(January 30, 2017 at 4:28 pm)Redoubtable Wrote:(January 30, 2017 at 2:17 pm)SteveII Wrote: 1. I think you are misusing the word 'faith'. Faith is having confidence in something, and in this context, confidence that God is/will _____. So, how could a confidence in God be the rational basis for belief in God? Perhaps you mean someone's belief about God. But if that is the case, the sentence is circular: a persons belief in God is a rational basis for belief in God. I think most people have tangible reasons for their belief.
I don't agree that faith is merely synonymous with "confidence", it has far too many additional connotations not the least of which is that faith is also characterized as a gift, a supernatural grace from God. In a more common sense I think of it as belief beyond the evidence, that at some point there is a break with proportioning belief with evidence and one takes a leap of faith and just assumes the truth of what is claimed despite not having proof.
The problem I have with this is that up until that point believers are fine with invoking the need for proof and proportionate evidence (especially when debating believers of rival religions), but then suddenly pull out the faith card once their reasoning fails them and they need some justification to accept belief in a reality they can't arrive at without invoking faith. So you'll see a Christian criticize the Qur'an for its contradictions, but when similar criticisms are made about the Bible, the "evidence mode" gets switched off in their minds and we're back to "faith mode" as there is no length a Christian will not go to in attempting to square the circle in claiming there is no contradiction, because regardless of the criticism (and the evidence supporting it), the conclusion has already been reached in advance thanks to faith based belief which precludes one from entertaining the possibility that they are wrong about the belief system that demands faith in the first place.
Even with all the additional connotations, faith never means belief in God with no evidence. Here are some of the main verses from the NT about faith. Faith does not come from God either. It is an action/attitude on our part.
I find the evidence for the existence of God to be sufficient. I find the person of Christ to be compelling. I believe the authors of the NT and the events they describe. I believe that God can change lives and believe others that testify to their own changes. I believe that personal miracles still happen (not the big flashy ones of the NT) and believe people I have met that experienced them. I believe that people have a built-in propensity to believe in the supernatural. I also believe that Christianity is the most complete worldview that answers the big questions that people have (meaning, purpose, worth, morality, the future, etc.). Christians have reasons for believing as they do. To suggest the "evidence mode" gets switched off is simply wrong. You seem to think that there are questions/objections that haven't been addressed in literally thousands of books (for every topic) sometimes spanning almost 2000 years. There are not. There are no new objections to Christianity.
Quote:(January 30, 2017 at 2:17 pm)SteveII Wrote: 2. If you believe Christianity to be true, that entails believing that Christianity is the only path to God. Following that train of logic, how does that equate to 'arrogance'?
It equates to arrogance when you de-mystify the religion and view it from the perspective of it not being true, but just a bunch of religious leaders (whether it be pastors, priests, whatever) imposing a myth-based worldview on children and others, having their entire position predicated on the presumption that the human race owes its adherence to their views without offering any reasons for belief proportionate to the extraordinary claims they make. This arrogance was taken so far that you were once considered unfit to live if you spoke against what were considered the correct religious views. Such people were tortured and executed as heretics under both Catholic and Protestant governments of the past.
Your original post said "To me the peculiar thing about this is that up until very recently Christianity was saturated in an arrogance that still exists, but is not nearly articulated as much as it used to be, and this arrogance is basically that it is not only reasonable to have faith in their religion, but that we have a moral obligation to have faith in their religion.
So, arrogance is an attitude that you attributed to a Christian simply for the fact that the Gospel message is necessarily exclusive and not a matter of opinion. So if one believes the Gospel, how can the belief that necessarily follows be considered arrogance? In your clarification, you seem to be pivoting to a criticism of men who have layered things on top of Christianity--which might very well be the case. But you should distinguish the root of the arrogance.
