A Believer's Thoughts on Faith

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I'm with the Huggster on this one.  People often believe that they have at least some evidence for the articles of their faith - so it's probably not accurate to say that faith is a thing held in the absence of or in contradiction to evidence.  We might accurately say that faith entails a certainty that the hypothetical evidence referenced doesn't actually meet...but hey, minor details.  I have faith in my wife's fidelity, even though no fact of her not having stepped out before can actually guarantee that she won't step out tomorrow.  Maybe the tomorrow guy is super awesome.

More esoterically, a "faith" can be devised by reference only to things that any given person deems to be (and actually are) objectively and demonstrably true.  The only real question is not whether things are some particular way, but whether we agree that they should be that way.  Even if we think (or are willing to concede) that there's good evidence that life was magicked onto earth - for example...so what?

It kinda stretches the accepted standards of ‘evidence’ all out of shape, doesn’t it?

If a religious experience isn’t replicable, it isn’t evidence. If Jesus comes to me in a dream, how is that any more evidentiary than if Zlorg, the Slug Empress of Altair VI does the same thing? One common definition of evidence is that it is the available body of facts that are useful in determining whether or not a particular proposition is true (or at least valid). I don’t see how a spiritual or religious experience, unique to one individual, can be viewed as a fact - or even as information - to support the proposition ‘God exists’.

The most the can be said for such an experience is that it supports the claim, ‘I believe that God exists.’

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

It kinda stretches the accepted standards of ‘evidence’ all out of shape, doesn’t it?

Ish and/or Not Really?  Evidence is simply what is evident.  A person who thinks that Moloch helped them find their keys is absolutely mounting an argument from evidence - I just think it's a poor argument from poor evidence.

If a religious experience isn’t replicable, it isn’t evidence. If Jesus comes to me in a dream, how is that any more evidentiary than if Zlorg, the Slug Empress of Altair VI does the same thing? One common definition of evidence is that it is the available body of facts that are useful in determining whether or not a particular proposition is true (or at least valid). I don’t see how a spiritual or religious experience, unique to one individual, can be viewed as a fact - or even as information - to support the proposition ‘God exists’.

The most the can be said for such an experience is that it supports the claim, ‘I believe that God exists.’

Boru

Evidence doesn't have to be replicable, it is (again) simply that which is evident.  We can upend this entire debate about evidence and what is evident and how that interfaces with faith by suggesting that people can (and have) conceived of faiths wholly comprised of what is evident that neither you nor I would object to -as- evident.  Neither of us belongs to those religions, so it hardly matters..practically..but it is a thing that can be done.

[Anomalocaris]

Believer’s thoughts on faith

Believers don’t have thoughts.  They have wishes.   If they had thoughts they wouldn’t have need for faith and they wouldn’t be believers.

[GUBU]

I'm with the Huggster on this one.  People often believe that they have at least some evidence for the articles of their faith - so it's probably not accurate to say that faith is a thing held in the absence of or in contradiction to evidence.  We might accurately say that faith entails a certainty that the hypothetical evidence referenced doesn't actually meet...but hey, minor details.  I have faith in my wife's fidelity, even though no fact of her not having stepped out before can actually guarantee that she won't step out tomorrow.  Maybe the tomorrow guy is super awesome.

More esoterically, a "faith" can be devised by reference only to things that any given person deems to be (and actually are) objectively and demonstrably true.  The only real question is not whether things are some particular way, but whether we agree that they should be that way.  Even if we think (or are willing to concede) that there's good evidence that life was magicked onto earth - for example...so what?

Problem with the bolded bit is that thinking about the matter objectively, they have no reason to believe this, because no evidence is available and even a cursory review of what is touted as evidence would have it dismissed as nothing of the sort.

At least with your belief about your wife, it is based on your history with her and your knowledge of her.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thinking about it objectively, they may actually have reason to believe this, but that doesn't mean it's true.

Objectively speaking, my faith in my wife's fidelity can be no more trustworthy than a given cultists faith in a god. Will my wife deliver in ways that their gods don't? Probably, but even if so that's incidental with respect to the rational underpinnings of whatever confidence either of us have in either thing.

