Best Theistic Arguments

[pocaracas]

The bits I highlighted are the tricky ones.... everything else can flow from the typical Willing suspension of Disbelief that we commonly apply when watching certain movies or reading certain stories - like Superman.

Do we really have a soul?
Is there really a god? Is there really a son of that god?
How can one tell? Faith is just a word for what we can call "unwilling suspension of disbelief"... Somehow, you got convinced that those things are real. How? Looking back through your life, all the way to your childhood, how did you develop that faith? How did you develop that acceptance of something that rational people should naturally disbelieve?

You are just looking straight, you do not look side to side and behind you .. you only look through the science and formulas thanks to which you can solve everything (but it's ok this is your free will).... but you know that even in science, not everything is like mathematical formulas shows us... how many times the theorists should say yes and yes ... even the result is unambiguous, because the numbers are not wrong .. but the experiment goes its own way ... why? beacuse people sometimes are wrong!
we are not always able to predict, understand and prove everything ... sometimes it happens after years, decades ... and sometimes never in our lifetime..

What if I am looking also into what is known as Human Nature and see that most humans have a desire to live forever, while holding the full awareness that they will die, someday?
What if I further that with the desire to have their loved ones go on forever?
And top it off with the desire to see ill fall upon disagreeable people, like enemies and "others"?

I don't think so that's faith is just a word for what we can call "unwilling suspension of disbelief"... I could say the definition of faith contains two aspects: intellectual assent and trust. Intellectual assent is believing something to be true. Trust is actually relying on the fact that the something is true. A chair is often used to help illustrate this. I heard this explanations long time ago and i liked it, so.... intellectual assent is recognizing that a chair is a chair and agreeing that it is designed to support a person who sits on it. Trust is actually sitting in the chair. Trying to understand these two aspects of faith is crucial. Many people believe certain facts about Jesus Christ. Many people will intellectually agree with the facts the Bible declares about Jesus. But knowing those facts to be true is not what the Bible means by “faith.” The biblical definition of faith requires intellectual assent to the facts and trust in the facts. ..this only some part of these..

So... your intellectual assent informs you that souls and gods are real.... and then you trust that souls and gods are true?
Which facts are these that you mention?

And yes i believ i have a soul, i want to believe.  he "soul” in the Bible is a translation of the Hebrew word neʹphesh and the Greek word psy·kheʹ. The Hebrew word literally means “a creature that breathes,” and the Greek word means “a living being.” * The soul, then, is the entire creature, not something inside that survives the death of the body. Consider how the Bible shows that the human soul is the whole person: Adam, a living soul, at the time of his creation..  Adam was not given a soul—he “became a living soul”.  When Jehovah God created the first man, Adam, the Bible says that “man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7, King Jacob Version) Adam was not given a soul—he became a living soul, or person. The Bible says also that the soul can work, crave food, eat, obey laws, and touch a dead body. (Leviticus 5:2; 7:20; 23:30; Deuteronomy 12:20; Romans 13:1) Those activities involve the entire person. And Is the soul immortal? No, the soul can die. Dozens of Bible verses refer to the soul as being mortal. Here are some examples: “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.”(Ezekiel 18:4, 20, King Jacob Version.) and many many others example...

You know?.... you should be careful when you use external sources, like this one: http://www.questionsph.com/page/682599/... you need to attribute that text to the correct author. Plagiarism isn't nice.
Look at the rules:

Code:

Plagiarism
Plagiarism is not allowed. We consider plagiarism to be the act of posting another person's words and trying to pass them off as original, or failing to properly cite their source. Academic integrity is important to many of the members here, and it is only fair to give credit where it is due. When members quote from a source other than themselves, they should use citations, links, and names / references where possible.

I understand that this person may have conveyed your idea of a soul much better than you think you can, but still.... credit where credit is due!



From what I understand after reading a book by Feser, a soul is a form of a human person, where a form is an immaterial perfect conceptual "description" of anything, the metaphysical part of the physical thing. This concept comes from Aristotle who got it from Plato and was turned into Christianity by Aquinas.

According to all these philosophers, these forms are completely immaterial and independent from a rational mind. Hence, they exist, even in the absence of the actual physical human.
Under this notion, existence itself is the most basic form, it's the form that lends support to all other forms. As such, existence becomes associated with god, the creator, that without which nothing can exist. How can something exist without existence?

I never convinced myself that these things are real...I received such education from my mother, I finished Catholic school, I learned about different religions in school ... I read the Bible,  I go to church and i just intellectually agree with these and i trust... that's my faith that's all  

Yes... that's a bit what Feser says... People don't need to concern themselves with the philosophy behind the great Church teachings... just trust that the Church got it right when they adopted Aquinas' works as a rational basis for the whole edifice. The people need only concern themselves with trusting in their elders, being confident that it all makes sense, even if they don't understand how.

I do think that the notion of forms has a particular flaw that, if actual, can make the whole thing tumble... but the religion prefers to totally ignore it... obviously.