(September 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And just what does, "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" mean, anyway?

It means trust. For example, if your wife says she loves you, faith is trusting that she loves you even on days when your mood would have you believe otherwise.

Keep in mind that the entirety of the Christian walk is an interpersonal relationship with God. Many Christians struggle with unnecessary guilt, for example. Faith is trusting that God loves you, even when you mess up and can't love yourself, because he has promised as much.

Faith only applies within such interpersonal contexts. It is a trust relationship with God. It has nothing to do with evidence or knowledge or beliefs; at least not in any context outside of an interpersonal one.

It isn't sensible to assess a thing that cannot be true or false on the grounds of whether it is true or false. You can't back someone into a corner if they're telling you that their faith is not a logical conclusion based on mundane facts which neither of you dispute that can be true or false - but another kind of thing that also informs them. That's simple intellectual honesty which in no way jeopardizes their faith.

It would be a novel use of trust, John. I trust my wife. I don't do what you do to christ, to my wife.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And just what does,  "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" mean, anyway?

It means trust. For example, if your wife says she loves you, faith is trusting that she loves you even on days when your mood would have you believe otherwise.

Do you knowe god exists in the same way that your wife exists?

You can show me your wife. Can you show me your god? Of course you can't.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Keep in mind that the entirety of the Christian walk is an interpersonal relationship with God.

And that is exactly useless to anyone else. For obvious reasons.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Many Christians struggle with unnecessary guilt, for example. Faith is trusting that God loves you, even when you mess up and can't love yourself, because he has promised as much.

That is why christianity is immoral. Christians can do whatever they like and appeal to a death bed confession.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Faith only applies within such interpersonal contexts.

That is why it is useless.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: It is a trust relationship with God.

Which one?

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: It has nothing to do with evidence or knowledge or beliefs;

Surprise. You finally got something right for a change. You are admitting that you have nothing.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: at least not in any context outside of an interpersonal one.

But you have no personal relationship with any god. If you did, you could demonstrate it. And you wont because you can't.

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(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And just what does,  "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" mean, anyway?

It means trust. For example, if your wife says she loves you, faith is trusting that she loves you even on days when your mood would have you believe otherwise.

Do you knowe god exists in the same way that your wife exists?

You can show me your wife. Can you show me your god? Of course you can't.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Keep in mind that the entirety of the Christian walk is an interpersonal relationship with God.

And that is exactly useless to anyone else. For obvious reasons.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Many Christians struggle with unnecessary guilt, for example. Faith is trusting that God loves you, even when you mess up and can't love yourself, because he has promised as much.

That is why christianity is immoral. Christians can do whatever they like and appeal to a death bed confession.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Faith only applies within such interpersonal contexts.

That is why it is useless.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: It is a trust relationship with God.

Which one?

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: It has nothing to do with evidence or knowledge or beliefs;

Surprise. You finally got something right for a change. You are admitting that you have nothing.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: at least not in any context outside of an interpersonal one.

But you have no personal relationship with any god. If you did, you could demonstrate it. And you wont because you can't.

---

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And just what does,  "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" mean, anyway?

It means trust. For example, if your wife says she loves you, faith is trusting that she loves you even on days when your mood would have you believe otherwise.

Do you knowe god exists in the same way that your wife exists?

You can show me your wife. Can you show me your god? Of course you can't.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Keep in mind that the entirety of the Christian walk is an interpersonal relationship with God.

And that is exactly useless to anyone else. For obvious reasons.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Many Christians struggle with unnecessary guilt, for example. Faith is trusting that God loves you, even when you mess up and can't love yourself, because he has promised as much.

That is why christianity is immoral. Christians can do whatever they like and appeal to a death bed confession.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Faith only applies within such interpersonal contexts.

That is why it is useless.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: It is a trust relationship with God.

Which one?

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: It has nothing to do with evidence or knowledge or beliefs;

Surprise. You finally got something right for a change. You are admitting that you have nothing.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: at least not in any context outside of an interpersonal one.

But you have no personal relationship with any god. If you did, you could demonstrate it. And you wont because you can't.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(September 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And just what does,  "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" mean, anyway?

It means trust. For example, if your wife says she loves you, faith is trusting that she loves you even on days when your mood would have you believe otherwise.

My mood would not enter into the picture.

I don't need my mood to indicate whether my wife loves me or not. I have LOADS of evidence that she does. How she treats me, how she talks about me. how she is willing to delay some of her personable gratification in order to help me (and I do the same things for her). The only thing that would cause me to question her love for me, is if the evidence I now have, were to end.

I do not need faith to believe my wife loves me. My belief is based on reasonable expectations, backed by evidence, that she loves me.

Quote:Keep in mind that the entirety of the Christian walk is an interpersonal relationship with God. Many Christians struggle with unnecessary guilt, for example. Faith is trusting that God loves you, even when you mess up and can't even love yourself, because he has promised as much.

No, it is based on the claim that Christians have an interpersonal relationship with Yahweh.

How would you go about demonstrating that you are actually having an interpersonal relationship?

Yeah...

All you are doing, is listing what you believe. If only any theist could explain, with demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic, WHY they believe it.

Quote:Faith only applies within such interpersonal contexts. It is a trust relationship with God. It has nothing to do with evidence or knowledge or beliefs, at least not in any context outside of the one just mentioned.

