A Believer's Thoughts on Faith

[Deesse23]

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:

Please stop evading me.
Dont tell me i dont know what faith is, without telling me what you define as faith. I gave you my definition. Please return the courtesy by giving yours.
What is faith?

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.

Please dont evade me asking what you believe and why, be telling me what (you think) i believe and why.
Its a strawman and quite dishonest.

i think those of faith will accept that other beliefs exist and not try to silence them by force.

Are you being silenced here?
Am i trying to stop you talking about your beliefs, or is it you who refuses to give us insight into your thought processes?
Stop being dishonest
Or is dishonesty part of properly practicing christianity? (i dont know, since i am not a christian)

For the upteenth time: Please give me your definition of faith, and stop rambling on completely irrelevant tangents.

[Anomalocaris]

The first H. Sapiens were all dark-skinned.

Probably not -but I'm taking it further back than hss.  Probably light skinned.  Ever seen a shaved chimp?  If we're anything like other animals, we darkened after we lost our coats.

Chimps have light colored skin because they are almost completely covered dense fur.

We have strong evidence that our lineage has had basically the same rather peculiarly absurd pattern of body hair as we do, that is dense head hair, under arm hair and pubic hair, but largely hairless everywhere else, for hundreds of thousand of years before the first homo sapien evolved..     

So the first Homo sapiens, being without ancovering of fur, almost certainly had to have dark skin for protection against the African sun.

[rlp21858]

in that abbreviated argument, i was not implying that anyone here or atheists in general were trying to silence anyone; it was just a very quick summary of things ive observed in people. and i disagree with trying to force religious ideas on others with laws (this is what i was actually thinking of as silencing by force).

Deesse23: again, im not trying to evade anything. if you dont understand the definition i gave for what i believe faith is, i dont know what to say. it seems very clear to me.

[Belacqua]

 i'm starting to wonder if i know exactly what atheism is, so a definition (in one's own words) would also be helpful.

For most of history, atheism has been defined as the belief that God doesn't exist. An atheist is a person who says "God isn't real." 

Recently, especially on the Internet, some people have started using a different definition. They say that atheism is simply the lack of belief in God. To them, atheists are people who say "I don't believe in God."

Philosophers of religion have been known to refer to the latter, new definition as "Lacktheism." 

I was interested to see that very recently the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has been updated to include the new definition. The Lacktheism meaning is called the "psychological sense of the word." 

In the psychological sense of the word, atheism is a psychological state, specifically the state of being an atheist, where an atheist is defined as someone who is not a theist and a theist is defined as someone who believes that God exists (or that there are gods). This generates the following definition: atheism is the psychological state of lacking the belief that God exists.

Specialists tend to stick with the old definition.

In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods). Thus, to be an atheist on this definition, it does not suffice to suspend judgment on whether there is a God, even though that implies a lack of theistic belief. Instead, one must deny that God exists. This metaphysical sense of the word is preferred over other senses, including the psychological sense, not just by theistic philosophers, but by many (though not all) atheists in philosophy as well. For example, Robin Le Poidevin writes, “An atheist is one who denies the existence of a personal, transcendent creator of the universe, rather than one who simply lives his life without reference to such a being” (1996: xvii). J. L. Schellenberg says that “in philosophy, the atheist is not just someone who doesn’t accept theism, but more strongly someone who opposes it.” In other words, it is “the denial of theism, the claim that there is no God” (2019: 5).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

On this forum, for whatever reason, the frequent and passionate posters demand that we use the Lacktheist definition. 

I don't care about definitions so much, as long as we're all clear on what we mean. 

If the Lacktheist type of atheism is a psychological state, then of course it may not be based on any kind of logic or reasoned conclusion. It may just be an unthinking whim or emotion-based reaction. 

And if atheism is lack and only lack, it can (and has) led to ridiculous statements, for example that rocks and lizards are atheists in exactly the way that adult thinking humans are atheists. I mean, if people want to claim that their minds are as reasonable as rocks, I guess they can do that. However among thinking conscious adults who have been raised in society, all atheists have heard and rejected religious claims. If they have good thoughtful reasons for rejecting those claims, I don't see why they wouldn't want to state them. 

For example, the belief that science explains the world adequately without the need for God as part of the explanation is a metaphysical belief. It may be an extremely good one, but it is still a belief. If "faith" just means that we are committed to our beliefs even though they are not proven by science, then the belief that we don't need God to explain the world is a faith. Nobody here will admit that, though.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

 i'm starting to wonder if i know exactly what atheism is, so a definition (in one's own words) would also be helpful.

For most of history, atheism has been defined as the belief that God doesn't exist. An atheist is a person who says "God isn't real." 