[Brian37]

My thoughts on faith is that such serves the emotional, psychological, social and sexual needs of individuals, and the anthropological, political and economic needs of societies.  Of course, because a particular meme serves the needs of individuals & groups does not cause such to become true.

The evolutionary social desire to have safety in numbers is a very real thing, and that does lead to more opportunity at resources and more offspring. But that desire in evolutionary history, started in absolute scientific darkness long before the first cities and first languages and especially religion ever existed. So people ended up making bad guesses, just like  an animal like a cat or dog or bird or deer can mistake it's reflection in glass or a mirror and come to the false conclusion that the reflection was a real separate entity. With humans we can and still do base our religious groupings on very false beliefs, just like the ancient Egyptians were successful for several thousand years, yet all that success and belief in Horus Osiris and Ra real gods didn't make them real scientifically provable.

Dawkins in his book "The God Delusion" equates this ability to make false conclusions to a impala in the tall grass in the African plains doesn't always have time to stop and confirm if the tall grass swaying is mere wind, or a lioness stalking it. It can make a very split second mistake in judgement and end up running right into the pride's trap. 

Early gods were more earthy, like the desire to find food, so they would carve images into rock or wood or use animal pigment to paint their food source animal like a fish or bear or deer as their "god". If it were a storm or a volcano they would falsely guess the storm or volcano was angry at them. 

It really wasn't much before 10,000 years ago that the majority of spirits or deities started taking on more human forms. Even then as we know, worldwide in every religion, superstitions would have their gods be able to take on multiple roles and outward looks mixing human features with animal features. Zoroaster was one of the earliest attempts at monotheism, but it never really split off into monotheism. The other attempt I can think of was that of Akhenaten the Egyptian Pharaoh. But his concept he pushed his entire rule was not popular, so when he was replaced the next Pharaoh saw that it wasn't popular and the entire society tried to erase any mention of his attempted legacy.

There really is nothing original about any one religion, not even Buddhism. Buddhism in reality is a spin off of Hinduism, which is why we see motifs of overlap in things like Karma and the repetition of new lives in reincarnation in both. In Hinduism the repeating has you get rewarded with a better human life in the next if you are good in this one, and punished with becoming a lower life form if you are bad in this one. In Buddhism it doesn't have that anthropomorphism, but it still has that repetition, but the goal there is Nirvana, which means ultimate peace and ultimate wisdom. But even the earliest mythologies of the first Buddha had him of royal linage and also a divine spirit telling his mother Queen Maya she was going to give birth to a boy who would grow up to bring wisdom to the world.

Not even the early Hebrews were monotheists. They were in reality, polytheists who simply got tired of all the fighting and confusion as to which Canaanite lesser god as part of a "divine family" under the top god "El" was the one everyone should value the most. So they elevated Yahweh to replacing the top God "El" to Yahweh being the only one true God. Then the early Christians were merely Jews who got tired of waiting for their hero to save them, and concocted the Jesus character because they wanted their hero to come within their lifetimes. Then of course there is Islam and the Koran which is supposed to be the final and corrected word of the God of Abraham named Allah. 

But even more modern religions like Rasta are also not original. Rasta stems from African Christian and African Jewish motifs. Not to mention it is really easier than you think to start a religion, and si fi writer L Ron Hubbard literally told people he could start a religion and people did in reality stupidly buy it. That religion is called Scientology.

Point is, humans want a false sense of comfort to cope with the reality that they are not eternal and they are finite. It really all just steams from a primal drive to continue.

But to the OP, the good news is, there is no heaven or hell or need to worry about what happens to you after you die, just like you don't worry what your life was like a billion years ago before you were born. You can still be compassionate, and care for others and enjoy life even with all its ups and downs. Just like you've seen an action movie, or a drama, or a comedy movie knowing it ends, but still enjoy it. Just like you can go to a music concert knowing it plays a last song, and still enjoy it. Just like you can go to a sporting event where one team wins and one team loses, and still enjoy it even though the game ends.

The two most amazing scientific facts that when the light bulb went off and I visualized the concepts, were the following. Being told the sun and our solar system is the product of the death and explosion of a prior star or stars sending all the elements into a gas cloud millions of light years across to then collect and condense like snow does in a storm and drift, creating a sun causing a dent in space/time causing gravity that keeps the planets in a continual orbit, which is more like a freefall than tugging but it still is gravity. And that keeps our solar system in tact until our sun runs out of fuel.

The other jaw dropping amazing scientific fact I learned was that the atoms in me now, are not the same atoms that were in the sperm and egg that lead to my birth. Your body is constantly recycling atoms, through digestion, processing, exchanging, expelling. You can think of it as a subway in which passengers are constantly getting on and off, and that also applies to your bones. And even after you die, while your bones will have a longer shelf life if buried under the right conditions, even that will decay over millions and millions of years. Fossils exist because they end up in conditions that are more favorable to preservation than if they were not in those certain conditions.

The truth is far more amazing and wonderful to me, in all of nature and the universe's both constructive and destructive aspects than the mythologies antiquity people made up because they didn't know any better.

The most ultimate fact currently known, until new data updates it, is that all the atoms in the universe that make up everything, started in the same infinitely dense and infinitely tiny point that lead to a quantum twitch that lead to our Big Bang that over googles and googles and googles and googles of quantum possible combinations lead to the universe and galaxy and solar system and sun and earth we know today. That is extremely humbling and awe inspiring without inserting a sky puppeteer into it.

[rlp21858]

Deesse23: i think it's odd that so many current atheists put down faith and suggest they dont recognize the concept when i know there is a quote circulating among them that says "it takes faith to be an atheist". but my general definition of faith is believing that step C, D, etc is attainable when your understanding only shows you how step A leads to step B. also, i havent avoided your question, but i'll try to guess at what's causing the confusion. a more bold person mayve said they could prove that life is lived by the faith of the beliefs of one's own heart, not by an attempt to be "correct" from another person's point of view. i believe this based on what we can see, not from what i've only told myself. so i'll try to give a quick argument in support of this:

from what we can see, those that havent decided what they believe oppose faith, pushing it back so that they can live in comfortable neutrality. faith pressures them to decide what they believe. for example, if an opinion is present that is against an undecided's actions, it will be refuted the same way whether it comes in the name of morality, religion, or otherwise. i think those of faith will accept that other beliefs exist and not try to silence them by force. so since it's refutation and the same refuting regardless of name, i think it's the faith that theyre really opposed to. we see this constantly in popularity also. for example, it's very common to see questions like: "what's the greatest song ever written/movie made/tv host, etc?" with a little faith, these questions could be resolved by the asker, but standing by a real belief can cause turmoil (you could be challenged, insulted, etc), so they find a safe belief of someone else's and say they believe that instead to dodge it and stay comfortable. but from what we also see, the undecided stance isnt well regarded: fair-weather friends, those who wont stick by a decision, hypocrites, etc. so i believe these are all reminders that we have to determine and live by what we believe is true.

about tomatoes, if youre asking how this belief acknowledges the existence of things we can see (physical things), i dont believe it determines their existence but what your perspective regarding them will be, what their significance is to you. hopefully, this makes some sense.

[Brian37]

Deesse23: i think it's odd that so many current atheists put down faith and suggest they dont recognize the concept when i know there is a quote circulating among them that says "it takes faith to be an atheist".  but my general definition of faith is believing that step C, D, etc is attainable when your understanding only shows you how step A leads to step B.  also, i havent avoided your question, but i'll try to guess at what's causing the confusion. a more bold person mayve said they could prove that life is lived by the faith of the beliefs of one's own heart, not by an attempt to be "correct" from another person's point of view.  i believe this based on what we can see, not from what i've only told myself.  so i'll try to give a quick argument in support of this:

from what we can see, those that havent decided what they believe oppose faith, pushing it back so that they can live in comfortable neutrality.  faith pressures them to decide what they believe.  for example, if an opinion is present that is against an undecided's actions, it will be refuted the same way whether it comes in the name of morality, religion, or otherwise.  i think those of faith will accept that other beliefs exist and not try to silence them by force.  so since it's refutation and the same refuting regardless of name, i think it's the faith that theyre really opposed to.    we see this constantly in popularity also. for example, it's very common to see questions like: "what's the greatest song ever written/movie made/tv host, etc?"  with a little faith, these questions could be resolved by the asker, but standing by a real belief can cause turmoil (you could be challenged, insulted, etc), so they find a safe belief of someone else's and say they believe that instead to dodge it and stay comfortable.  but from what we also see, the undecided stance isnt well regarded: fair-weather friends, those who wont stick by a decision, hypocrites, etc.  so i believe these are all reminders that we have to determine and live by what we believe is true.

