Pull up a chair

[Marsellus Wallace]

[Alex K]

Well, can't speak for Pocadotus, but anything we might say we have faith in is continually confirmed -or not- as time passes. I think my wife loves me, then she confirms it. I think the barstool will hold me, then it does. I try to sketch something and it more or less comes out okay. The future confirms our faith.

God seems to resist testing.

Discoporkadillo wants you to think that there is no such thing as confirmation if you don't first have faith in the method of confirmation. Bla bla bla

[Whateverist]

But wouldn't you first have to have faith in faith in order to have faith in confirmation. Likewise, there can be no faith in gods unless you first have faith in faith. Suffice to say you can throw your faith in any direction you like .. unless you favor those that get confirmed. I wonder how hard it is to keep tossing your faith in god's direction without any confirmation.

[pocaracas]

Well, can't speak for Pocadotus, but anything we might say we have faith in is continually confirmed -or not- as time passes. I think my wife loves me, then she confirms it. I think the barstool will hold me, then it does. I try to sketch something and it more or less comes out okay. The future confirms our faith.

God seems to resist testing.

Discoporkadillo wants you to think that there is no such thing as confirmation if you don't first have faith in the method of confirmation. Bla bla bla

"The method of confirmation is confirmed by the method of confirmation, so science is as invalid as god-did-it".

[George Carlin voice]But it works! [/George]

[Whateverist]

Wait a minute! Does that mean our confidence in confidence is completely misplaced? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[Alex K]

But wouldn't you first have to have faith in faith in order to have faith in confirmation.

Exactly, the important thing is that the stupid atheists don't know what they are talking about, and you can love Jesus unhing.. I mean unhindered.

Likewise, there can be no faith in gods unless you first have faith in faith. Suffice to say you can throw you faith in any direction you like .. unless you favor those that get confirmed. I wonder how hard it is to keep tossing your faith in god's direction without any confirmation.

You just gotta have [math]\sum_{n=0}^\infty (faith in)^n faith[/math]

---

Wait a minute! Does that mean our confidence in confidence is completely misplaced? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I'd say yes, but I don't know how confident I am that I'm right.

[pocaracas]

You just gotta have [math]\sum_{n=0}^\infty (faith in)^n faith[/math]

I once asked around to include the LaTeX equation compiler on the forum, but... it's not that much used, is it?

Wait a minute! Does that mean our confidence in confidence is completely misplaced? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Run for the hills!!!!

[DarkHorse]

Number of points:

As others have said you don't have to be a believer in science to reject belief in God or gods.

Whilst you can argue that implies faith in reasoning I see this as a weakness of this philosophical line of questioning as tends towards solipsism.

There has to be a fundamental difference between faith in the everyday and faith that demands worship of something unseen, unproven and un-disprovable.

The philosophical approach appears to assume that science evolved out of philosophy itself. I'd argue not, that science developed out of a try it and see approach as in, I have a problem I'd like to solve so I'll try a number of solutions until such time as I find something that works.

Over time this has yielded solutions but more than that it has yielded complex methodologies that appear to work time and time again.

As our lives are today it is hard to go a single minute without utilizing science and its related disciplines - the mattress you sleep on, the alarm clock that wakes you, the water you wash with, the kettle you boil...

Again, however, we must return to the idea that science doesn't require worship - it is free to change to better explanations of things as they are discovered. Its rigorous methods are based entirely on the best and most reliable results and it doesn't claim perfection.

In summary then - accepting science is a reasonable approach as it gives every appearance of working. This is not true for religious faith, which, even if it did work, hides any evidence to support it.

Agreed!

[Alex K]

You just gotta have [math]\sum_{n=0}^\infty (faith in)^n faith[/math]

I once asked around to include the LaTeX equation compiler on the forum, but... it's not that much used, is it?

If it were free to enable and not much work, I'd be for it. But all concepts that would really need it to be properly communicated in this forum are probably also too specialized for the discussion here. But who knows...

[Esquilax]

What the OP is after is your ownership of the commitment to beliefs in things you have no empirical evidence for esq. He has given examples.

His examples were little more than presuppositional gotcha questions, the answer to which, somehow, don't seem to have altered his line of questioning in the least.

Dishonesty is what you are doing in hiding from that question. I see no reason why you should be scared of it because it proves nothing.

No, dishonesty is equivocating between our trust in, and usage of, scientific and logical processes which have been proved through repeated use and testing to reliably correlate to reality, with faith in unproved, untested and unfalsifiable religious ideals. Dishonesty is trying to make the thing that I can use and show you the effectiveness of repeatedly, right now, with the thing that refuses to be tested in the same way and seems to work differently for every person who even attempts to use it.

We have plenty of evidence of the efficacy of science, reason and logic. We have none for god. And no amount of stupid, bullshit "could you be wrong about everything you claim to know?" presuppositional nonsense will change that.

This entire thread is Disc attempting to drag down real, proven ideas to the level of his irrational assertions, and you're complicit in that. I hope you're proud of yourself, for denigrating the very idea of knowledge outside of useless absolutes.