(September 16, 2020 at 1:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:(September 16, 2020 at 1:03 pm)Simon Moon Wrote: And just what does, "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods" mean, anyway?
It means trust. For example, if your wife says she loves you, faith is trusting that she loves you even on days when your mood would have you believe otherwise.
My mood would not enter into the picture.
I don't need my mood to indicate whether my wife loves me or not. I have LOADS of evidence that she does. How she treats me, how she talks about me. how she is willing to delay some of her personable gratification in order to help me (and I do the same things for her). The only thing that would cause me to question her love for me, is if the evidence I now have, were to end.
I do not need faith to believe my wife loves me. My belief is based on reasonable expectations, backed by evidence, that she loves me.
Quote:Keep in mind that the entirety of the Christian walk is an interpersonal relationship with God. Many Christians struggle with unnecessary guilt, for example. Faith is trusting that God loves you, even when you mess up and can't even love yourself, because he has promised as much.
No, it is based on the claim that Christians have an interpersonal relationship with Yahweh.
How would you go about demonstrating that you are actually having an interpersonal relationship?
Yeah...
All you are doing, is listing what you believe. If only any theist could explain, with demonstrable and falsifiable evidence, and valid and sound logic, WHY they believe it.
Quote:Faith only applies within such interpersonal contexts. It is a trust relationship with God. It has nothing to do with evidence or knowledge or beliefs, at least not in any context outside of the one just mentioned.
Again, Hebrews 11:1 seems to disagree with you.
If faith has nothing to do with evidence, knowledge or beliefs, it is useless. Because, with regards to existential claims, those things are what really matter.
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.
