If evidence for god is in abundance, why is faith necessary?

[Mister Agenda]

...Star formation started occurring about 560 million years after the Initial Expansion, and organic matter (molecules containing carbon) would have existed thereafter...

First generation stars did not produce carbon.

That was me, not speedy, he hasn't got the hang of the quote function yet.

[Succubus]

Oops.

[Cyberman]

Never fear, I just fixed things for you. Invoice enc.

[speedyj1992]

Yeah, people on acid do show some different brain activity too.  In fact, so do people who are wanking, catatonic or epileptic.  Careful what you wish for.

As a person with epilepsy, I'm not offended, just wanted to let you know it's something I'm all too aware of with myself - adjusting to having abnormal brain activity is a process because I started having seizures only a couple of years ago at 23. Just an interesting fact about me that might surprise you.

---

It took me a while to realize you were replying to me!

If you're having trouble with all the quotes, maybe you're not using the "source mode" when replying. For basic forum participation the normal mode is fine, but, for a proper discussion addressing multiple points, it's always better to use the source mode.
There are two ways to access this mode:
1) Each time you reply, just above the text box you use to type your stuff, you'll find a series of buttons. The one furthest on the right says "View Source". Click it!
1.a) If you use the quick reply box at the end of each thread, it uses the source mode... but the other person's quote won't be there, so that's not very feasible.

2) Go into your User Control Panel. At the top, next to the Alerts, you'll find a link to the "User CP", or use this link: https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php.
Scroll down until you find, on the left hand side, the "Edit Options" link.... or you can go straight in with this link: https://atheistforums.org/usercp.php?action=options.
On the right hand side, you'll then find a box with Other Options and one of the last items is "Put the editor in source mode by default". Activate it, and it will always be there for you. Enjoy using BBcode tags!

I'll reply in bold - thanks for those tips! I tried applying the first and last, and I think it might help a bit in responding. Let me know if it works either way. 



How would you know if you're accurately representing Christ?
Just so you keep it fresh, flipping tables would not be beyond him!

This is a very fair and interesting question, so I'm glad you asked - I constantly have to be checking myself because it's so easy for me to fall into old ways. In theory, this shouldn't just be me doing this, and it's not, but more people should be doing this who claim to follow Christ. As for table flipping, Jesus had a certain amount of authority and could be righteous on His own, which I can't - hence why He was able to flip tables in righteous anger and I probably can't (or at least shouldn't, though there are some people who make it hard to resist). 



So I've noticed.
However, I'm more interested in what makes you, a person living in 2017, assume that the bible is a trustworthy record.
See.... I don't care what that book says. I once tried to read it, but got hung up at the end of creation, with all those "god saw it was good"... I couldn't stop laughing at that expression. Anyway, I don't care about it, because it was written by people with the intent to be read by people.
And the people who wrote it poured into it whatever they knew. Some knew a bit about how people's minds work, even if they attributed it to something else; some were just compiling floating folk tales; some were listing the kings of the land and their stories... etc etc etc.

"Assume" is a strong word, and I do make an effort to avoid assuming because when you assume, you get a baby donkey (I can't take credit for that particular spin on that phrase). On one hand, I'm not going to force you to read the Bible, in part because I can't, and on the other because I don't believe in that approach. HOWEVER, I think 



This one?
""
“Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isaiah 46:9-10).
""

Do the words dictator and tyrannical mean anything to you?

I do wonder how this God used to talk to people so clearly, but now, and for the last 2000 years.... and for the hundreds of thousands of years before... nothing...

Regarding the verse you used, that is a decent example. I don't know why the words "tyrannical" and "dictator" came to your mind, because it's very clear from a qualitative analysis of the Bible that God is personal ... which is hard to really point out when you haven't read much of it. Real quick, the miracles Jesus works are different, the way God communicates with different people vary over the years (but still have a consistent message, so it's never unclear that it's all one God), and verses such as Hosea 11:4 and Ezekiel 16:8 make it clear that God has a tender and loving relationship with His people. Plus, dictators don't let people make their own choices, very different from the God of the Bible.

