Does everyone have faith in something?

Great Debates
101

To quote Spiritus,

Hmmm… this sounds awefully like a dogmatic assertion to me… but no matter… I’ll get to this in a second.

To quote Andros:

So, it seems like I have misread the stand of atheists, who perhaps may better be termed “afaithists”. According to your definition of the “non-believer’s perspective” then we can define the non-believer as:

Someone who has faith in the noexistence of faith. (ie: The box, representing faith, doesn’t exist)

Again, the tautology.

But, there is a box… and there isn’t a box. Remember the box was an analogy for faith, and you are responding, “Well, faith is a human creation, therefore it doesn’t exist.” But it does! Faith is a human reaction to an idea or ideology and doesn’t “exist” in the tangible sense of the word. Just because I used a “box” analogy means that faith needs to be something that does or does not exist. I would posit that faith is something that DOES exists, everyones got it… the only difference is what you have in the box.

Finally, to touch upon Andros’ point:

Wow, no offense, Andros but you are starting to sound downright Christian! (Well, except for creating the box for ourselves stuff). It is one of the central beliefs of Christians that we need God, that we need what’s in the box AND what’s in it, I’m too tired to look up the relevant passages, but I would point to all the places, in both the Psalms and the Gospels, where the psalmist or Jesus talk about “childlike faith”. Ok, I can’t resist, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these, I thell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” (Mark 10:13-15).

But does the need for something mean that it isn’t true? I needed my mother when I was young. That is arguably a debatable need, someone else could have taken care of me… I didn’t need her per se. Does that mean that my mother not longer exists, or is not my mother? No, my need for her isn’t even tangential to the fact that she is my mother.

Just as the feeling of the need doesn’t prove the object neither does the belief that the need is wrong disprove the object. The question isn’t about the box, but what’s inside. In short, the box does not create the gift, but contains it.

102

Not at all. There were two parts to my statement:
1) your analogy is not apt
Indeed, it seems your analogy was confused as well. You now say, “the box was an analogy for faith”. But in your analogy as stated, the box contains faith (or at least purports to). Now, I called this not apt because you then have books being authored by what is inside the box. The reference point of the books is obviously scriptur, but the author of scripture is purported to be God, not faith. Faith is a human quality. The parallel to atheism in your parable, “since we cannot conclusively prove the contents of the box, then the box must be empty” also stringly implies that the box should contain a God, not faith. Atheism in no way impolies a non-belief in faith.

Thus, your analogy was not apt.

2 There is no box
Here, I was replying to your implied analogy that the box contained God. In this case, the box would represent immediately perceptible, objective, physical location for and limitation on God. Not only that, the box itself, with its sign, would represent a clear and unambiguous claim from a non-human source that God exists.

That box does not exist.

and now a new one
Now, if the box itself was supposed to be faith, your analogy is still not apt. Faith is not an external object, it is an internal quality. By positing faith in such a away, you in fact are assuming that all people “posess” faith, and your analogy is nothing but a circular argument.

Plus your sign is now wrong.

103

Ok, the sign is wrong… my bad.

Basically, i was trying to put forward a hypothetical where faith was a vessel and what you have faith in as something in that vessel.

And yes, I am claiming that faith is required to take a side on this debate (as opposed to “not knowing”). I always get the feeling that the atheist argument goes somewhat like, “Atheism doesn’t require faith because we are right.” Which doesn’t seem very open minded to me. So I stick to my original hypothesis that there are people who do not have faith, and those people are agnostics OR very weak atheists. Once you get to “picking a side” then, well, faith enters the picture, it can’t be helped.

Uncertainty is the opposite of faith. However, uncertainty does not always, nor logically, default to zero or a rejection of all less than definative explanation. For instance, whether Al Gore or George Bush won Florida has been uncertain for a while now. Noone is claiming, however, that this uncertainty logically leads to us claiming that neither of them won. We just don’t have any conclusive proof that one did.

–M

104

We are atheists because we don’t have “faith”. I take your belief in a god about as seriously as you take the belief of a child in Santa Claus.
Again-We do NOT have faith that there is no god. You have merely provided insufficient proof for can only be described as uniquely incredible and implauseable claim.
At least Santa only claims to do the impossible only once a year! :slight_smile:

105

Where on earth is Jenkinsfan?

106

Did you hear about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac?

He used to lie in bed at night wondering whether there really was a Dog.

Anyhow…
Spiritus… bang on. The analogy, MJQ is so strained that I almost need an anology to describe how strained it is. This box - it’s supposed to be faith is it? But faith in what? Faith that there is something inside it, or faith that there is something specific inside it? But who gave us the box? Is it something we were given by teachers/parents/priests/religious weirdos? Or did it pop out the chute with us when we were born? If given it then who gave it us and with what intent? Is this a box that has been passed on for thousands of years with noone thinking to open it? Why are we carrying it?

