REASONABLEST

We believe in love, honor, TRUTH, things that cannot be perceived or measured, things without "substance." We have FAITH that others share our commitment to such feelings, ethics, principles. When a theist asks how is that different from believing in a deity or supernatural forces, what is the best answer?

Thanks for your thoughts...R.

JEST2ASK

If God is treated like a subjective concept
e.g. Love / Honor / Truth


I think most would say it does exist ......

If however God is an enity .... well .... that's a whole nother story


The EoG forum has several active threads which might interest you ...... where that and similar arguements a brought forth ...

I am not sure there is a "Best" answer


Oh and Welcome .... HI

Godless Dave

Those things are different than the gods theists believe in, because love and honor are entirely human concepts; they exist but only in our brains. As for truth, in many circumstances we can objectively determine if something is true or not, although the value we place on knowing the truth comes from inside our minds, not outside.

I don't have such faith. In fact, I tend to assume other people don't share such a commitment until demonstrated otherwise.

philechat

At the time when humans (or possible aliens) do not exist, there is no such things as truth, honor, or love. They are linguistic terms describing a set of phenomena, and means nothing outside human designation.

If you want to treat God as a mere "phenomena", go ahead and I will not refute you.

Oxymoron

Well, there is 'faith' and then there's 'Faith'.

The former is, at heart, induction, which can take the following forms:

1.) human beings are broadly similar; I am a human; therefore others are like me; therefore my goals, beliefs, yada yada may be shared by many other individuals.

2.) The future will be broadly like the past. If something or someone was reliable previously, it will - all other things being equal - continue to do so.

On the other hand, there is 'Faith', which is religious faith. This is almost the exact opposite of its homonym. It involves believing things that contradict inductive (and deductive) principles, and believing them without the requirement for supporting evidence. Indeed, part of the definition of religious faith is that the articles are beyond testing.

So... this would not be an example of religous faith, even if it were generally true, which I would dispute. We tend to look around for those with common values and build our social groups and communities around them. Faith of either flavour has nothing to do with it.

missus_gumby

The OP does not seem to be within the remit of the Welcome, etc., forum. It's not a major problem though, and moving it to the General Religious Discussions forum will afford it a much better chance for detailed examination.

Martin (Moderator)

Godless Sodomite

By its nature, the claim that god exists is an existential claim. Absent any evidence for the existence of any such being, it seems the theist must retreat into equivocation to make it look like different kinds of claims share parity when they do not. This is the case here as others have pointed out.

I once had a religious talk with my mother and after asking for evidence of her god claims, she turned around and said, "the concept of god exists." Had this been her initial position, there would have been nothing to talk about. I don't think you (or my mother) will find anyone to argue the contrary.

-Jerry

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by REASONABLEST
We believe in love, honor, TRUTH, things that cannot be perceived or measured, things without "substance." We have FAITH that others share our commitment to such feelings, ethics, principles. When a theist asks how is that different from believing in a deity or supernatural forces, what is the best answer?

Well, this is far from the best answer, but no one is threatening to torture me for eternity if I don't believe in the concept of honor, for example.

When coercion is applied to make someone think a certain way, I have to wonder if perhaps that mode of thinking is not all it's cracked up to be.