Why is faith important?

[EGross]

There is an interesting recorded debate here, on you tube between Tony Blair, who makes a passionate case for why faith, and religion in particular is important, and Christopher Hitchens equally passionate case for the opposite. The latter is willing to concede that faith is useful for those who do not have a humanist bent, but would prefer that believers keep their beliefs to themselves. The former shows that Religion does do some good, and people of faith do good for the sake of good, while having amnesia about how some of that good came about, which the latter remiinds him.

It was a good even-handed debate.

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[quote='Esquilax' pid='410354' dateline='1362562586']
I would also add that religion is too messy to begin with even before we do the "experiments". E.g. on one hand, we have someone like Drich saying God doesn't make your wishes come true, and on the other hand, we have jstrodel saying God does make your wishes come true. Two contradictory propositions which means we have no way of setting up an hypothesis to test, given that both are allegedly true from their experiences.

Ask a Catholic and a Baptist about how God works, and you will get different answers. The problem is that people of different dogmas will have different ways of viewing how the whole system works. We've had different sects of Christianity killing themselves over this very thing. Ireland is not the sole example of this.

There is, however, an overwhelming amout of belief in the idea of reward and punishment. If you do good, you will get good in the end. If you do bad, you will receive bad in the end. There is also an overwhelming amount of belief in doing prayer to beg God to do something. When that something happens, God gets the credit. When it fails, well, God said no due to his mysterious ways. Either way, God wins.

Now, to say that one makes a demand of God for 10 minutes and gets fed up waiting is a pointless act, one needs to ask - "What, was God busy on the other line and I am # 11,254 in the queue?" No. The normal answer I get from this is that I have to pray for a very long time until I believe. "What, God is only around when I believe he is around? Is he like my invisible childhood friend, Sparky?" There are those who know that God will answer if you are suffering. So they will fast, sacrificing their own fat, go without sleep and spend the night praying, some beat themselves, forgo pleasures, and suffer so that God will hear them. "What, God gets off watching this, and when he has had enough he will reward you with a reply?"

And in the end, He still might say no, the highest form of sadism after making one grovel and self-inflict for a handout.

Actually, God doesn't make us do this, to be fair. It is the keepers of His special religion (insert here) who tell you what works. And when it fails, well, you didn't do it long enough, you didn't have enough faith, you haven't suffered enough, or God works in mysterious ways and sometimes he says "No."

That pretty much says it all. Although there are those who use magic charms to control God, when all else fails. (Below is a picture of some you can buy from a small stand in Jerusalem).