You what? Why do you reject these notions? Your reason makes no sense. Surely the whole point of faith is that nothing can “make me sure of what is in the box”. Why does that make them a “flawed hypothesis”. Your logic is leaping about like a Thompson’s gazelle.

I could go on, but at this point with the above problems immediately springing to mind (let alone all the ones I could come up with if I actually thought about the analogy for a few minutes), it doesn’t seem worth it. Besides Spiritus and andros summed it up in rather less words than I would anyhow.

At the end of the day I’m going with slythe. The evidence for God is to me pretty much on a par with the evidence for fairies. God is so important to you that you simply can’t get that the concept plays absolutely zero part in my day to day life. I don’t go round thinking “yes… God absolutely doesn’t exist”. When questioned my response is simply “huh? Why should I believe in that particular pile of doggie-do? Puh-lease - what am I? Gullible?”

To call this “faith” is to put a serious disservice to those who actually have faith. But as you wish. It’s all just semantics in the end.

pan

107

Just want to put forward a quick defense of my gazelle-like logic above… that was the point. If you read again carefully the part you quoted out of context wasn’t where I was speaking for myself but where the atheist character was speaking in my story. The whole thing was in fact, a commentary on the gazelle-like logic of the atheist to claim that he or she does not have faith.

After all, isn’t faith simply the ability to choose which “pile of doggie-doo” is more valid given incomplete information. What makes you viewpoint more valid, or correct, than any other? I’m not saying you are wrong to believe in what you do, I’m just commenting on the arrogance of atheists who look down upon the believer as gullible, dumb, weak, silly, clearly wrong, etc etc etc. There are a lot of people who have thought VERY hard about these questions and not just “gullibly fallen” for them. There are many people for which God is a very real part of their lives. By insinuating that they are somehow inferior or lazy because of these beliefs is a fundamental disservice to their humanity, their intelligence, and, above all, to yourself.

–M

108

No no no MJQ. You’ve missed the point. I haven’t chosen a doggie-do pile at all. I have no wish to cover my hands in shit. I’ll just walk on by thank you very much.

Declaring my viewpoint correct? What viewpoint is that? I’m not declaring “there is no God”, rather I’m saying “why on earth should I believe in God?” Mine is the question, not the answer. And I’ve never received a reply to the question that justifies me changing my whole life around.

And you do athiests a great disservice. Many of us have given it much consideration. It’s just that at the end of the day the consideration just seems to boil down to “this is true 'cos we say so”. And that doesn’t cut much ice.

pan

109

kabbes . . bang on.

Let me just ad:

As opposed to the arrogance of theists who declare that atheists must have faith because the only way to not belive in God is to believe in no God.

110

And yet I can come up with several other hypotheses that fit nicely with all your observed evidence. Been reading the Downist vs. Gravitist thread?

Hypothesis:The sun is really Apollo in his golden chariot, flying through the sky.

That hypothesis fits all my observations, and accurately predicts future observations.

And yet, you believe I’m wrong, dontcha? Why is that?

111

MJQ, if I sound Christian, there’s a reason. I grew up Methodist, my brother is an active minister with a growing church, and in addition to growing up reading verses, I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover twice–NIV and KJV 1611. I know the Bible, I know Christianity. I’m not a Christian.

As for your original analogy, I perhaps misspoke myself. Instead of saying you had created the box itself (faith), I shoudl have said that you have created the contents of the box, as well as a need for those contents.

I have faith. I have faith that gravity will continue to work, that the sun will rise tomorrow (Apollo or no), that Windows will crash today.

But I do not have a faith in Christ or in the Bible. And I do not need that faith to make me complete.

-andros-

112

I have faith that we’ll probably never agree :wink:

Your loss. Hee hee… :stuck_out_tongue: I like my way, if you don’t well, what can I do? Force you to agree with me? Not likely to work. It’s about as likely as y’all making me change my mind. God has been too good to me for me to abandon Him, and I sincerely feel that I need Him. If you don’t feel that need, so be it. However, need may strike your life, and if it does I pray you can find something to rely upon when all seems lost.

But the back and forth and dialogue sure has been fun :-). Carry on! :wink:

–M

113

Ah, but the difference is that we don’t want to change your mind. :wink:

“Life is pain. Anyone who say different is selling something.” -Wm. Goldman

See, I accept that bad things happen. Even to good people. I just refuse to accept “mysterious ways” as a justification. The universe is a dangerous place. When crappy things happen, we feel depressed. Many people look to religion to make sense of that depression and those crappy things.

“Why did Timmy die, Mommy?”

“Because God wanted him in His house.”

A much nicer, and more comforting answer than

“A goat ate him. These things happen. Grieve.”

Thanks for your good wishes, but I assure you I do not require Christianity when things go bad. Contrary to what many Christians think, there really are atheists in foxholes. And Taoists and Muslims and Shintoists and Zoroastrians and Pagans.

Sorry if I sound snippy, EmJay. Please stick around and enjoy the scenery. Not all our discussions involve religion. Really.

