I have to say I don’t find your last two posts overly coherent. However, doing the best I can, if your question is “why do people object to your faith in particular?” then:
1/ it may be because of the particular effects of your particular faith on those around you. No doubt you would deny this, quite possibly correctly and if it’s not that then
2/ surely I don’t need to explain to you how it might come about that people react against a phenomenon generally because of their perception of the broad consequence with which that phenomenon generally (but not perfectly) correlates?
Science is not silent. Science has taken up many religious claims about the natural world, and falsified all of them. As for the existence of God, I can only quote Laplace, who when asked by Napoleon where god was during a discussion of orbits, said “[No, Sire,] I had no need of that hypothesis.”
The null hypothesis, that no gods exist, has worked very well. It is up to you to provide a falsifiable definition of god’s characteristics, as seen by us on this world. (It does not have to include a complete understanding of god.) Religion has mostly retreated from this, and now many say science is not relevant.
BTW the null hypothesis has nothing to do with belief or lack of belief. I’d say in most cases the null hypothesis is exactly what a scientist does not believe, since he is going to do an experiment and collect data to falsify the null hypothesis to a certain reasonably high level of probability. Even if you think you have a way of demonstrating the existence of god, intellectually honest would require you to start with the null hypothesis of not god. If you want to default to a given god, you need to let us know which one, given that you are not yet presenting evidence of any.
No, that wasn’t the question but it isn’t a point that is pertinent so I’ll drop it.
No, you don’t. If that’s the answer then so be it. It probably is that simple. Since that’s not how I want to or try to approach things, that’s why I had to ask.
Sorry to continue the highjack, but this goads me. Where is the anti-discrimination protection for holocaust deniers? or for the moon-landing fakers or the astrologists? Should we not be able to form a judgement about anyone based on what sort of random Woo they believe? If I can discriminate against someone because they think the holocaust is a conspiracy surely I should be able to do the same to someone who thinks that all non-Muslims should be killed?
My point is simply that religion has been put into a special category of bullshit views that must be respected, and it doesn’t deserve to be there. Clearly if you’re religous you don’t think it’s bullshit, but that doesn’t make it smell better to everyone else. I would concede that perhaps there should be protection for practical reasons (to protect religous people from other religous people mainly), but are not Neo-Nazis persecuted for their beliefs? Where do you draw the line?
Fantastic; now let’s see what happens when you apply cross-apply the latter and the former.
I tried to sum up your description of faith in the latter context: “basing your judgment on the evidence that’s come in so far … While ready to revise your judgment accordingly as evidence continues to come in … While remaining somewhat skeptical by keeping in mind that the person in question may well be dissimulating? Is that an accurate portrait of how you’re describing ‘faith’ in this context?” Your reply: “In that context absolutely.”
Now imagine someone advocates using blind faith in that context; you’re all about rationally basing a judgment on evidence, retaining a healthy skepticism while immune to claims that you’re scientifically incorrect – and someone walks up to declare that they judge differently: he freely admits there is no basis for his decision, mentioning that scientifically it’s incorrect – adding that he can readily converse with people and discuss the irrationality of his beliefs. And he calls that “faith”. And he asks, “what’s wrong with faith?”
(Or, if it helps you, frame the question thusly: “what’s wrong with blind faith, in the aforementioned context where Disgruntled Penguin doesn’t use blind faith?”)
They existed. That’s not the point. The point is: prior to getting evidence / good reasons for the existence of planets, galaxies and sub-atomic particles, is it rational to believe they exist? No. The fact that some people get to be proven correct eventually doesn’t make their original position more rational - they believed without good reason.
The default position for the existence of anything in the absence of good reason or evidence of its existence is that they don’t exist. One can conceive of an infinite number of non-existent things/concepts and for one to withold judgement on their existence in the absence of any evidence of their existence is simply stupid. The default response to someone claiming in the absence of evidence that fairies/ goblins/ leprechauns exist is that there are no evidence to show that fairies/ goblins/ leprechauns exist.
For that matter, you do not have incontrovertible PROOF that Elvis is really dead. For all you know, he is an alien who is still living today and pretended only to die in order to escape the pressures of fame. You don’t stay silent when someone claims that Elvis is alive, do you?
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I explained how I justified this statement in the post where I made it. Both assertions are the best fit for the evidence at hand. Both assertions are also open to falsification should alternate evidence present itself. In my life I’ve encountered things that seem to be trees, but aren’t (fake trees, computer graphics renderings of trees). However, I’ve never encountered anything that seems not to be a god, but is. In fact, I’ve never encountered anything remotely godlike at all. So if I’m trying to weigh the likelihood of trees being illusory, or God not being illusory, I find the idea that trees are illusory slightly more plausible (although still pretty damn unlikely).
I’ve touched things I think are trees. However I can’t be sure that I wasn’t dreaming, or hallucinating, or that my entire life isn’t taking place within a virtual reality simulation. Such hypotheses are extremely unlikely, but can’t be ruled out entirely. And they’re certainly more plausible than the existence of an entity that is logically contradictory.
Heh heh. He absolutely positively said he was “enthralled with the Nazarene.” That’s all I claimed. I never claimed he believed in God
Fine, you obviously don’t care that you have taken us completely off track, for no rational reason it turns out.
