I think you are on the right path. Those things most helpful and desired, faith, love, truth, are not easily obtained. The path is narrow and the way long. Faith takes courage in a world that seems out of control, but we don’t need to change the world, only ourselves. There are many that have seen and now know, faith is no longer needed by them. Jesus said: “blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe.” It is true this world has a purpose and meaning even if it is not readily apparent. What you do here today will continue to have impact for all eternity. Let those who believe faith a crutch have their reward. I like your honesty, and truthfullness. You might want to read some experiences of others with faith. God Bless and Love
Perhaps you could explain this to this old cranky atheist? Rationality and faith are not merely mutually exclusive - they’re polar opposites.
When the religious speak of “faith,” what they’re referring to is that they are aware there is no evidence, no rational reason to believe in God - “you just have to have faith.” The very definition of faith as it’s used here is “belief without evidence.” That’s the opposite of reason and rationality.
Faith is the permission slip you give yourself, to believe something that you know there is no rational reason for. In the words of Mark Twain, “faith is believin’ what you know ain’t so.”
Please explain that part - how do you see them as NOT mutually exclusive?
Well one rain drop doesn’t make a flood… If everything else I know to be true is founded in logic/science, but this one thing “Faith” isn’t, does that make me irrational? If I was an atheist and I threw salt over my shoulder for “good luck” everytime I spilled some, can I not still have a rational mind?
I don’t think this one piece of me negates everything else, but it sure does make everything else a little harder.
I picture you saying this in the dark, flashlight under your chin 
I guess I thought you were saying that faith and rationality are not necessarily exclusive. If all you’re saying is that an overall rational mind can have a little corner set aside for unquestioned irrationality, but still be rational in the rest of it, sure, I’ll go with that.
Think instead of it being sung to a nice John Lennon tune.
*He’s been gone for such a long time
(Hey la, hey la, my savior’s back)
Now, He’s back, and things will be fine
(Hey la, hey la, my savior’s back)
You’re gonna be sorry that you ever fell
(Hey la, hey la, my savior’s back)
'Cause He’s big and mean, and gonna send you back to Hell
(Hey la, hey la, my savior’s back) *
To quote myself with a bit of bolding, To the extent that any mind has faith, it is not rational; they are mutally exclusive." Having faith means that the parts of your thought that are based on faith are irrational; not necessarily all of your thoughts. That doesn’t make it harmless, since religiousity tends to spread in a mind like kudzu, choking out everything else. Best to uproot it entirely.
I once thought this made sense, having once heard this argued by an actual Priest (who in fact argued that it was “a mistake” to try to approach faith rationally). But the opposite approach is also still possible:
Maybe something to try for a “rational mind”?
(Note that I am a very hard atheist myself)
These arguments tend to be rather sieve-like with regard to holding water though.
And isn’t the OP’s problem that he has a hard time reconciling his feelings with his rational understanding of the facts? If so, then he’s already applying the touchy-feely approach to faith, just without enough strength to persuade him to replace rational analysis with apologetics.
I see no reason to believe god exists. I see no purpose to god’s existence.
- He has no power (as per Kanicbird’s take:
) which would put the fear factor right out the window. (Um…why do we need jesus when we have god?)
-
We have no proof he’s good. People say he’s good, but what have you seen that makes you believe that? I realize you’re taught these things from a young age, but examine it now and show me an example of god being good. Or loving. Something you can definitely attribute to a higher being.
-
He plays favorites. When humans do that with their children, they’re called bad parents.
I think many people confuse the word “faith” with “hope.” Though I don’t know why anyone would hope for eternal alignment with something that never lives up to its reputation.
Well I have no dog in this fight and I don’t know the OP. But there are literally millenia of writings by people who occupied their entire lives wrestling with these issues. Stuff like Augustine or Aquinas. Even I think those are interesting subjects (and I surely wouldn’t dismiss them as “sieve-like”).
Interesting, yes. Accomplishing what they aim to, no. If they did, there would be fewer atheists, since they could easly have the logical high ground yanked out from under them.
Do you realize that faith is rational. We have faith in most everything. Unless you are totally psychic and know every minute of the future then you have faith that tomorrow will be another day. That you will have a job to pay for the car you just bought. If you plan anything you have faith that plan will happen. Faith is an integral part of living for everyone, everyday. If you are an atheist you have faith there is no God, if you believe in God you have faith there is a God. And from your post I would ascertain that your faith in your beliefs are so strong that you don’t even recognize your faith (beliefs) as having any possibility of being wrong. You arguments are faulty.
Before anyone tries to answer, you should know that he has already been told many times the difference between faith and blind faith, what logic is and what atheists believe and don’t believe.
There is faith, there is no such thing as blind faith. If there is, then all faith is blind faith. You either know it or you don’t, nothing in between. People who have faith in God, see God hand at work in the world in all things. God set the sun, moon, and stars to do as they do. He made the day to come and the night to begin. You have no argument for blind faith. Another faulty notion. What works for the goose, works for the gander.
Noting Czarcasm’s warning, I’ll just ask this question. You and I act as if the sun will rise tomorrow. Maybe it won’t.
Why do we act this way? Is it because we read in some Bronze Age book that the sun will rise, or is it because we have direct personal evidence that the sun tends to rise in the morning?
I thought about making that point earlier on, in these sense there just aren’t enough hours in the day to analyze every little thing, I like to think of stuff like “the sun will rise tomorrow” as axiomatic or heuristic, in the sense that trying to prove it a waste of time, so just take it as given and move on.
In contrast, believing that filling my house with crystals or bibles or whatever will cure my cancer is not axiomatic or heuristic, because we don’t even have an example of it working consistently enough to be accepted as a useful, if not-fully-understood, mechanism.
Truth be told, I can’t see how faith is “hard”. There is, however, a difference between “I choose to stop my search for knowledge at this point because everything beyond is God or something similarly unknowable” and “I choose to stop my search for knowledge at this point because I have laundry to do”. The former is a self-imposed limitation, the second is a fact of life.
Looking around the world, and at what most people think and believe, it seems quite obvious that faith is easy. Reason is hard.
And here I thought personal experience was anecdotal and unreliable. But God who set the sun to rise in the morning was reliable.
What I object to most is atheists trying to make the word “faith” a dirty word. It is a perfectly good word describing a perfectly logical part of human life. I don’t know why faith should be objectionable under any circumstances. I don’t believe it rational to add or change the definitions of words in order to favor some particular believe system.
And on that note, I’m going to go sit in a nice, quiet corner and have an aneurysm. The rest of you are on your own.
Even when “faith” can be replaced by “fact” ? There’s a reason we don’t use wax cylinders for audio recordings any more; something more useful came along.