When a believer begins a sentence with, 'Because God...' that is NOT evidence for God. It is evidence that the believer in question believes that invoking God is the same as an explanation.
I'd like to expand on the topic of faith just a smidge. Twain (referenced above) notes that 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so.' This is nearer the point than most people realize. Twain understood that if you know something, then you don't need faith. Lights come on when I flick switches. Trees are made of wood. You cannot get splinters from marshmallow fluff. These things are brute facts, faith is not required.
I can't help but think that the author of Hebrews 11 was being just a shade cynical when he wrote, 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen', and then goes on to provide us with the most ludicrous list of examples in faith the OT has to offer, a list of fairy tales and level of wrong-headedness which would make used car salesman blush with shame.
A common reaction to my rejection of faith as a path to knowledge is (to use one of the examples above), 'But you don't KNOW that a light will come on when you flick the switch.' Trite, but true - the bulb could be bad, or the breaker could have tripped, etc. But given the track record of millions of switch flips resulting in millions of activated light bulbs, to call this expectation 'faith' seems a bit strained. Now, if I were to flip a switch and expected gooseberry fool to come oozing out of the fixture, THAT would be an act of faith.
Faith is - simply put - a way to avoid thinking, in much the same way that prayer is a way to avoid effort.
Boru
I'd like to expand on the topic of faith just a smidge. Twain (referenced above) notes that 'Faith is believing what you know ain't so.' This is nearer the point than most people realize. Twain understood that if you know something, then you don't need faith. Lights come on when I flick switches. Trees are made of wood. You cannot get splinters from marshmallow fluff. These things are brute facts, faith is not required.
I can't help but think that the author of Hebrews 11 was being just a shade cynical when he wrote, 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen', and then goes on to provide us with the most ludicrous list of examples in faith the OT has to offer, a list of fairy tales and level of wrong-headedness which would make used car salesman blush with shame.
A common reaction to my rejection of faith as a path to knowledge is (to use one of the examples above), 'But you don't KNOW that a light will come on when you flick the switch.' Trite, but true - the bulb could be bad, or the breaker could have tripped, etc. But given the track record of millions of switch flips resulting in millions of activated light bulbs, to call this expectation 'faith' seems a bit strained. Now, if I were to flip a switch and expected gooseberry fool to come oozing out of the fixture, THAT would be an act of faith.
Faith is - simply put - a way to avoid thinking, in much the same way that prayer is a way to avoid effort.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
