A Believer's Thoughts on Faith

[Huggy Bear]

I'm with the Huggster on this one.  People often believe that they have at least some evidence for the articles of their faith - so it's probably not accurate to say that faith is a thing held in the absence of or in contradiction to evidence.  We might accurately say that faith entails a certainty that the hypothetical evidence referenced doesn't actually meet...but hey, minor details.  I have faith in my wife's fidelity, even though no fact of her not having stepped out before can actually guarantee that she won't step out tomorrow.  Maybe the tomorrow guy is super awesome.

More esoterically, a "faith" can be devised by reference only to things that any given person deems to be (and actually are) objectively and demonstrably true.  The only real question is not whether things are some particular way, but whether we agree that they should be that way.  Even if we think (or are willing to concede) that there's good evidence that life was magicked onto earth - for example...so what?

It kinda stretches the accepted standards of ‘evidence’ all out of shape, doesn’t it?

If a religious experience isn’t replicable, it isn’t evidence. If Jesus comes to me in a dream, how is that any more evidentiary than if Zlorg, the Slug Empress of Altair VI does the same thing? One common definition of evidence is that it is the available body of facts that are useful in determining whether or not a particular proposition is true (or at least valid). I don’t see how a spiritual or religious experience, unique to one individual, can be viewed as a fact - or even as information - to support the proposition ‘God exists’.

The most the can be said for such an experience is that it supports the claim, ‘I believe that God exists.’

Boru

There's no universal standard for evidence.

As for your dream example, in scripture a dream isn't evidence, but a dream that predicts future events with 100% accuracy is. So if Jesus appeared to you in a dream and told you everything that would happen to you in the next week, and it happens, would you not consider that as evidence?