As for God not talking to people the same way now ... Jesus fulfilled the Law of the Prophets. Aka now we each get to have a personal connection through God in prayer (that was originally done by people praying to priests who would pray to God on their behalf) that isn't always necessarily hearing God's voice (though some will say they can), but involves God working in our lives through events, sermons, and conversations we have with people. People are disputing that the passage of time has made us disconnected from God and caused a loss of faith that has lessened the communication between us and Him - I don't know how valid this point is, but I think it makes sense even if it may not be completely true. The NT ending (Paul's letters particularly) makes it clear that God wants to have personal relationships with us, and people still report miracles all over the world throughout time. So, saying that they don't happen, or saying they're the result of something else, may be a common response, but doesn't mean God isn't working, even if He's working in a different way because He has given us His Word in full for all He wants US to do. Now is the time we have to act on God's behalf, not because God can't or won't, but so we can get the opportunities to do this. 



There's a contradiction and you don't see it.
To create is an action that, in itself, like all actions, requires time.
You are proposing an entity that can perform actions in the absence of a thing that's required for actions to occur: time.

But also, you are proposing that an entity exists "outside of time".
Not even going to the trouble of asking how that can be, but more to what I care about... How would someone come to possess that information about such an entity?

Oh, the bible says it.... "Biblically, God created everything"... well, I don't think the bible is a trustworthy record, so I don't accept it's account of how things happened, so... why do you?
What makes you accept the accounts on the Bible?
What makes you think it is a trustworthy source of information?
What happened in your lifetime, to you, that made you unable(?) to see it as the series mythological tales, with a bend into the propaganda, that it is?

Like I said, God created the universe and can do with it what He wants, which means that the laws of physics as we know it are like putty in His hands. So, God can do whatever He'd like. As for why I take the Bible as trustworthy, there are many historical and scientific prophecies in the Bible that, individually, could've been coincidence, but over such a long period of time, with such a variety of people who have contributed to writing it, could NOT have been coincidence. Other "holy" books have some incredible stuff, don't get me wrong, but not on that level, and there are things that they state that are blatantly false, both based on world knowledge and based on what they present. With the Bible, every point that seems contradictory can be worked out by examining it in relation to other points and what was going on historically at the time. 



Fair enough.
Then he's some high-tech alien from out of this Universe.

No, just God.



You did the math?...
I'm sure you also threw in a bunch of assumptions.
Care to share them?

I'm going to bet you that the first few assumptions are way off base.

Oh, and do keep in mind Avogadro's number: 6x10^23. A very important and handy number.
This number is the number of molecules of a perfect gas that you can find in a 1 Litre volume of that gas.
A liquid, such as water, is denser than a perfect gas, so we get more molecules per Litre.... roughly 55 times more. With that, you're already on 3x10^25 water molecules per litre or water. Give me the number of Litres of water on Earth and you will see that your numbers aren't that great.

Big numbers are impressive... but they do need to be put in proper context to be meaningful. And your comparison with the number of electrons in the Universe is far from proper context. A jump of 10^30, when the current estimate of 10^10 galaxies, each with 10^10 stars, gives you a 10^10 wiggle room for your "unlikely event" to happen within any particular star system.
By your math, any star system with a planet in the habitable zone (liquid water) must almost certainly produce life.

Okay, then I will copy and paste this response here from another post, assumptions included: If the min number of base pairs required to actually be a functional, albeit single celled, organism is 300 (and archaea, which it is believed we came from, have 537 base pair in the lowest recorded organism we know of), and our current attempts at generating a base pair with all the optimal molecules to form amino acids (and not optimal is more common than optimal, but let's ignore THAT) in a chemical mixture are available, then the odds of 1 base pair forming is 1/10^20. The odds of all the base pairs in 1 of those archaea forming, therefore, is 1/10^6000, and I've already established in another post that the realm of possibility is 1/10^50 (so we are 5950 ZEROES short of an already liberal realm of possibility). Now there are an estimated 10^25 planets, and probably 1 million bodies like asteroids and moons per planet (rounding way up), so 10^32 (again, rounding up) possible bodies on which life could form (granted, very few of them will have the possibility for life, BUT let's ignore THAT, as well). 

