Not much faith in faith?

Great Debates
1

I am someone who gives no credence to the concept of “faith”.I never touch the stuff in any way shape or form whatsoever.I am often engaged by theists who either try to redefine the word faith to make a case that I DO in fact have faith(kind of like how some redefine “God” to be "anything one might appeciate or revere in an effort to make atheists vanish in a puff of illogic) or else try and convince me that faith is at least the equal of or is in fact superior to reason.

To the latter, I address the following:If faith is such a powerful thing then why does it require such a ridiculous amount of reinvigoration(is that even a word?) and demonstrative, vocal support?I mean, when the Godless Americans March on Washington thing was happening there were christian radio stations all up and down the east coast urging their listeners to pray that the march would not happen.When George Carlin makes “shocking” dissenting comments about christianity televangelists and the like scramble to open up prayer lines for people who are experiencing a crisis of faith (i.e. doubts).When the 9th circuit court of appeals made the ruling about “Under God” in the pledge, politicians, priests, housewives and others scrambled to put on these huge public displays of reciting the “under God” pledge and prasing God in public.

On a related note:Why must your prayer be vocalised adn why do you have to let atheists(or anyone for that matter) know that you are praying for them?If you truly believe that God hears your prayers and these prayer influence his actions then why is it important for you to tell ME that you are praying for my salvation?Will God not hear your prayer if I am not aware you are praying?

I think I have a pretty good idea of why the faithful do these things but I could be wrong and in any case I would love to hear the rationale behind this from a christian(or even a non-chrisitan theist).

2

I’d quite like to hear your ideas of the rationale behind loud public praying and telling you that you are being prayed for, if it is what I think it is (i.e. a blend including insecurity and subtle hope that telling you might actually influence matters toward the prayed-for end), then I’d probably agree.

3

I seem to remember a passage from the Bible (no cite right this second, sorry) where Jesus admonished the Pharisees for praying out loud. He told them that they were praying for show.

I’ve seen a lot of people who I would say are praying for show, and it makes me ill.

On the other hand, if you have a bunch of people who are all praying together, I think it helps sometimes to have one person pray out loud. It helps the group get on the same page and all be gathered together in unison.

As for why one would need to tell an atheist that s/he’s praying for them, I couldn’t tell you. The only reason I can think of is if “miraculous” things start happening, the atheist might attribute them to the prayer and have a change of heart. Just my WAG.

4

GS, I can completely sympathize. The way I use the term, it means that I put full confidence and trust in a God whom I have learned does exist and does love and care about me. But those are based on my experiences, the validity that I give to testimony about His doings, including much of the Bible, etc. In the absence of that which causes you to grow that confidence within yourself (and according to the testimony of Christianity since Paul, it’s His gift, not a DIY project of your own), there is no reason why you ought to have such faith.

A lot of people here use the term to mean “give credence based on non-rational grounds to propositions regarding the existence of a deity/-ies and to his/her/their supposed acts.” That’s probably an acceptable use of the term – I have “faith” in this sense that Ed Zotti will not ban me for making this post, for example – I’ve seen no grounds for him irritably banning people who don’t break the rules of this board, so I have some credence in the fact that I can “safely” make this post without risking my membership. Not that Ed is a god, of course – but it seemed a reasonable parallel.

The bizarre stuff that some folks come up with is in fact founded on their meaning to faith – a believer who trusts the Bible as “God’s inerrant Word” will therefore be forced by his own premises to reject anything that appears to contradict what it says. This is the explanation for the rejection of evolution, the adherence to the literality of Noah’s Flood, etc.

But there’s a sequence of assumptions inherent in that set of premises that do not necessarily flow as a logical sequence. That the Bible witnesses to God, I concur in; that it is therefore a literalistic description of events and metaphysical concepts, is something I don’t buy – it’s very clearly a collection of literature to be understood according to the same premises one brings to any ancient manuscript.

For me at least, doubt is not the enemy of faith. I trust in the God of Truth; whatever doors He opens are available for me to look into. And I have pity for those whose faith is shaken by unfortunate occurrences or the discovery of facts that contravene something they “believed” in the second meaning.

5

For me, faith is something I feel relative so something that has already been proven to me. I have faith that my employer will have a paycheck ready for me this afternoon. I have no way of knowing whether or not it’s ready…but it’s been ready every single Friday since I started working here.

That’s why I don’t have faith in a god. There is nothing I’ve seen that makes me think that god ever existed. Therefore, I have absolutely no faith that he exists today. I think most people who claim faith are confusing it with hope.

And I have no idea what a God of Truth is. I “hope” it doesn’t have anything to do with “faith.”

6

“faith” = the ability to fully believe in something that one knows to be untrue. This emotion is unique to humans. Not because we’re special, but because we’re self-aware. When you’re self-aware you know that you’re going to die one day. That fear drives people to believe in irrational things for comfort. Wanting to be comforted is quite normal, no matter how odd the means are to that end.

7

I have no faith in things I know to be untrue. I am aware, however, that that is a popular definition from those who have an interest in presenting theists as axiomatically foolish.

I have faith in things that I am not certain about; I have faith, for example, that my boyfriend and I will manage to make our relationship work out, and in that faith continue to put the work in to make it happen. When the faith is shaken, it’s much easier to give up.

To the OP: Faith covers things that reason cannot. I do not have a logical support that says that my boyfriend and I will certainly be together in ten years, that the difficulties we have will be proven by time to be survivable, that our partnership will endure. I hope that this will be the case, but it does not answer to logic; when I can faith it to be true, I am stronger in that relationship.

It is a tool; it has its place. Some people have faith like a hammer, and treat all the world like a nail, which is really hard on the screws. Some people feel that they’ve found All The Answers and just want other people to take their word for it, that their answers are universals and work for everyone (demanding blind faith, really), and aren’t willing to understand that other people have their own answers that work better for them. Failure of empathy.

There are going to be plenty of people who are convinced that their model of the world is overridingly true and go out and try to bludgeon people with their axioms. This isn’t a trait of the possession of faith; it’s a trait of the possession of ideology. Some ideologies include faith. Some include lack-of-faith. Some include particular bits of politics, certain lifestyles, particular brand names, and so on.

Me, I have very little faith in ideology, and find most ideologues tiresome.

8

GodlessSkeptic, are you asking about faith or about prayer?

Are there any concepts that you do have faith in, that you do give credence to?

First, the prayer doesn’t have to be vocalised and nobody has to let atheists know anything. In this thread, you are sharing your thoughts and asking questions. Do you have to? What impact does it have on your beliefs? Are you objecting to the sharing of certain thoughts, or to the way of sharing those thoughts, or to the thoughts themselves?

Theists still go to work, they still do things. They don’t just pray (alone or otherwise) for everything they want and then wait.

Whether there’s any value in prayer is a different point.

9

But this is not “faith”.You expect that your check will likely be there becuase prior experience and observation indicates such.I expect the light will come on when I flip the switch because everytime I have flipped the switch in the past the light has come on adn (barring a burned out bulb or faulty wriring) I have no reason to think it will not continue to behave in this manner.

10

What you are describing is hope or maybe confidence.There is no reason to call it “faith”, thus hijacking the sketchily defined concept that theists hold dear when we already have perfectly suitable words for what you describe.

I have hope that I will not lapse into a diabetic coma tonight when I go to sleep and I have confidence that my rigorous monitoring of my blood sugar will keep this from happening.However I do not have faith(some intuitive knowledge of whether this will in fact happen or methodolgy of determining whether this will happen which is beyond the scope of reason) that I will not suffer a coma or insulin shock.

11

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Both I guess.I linked the two because theists usually do the same(eg.“I have faith God will answer my prayers” or “God listens to the faithful”).

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Obviously if I do not ever employ faith in any way, shape or form(as I stated in the OP) then there are no concepts I have faith in.

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Yes, I do.If I want to solicit viewpoints adn opinions on these matters I am wondering about I have to communicate with others.This is not the same as praying which, if there were a god and he listened to prayers I would think he would do so without someone having to vocalise those prayers and make a big show of the matter.

**

Depending on the replies I get the impact could range from me completely changing my POV(i.e. becoming a theist) or simply reinforcing what I suspect already.

**

Of course not.I am stating that I do not see the sense in announcing that one is “praying for my salvation”(for example).In fact this particular pronouncement seems quite bigoted to me because it assumes I am inferior and in need of “spiritual aid” from the christian.You would never hear one say “Oh you are black/jewish/muslim/conservative?I am sorry…I will pray for you!” but somehow it is okay to treat atheists in this way

I don’t know what this has to do with the OP but obviously I do not think that christians or any other theists just sit around and pray.

12

When I look up “faith”, one of the definitions I see is “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.” When I look up hope I get “To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.” What I was describing was the former.

If you meant the definition specifically given as Christian (definition 4: “Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will”), you should probably not have directed the question to theists in general.

Those things within my faith (definition 5: The body of dogma of a religion) in which I have faith (Definition 2 again: “Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.”) are largely trivial; I do not have much faith in the reprtage of others, especially others who have vested interests in certain behaviour. Not being of a faith (5 again) which puts much faith (1: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing) in the concept of sacred texts, I cannot be sensically numbered among those who keep faith (3: Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance) with a faith (6: A set of principles or beliefs.) so delineated.

(And since the hamsters flaked on me first time I tried to post this, I have the opportunity to add: Definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary, as cited on www.dictionary.com. If this multiposts, I guess they didn’t flake out as much as they told me they did.)

13

You have to remember, Atheist don’t have any proof that God
does not exist , and that there is nothing on the other side of
death.You have faith there is no God.To me God is the Creator,
of all things,all matter in the Universe.It is real,you can see it,
touch it,move it around.I believe it was created by a natural
force of nature we have yet to discover.This natural force to
me is God.I have faith in science to reveal the true face of God
someday.

                                      Franko
14

You have to remember, Atheist don’t have any proof that God
does not exist , and that there is nothing on the other side of
death.You have faith there is no God

It would be cute were that true, but one cannot prove a negative. So, it’s a straw man to say atheists do not have proof that god does not exist, because nobody can prove something doesn’t exist. Atheists don’t sit around trying to disprove god. We can’t disprove the existence of a magical omniscient invisible guy that by definition nobody can see, talk to, touch, or know. Even if we did somehow prove it, you’d say our proof is your god just testing your faith, and nothing would change.

