Theists- do you believe without evidence?

[Godscreated]

That's because your hat is squeezing on your head so hard it's squeezed the sense out of you.

By Zeus GC, Min is really rubbing on ya, I could've sworn if I hadn't looked at the avatar and username...

Nope, I have Min on ignore and have for along time, I got tired of his irresponsible language and the seeming hate towards me.
That reply is all mine, actually was waiting for a good time to use it.

[Cyberman]

It was well worth waiting for. I could wait for it all over again.

[Godscreated]

Well worry right on, I'm not close minded, you've decided that Ryantology believed in the same way as I do, just exactly how can you possibly know this. I know Christ in a way that will keep me from ever rejecting Him. Ryan reject Christ, so how does this make his belief the same as mine. The One Truth of the universe is where my knowledge of Christ comes from, so I've designated nothing, and if you had read all I stated you would have seen that I believe there is no hierarchy in Christianity unless God places one higher than another, and as far as I know i'm on a level or maybe lower with many others.
Tell me, why do you worry so much about how those who rejected Christ believed? I would think it would make you happy that their faith was not strong enough to hold to Christ.

I don't think I did believe in quite the same way as you did. I never took the Bible for literal fact. I treated much of it as metaphor. But, the way in which I believed made me certain, ten years ago, that I would never reject Christ. To see myself at 30 would have horrified me at 20.

The reason why I was Christian for as long as I was, was that I had never had my faith sufficiently challenged by the real world and real life. I never thought much about what sort of character God was, for those who mentored me in my church made a point not to focus much on that. It could just boil down you being indoctrinated more thoroughly and for much longer than I was. In any case, my exposure to reality brought all of my religious beliefs into question, and once that happened, I no longer feared analyzing my faith critically. It came to pass that I discovered a vast emptiness in the entire Christian message underneath the theology and apologetics I had accepted more or less without question. These are questions you have either never asked about your faith, out of ingrained devotion and fear of retribution from your god, or you might just be so convinced that you have the right answer that you feel it is a waste of time to find out for sure.

Either way, you are right. You believe in a mindless, robotic way, executing your programming no matter what, saying, thinking and doing exactly what you think God wants. I believed in a naive, accepting way, because people I respected told me this was the truth, but that could only last as long as my naivety held out. As reason is the enemy of faith, perhaps I was doomed all along while your faith would never be endangered.

But, you cannot say that you did it right and I did it wrong, just because you got the result you wanted, because I was looking for the right answer, more than the answer I wanted to be right (though, I did want that answer to be right). From God, I got no answer. So, either God refuses to answer anybody who might ask critical questions (even before those questions are asked), or he's just not there to answer anything. It's pretty obvious to me, now, which of those is the correct answer.

Ryan, thanks for sharing this, I was wondering why you changed your mind, would have asked but my asking would have brought out more distractions from others.
Your belief system and mine at a younger age were the same, after I turned 18 I left the church to explore the world and did for a very long time. I never found satisfaction in the world, every turn seemed self defeating, so I returned to church and was mentored by Christians that actually taught me to question. I did and at the end of it found God to be exactly who He says He is, my prayer life grew and I saw answers to prayer, things only God could answer. These answers were not what I had or was learning in church, they came because I was studying God's word for my relationship with God. My experiences with God have gone past what one could even imagine, the peace and joy that comes from God's love, answers to prayer on very specific questions, an understanding of scriptures and ect. it's be amazing to actually walk with God and experience reality through Him. So yes our development in Christianity took different directions, I finial choose to ask God and not always people, though God has worked through many of them to help my growth.

[Godscreated]

It was well worth waiting for. I could wait for it all over again.

Only time will tell.

[pocaracas]

I do it like this:

The universe exists.

Agreed.

The universe does not exist under it's own power.

Why not?

There is a foreign power to the universe that causes existence.

Step 2 is debatable, so step 3 cannot be held...

[Neo-Scholastic]

Thanks for you serious and well thought out replies. Much of what follows comes from recent attempts to repair the schism that Descartes created. Most characterize this division as one between mind & body. That description only crudely addresses one aspect of the problem. What Descartes actually did was identify phenomena that could be described quantitatively in terms of just ‘material’ interacting through efficient causes. He removed from consideration any qualitatively defined phenomena.

…quantum entanglement seems to me to be a rather direct example of one bit of energy/matter being "about" another, and vice versa.

Yikes! QM. Quantum entanglement models a measurable relationship between two particles. That’s not the type of “about-ness” to which I referred (Why do I always type in reefer before the spell checker kicks in?). The best example, of intentionality I know is a painting. As a physical object, a painting is nothing more than colored pigments and oil on rough cloth. As an object of contemplation, a painting has a subject matter. A purely qualitative description of a painting cannot capture or convey the meaning of the painting.

OK, let's say that our consciousness is in some way situated in something that is invisible, intangible…call it "spirit." What, specifically, is it about this stuff that makes "about-ability" possible?

