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]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

[Jehanne]

[awty]

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"