Again, Hebrews 11:1 seems to disagree with you.

If faith has nothing to do with evidence, knowledge or beliefs, it is useless. Because, with regards to existential claims, those things are what really matter.

(September 16, 2020 at 11:55 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Christians don't conflate faith with knowledge. That is largely an atheist thing, as can be observed in this thread alone. When you attend church, and hear the conversations Christians have amongst each other, faith is used to signify trust.

Quotes such as "Faith is belief without evidence and reason" come from atheists.

Whereas quotes such as "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" come from Christians.

You're conflating 'trust' and 'faith', not 'faith' and 'knowledge'. 'Faith' is qualitative different from 'knowledge', whereas 'faith' and 'trust' are on the same qualia, but different tiers. You seem to use 'faith' in the same vein as 'trust', interchangeably.

For me to have faith in a god, I would have to disregard evidence and reason about the ability of faith itself. This isn't just some discourse in logic, but a scientific query too - I can test if faith even works in accounting for truth. When I was a Christian, I didn't even question if faith was able to tell me something true or false about my faith in a god. There is the hurdle most theists stop, in my experience, and mainly because the ability to second-guess, to doubt, is intricately suppressed as a 'sin', internally.

You seem to forget that there are a lot of apostates, who once had faith in their particular version of the supernatural. Personally, I genuinely believed in the Christian god - only reason I was put into a path of ceasing in ascribing to faith after a long deliberation was through doubt, resulting from comparing, internally, 2 versions of The Ten Commandments. I now completely disregard the veracity of faith being able to hold any truth value. I still have trust, both from my experience and model of reality, as a result of repeated induction from events.

As for Thomas, he did have evidence, according to the Bible - yet it describes as him should supposedly disregard that - and submit his reason and instead have faith. I cannot possibly do that honestly.

I'm convinced that the only reason I, and a number of other apostates, don't currently believe is because of a fundamental difference between faith and trust, because faith is based on emotion, trust on experience.

Do you think faith has the same function as reason does in revealing a truth? I'm inclined to think that the only way someone can hold onto faith is due to purely emotive conviction, overpowering reason. Case in point, Francis Collins conversion from a trip where he saw a frozen waterfall and remarked about its beauty as being the final tipping point.

(September 16, 2020 at 1:54 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: My mood would not enter into the picture.

I don't need my mood to indicate whether my wife loves me or not. I have LOADS of evidence that she does....

Exactly; your mood shouldn't enter the picture. Yet, since it will, given that we are affective creatures and there is a vast literature on how emotions interact with decisions, faith is trusting your wife's love even on days when emotions interfere with your ability to see that fact.

Emotions are an important part of cognition in individuals with a functional vmPFC. If you personally are detached from emotions and are not affected by them, you could hopefully still understand how this isn't the case for individuals with anxiety or depression. Faith is trusting that the sun will rise tomorrow, even when your emotions feel like the world is ending tonight.

Quote:All you are doing, is listing what you believe. If only any theist could explain, with demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic, WHY they believe it.

Correct again; faith is not a method of proving God's existence. If you keep attempting to use faith in that context it no longer applies. Faith is trusting a God you already believe exists; faith is idependent of whatever reasons, evidence, or logic you built your belief of God on.

Quote:Again, Hebrews 11:1 seems to disagree with you.

If faith has nothing to do with evidence, knowledge or beliefs, it is useless. Because, with regards to existential claims, those things are what really matter.

Just replace the word "faith" with "trust" in Hebrews 11:1 if you have difficulty understanding the verse.

Not for me. Trust is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see? I think, if we thunk really hard, we'd find that the dictonary's description of faith as trust was an effect of secular use...which doesn't express the fullness of a religious faith.

(September 16, 2020 at 3:22 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: If we thunk really hard, we'd find that the dictonary's description of faith as trust was an effect of secular use...which doesn't express the fullness of a religious faith.

To the contrary, faith as belief without evidence is a byproduct of secular, more modern uses of the word, no doubt influenced by the rise of modern atheism.

Faith is a rather old religious word, crossing several languages, and dating back to periods when everybody thought God existed. That is why I quoted my definition from it's etymology. The Greek word used for faith in the NT, the only definition that matters, also leans towards trust. You can see remnants of that definition in English as well. Note that a faith-ful person is a loyal and trustworthy person; not a person that believes things blindly. Biblehub's Greek concordance describes faith in terms of a trust or warranty.

Why would faith go from being a bad thing (blind belief) within Christianity and become a good thing (trust) in secular parlance lol. It's clearly the opposite. Faith as trust is the religious use of the word. And as society became more secular it naturally took on the negative connotation of blind belief.

If you say so, but it doesn't have anything to do with what I was commenting on. I was noticing that the definition of faith we'd been asked to consider reflects secular use, and not the fullness of a religious faith. That's not surprising, since it came from a dictionary, and not a magic book.

That's why we can't replace faith with trust or confidence in a religious discussion. It's your problem if blind faith is a problem for you. Faith is felt. Faith doesn't have eyes to see, so it hardly matters if it were blind. I don't see anything bad about that. We do it all the time.

(September 16, 2020 at 6:11 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Faith is felt.

Emotions are often accompanied by physiological responses and expressions. Fear may elicit a trembling response; anger is associated with the clenching of fists; happiness is associated with smiles.

If faith is felt, please describe its physiological correlates.