Why Atheists Get the Idea of "Faith" Wrong

[Unknown Soldier]

I dom’t think he actually knows what he is trying to say. If he did, he wouldn‘t be strategically skipping over posts he evidently can’t handle while regurgitating anodyne bromides restating claims that have already been soundly reubutted.

This post would be more appropriate in a thread entitled "Unknown Soldier is really dumb."

I’m not saying you are dumb. I’m saying you are avoiding all the posts dealing with the biblical definition of faith. And you continue to do so.

With 572 posts and counting, I'm bound to miss a few especially the ones posted by "the wacko." Anyway, post that "biblical definition" and whatever issue you wish to raise about it, then I'll try to address it.

You’re kidding, right? I’ve done this numerous times, as have others. I even invited you a few posts up to address this post. And you’ve completely ignored all this. You’re not interested in a diaglogue. I don’t think you can defend your position.

That post you linked to has some errors and irrelevancies in it. Are you happy now?

 

[DBT]

And it still remains that faith is a belief or assumption of truth held without the support of evidence. To have faith in what you believe. To have faith that it is true.

 

[pood]

I dom’t think he actually knows what he is trying to say. If he did, he wouldn‘t be strategically skipping over posts he evidently can’t handle while regurgitating anodyne bromides restating claims that have already been soundly reubutted.

This post would be more appropriate in a thread entitled "Unknown Soldier is really dumb."

I’m not saying you are dumb. I’m saying you are avoiding all the posts dealing with the biblical definition of faith. And you continue to do so.

With 572 posts and counting, I'm bound to miss a few especially the ones posted by "the wacko." Anyway, post that "biblical definition" and whatever issue you wish to raise about it, then I'll try to address it.

You’re kidding, right? I’ve done this numerous times, as have others. I even invited you a few posts up to address this post. And you’ve completely ignored all this. You’re not interested in a diaglogue. I don’t think you can defend your position.

That post you linked to has some errors and irrelevancies in it. Are you happy now?

That’s the best you can do? You can’t even attempt to meet any of the points made? You can’t see how radically the biblical definition of faith differs from the definition of faith that you make up? You can’t answer who appointed you the arbiter of what religious people believe, and what atheists think they believe? You can’t address the point of religioius mysticism? You can’t even identify what these alleged errors and irrelevancies are?

 

[Unknown Soldier]

You’re kidding, right? I’ve done this numerous times, as have others. I even invited you a few posts up to address this post. And you’ve completely ignored all this. You’re not interested in a diaglogue. I don’t think you can defend your position.

That post you linked to has some errors and irrelevancies in it. Are you happy now?

That’s the best you can do? You can’t even attempt to meet any of the points made? You can’t see how radically the biblical definition of faith differs from the definition of faith that you make up? You can’t answer who appointed you the arbiter of what religious people believe, and what atheists think they believe? You can’t address the point of religioius mysticism? You can’t even identify what these alleged errors and irrelevancies are?

To see why you're wrong, all you need to do is see my post #251 where I cite and document the religious view of faith, and see DBT's post 582 above for an example of how atheists distort the idea of faith to score some cheap rhetorical points. I didn't make anything up. I don't need to.

 

[DBT]

You’re kidding, right? I’ve done this numerous times, as have others. I even invited you a few posts up to address this post. And you’ve completely ignored all this. You’re not interested in a diaglogue. I don’t think you can defend your position.

That post you linked to has some errors and irrelevancies in it. Are you happy now?

That’s the best you can do? You can’t even attempt to meet any of the points made? You can’t see how radically the biblical definition of faith differs from the definition of faith that you make up? You can’t answer who appointed you the arbiter of what religious people believe, and what atheists think they believe? You can’t address the point of religioius mysticism? You can’t even identify what these alleged errors and irrelevancies are?

To see why you're wrong, all you need to do is see my post #251 where I cite and document the religious view of faith, and see DBT's post 582 above for an example of how atheists distort the idea of faith to score some cheap rhetorical points. I didn't make anything up. I don't need to.

Distort? Not in the slightest. I provided several versions of Hebrews 11:1 that essentially say the same thing. That faith is its own evidence/assurance of truth.

 

[steve_bank]

By “nothing,” I think he doesn’t mean literally nothing, but some kind of quantum field.

Interpreting the words of the science prophets and making apologetics, you make my case that culturally religion and modern science fills the same human needs in much the same ways.

I watched science shows narrated by Hawking. He tended to drift into fantastical speculation.

Nothing wrong with that, just don't tell me figures in science represent any kind of special rational reasoning above the rest of us.

 

[pood]

To see why you're wrong, all you need to do is see my post #251 where I cite and document the religious view of faith, and see DBT's post 582 above for an example of how atheists distort the idea of faith to score some cheap rhetorical points. I didn't make anything up. I don't need to.

This is the post you linked to.

 

[James Brown]

Consider some statements.

1. My neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
2. I think that my neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
3. I believe that my neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Which of those is a statement of faith?

 

[abaddon]

Granted, religious logic may be fallacious, and the evidence is flimsy, but they do use logic and they do have evidence nevertheless.

True-ish, but trite as hell. It's an incredibly lame non-issue that some atheists will describe unscientific evidence as "no evidence".

It's like whining about people who say spinach "tastes bad". Some dunderhead might argue "But it tastes GOOD to some people so you're wrong!" Yeah, "tastes bad" is inaccurate. They should say that "tastes bad TO ME" instead.


To make a meaningful point out of this point, you'd have to follow it up with a critique of scientism (the notion that all beliefs must meet scientific standards) or a support of faith as a reliable means to at least some sorts of unscientific knowledge (which atheists would rightly want to know what that is). But the thread's point is to disagree with "atheists" on a trivial point, just for the sake of disagreeing.

