1984 & A/S/K revisited

[FallentoReason]

I would think "faith" is a sort of "trust". The question here seems to be if it is justified trust, like when I get on a bus and I trust the driver not to crash. I would use some simple reasoning that would lead me to think it's rational to trust him/her, such as think to myself when was the last time a bus driver crashed in my city (dealing with probabilities), assuming he/she has been doing the job for years and therefore has the experience (dealing with an understanding of the nature of employment) etc etc. I would assume you think your faith in e.g. the A/S/K method is justified, but how exactly? You have no prior evidence that it works, which means it's literally a blind leap of faith into the unknown. Why not also believe 2 + 2 is 5?

Now we're just throwing apples and oranges at each other. You say God has no evidence, I say He does. God made us in His image and gave us a conscience. His entire creation is evidence. "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse" (Rom 1:20). I think we agreed that these are evidence a long time ago. The question is whether the evidence is good enough for the beholder. That's where faith comes in. If you like God, the evidence will be sufficient. If you detest God, you will find whatever reasons within your grasp to deny the evidence.

Ok, perfect. Why are you justified in doing this for your god but not the Muslim? You need to meet me half way and understand that your convictions match your presuppositions, therefore I can't take your suggestions seriously because they are, so far, unjustified. I therefore propose a method for being able to come to truth, but you want to override it and simply urge me "to have faith". So ok... perfect... but why your god and not Baal? It seems like there's no reason at all to choose the Judeo-Christian god apart from the one thing that was out of your control: your geographical starting point on this earth.

Do you see what I'm saying? It's illogical for you to tell me "look! The evidence is all in the Bible!" because I could do the same with you: I could convert to Islam and say "hey, the Qu'ran explains everything you need to know!".

I think you misread these lines. My point was that, epistemically, one cannot directly experience God. He is not a natural being. Therefore, any truths about God or morality or purpose cannot be known through the senses. They can be believed, sure. But that's what faith is--believing what the senses cannot confirm. My point is that if we stopped at the senses, we could not pursue metaphysical questions such as "Why am I here?" or "What should I love?" or "What should I live for?" The answers to these are of the highest importance to us. Yet they lie outside of science. Faith is an attempt to reach beyond the empirical realm and illuminate those questions. The believer uses faith to gain access to a new domain, that of revelation. There is no other option--reason has come to the edge of a cliff. The believer hopes that revelation will expose the truths he seeks. Faith is embraced not "blindly" but with "eyes wide open." Faith is not meant to suppress our intellectual abilities, but to guide them--like the way infrared goggles help us to see heat. The idea is to put faith into someone with access--into Jesus/God--who will respond to our faith by providing us with revelation. But in order for it to do any good, we need to keep the goggles on. We need faith to continue to see God. So if we do not want Him in our life, we ignore him by withdrawing our faith.

Before I respond to this, I need to ask a question. It seems to me that there's an apparent contradiction: You say "...truths about God or morality or purpose cannot be known through the senses" then later on you say "[we] put faith...into Jesus...who will respond...by providing us with revelation". How am I supposed to receive said revelation/truth without my senses? To me it seems like our senses are crucial for such a task, hence the apparent contradiction.

I know this may make little sense to you. But that fact complies with the mantra: you need to believe in order to see. God will not reveal Himself to someone who does not want God to reveal Himself.

Much like the con won't be a con unless you buy into it. Once you believe it, you will see it. Take your pick at any other religion for an example of this -- and if you met me halfway, you would see why your explanations are worrying, because there's no basis for your belief. Just presuppositions that will inevitably align with your desired god's word.

Be honest-- do you want God to reveal Himself to you, in all His power and glory and judgment? The way you answer that question will tell you if you are a Christian or an atheist. You see, it is the agent's desire, or faith, that matters.

It's an ironic question, because as a former Pentecostal Christian, it's what I wanted the most. That was my honest desire and I didn't have even 5% of the knowledge I now have after joining online forums, which means I had zero doubts whatsoever. Just a sincere faith, but I guess reason prevailed in the end.

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Faith -> belief -> knowledge. I find that order to be a problem that is parallel to the OP. Why not knowledge -> belief -> faith? E.g. I come to know that a chair is made up of sturdy parts. This knowledge allows me to form a belief that it can hold someone's weight, therefore, I will put my faith into it that when I sit on it, it won't collapse under my weight. I sit on it and, viola, it doesn't collapse. My entire thought process lead to a justified application of faith.

To take your order of F/B/K into a scientific exercise of discovery would be an invalid procedure, would it not. Wouldn't you replace faith with assumption, belief with theory and then well knowledge is knowledge, so you would have A/T/K. Sound reasonable.

No, you still have the order backwards. Knowledge -> belief -> faith: knowledge allows me to write up an hypothesis (belief), which can then be tested and the results will allow me to produce a theory which I will put my justified faith on. This is exactly what I explained using the chair example.

You are applying your thought process to an known object, so your process of thought works.
God is the unknown to all at first, some of us see something we like about God if He exists, so we decide to have faith in God and what He is offering. We begin to follow up by reading scripture and through this we begin to learn, that is as long as we trust God and ask for His revelation of Himself, and we must do this with an open mind, this is where so many trip themselves up. When God reveals things about Himself that go against our preconceived ideas we must give them up and except God's truth, in doing this we come to belief. Through this belief we continue to ask and explore coming to the larger understanding of who God is, in other words we will come to knowledge of God. This is the point I have contention with those who say they knew God and then turned away. This is the point one sees God in a way that is inspiring, joyful, wonderful, exciting and ect. You know God and could never deny Him at this point. This is why the elect will not see the 2+2=5 of the anti-christ, instead we already know the 2+2=4 of God and thus reject all that comes against the truth of God. There will be one ruling anti-christ, but Christians understand as scripture tells us there will be many anti-christ ie. the world.

Great, so I have to first a) believe in God so that I can then b) believe in God...

Why did you put unjustified faith into Bible god instead of Qu'ran god? You're still assuming the framework of faith -> belief -> knowledge will give you the "truth", and I say "truth" with 66 99 because we can input whatever we desire into it and you will come out believing it. That's the thrust of this entire thread -- that your methods are equivalent to those used by someone wanting to start a cult.