Christian "faith" vs. plain "faith"

[KevinM1]

All you've done is repeat over and over again "Believe and you'll believe."

If you lift weights you'll get stronger. Don't believe me? Try it.

Quite possibly the most idiotic thing ever stated on here.

"I don't believe."
"Well, believe harder."

[Pizza]

If you practice abstaining from belief in deities, you will get better at it. It worked for me.

[robvalue]

What utter nonsense.

Imagine every religion in the world saying this same thing. Believe in our religion! If you don't believe yet, you're doing it wrong!

Your religions are as man made as any others. Come back when you have something actually falsifiable so it can fail.

[Ravenshire]

All you've done is repeat over and over again "Believe and you'll believe."

If you lift weights you'll get stronger. Don't believe me? Try it.

If I exercise my body, I'll get stronger.
If I exercise my mind, I'll get smarter.
Blindly following your advice will make me weaker and dumber.

Chad, do you really believe that you can choose what to believe?

[KevinM1]

What utter nonsense.

Imagine every religion in the world saying this same thing. Believe in our religion! If you don't believe yet, you're doing it wrong!

Your religions are as man made as any others. Come back when you have something actually falsifiable so it can fail.

Moreover, the majority of us on here were religious at one point. Our disbelief, without exception, is the byproduct of trying to "believe harder." The more we examined our old beliefs, the more they revealed their ridiculousness.

So, yeah. Been there, done that, realized it was all bullshit.

[watchamadoodle]

All you've done is repeat over and over again "Believe and you'll believe."

If you lift weights you'll get stronger. Don't believe me? Try it.

That seems sensible as long as a person is allowed to give up if it doesn't work.
Typically the believers say to the disappointed person that he/she needs to be patient, try harder, be more sincere, etc. The believers are unwilling to accept that the prescription doesn't always work.

But I agree with the idea of trying things and basing your faith/confidence on subjective personal results. It's not as good as objective scientific results, but it's better than nothing. Subjective results could give a much lower confidence that might justify certain actions with high potential returns?

[Ravenshire]

The believers are unwilling to accept that the prescription doesn't always work.

Oh, but the prescription always works, as long as you do it exactly the way we tell you, at precisely the time we tell you, for as long as we tell you...

[KevinM1]

If you lift weights you'll get stronger. Don't believe me? Try it.

That seems sensible as long as a person is allowed to give up if it doesn't work.
Typically the believers say to the disappointed person that he/she needs to be patient, try harder, be more sincere, etc. The believers are unwilling to accept that the prescription doesn't always work.

The analogy isn't apt, anyway. Belief is not a tangible thing, and anything attributed to faith can just as easily (and more believably) be attributed to something more mundane. It is entirely unlike lifting weights, or practicing math (which has these pesky little things called rules that can be followed and existing results with which to compare), or anything else where repetition can increase performance.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Drich and I have pointed you in a direction you can go to find the evidence. It's not our fault if you're too busy making excuses for not being willing to undertake the journey.

I'm still waiting for you to address my point about sincerity. Is there a reason you've ignored it?

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Seems to me that you are making excuses for why you shouldn't have to engage in a sincere effort.

Seems to me like you're assuming everyone shares your fiction.

You must demonstrate you god's existence if you wish to convince folks.

[watchamadoodle]

That seems sensible as long as a person is allowed to give up if it doesn't work.
Typically the believers say to the disappointed person that he/she needs to be patient, try harder, be more sincere, etc. The believers are unwilling to accept that the prescription doesn't always work.

The analogy isn't apt, anyway. Belief is not a tangible thing, and anything attributed to faith can just as easily (and more believably) be attributed to something more mundane. It is entirely unlike lifting weights, or practicing math (which has these pesky little things called rules that can be followed and existing results with which to compare), or anything else where repetition can increase performance.

That's an example of "faith" and "belief" meaning different things in your usage and my usage. Christians - especially Protestants - follow Luther's "sola fide" which makes "faith"/"belief" the only attribute that determines a person's eternal destiny (heaven/hell). Heaven and hell have no middle ground, so "faith"/"belief" begin to have no middle ground. These words begin to mean something strange and irrational in the Christian vocabulary. In the real world we can have strong belief, weak belief, strong faith, weak faith, hunches, gambles, guesses. Also in the real world "faith" and "belief" are always involuntary responses to experiences, reasoning, evidence, etc. In the Christian world of "sola fide", "faith"/"belief" must be a choice so that God cannot be blamed when people go to hell. The Christian usage of "faith" and "belief" are totally unrealistic, and that is why non-Christians object now when these words are used in reference to science. Essentially Christians have stolen these words from our vocabulary.