You should listen better to atheists talking about the importance of context. What exactly are the faith-based items for which there's flimsy evidence? Isn't there 'blindness' in trusting flimsy evidence? After all, the atheists who say "no evidence" do it in response to how very flimsy the evidence is -- the point being that it's FLIMSY as hell and thus disqualified as "evidence [of value]" because nobody has shown it goes somewhere useful. Squawking "but there is evidence, it's just evidence that sucks" is, by itself, an absurd response to this.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

To see why you're wrong, all you need to do is see my post #251 where I cite and document the religious view of faith, and see DBT's post 582 above for an example of how atheists distort the idea of faith to score some cheap rhetorical points. I didn't make anything up. I don't need to.

This is the post you linked to.

See post #251

 

[Shadowy Man]

Consider some statements.

1. My neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
2. I think that my neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
3. I believe that my neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Which of those is a statement of faith?

The argument being made here is that one’s confidence in the truth of the statement is the faith.

“I have faith that my neighbor is the second coming of Jesus Christ.”

Means I have reasons and evidence that my neighbor is the second coming of Jesus and no matter how biased or cherry-picked or out of context the evidence is or how flimsy or fallacious my logic is I have confidence that what I am saying is true because I used reason and evidence to reach that conclusion. These are the same tools that scientists use and even though I don’t know to use them properly and grossly misunderstand how science is actually done what I’m doing is the same as them. So they have faith too.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

To see why you're wrong, all you need to do is see my post #251 where I cite and document the religious view of faith, and see DBT's post 582 above for an example of how atheists distort the idea of faith to score some cheap rhetorical points. I didn't make anything up. I don't need to.

This is the post you linked to.

See post #251

You mean where you cite a Jehovah Witness website and Wikipedia... but neither of them equate belief in religion with that of just about any other thing there is. You didn't cite people indicating their faith was like a scientist who believes they have observed two black holes colliding.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Granted, religious logic may be fallacious, and the evidence is flimsy, but they do use logic and they do have evidence nevertheless.

True-ish, but trite as hell. It's an incredibly lame non-issue that some atheists will describe unscientific evidence as "no evidence".

Well, such atheists would be wrong. Not all evidence is "scientific" just like not all dogs are poodles.

It's like whining about people who say spinach "tastes bad". Some dunderhead might argue "But it tastes GOOD to some people so you're wrong!" Yeah, "tastes bad" is inaccurate. They should say that "tastes bad TO ME" instead.

You lost me here.

To make a meaningful point out of this point, you'd have to follow it up with a critique of scientism (the notion that all beliefs must meet scientific standards) or a support of faith as a reliable means to at least some sorts of unscientific knowledge (which atheists would rightly want to know what that is). But the thread's point is to disagree with "atheists" on a trivial point, just for the sake of disagreeing.

You lost me here too!

You should listen better to atheists talking about the importance of context.

The context of what?

What exactly are the faith-based items for which there's flimsy evidence?

The resurrection of Christ has very flimsy evidence, as but one example.

Isn't there 'blindness' in trusting flimsy evidence?

I'd call accepting claims on flimsy evidence "foolishness."

After all, the atheists who say "no evidence" do it in response to how very flimsy the evidence is -- the point being that it's FLIMSY as hell and thus disqualified as "evidence [of value]" because nobody has shown it goes somewhere useful. Squawking "but there is evidence, it's just evidence that sucks" is, by itself, an absurd response to this.

Again, such atheists would be wrong. A poodle is still a dog no matter how much you hate poodles. Other people may love poodles, and all you can do is disagree with them there, but you can't truthfully say poodles aren't dogs. Evidence is like that: You can respect it or not, and you can argue whether or not it really supports a claim, but you cannot honestly and accurately say it is "no evidence."

 

[steve_bank]

And now in other news, Donald Trump calls people who call out his nonsense, illogic, lack of knowledge, and irrationality 'bad people'.

 

[steve_bank]

Exactamondo.

A poodle is asubcategory of dogs. It would be incorrect to say a poodle is the same kind of dog as a Great Dane.

Likewise, religious faith is a subcategory of faith. It would be incorrect to say religious faith is the same as faith in the reliabilty of scientific theories.

 

[DBT]

Why use the same word in relation to different things? If having confidence in there being a sunrise tomorrow is the same as confidence that 'Brahman is manifesting the universe,' why categorize both as a matter of faith when one is clearly based on solid evidence, while the other has no evidence at all...

 

[Shadowy Man]

Why use the same word in relation to different things? If having confidence in there being a sunrise tomorrow is the same as confidence that 'Brahman is manifesting the universe,' why categorize both as a matter of faith when one is clearly based on solid evidence, while the other has no evidence at all...

Because apparently you are wrong in requiring that "faith" be "without evidence". I already asked the question that if "faith" simply means "confidence" then what linguistic value is the word "faith" adding to the idea? If it isn't a synonym then what shade of meaning is it providing? And if that shade is different than trust in scientific knowledge then isn't it appropriate to make that distinction and not apply "faith" to both situations? None of these questions were answered.

 

[DBT]

So, I guess if we must have faith in the existence of the moon and we must have faith in the existence of Brahman as the manifester of the universe, both 'beliefs' are on an equal footing.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

So, I guess if we must have faith in the existence of the moon and we must have faith in the existence of Brahman as the manifester of the universe, both 'beliefs' are on an equal footing.

What's so upsetting about that?

 

[Shadowy Man]

So, I guess if we must have faith in the existence of the moon and we must have faith in the existence of Brahman as the manifester of the universe, both 'beliefs' are on an equal footing.

What's so upsetting about that?

If after hundreds of posts on this thread you still don’t get why we balk at that then there’s little more to be said it would seem.