114

And foxes… your forgot the foxes (jerk) :wink:

–M

115

That’s what that nibbling was . . .

116

I really have no idea if this thought is relevant, or if it has no bearing at all. I’ve often wondered how much merit a worldview has if it cannot be disproven. I could postulate that at the smallest level, all matter in the universe is shaped like a horse. However, this matter is utterly undetectable. If you think that you’ve observed the smallest strata of matter, and it’s not shaped like a horse, then you’re wrong. You just haven’t looked hard enough, and you CAN never look hard enough, because it’s, by definition, undetectable.

That somewhat ludicrous scenario is analagous to what I often hear from theists. There is NO WAY to disprove God to someone who believes. Try anything.

Theist: “Read the Bible with an open heart, ask God into your life, and He will fill you with the Holy Spirit.”
Atheist: “Done that, no dice.”
Theist: “You must not have had an open enough heart. Try again.”
Atheist: “Ok, I REALLY have an open heart, and still no Holy Spirit.”
Theist: “You did something wrong. Read the Bible again. I’m praying for you.”
Atheist: “Have YOU even read the Bible??”
Theist: “Um… go read your Bible!”

Or try this exchange…

Theist: “The resurrection is nigh! Repent!”
Atheist: “Um, people were saying that almost 2000 years ago. Define nigh.”
Theist: “Can’t! We won’t know the hour or the day, but the resurrection is nigh!”
Atheist: “It could be the year 10,000 and you could blather about the resurrection being nigh, couldn’t you?”
Theist: “The resurrection is nigh!”

I’ve obviously used hyperbole here (sorry if I offended, none intended, just trying to insert a little humor). But the bottom line is: Theism cannot be proven wrong to an unbeliever.

I can’t speak for all non-theists, but it is NOT inherent in my belief that I am unequivocably right. Hell, tomorrow, I could be convinced. I cannot imagine HOW, but I concede it could happen. (Maybe I’m screwing up atheism and agnosticism, but if the Christian God DOES exist and he wanted to convert humanity, he could change everyone’s mind some way or another, atheist, agnostic, Buddhist, Moslem, etc).

Part of my training in chemistry (currently a grad student) has been a concept cycle of embracing theories, working well with them, and then finding out they were wrong, or at least not totally correct. I loved pH being -log [H+]. Worked with it, got the “right” answer on tests, and all was right with the world. Then I found out about ionic strength, and how so-called spectator ions (e.g., Na+, Li+, etc) can influence pH. Shit–something new to learn. But I did adapt, got the right answers on tests again, etc.

The ability to adapt is, to me, one of the strengths of atheism. Atheists, IMO, can admit that they’re wrong. Above, God could convince everyone that he exists. But there is no way that everyone could be convinced that he DOESN’T exist.

Well, that’s my opinion, anyways.

117

C’mon, andros, at least try. I know that the sun is not Hyperion because we have sent space probes around the solar system. NASA publishes its results. I accept those results as fact. I know that the stars are not little holes in the Firmament by the same reasoning: We’ve pictured them with the Hubble space telescope. I have no reason to discount NASA’s published results. I have no reason to discount what all available reference sources tell me. Next, you’ll be trying to convince me that I must not accept Bangkok’s existence because I have never been there.

118

Hell, even I know the sun isn’t Hyperion. Sheesh. And don’t even talk to me about those wierd Helios people.

Besides Apollo’s chariot is so big and hot that it appears as a blinding sphere. Still fits with the observed data. As NASA has not sent any probes into the sun itself, you have still to provide me with evidence that contradicts my Appolonian Hypothesis.

No, we merely have pictures of Apollo’s chariot reflected off the dome of the sky.

Again, it’s a hypothesis that fits all the known facts.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything.

119

Oh, I get it: Invisible Pink Unicorn time at the SDMB. I.e., theories that predict nothing are futile wastes of bandwidth. Well, andros, you might be right. You can make little tweaks to your theories to cover up inconsistencies all day and all night and you have still proved nothing. What it comes down to is this: Whoever is right about the sun does not change the fact that it is orbited by everything in what is called our solar system. We have observed that fact from several vantage points. Your theories about deities change nothing because they do not predict the results of future experiments. If you had said that the sun would stop shining if we failed to sacrifice a fatted calf at the equinox we would have something to test. But as it stands my theory has the advantage: It can predict the setup of other solar systems. Namely, that they have stars of a certain type orbited by rocky or gaseous nonluminous planets. So far, with all the other solar systems we’ve observed, that is correct. Your theory of a deity with a flaming chariot has predicted nothing.

120

I have looked in my box. It contains The Lesser Void, which I take to be a reflection of The Greater Void, from which all comes, to which all goes.

It doesn’t make any sense, to me, to have faith in the void in my box, but if that’s the spin you need to put on it to make it comprehensible to you, no skin off my teeth.

(Each word in the preceding sentence is encased in quotation marks for ease of digestion.)