That seems like the wrong question. You don’t ask, “What is it about matter/energy & space/time that makes them measurable?” Rather these are phenomena that you can measure and describe in quantifiable ways. Conversely, physical phenomena cannot be described qualitatively without erroneously crossing Descartes line.

With respect to ‘mental/spiritual’phenomena, these cannot be measured and described quantitatively, but we have gotten very good at describing the qualitative interactions using linguistics, semiotic sign systems, Gestalt psychology, and aesthetics. Even then Descartes’s line keeps these studies isolated and they become self-referential. My guess is that this devolution into ungrounded speculation justifies the low opinion many literal and scientifically oriented people have of intellectual pursuits in these areas.

The way I see it, the artificial division created by Descartes creates problems on both sides of the line: meaningless nihilism on the physical side and unbounded relativism on the mental side.

Even if we grant that "formal and final causes" exist,…

I’m not convinced that we can even say efficient causes “exist”…at least not in terms of particles bumping into each other like billard balls. To my mind, efficient cause is a very Newtonian conceit. Various types of cause may serve as convenient fictions for expressing our impressions about reality.

I don't see how this leads to monotheism.

It may not. It takes many steps to go from there to a Supreme Being. I merely believe it to be highly likely, unlike the conviction of some atheists that someday, somehow science will explain all. I think there are good reasons, like those already stated, to consider the promise of scientism a false hope.

… Rupert Sheldrake's "morphogenetic fields" would be an example of a system of formal causation that does not require Yahweh.

Very true. That is one reason his work is ridiculed and dismissed by closed-minded skeptics. Morphic resonance would undermine the presumed causal closure of physical reality. If true, Sheldrake’s theory requires a much expanded notion of reality.

The existence of so many different versions of theism--even monotheistic religions divide into irreconcilable sects--implies that theists are not "observing" the same territory. If they were, their maps would tend to converge on a more consistent, accurate picture over time.

This is a matter of interpretation. I do believe that some convergence has already started to occur. The breakdown of geographic boundaries has lead to a much more robust interest in comparative theology. Common spiritual teachings keep coming to light. Even on AF, I have found much more doctrinal similarities with other Christians than I would have expected just from my private studies.

[Mystic]

I believe in myself with no evidence that the concept of myself has any substance behind it.
And I believe in praise, with no evidence, praise is a property of any being or state of being or action.
There is no evidence for the dearest of our beliefs as far as I know.

I really wish there was some that I was aware of.

I believe in God despite no evidence and evidence to the contrary.

Yes God now, as in I worship that being, even though my own reasoning would have me not to.

I believe without evidence. Although I would take the existence of the self/soul, praise, morals, knowledge of free-will, all to be proofs of a Transcendent origin and creator, I realize both the syllogism that points to that and the very existence of these things are properly basic "faiths" too, with no evidence.

There is no evidence for our dearest of our beliefs. In fact, there is plenty of evidence against each one of them.

I refuse to believe in what the evidence as far as observation goes, and I'm sticking to my faith/instinct/intuition.

I'm a stubborn mystic, "once an irfani, always an irfani".

[Tex]

The universe does not exist under it's own power.

Why not?

If matter/engery could exist under its own power, it would be infinite. For things to exist, Existence must be. If the universe was its own source, it wouldn't be limited in it's existence. Instead, the universe is finite, and therefore has a source of existence. This is the reasoning for 2 and 3.

[Cyberman]

If matter/engery could exist under its own power, it would be infinite.

Why would it?

For things to exist, Existence must be.

Ye-es... with you so far...

If the universe was its own source, it wouldn't be limited in it's existence. Instead, the universe is finite, and therefore has a source of existence. This is the reasoning for 2 and 3.

Unfortuntely, you can only reach this conclusion by first making the assertion at the top of this reply, thus defining the terms of the argument in such a way as to assume your conclusion. This is reasoning, certainly, but it's very bad reasoning. We're back to my watch-damaging gremlins again, which I defined into existence to be the cause of watches to break, solely to make the argument work. However, my argument was critical commentary on yours - what's your excuse?

But let's grant all your definitions, assumptions and assertions; let's take your points as they stand, at face value, even though they cannot do so without massive support which you haven't provided. The Universe exists, it could not have caused itself and so must have had a cause. How do you get from there to a god exists? Let alone "God"? Give me the B that plugs in neatly between your A and C.

[Ryantology]

Why not?

If matter/engery could exist under its own power, it would be infinite. For things to exist, Existence must be. If the universe was its own source, it wouldn't be limited in it's existence. Instead, the universe is finite, and therefore has a source of existence. This is the reasoning for 2 and 3.

For God to exist, existence must be, and it must be independent of God. God could not have made himself exist. Any condition which permits the existence of a creator God must also permit the existence of a universe which came into existence unaided and at random. If you close the latter off, you also must close both off. If you assert that God is the uncaused cause, then you accept that uncaused causes are possible, and all hypotheses which rely on uncaused causes are automatically equally plausible, because by this point, you're so far into metaphysics that you are left without any way to prove, even metaphysically, that only God can be a prime mover.

There comes a point where you simply cannot move the goalposts any further.