Recently, especially on the Internet, some people have started using a different definition. They say that atheism is simply the lack of belief in God. To them, atheists are people who say "I don't believe in God."

Philosophers of religion have been known to refer to the latter, new definition as "Lacktheism." 

I was interested to see that very recently the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has been updated to include the new definition. The Lacktheism meaning is called the "psychological sense of the word." 

In the psychological sense of the word, atheism is a psychological state, specifically the state of being an atheist, where an atheist is defined as someone who is not a theist and a theist is defined as someone who believes that God exists (or that there are gods). This generates the following definition: atheism is the psychological state of lacking the belief that God exists.

Specialists tend to stick with the old definition.

In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods). Thus, to be an atheist on this definition, it does not suffice to suspend judgment on whether there is a God, even though that implies a lack of theistic belief. Instead, one must deny that God exists. This metaphysical sense of the word is preferred over other senses, including the psychological sense, not just by theistic philosophers, but by many (though not all) atheists in philosophy as well. For example, Robin Le Poidevin writes, “An atheist is one who denies the existence of a personal, transcendent creator of the universe, rather than one who simply lives his life without reference to such a being” (1996: xvii). J. L. Schellenberg says that “in philosophy, the atheist is not just someone who doesn’t accept theism, but more strongly someone who opposes it.” In other words, it is “the denial of theism, the claim that there is no God” (2019: 5).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/

On this forum, for whatever reason, the frequent and passionate posters demand that we use the Lacktheist definition. 

I don't care about definitions so much, as long as we're all clear on what we mean. 

If the Lacktheist type of atheism is a psychological state, then of course it may not be based on any kind of logic or reasoned conclusion. It may just be an unthinking whim or emotion-based reaction. 

And if atheism is lack and only lack, it can (and has) led to ridiculous statements, for example that rocks and lizards are atheists in exactly the way that adult thinking humans are atheists. I mean, if people want to claim that their minds are as reasonable as rocks, I guess they can do that. However among thinking conscious adults who have been raised in society, all atheists have heard and rejected religious claims. If they have good thoughtful reasons for rejecting those claims, I don't see why they wouldn't want to state them. 

For example, the belief that science explains the world adequately without the need for God as part of the explanation is a metaphysical belief. It may be an extremely good one, but it is still a belief. If "faith" just means that we are committed to our beliefs even though they are not proven by science, then the belief that we don't need God to explain the world is a faith. Nobody here will admit that, though.

From the same article (bold mine)

Of course, from the fact that “atheism” is standardly defined in philosophy as the proposition that God does not exist, it does not follow that it ought to be defined that way. And the standard definition is not without its philosophical opponents... Again, the term “atheism” has more than one legitimate meaning, and nothing said in this entry should be interpreted as an attempt to proscribe how people label themselves or what meanings they attach to those labels.

Furthermore, your claim that the belief that we don't need God to explain the world is an article of faith is simply wrong, because we have alternate, evidence-based (albeit provisional) explanations for existence that don't require gods. Remember Laplace's response to the Emperor Napoleon.

Boru

[Jehanne]

For example, the belief that science explains the world adequately without the need for God as part of the explanation is a metaphysical belief. It may be an extremely good one, but it is still a belief. If "faith" just means that we are committed to our beliefs even though they are not proven by science, then the belief that we don't need God to explain the world is a faith. Nobody here will admit that, though.

What is there to admit? That Science explains the World without God(s) is falsifiable, testable and correctable. (Let God spontaneously heal an adult amputee.)

The term agnostic atheist dates back to the 19th-century:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic_atheism

Not sure why the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is so out of date.

[arewethereyet]

I know Bel will never read this, but I really am getting tired of the slamming of the 'members of this forum' that's worked into every high and mighty assessment of a topic, regardless of relevence.

Seems that if we are so awful you wouldn't keep coming around. But maybe there's a lack of places to 'impress' people with your superiority.

[Jehanne]

It's 8 PM in Tokyo; almost bed time.

[Deesse23]

Deesse23: again, im not trying to evade anything.  if you dont understand the definition i gave for what i believe faith is, i dont know what to say.  it seems very clear to me.

This?

 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.

What are steps "A", "B", "C" and "D"?

[The Grand Nudger]

Seems workable, though, doesn't it? Being confident that a thing can be done, and that you can do it, despite not having done it before or understanding every step in the process at present. That's how I approach diy furniture. I micro aggress against the system by refusing to read ahead despite clear and repeated instructions to do so. I'm familiar with that apprehension - even if I wouldn't usually call it faith, it's certainly faith of a kind - faith adjacent. In the wheelhouse of

"everything will be fine"
"i'm sure that all the pieces are there"
"that must have been extra"
....and..my wifes favorite...
"fuck this, hand me a drill"