(May 29, 2014 at 7:48 pm)k2490 Wrote: Got into a discussion and basically it was asserted that "No one can know whether or not God exists or that there is life after death,but we have to have faith"
Then I said I'd rather go by fact than faith.
then she said "You have faith I'm a good friend don't you? We all need to have faith in something."
You might tell your friend that reasonable expectation =/= faith. One can have reasonable expectation that a friend is loyal and supportive, but the moment said friend stabs you in the back all 'faith' goes out the window.
By comparison, faith in the sense your friend wants to apply it must be defended against all evidence to the contrary. That's why we get theists twisting themselves into knots that would put the one at Gordium to shame.
(May 29, 2014 at 7:48 pm)k2490 Wrote: then it went into---"How can you not believe that you were not here for a purpose? all the time you could have died or when "so and so" told me her brother pushed her out of a car on the free way during rush hour and she rolled to safety? I believe everyone is here for a reason and won't die until that is fulfilled."
By that token, history's greatest murderers were also here for a purpose, and the purpose of those they killed must have been to be victims. One can certainly look back at the path they followed in their life but it's insane to conclude that there's only one path that could possibly have led to the present moment. Had your friend been killed in the car incident, she wouldn't be here to say "how special I am that I wasn't killed - God must want me for some purpose".
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