While something cannot be proven not to exist, the evidence can show the probability of something not existing is very great. That is the case with your concept of god. It doesn’t require faith to not believe in god. It does require faith to believe in him/her. I’ll put my money on empirical evidence rather than faith (the warm and fluffy lack of empirical evidence) 10 times out of 10.

15

For crying out loud, people, stop bringing out that tired old chestnut. It’s perfectly possible to prove a negative.

It is true that no one can prove that something doesn’t exist somewhere in the universe because we can’t examine the entire universe. But there are plenty of meaningful and non-trivial ways in which things can be proved not to exist.

16

This is true in the credibility sense but I am not sure it is true in the empirical sense.Meaning, you can show that teh christian God does not exist using the courtroom analogy because the entire case for that deity rests upon hearsay.If you can show that Mathew, Mark, Luke etc. are not credible witnesses then the case for God falls apart.But in an empirical sense, supernaturalists can always add traits and attributes to their gods to allow for an escape hatch of sorts.

17

But then it’s not the same “God”, is it?

In a sense, the cases are not equal. Finding only one example of something proves that it’s possible, but we’d have to examine the entire universe to empirically demonstrate that something is impossible.

The problem is that whenever we demonstrate something is true, we’re simultaneously showing that its negation is false.

And, of course, the more we limit the phenomena we’re looking for, the easier it is to eliminate them.

18

I’m so tired of hearing this, from people old enough to know better (i assume Franko is older than, say, seven).

For a theist to be demanding proof from an atheist, as if “belief in a God” and “lack of belief in a God” are equally definsible positions, is ludicrous.

At least the rest of the paragraph is more honest, since it makes no attempt to sound like the product of a rational mind.

19

There are different kinds of faith. Religious faith sounds very well like something you don’t have, but that doesn’t mean you have faith in nothing. But, if you define faith as something only Theists have, then I guess you can say you don’t have your definition of faith. Moving on…

It doesn’t. Most Christians (I dare say) believe that Jesus was the only one with perfect faith. He didn’t go waving his hand around. He seemed rather reserved and quite introspective. During his trial, he didn’t spout, “I believe in myself!!! May I bless me!!!” But, the book of James says that faith without works is dead. This means that you can have faith and not do anything, but you ain’t giving faith much to live on. I think that rather than requiring these folks you speak of to do their loud obnoxious ravings, faith causes them to do these deeds of their own accord.

Who said God was a guy? :wink:

To let the cat out of the bag, I’m a Lutheran :eek:, (which I’m sure will cause this post to lose credibility among some of y’all). Kalt, you are using the Atheist definition of God. By definition, God is someone you can know. It’s almost like God is a friend, and Theists have his phone number, and if you don’t have faith, you can’t know him.

…which isn’t exactly fair, I know. It would seem to me (if I were an Atheist) that if God were that easy to know and get in touch with, why don’t Theists tell you how to get in touch with God? They say something like God has a different phone number for everyone, and you have to figure it out on your own. It’s unfair for Theists to do this, I know. I wish it could be different.

The next time, take it as a compliment. They just want to spend more time with you in the afterlife. At least they aren’t trying to damn you to hell. :smiley: They aren’t trying to be bigoted. You are infering bigotedness (is that a word?) Their intent is much more benign.

Franko, this is ludicrous. It’s similar to a prosecuter asking a defendent to prove they weren’t at the scene of the crime. The burden of proof is on the accuser. Besides, I have proven to myself that God does exist. I can’t prove it to anyone else, because it is personal thought and experience, which is unfair to those who want proof. I don’t set out to convert anyone, really. But, I do have a question for GodlessSkeptic. Can you state that a God *cannot *exist? (This question is vastly different than asking if God does not exist, IMO).

20

We Baha’is are admonished, in Scripture, to pray in private, or in Devotional gatherings. I pray in private, sometimes out loud, sometimes silently. When I vocalise my prayer, it is for my benefit, not God’s. Praying out loud helps to keep me focused, it seems. In Devotional gatherings, anyone offering prayers, or reading from any Scripture will do so aloud, naturally, so we will all be able to follow along.

As far as telling someone I’m praying for them, well, if someone specifically asks for prayers, I will tell them that I will pray for them. If someone that I happen to know (or believe) is a theist seems to be having great difficulties of some sort, I might tell them I will pray for them, hoping they might derive some comfort from knowing that others are concerned and compassionate enough to offer whatever aid they can. As for atheists, the only atheist I ever tell “I’m praying for you” is my husband. We are respectful of one anothers’ beliefs (or lack thereof), and he knows I pray for him, and he doesn’t mind at all. He figures if he’s right, and there is no God, then no harm is done by my prayers. If I’m right, and there is a God, it may actually help. I tend not to pray for atheists in general, but there are Baha’i prayers for mankind, and such, which would certainly include people of all faiths and people of no faith at all.