Um, I clearly pointed out that he made his statement in his earlier years.
You clearly implied you knew all the quotes. You mean you are making claims about what Enstein always believed without knowing what he said? Isn’t that rather foolish? Perhaps you should depend less on atheist sites for your information.
Exactly. So why did you go into such a tizzy, accusing me of saying something I never said or believe? I never claimed he was religious or even believed in God. I said he was “enthralled with the Nazarene,” an exact quote. You just started making all kinds of assumptions EVEN THOUGH I QUALIFIED THE STATEMENT
Now that we have that cleared up, would you like to discuss how much faith it takes to be an atheist and how many logical fallacies atheists themselves use?
Well that’s an easy one, it takes exactly zero faith to be an atheist. That is sort of the point. Gods have not been adequately evidenced.
As for logical fallacies? I’m sure atheists are prone to them, what with being human. However I’d imagine that the types most often used by atheists are different to those of the religious as their starting points are different.
OK but I will only talk about what roughly relates to the OP. If you don’t like that idea, and you take us off track, I will start another thread. Agreed?
#1 The claim that there is not enough extra-NT evidence that Jesus is who the NT says he is, is basically an argument from silence. Lack of evidence proves nothing, and therefore faith rather than sound logic is required to deny he was who he said.
Not to mention that in the law you have to prove the truth of an allegation or slander (e.g. “they made it up”). Otherwise you lose the case. You don’t get to tell a jury “trust me, they were all lying.” In other words “take it by faith.” YOU have to prove the truth of the allegation. The Christian is under no obligation to prove people were not lying. That’s why I don’t really bother anymore.
I would say it depends. On the surface, a bland (no offense) modern Christian faith is nothing to worry about. The trouble is that it sets up situations like the one that lead the woman to drown her own kids because God was talking to her.
So it depends.
Personally I think that skepticism should be employeed - so that even if someone has faith, they do not have ‘certainty’ in that faith. If that makes sense.
As to ‘bigfoot’, on the surface, it could be harmless. If, on the other hand, I had a friend who was investing considerable resources (his/her life savings, years of time, etc) and was planning an expedition to find bigfoot, I would feel compelled to reason with the person.
If, after I reasoned with him/her, (again, assuming this is my friend) and they still had faith - that’s fine, I’ve done my part.
How can you not agree with the first sentence (You do realize that if you relied only on faith, both of those faiths (the harmful and the non harmful) are equal, don’t you? )? If ‘faith’ is all that is required for an idea to be believed, then epistemically they are both equal.
You say that they, presumably, analyze their beliefs and reasonably sort them out. What you are suggesting is that they be skeptical about their beliefs (maybe not their meta-beliefs). So, it would seem, even you think there is something wrong with just faith.
Perhaps you would support a reasoned faith - one where you use reason in order to determine which beliefs fit within your worldview (which seems to be what you are saying).
#2 The question “Who created God?” is intellectually meaningless, although some famous atheists don’t seem to have noticed.
Who created the human being?
“The big bang and evolution did it.” Says the skeptic.
Fine, maybe evolution created God on another super-advanced planet. I have no big problem with that. What I have a problem with is that faith in the big bang and evolution could create something out of nothing, but God can’t come from nothing. First the atheist says something can come from nothing, then s/he argues it can’t. This contradiction proves there is a force besides consistent rational thought being applied to the question. That force is merely faith that God doesn’t exist.
Like I said earlier in the thread, if God exists, we are boneheads by definition and unable to affirm or deny him except by faith.
This isn’t exclusive to atheists. Further, this seems to beg the question.
This is nonsense - in law, if someone said ‘the devil made me do it’ or ‘it wasn’t me, it was a ghost’ or any other paranormal claim they would not have a case.
Yet you think law supports the new testament? Eye witness testimony is notoriously bad.
Did you just read Josh McDowel’s book or Lee Strobel’s?
Cite? Show us just one “famous atheist” that claims that “The Big Bang” and/or evolution created human beings. The more you type, the more your ignorance of science and atheism shows.
I agree with you - ‘who created God is intellectually meaningless’, but for different reasons. I think the term ‘God’ is, upon examination, meaningless.
Actually I don’t think there was a point where the universe didn’t exist. You have a different metaphysical view of time then I do.
You have no problem with that? Then what do you mean by ‘God’??
I don’t think there ever was ‘nothing’, nor that anything was ever created from it. That’s why YOU believe, that God created something from nothing.
Which is absurd - it’s magical thinking. How did God do that? Take two scoops of nothing and put the oven to 400 degrees and BAM, something happens?
I don’t know if something can come from nothing - if it could then logically it could not have been created, since creation requires an actor to act upon something. So, logically, if something came from nothing, it could not have had a cause.
That said, I don’t think the universe was ever ‘nothing’.
Seems to me that your beliefs about atheists are gross generalizations and strawmen.
This is utterly illogical. Under that reasoning, we must believe in everything which we cannot prove false. Unicorns, Martians, Jesus; if someone makes a claim, somehow, we have to prove they are lying, else we cannot with any certainty say they do not exist? Is that your proposition?