Ok, so now, if we acknowledge that these proteins can interact again even if they fail to form a complete base pair, they're not just discarded. Let's say that makes the whole process 1/10^100 more likely across the whole universe. Now, let's say that there are, across all these planetary bodies, there are 10^15 attempts per SECOND throughout all of time, so roughly 10^4 (rounding up AGAIN) seconds times 10^3 hours (still rounding up) per 10^2 days (continuing to round up) times 10^4 days per year (you get the idea about rounding up) times 10^10 years (also rounded up), and you get 10^38, plus that 10^32 planetary bodies PLUS that 10^100 for the interaction of discarded amino acids and you get ... 10^170. Times 1/10^5950 and you get 1/10^5780, and you're not even close to 1/10^50. 

As you can see, my assumptions are based on liberal numbers. I used them from various experiments that have attempted to create life from nothing, which I would encourage you to look into. I would welcome any and all questions. 





Yes, some people end up being simply Deists, because they are honest enough to understand that "the god of the bible" seems too much manufactured.

Deism is more about the rejection of something than embracing something else, from all I can gather - please tell me more about things you are for and how they don't arise out of what you perceive to be flaws in the Bible and with people like me who follow it. 




People who accept Jesus, or any religious calling, do show some different brain activity.
That doesn't mean that whatever they're accepting is actually real.

I wasn't using this as a point to enforce the reality of God, just pointing out how some people say they believe but don't act like it. 

[The Grand Nudger]

How would you know?  Honestly, at least some of the things you think are "acting like they believe in god" are nothing of the sort.  Consider this...I'm a moral realist who agrees with the notion of objective values.

Is this "acting like I believe in a god", from your POV?

[Haipule]

By any logical standard if there was any evidence for the existence of god, that would make faith irrelevant.

That faith is needed in the religious community reasonably means that zero evidence is in existence to prove god is real.

The "Church" says "faith", the bible does not. The bible only asks us to "trust--pistos" God in His promises of abundant life through followship. He NEVER asked anyone to "believe" blindly, in the original autographed language, God only asked that we trust His leadership. Any 'imagined' "faith" is completely useless and anecdotal.

However, what the church has done with "faith" is inexcusable! God NEVER asked for "blind faith", He asks us to trust Him with eyes wide open to His power guaranteed by all that He has made! NOT grace! NOT English Eph 2:8 "by grace", but Greek "to-thee joyous favor"!

Funny, how I would be booted from a Christian Forum for saying that. Yet, possible welcomed here!

Only to His glory, Bill

[vorlon13]

Might as well do it right, and welcome to the forum.

[The Grand Nudger]

The "Church" says "faith", the bible does not. The bible only asks us to "trust--pistos" God in His promises of abundant life through followship. He NEVER asked anyone to "believe" blindly, in the original autographed language, God only asked that we trust His leadership. Any 'imagined' "faith" is completely useless and anecdotal.

However, what the church has done with "faith" is inexcusable! God NEVER asked for "blind faith", He asks us to trust Him with eyes wide open to His power guaranteed by all that He has made! NOT grace! NOT English Eph 2:8 "by grace", but Greek "to-thee joyous favor"!

Funny, how I would be booted from a Christian Forum for saying that. Yet, possible welcomed here!

Only to His glory, Bill

Asking for trust before earning it -is- asking for faith, and asking for trust after showing that you're untrustworthy is asking for blind faith. The hebrews trusted gods leadership..and look at what happened to them, hell...the greatest jew that ever lived got strung up on a stick, to hear the story told...and a few centuries later someone took one hell of a crack at finishing the job. No thx.

Welcome aboard, though.

[vorlon13]

here's a comparative graphic of salvation plans

[vorlon13]

and how the Catholics see it: