Faith & why you shouldn't have it

[Mangled*]

Faith is a type of trust, specifically it's a trust in something based entirely upon word, reputation, popularity or anything else that is ultimately superficial.

Let me reiterate: Faith is belief which is not based upon evidence, reasoning, logic or established fact. For instance: you can't have faith in gravity, it's very very safe to assume gravity exists. But you can have faith in ghosts, spirits, monsters for obvious reasons.

So what is wrong with faith? Well firstly, you can have faith in virtually anything but on a long enough time-scale your faith will be most likely be broken. You can, for instance, have faith that your car will never ever break down but it inevitably will at some point. You can also have faith that you won't ever die, but you inevitably will. Perhaps you may have faith that you will be visited by aliens. Well if so I wish you the best of luck because the odds are stacked against you there.

... yes here it comes... And similarly so with religion. Religion is spiritual and supernatural belief based on rumour, scripture, interpretation, ideas, opinions, respect and tradition. Religion relies entirely upon faith. In fact, religion for all intensive purposes, is faith. (which is why they are so synonymous with each other that for many decades they have been confused) Scripture is self-proclaimed word of God. Nothing more, nothing less. Chances are if you are religious, that means you have faith in scripture (since that is what the most popular religions are based around) which is written word.

Religion of course also relies on the massive loophole which is that you can't find out if you've devoted your life something that's true or not until you are dead, at which point it's a little too late to go back on it. I don't think we need to brush over Pascal's wager, as that is simply the poorest excuse for believing in anything at all.

So, to set the stone rolling:

Do you have faith? If so, what and why? Do you agree or do you disagree? Why?

PS: Responses from Flamingo will be ignored because he's in mental decline, as evidenced by his recent posts and I thus don't believe he is now capable of cognitive thought more advanced than a 5 year old.

BondJamesBond will also be ignored for the same reason.

[Shadow G-Unit]

Awesome another debate thread.

[tehsnipah]

Faith isn't something you shouldn't believe, since there aren't any foolproof plans.

[Mangled*]

Faith isn't something you shouldn't believe, since there aren't any foolproof plans.

Did you type that before thinking about it? If I wanted to make sure I didn't get hit by a car I could sit in some high-raise apartment. That would be a foolproof plan (so long as it isn't raining cars). I really can't think what you're getting at. Will faith in not being hit by a car stop it from happening?

[tehsnipah]

Nah, if you're lucky enough, you can jump, so at least you won't get crushed AND break your leg. If it's a big truck.... I mean come on, you always have an option of diving.

Date Posted: September 08, 2008, 01:11:26 amWait.... this shit really doesn't make sense now.....

[Blue-ninja]

I have faith in my soldateering skills, but I will inevitably get worse at it.

I have faith that doomsday (world ending) will happen in my lifetime, but it will either unevitably happen or not.

I have faith that a ball will always roll to the bottom of the hill. Inevitably, there may be some new variations on the same hill you've rolled the ball on for years, like a fallen tree, or a crack in the earth that will stop the ball from reaching the bottom of the hill.

Also, lastly and not leastly, I have faith that every debate thread ever made can't be locked.

Am I correct in all of those things where facts are still groundless? Like gravity?

[frogboy]

I LOVE MASSDEBATING

[Graham]

Maybe I should make a thread about the hardships of a poor black child living in the ghetto. Makes just as much sense as this one.

[Smegma]

Whoa shit, what ever happened to that word that I learned a few weeks ago and had to use it to show everyone that?

[Mangled*]

I have faith in my soldateering skills, but I will inevitably get worse at it.

I have faith that doomsday (world ending) will happen in my lifetime, but it will either unevitably happen or not.

I have faith that a ball will always roll to the bottom of the hill. Inevitably, there may be some new variations on the same hill you've rolled the ball on for years, like a fallen tree, or a crack in the earth that will stop the ball from reaching the bottom of the hill.

Also, lastly and not leastly, I have faith that every debate thread ever made can't be locked.

Am I correct in all of those things where facts are still groundless? Like gravity?

In short, no. What you are talking about is not genuine faith, it's theoretical as a proposed argument. But that pretty much is the gist of it except for the case of the ball rolling down the hill, there is no faith to place/misplace as gravity is established fact (only a moron would deny gravity or deny that the current accepted theory of gravity fits). Again, that's not going out on a limb.

