Aethari

Starboy-

Thanks for the clarification, but it doesn't seem to help much. What is THAT supposed to mean? While it seems you can throw around something like that to sound 'deep', if you're a Christian, how does saying that the universe is the idea in the mind of God clarify anything at all? It only seems to open up multiple other cans of worms.

-Aethari

doubtingt

As others have pointed out your argument seems unnecessarily long and complicated.
Faith is, by definition, "unjustified belief".
Faith is not only belief without empirical evidence, it is the belief that some proposition is true, without regard for any evidence, logic, or argument that bears on it actual truth.

Keith Russell

Aethari said:
Keith, while that came to mind, I intentionally overlooked that argument because I don't think any intellectually competant theist would say faith is 'believing without reasons'.

Keith: I haven't met any 'intellectually competant theists', in the sense you apparently mean. Every theist to whom I've ever spoke always relies on the primacy of faith argument at some point, claiming that one has to have faith before God will 'reveal' 'His' 'truth'. And theists always define faith as 'the evidence of things unseen', which means 'knowledge that is not based on sensory data'. As I define 'evidence' it must be sensory in nature, as I believe that our five senses are the only 'interface' with reality that we possess. Therefore, even for theists, faith is 'belief without evidence'.


Aethari: As I indicated in my argument, I think a more realistic and approachable view is that faith is believing for non-empirical or metaphysical reasons.

Keith: I'm sure I don't understand. My metaphysics is based, first and foremost, in empirical, sensory data. Reason allows one to evaluate that data, and understand the relationships between the data. But, I don't view 'non-empirical' beliefs as 'metaphysical', but as 'supernatural' or 'spiritual'--in other words: arbitrary, 'a-rational'.

Aethari: No-one is full possesion of their mental faculties is going to assert that they believe in faith, then accept both of your two premises.

Keith: You haven't talked to the same people as I.

Aethari: They will either object to the definition of faith in such a sense, as I did, or deny premise 2, which I would also do if this were a thread on another topic.

Keith: Oh, they object, but they cannot support the objection. I've had some pretty in-depth (in-person) conversations with theists, and they can object to the definition of faith, but they can't outwit it with their statements.

Eventually, they always make the claim that 'faith' (belief without any evidence whatsoever) is 'superiour to' and 'transcends' reason. God is chased right out of the universe, and--at last--the only thing theists can claim is 'I don't know', so 'I believe'.

They may not change their theistic views, but I have often heard them admit that their views are not rational--and they are more often than not proud of this.

Keith.