract noun and its usage would not preclude such institutions nor their adherents from entertaining "scientific" beliefs as well as "religious" ones.

But I do have one question: Does your sudden compulsion to parse English grammar have anything to do with the fact that you were unable to respond to the substance of my post?

One uses a process referred to as "selective validation". Since there are no consistently verifiable results, believers simply assign great significance to any result that supports their religious presuppositions and either rationalize or discard any that do not.


Namaste'

Amlodhi