(June 26, 2018 at 11:05 pm)JairCrawford Wrote: I understand your analogy but faith typically deals with things not concretely seen. You can provide visual proof that 1+1=2 with the apples and thus I would have to either ignore it or willfully delude myself in order to ignore that evidence and choose to believe 1+1=3.
But when dealing with things unseen, we can't really disprove them. Now yes, I understand that there is a burden of proof issue but that's a different topic.
It's not just a matter of being unseen. There are many methods of detecting things that we cannot see. Atoms are demonstrable despite being unseen. We can measure the effects of electricity, despite being unseen.
The existence of gods is undetectable in any way. The universe behaves exactly, as far as ALL the evidence shows, as a universe without a god.
Quote:I guess what I am wondering is, do you believe that by definition, faith is an impossibility? If so, why?
Faith exists. Many people justify their beliefs by appealing to faith. So it is not an impossibility.
But what faith is, as far as I can tell, is a very unreliable method to use to get to true beliefs. 1.1 billion Hindus and 1.5 billion Muslims use faith to justify their beliefs, yet you think they arrived at incorrect beliefs.
So, if faith can lead you to Christianity, and all those Muslims and Hindus to their beliefs, how can faith be reliable?
How am I, and outsider to ALL religions, able to discern, that your faith lead you to the correct religion, yet the same method, lead all those other billions of people to the wrong religion?
How is faith any different than gullibility?
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
