(September 13, 2020 at 4:29 pm)Belacqua Wrote: If I were going to write a similar sentence, I might add a little for extra clarity, to avoid certain misunderstandings that others have made. I'd say something like: "[b]my atheism will continue, as long as theists continue to fail to meet their burden of proof according to the criteria I used to evaluate their claims." Naturally, they think they have met a burden of proof, which we disagree with, so the subject turns into how we demonstrate or dispute the truth of our statements, and not some one-sided judgment passing that gives the impression that our own standards are somehow eternal, indisputable, and obvious to everyone.[/b]

Of course most theists will claim they have met their burden of proof. Not too many people will want to admit they believe something for bad reasons.

But have they met a burden of proof, using good standards of evidence? Obviously, I do not think they have, and I have good reasons for thinking this.

Can their standards of evidence for their specific god beliefs, be applied by theists of other religions to their religions? I think the answer to this, is an obvious yes. Muslims, Christians, Mormons, etc, give almost identical reasons for their beliefs, as those of the other religions.

They all have ancient texts that they claim were inspired by a god, they all claim that their god acts in their life and/or they have personal experiences with said god, they all have miracle claims, they all claim their religious texts have scientific facts that could not have been known at the time, etc, etc.

So, how good can their standards of evidence be, if they can be applied to other religions with equal (non) effectiveness?

The same goes for the "philosophical arguments for god". You know: Kalam cosmological argument, argument from design, ontological arguments, TAG, etc. They are all fallacious. So, again, how good can their standards of evidence be, if theists appeal to arguments, that can't lead to the conclusions they purport to prove (they are logically invalid and/or unsound)?

Lets say and alien culture lands on Earth, and they want to know which, if any religion is true. So, they gather all the best theologians, the best apologists, the best evidence that all the various religions have for their religion, they even learn all the ancient languages so they can read all the various holy texts in their original languages.

Do you really think, with everything that any these theologians could present to these complete outsiders to human religion, would be convincing?

So again, how good can theists standards of evidence (and burden of proof) be, if complete outsiders to human religion would not be convinced by theist's evidence?

And before you say that my hypothetical is not likely to occur, or the results may not be what I am saying they would be, you can look much closer to home. Research the Pirahã tribe from the Amazon. They have no god beliefs, and missionaries that have visited them, have not been able to convince them.

(September 14, 2020 at 3:12 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: But have they met a burden of proof, using good standards of evidence?

Yes, I agree that what they think of as good standards, usually, are not what we think of as good standards.

(September 13, 2020 at 1:15 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: No worries.

So long as your beliefs can be true or false, then they are categorically different from feeling a certain way about a thing - which is not a cognitive proposition at all.  As you note, feeling a certain way about a thing won't alter the truth value of that same thing, though I imagine it's great for self esteem.

I think I've lost interest in this. Sorry. I'm going to move on to something else.

(September 11, 2020 at 9:20 am)Nomad Wrote: Your definition is wrong. Faith is simply the unjustified belief in a god for which you have no evidence. As an atheist, I cannot have faith.

That's the atheist strawman definition lol. Within Christianity faith is synonyms with trust.

(September 15, 2020 at 11:57 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 11, 2020 at 9:20 am)Nomad Wrote: Your definition is wrong. Faith is simply the unjustified belief in a god for which you have no evidence. As an atheist, I cannot have faith.

That's the atheist strawman definition lol. Within Christianity faith is synonyms with trust.

Actually, Nomad gave a good definition of faith.
To understand it better look at it this way: Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know.

For instance, if a religious person says “I have faith in God.”
What he is actually saying is: “I pretend to know things I don’t know about God.”

Or when a theist says: “Life has no meaning without faith.”
He is saying: “Life has no meaning if I stop pretending to know things I don’t know.”

Or when a religious person says: “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”
He is saying: “I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know enough to be an atheist.”

(September 15, 2020 at 11:57 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 11, 2020 at 9:20 am)Nomad Wrote: Your definition is wrong.  Faith is simply the unjustified belief in a god for which you have no evidence.  As an atheist, I cannot have faith.

That's the atheist strawman definition lol. Within Christianity faith is synonyms with trust.

Deliciously reductive.

Why even use words, eh?

Christianity's Bible has a definition of 'faith' from a few verses that is about believing in things which one cannot see or show to be true. If you're convinced this denotes trust, then I feel sorry for you.

(September 15, 2020 at 11:57 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 11, 2020 at 9:20 am)Nomad Wrote: Your definition is wrong.  Faith is simply the unjustified belief in a god for which you have no evidence.  As an atheist, I cannot have faith.

That's the atheist strawman definition lol. Within Christianity faith is synonyms with trust.

Within the dictionary, faith as spiritual belief is distinct from faith as trust in the ordinary sense. One word, multiple senses. Treating different senses as though they're synonymous is falling into the fallacy of conflation. When talking about religious faith, intellectual honesty demands that we take care to distinguish it from faith in such things as the sun rising tomorrow, which is a justified inference. Nomad's definition only addresses the religious sense of the word.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:09 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: Actually, Nomad gave a good definition of faith.
To understand it better look at it this way: Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know.

For instance, if a religious person says “I have faith in God.”
What he is actually saying is: “I pretend to know things I don’t know about God.”

Or when a theist says: “Life has no meaning without faith.”
He is saying: “Life has no meaning if I stop pretending to know things I don’t know.”

Or when a religious person says: “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”
He is saying: “I don’t pretend to know things I don’t know enough to be an atheist.”

The Online Etymology Dictionary defines faith as: "faithfulness to a trust or promise; loyalty to a person; honesty, truthfulness"

When a religious person says, I have faith in God, they are saying they trust God in some way; they trust God will save them, they trust God will forgive them, they trust God will help them. They are not pretending to know or not know anything.

Faith is assenting to any proposition, based upon the credit of the proposer. How reasonable faith is depends on how trustworthy the proposer is.

(September 16, 2020 at 9:40 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Faith is assenting to any proposition, based upon the credit of the proposer. How reasonable faith is depends on how trustworthy the proposer is.

Faith depends on personal tastes and/ or community in which you were raised.

Faith is not an objective thing.

Christians say with faith "Jesus walked on water" while Hindus say “The Dalai Lama reincarnates” Muslims say "Mohammed was the last prophet." These statements are faith claims masquerading as a knowledge claim, a statement of fact.

And, of course, different faith traditions make different truth claims.

Faith cannot adjudicate between competing claims (“Muhammad was the last prophet” versus “Joseph Smith was a prophet”). Faith cannot steer one away from falsehood and toward truth.

Why faith and trust are not synonymous.

When we trust something or someone, we are trusting things that exist, that have properties that can be measured.

How often does the earth rotate to cause the appearance of a sunrise ?

The earth exists. The sun exists. The motion of the earth around the sun is well documented. We can trust the sun will rise tomorrow because of what we know about the earth and sun and their motion.

Faith deals with the unknown, things that haven't been shown to exist. This is why faith is used when talking about religious ideas. It's unknown if a god exists. It's unknown if a god has any power or intelligence or any properties at all.

Everything about a god is taken on faith, without evidence.
And that's what faith is, believing that something is real when there is no evidence to support that belief.

To have trust, you have to have a real, existent thing.
I trust that I can successfully drive a car.
I exist
My car exists.
My car functions properly.
There are roads that exist for me to drive on.
I have demonstrated my ability to drive well.

One word is used for existing things
The other word is used for the unknown and often non existent.