hinduwoman

If I woke up one morning and find myself to be superwoman, that would be convincing.
Of course it might be a matrix like situation or aliens abducting me, but the probability scale for them is nearly as low as for God.

So if that happens my mind would be opened, even if not immediately convinced.

diana

Hi, Alistair.

I'm a latecomer here, as you can see, and I'm working my way through your thread, and keep having thoughts that I want to get out there. I apologize if this has been covered and I just haven't gotten to it yet, but I don't want to forget stuff that might otherwise help us understand one another.

I see you just used the word "faith." In the OP, you used the word "believe." Do you see them as necessarily interchangeable (other than, as I've stated them, they're two different parts of speech )?

I ask because, as I understand the religious use of the word "faith," it is something you have instead of evidence (facts, reason). Instead of evidence leading to faith, I'd say that evidence negates the need for it.

This, as opposed to evidence leading to belief, as the layman uses the term. I believe the sun will come up tomorrow (or more specifically, I believe the earth will continue to spin in the next few hours and the sun will not implode between now and then, and the earth will benefit from its energy another day). This "belief" is based upon reason and experience. Not only do I have the layman's observation that the sun has risen every day in my memory, but science can explain, to some extent, the forces involved and accurately predict, based upon observations/controlled experiments/calculations what will happen. If our sun has health problems, no one has mentioned it to me. So, I'm fairly confident in my "belief" that the sun will, indeed, "rise" tomorrow.

Faith is not based on anything that is known or predictable. What it basically comes down to is someone once had an idea that no one could disprove 100%, it appealed to someone, and they said "Why not?"

I'm not expecting anyone to agree with my definitions and adopt them. I just want you to understand what I mean when I say there is nothing that will induce me to have faith. Belief, on the other hand, is something that can be earned.

You might start with a god who can be defined with meaningful characteristics that aren't mutually or internally contradictory. Then you'd need to find a way to demonstrate rationally that that god is this god and not any of those. Of course, the entire religion must be consistent with reality as we know it. As far as supernatural abilities, I'd need scientifically testable and reproducible data by unbiased parties that confirms beyond a reasonable doubt that the abilities in question truly exist and the effects of which can be accurately predicted.

As for Jesus materializing into my living room, that reminds me of a question that popped into my head the last time I was reading my bible: when Jesus is transfigured on the mount, and is joined by Moses and Elijah, how did the apostles know they were Moses and Elijah? Were they wearing shirts with their names stitched over the pockets like gasoline attendants?

By the same token, how on earth would I know Jesus if he bit me on the ass?

More to come as I catch up....

d

Dr Rick

Faith is belief in the absence of or in direct conflict of evidence.

If a belief is supported by evidence, that belief is not faith.

diana

While I agree that any "factual basis of Christianity" is indeed relevant to the discussion, it is only "on topic" here to the extent of asserting it one way or another. As the theist who began the thread is pointedly keeping these issues out of the discussion, any pursuit of this tangent is a subject for another thread.

Now, if malookiemaloo were insisting upon his world view and asserting that there is so evidence, all bets would be off and this thread would quickly find its way ~~Elsewhere~~, I warrant. But that isn't the case.

d

HRG

I'll tell you what would convince me.

A million decimal digits of pi at the beginning of Genesis, and a 1024-byte checksum at the end of Revelations (with the side benefit that we'd know which books are canonical).

Regards,
HRG.

99Percent

Lets look at three of the necessary characteristics attributed to God - omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. If such a being came to me or anyone and claimed it had such attributes, how could you prove them to be true? You can't because in order to know if God is omnicient, you would have to be omniscient yourself. In order to prove if God is omnipotent, you would have to be omnipotent yourself, and likewise with omnibenevolence. And you and me and anyone doesn't have such capabilities.

Therefore, the belief in such a being would have to rest entirely on faith, no matter how much evidence you might have that leads you to such a belief.

MollyMac

It would be helpful if we could limit ourselves to using the words as defined above but most theists use the words 'belief' and 'faith' (in the religious sense) interchangeably and also use the word 'faith' with two different meanings.

There is a scale of reasonableness of beliefs. Belief that the sun will rise tomorrow comes at the top of the scale. Very close to the top is the belief, say, that the French Revolution took place in 1848 - even though nobody alive today lived through and knows anyone else who did. Near the bottom of the scale comes beliefs about abductions by aliens and, at the very bottom, beliefs about fairies, Santa Claus and anything else for which there is no evidence.

It's fair to say that atheists place god-belief at the bottom of the scale. Most theists place their beliefs further up it, by which I mean they seem to feel their belief is quite reasonable on the available evidence but concede that they can't actually prove the existence of god beyond reasonable doubt. They call this 'quite reasonable belief' their 'faith' and are willing to go out and witness, confident that they have sufficient evidence (and marketing skills) to persuade the rest of us into the fold but often finding that their evidence is not enough for us. It is at this point in any discussion that the theist has no alternative but to appeal to 'faith' - a different kind of faith, a faith which is not grounded in evidence. This appeal often takes the form of 'Open your heart, pray and the Lord will come to you'.

A few months ago a sticky appeared in the apologetics section at the Christian Forums saying something like 'we are not allowing any more threads to be started by atheists demanding 'proof' of God. Experience has shown that we cannot prove what we know to be true'!!

This is faith of the most irrational kind but one that even the most 'rational' theists have to appeal to at some time and I find that all theists, when talking about faith, actually chop and change between the two meanings of the word without even realising they are doing so.

Family Man

Excuse my pedantism, but I presume you mean that the French Revolution occurred in 1789. The belief that it occurred in 1848 would be very low on the scale believability (that was a different revolution alltogether).

Now that's getting it ass-backwards!

MollyMac

There's nothing wrong with being pedantic in such things and of course you are correct - THE French Revolution took place in 1788/89 and that was the one I intended to refer to. The other revolution - the one that established the Second Republic in 1848 caused me more sleepless nights while completing my degree, however, and I think that's why the date is etched on my brain! Thanks for pointing it out.

Radcliffe Emerson

How about 'god' actually appearing and parting a sea on television? Or in front of millions of people? How about someone praying to Jesus to keep a wrecking plane from falling out of the sky, and Jesus does, like he said he would when he said "ask for anything in my name and it will be granted?'
How about 'god' making a donkey talk in today's age like the Old Testament claims? How about a person who is definitely, certainly dead being raised back to life in front of witnesses, and not someone in a coma?
If I witnessed these events first hand, I'd be the first to admit I'm wrong. But these events are never going to be witnessed, because nothing like this has EVER happened on this planet.