about tomatoes, if youre asking how this belief acknowledges the existence of things we can see (physical things), i dont believe it determines their existence but what your perspective regarding them will be, what their significance is to you.  hopefully, this makes some sense.

"Faith in anyone or anything is not required because knowledge of facts is not established through selfishness or willful ignorance. Knowledge is the willingness to accept when you are wrong and adapt to changing data and the willingness to update your position upon learning better information. If our species never questioned social norms, our species never would have left the caves.

Now, having said that, to cry over a deity or God being criticized or blasphemed is petty and are what theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Iran demand. And dictators like Kim Jong Un demand. If I kept on repeating every day "Serena Williams beat the Chicago Blackhawks in the Super Bowl", would you simply blindly accept that? No, I would hope you would correct someone repeating that by saying, "Serena plays pro tennis, the Blackhawks play pro hockey and the Super Bowl is outrageously expensive to get a ticket to."

Thomas Jefferson, "Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions."

And "Question with boldness the existence of a God, for if there be one, surely he would pay more homage to reason than to that of blindoflded fear." Also Thomas Jefferson.

Forgot who said it but, "Blasphemy laws are the first sign of tyranny".

Susan B Anthony, "I distrust those people who know so well what they say God wants them to do, because I always notice it coincides with their own desires." And she got her ass beat by white Christian men for advocating for women's right to vote.

When we criticize, ridicule or blaspheme a religious claim we are NOT saying we want to kill you or barbecue your kittens. It is merely  a blunt way of getting you to consider that maybe you got it wrong.

Most people get sold the religions of their parents/society at birth long before they can formulate adult critical thinking skills. And while most theists are good, they can become needlessly tribal and defensive when faced with the fact others exist outside their local environment beyond the social norms that make up their majority. But that is global in every nation in every religion. And even with every political ideology in the world.

I will always defend those who value peace and sharing power without expectation of being the top of the social pecking order at all times. But I will stop playing nice with my words when those with Authoritarian and or theocratic designs seek to impose their religious laws into common law. I can like you without agreeing with everything or liking everything you may claim. 

Humans have rights as they always should, but claims as ideas do not deserve to be free from scrutiny.

Right now in America the Republican party has been hijacked by a majority of party members who only seek power to keep power, not to compromise or accept peaceful transfer of power. They are also currently of theocracy mindset imposing religious rule of law, and that trend is dangerous. They are anti science, anti intellectual, anti pluralism, especially political and religious pluralism. They prey on the economic insecurities of the middle and working class and use tribal appeals to party and religion to keep support. They are not the GOP of Reagan or Nixon or MLK or Teddy R and especially not the party of Lincoln. 

If Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine tried to run to be the nominee on the republican ticket today, they would not make it past the primaries based on what they said about the superstitions and claims of magic in the bible and their dead set insistence on keeping religion out of common law.

[The Grand Nudger]

 when i know there is a quote circulating among them that says "it takes faith to be an atheist".  

Nope.  That's a nutball thing that nutballs say about atheists.  In mere reality, it doesn't take any faith to not believe in a thing. I mean.....I think I might know...you know...?

[GUBU]

Deesse23: i think it's odd that so many current atheists put down faith and suggest they dont recognize the concept when i know there is a quote circulating among them that says "it takes faith to be an atheist".

Now that's a bald faced lie. Where the whole "faith to be an atheist" thing comes from is the title to a book written by a pair of mendacious right wing christian apologists, where guess what? Every single thing in that book is a lie.

Atheism is expressly and explicitly a non-faith position.