malookiemaloo

To discuss the factual basis for the Christian faith is probably off topic. I'm not against debating it but it's ongoing on other threads!!


m

keyser_soze

But his point is valid. Fact is world viewable. Faith is the belief in something DESPITE a lack of evidence, or in contradiction to the evidence. Christianity can hardly be claimed to be based on fact, otherwise every other religion that has as much factual evidence would be just as valid. You believe, because you have FAITH that the book is FACT. But as is readily available here, that basis is not world viewable. You have to have a component that those who do not believe do not posess, a keystone, as it were. That keystone, which makes what to us is swiss cheese appear whole to you. Want to guess what the keystone is?

Howay the Toon

Factual basis of Christianity is absolutely On topic. If we examine the evidence on which your acceptance of this "factual" basis is based we will reveal the ways in which our attitudes to facts and eveidence differ so much.

Your acceptance of this "factual basis" is based on evidence isn't it? Otherwise how do you assess whether it is a fact at all.

Dianna

m: I knew you'd come up with something I had not thought of, Dianna.

I fear you have me confused with Diana.

Dianna
www.geocities.com/atheistview/

malookiemaloo

I wondered when I saw the two n's in your name.

Anyway, yours was a top notch response.


m

diana

Meanwhile, I'll take my compliments anywhere I can get them.

Thanks, m.

d

(Oh...and mine has a little "d" too, the easier to tell us apart. But she does have consistently good input, I agree.)

malookiemaloo

Also to Keyser_soze.

Slightly different emphasis.

Can faith and evidence exist side by side?

Of home now. May not get your response til Monday.


M

Howay the Toon

If you want to start getting philosophical about the relationship between faith and evidence then you are going to have to start getting a lot more precise than "exist side by side". I am extremely unsure what you mean by that and so can't really respond very well.

I think most of us here would wish to distinguish between faith and belief on the one hand (or at least those concepts as used by theists in a religious context) and evidence and knowledge on the other.

We have seen far too many arguments trying to claim that we have faith in things just like theists do. These arguments tend to equivocate the concepts of faith and belief between the religious usage and the ordinary language usage which are actually quite different.

Note the difference between "I believe Newcastle will win the Champions League in 2004" and "I believe in Jesus". Something very different is meant by these two speakers.

If I wished to define faith then it would involve believing something without sufficient evidence or against the evidence or irrespective of the evidence. Its used slightly differently in differnent contexts but the common thread is that it is NOT belief backed up by the evidence. Which is why if we had sufficient evidence of a God it would not, by definition, lead to Faith.

keyser_soze

The short strokes? No, because if there is enough evidence, you don't need faith. Hence the catch-22 of christianity.

Now, that's not COMPLETELY true, the finer details of the argument are so numerous and debatable though, that we could put 20 pages on it. And I'm not up for that. Faith is the keystone, the thing that your mind utilizes to overcome a gap so that you can achieve a goal. For instance...the bible. It's utter nonsense. It's full of contradictions, unethical behaviours, downright abusive notions of reality and relationships...all geared towards the worship of a ridiculous fairy god that explains the world to a bunch of critically thinking impaired goatherders living in the sticks.
But, and that's a big BUT..It has something people want. It has a means of giving people the feeling of BELONGING, in addition to a mechanism for making people feel like they are SPECIAL. Problem: How to get that feeling, while jumping over the huge gaps in reasoning, and common sense that readers obviously see? FAITH. One little word. It lets you put your rational mind in a box, while the rest of you functions. And the beauty of it is, it's VERY fine adjustable. You can apply the tool to jump gaps where religion is concerned, but it allows you to reason in other parts of your life. It gives you the benefits of feeling loved, part of a higher plane of existance, and the sense of righteousness amongst the trash the world has to offer. A very useful tool...unless you don't need it. That is what happens, not everyone needs it, and not everyone that DOES need it, needs it so much that they can ignore what's staring them in the face day in and day out. After a while, that price get's too high, and then you have deconversion. You already didn't believe, you just didn't know it. You doubted, because you knew, that stuff just didn't jive up. You continued the exercise anyway, but you were already pulling the blinders off yourself. Next thing you know, no blinders, and no faith. And suddenly you look around and wonder just what was so frightening about the big bad world that you wanted them in the first place. Here we have a loss of cabin pressure, faith no longer exists because like the monsters under the bed of a 4 year old, once the light is on, it's obvious that no monster is really there. And not only does it not exist for religion, it doesn't exist anywhere else for us either. That faith is a neat tool, but it has to have a primary use. Racists have faith that black people, or indian people, or asian people are inferior. They have this belief, DESPITE all of the evidence. But, as frequently happens, they make the wrong friend, the friend who IS a minority and little chinks open up in the tool. Next thing you know, FAITH is gone, and they wonder what the fuck they were thinking. Once a single part of the WALL is pulled out, the whole thing crumbles. Which is why most of us are here. Which is also why most christians lurk here, they already know it's not true, but they still live it. They are looking for a proof that is sufficient so that THEY can believe, not us. It's not about us, and for the vast number of christians visiting, it never was. They are just tugging at the blinders. And when they see the evidence doesn't support their FAITH, the blinders get a little looser. You don't need faith if you have evidence, and you don't want evidence when you have faith. Sure you can suspend disbelief for a while, everyone does it...whether it be for a sitcom or movie, or their relationships, but it doesn't work forever.

So no, faith and evidence(credible and recreatable) cannot exist side by side in reality. They can in some imaginary philosophical argument, but we tend to live in the real world.

NHGH

I'd have to say that it's impossible in principle for a naturalist (and most atheists are naturalists) to be convinced of a supernatural claim, such as the existence of a deity, by any evidence whatsoever (excluding flights into irrationality).

After all, the way we become convinced of the truth of any claim is to examine the evidence for it in order to determine its sufficiency. I don't see any way to do that outside the assumption of naturalism, i.e. assuming that the universe operates in a regular and orderly fashion, according to potentially discoverable laws. But any supernatural claim would have to be predicated on the assumption that naturalism is false--that the universe does not operate according to laws, or at least that the "laws" can be violated. If we have to discard naturalism, however, we no longer have a framework in which to evaluate evidence, and thus no way to draw conclusions one way or another.

Note that some "supernatural" claims have a naturalistic component to them which can be evaluated, e.g. the Christian claim that Christ rose from the dead. We can try to investigate whether that happened, although such a claim starts out with the evidence heavily against it (since we have reason to believe the corpses cannot be resurrected). Even if the claim were to be proved, however, I don't see how we could get from there to concluding that he was resurrected by the will of an omnipotent deity.