Maybe I should make a thread about the hardships of a poor black child living in the ghetto. Makes just as much sense as this one.

The hardships of a poor black child living in the ghetto are very apparent and obvious. Which means you are implying that this thread makes perfect sense.

[ElGato]

Do you have faith? If so, what and why? Do you agree or do you disagree? Why?

In the Religious sense of the word, I s'pose I do not have much faith. But since there is no true way of knowing whether or not your individual faith will be rewarded I can't condemn those who have faith.

Let me add a bit since I just noticed the title says people shouldn't have faith. What exactly is your reason for spreading, anti-faith, if you will? Some people need what religion brings, they need a base of morals and need to be told what's right and wrong. I don't think I will ever have a need for church, scripture or any other such nonsense but I have friends that swear if they didn't have it in their early lives they wouldn't have turned out to be the same people they are now.

[Graham]

Mangled missing my point/overlooking it on purpose? Would never happen, he is enlightened.

[Mangled*]

Do you have faith? If so, what and why? Do you agree or do you disagree? Why?

In the Religious sense of the word, I s'pose I do not have much faith. But since there is no true way of knowing whether or not your individual faith will be rewarded I can't condemn those who have faith.

Let me add a bit since I just noticed the title says people shouldn't have faith. What exactly is your reason for spreading, anti-faith, if you will? Some people need what religion brings, they need a base of morals and need to be told what's right and wrong. I don't think I will ever have a need for church, scripture or any other such nonsense but I have friends that swear if they didn't have it in their early lives they wouldn't have turned out to be the same people they are now.

I'm glad someone is prepared to participate maturely. The way I see faith is like wishful thinking blown out of proportion to a self-deceiving extent. Of course, I'm not saying people should all be cynical and pessimistic about everything.

But let me make the distinction here between faith and belief. Faith is a type of belief, but it's a type of belief that only requires you to have faith in faith, if you see what I mean? (it's virtually self-perpetuating in that respect) Belief which is based upon a personal experience, personal feelings or self-discovery, by definition, isn't faith. † has more than faith (although he might disagree with that?), he has genuine belief based upon his experiences and his walk through life, I can respect that.

I think people need to face blunt truth. I think if peoples beliefs are not based upon their own realisations, discoveries and experiences then they possess very empty and null beliefs which ultimately amount to nothing.

I've also said before that religion is not the basis for peoples morals, despite however much they think that they are. Morals come from the evolution of society. It has only been in the last 50 years that racism has become an immoral thing in modern society, it has only been in the last 200 years that slavery has become an immoral thing in western society, and yet, the most popular religions predate these by hundreds of years. If the British Empire got its moral values from the Bible then why on earth did they set up the slave trade? They were Christians.

Of course religious people would have turned out differently without a religious upbringing, but that does not mean because they are good people that without faith they would be bad people. They can't possibly know how they would be had they lived their lives differently.

Mangled missing my point/overlooking it on purpose? Would never happen, he is enlightened.

I wasn't aware you had a point.

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

Faith is a type of trust, specifically it's a trust in something based entirely upon word, reputation, popularity or anything else that is ultimately superficial.

Let me reiterate: Faith is belief which is not based upon evidence, reasoning, logic or established fact. For instance: you can't have faith in gravity, it's very very safe to assume gravity exists. But you can have faith in ghosts, spirits, monsters for obvious reasons.

Actually, faith IS based on reasoning.  Let's say a kid is learning how to swim.  He has faith that people CAN swim; he sees it all the time.  However, when his teacher lets him go to swim on his own, he'll probably be scared.  He'll have lost faith in swimming.  Note that it is the losing of faith that is irrational, not faith itself.  Or consider going in to have surgery.  You can have faith that anesthesiologists know what they're doing and will put you out just fine.  But when they put the mask over your face, any fear of what might happen (Am I going to suffocate? Will the anesthetic knock me out or just paralyze me?) is the result of losing faith in the doctors.  Again, the loss of faith is irrational, but the faith is completely logical and acceptable.  When you go skydiving, you have faith that your parachute will open, as it's the only logical reason for you to fling yourself out of a plane.

This means that true faith is sticking to reason even when your emotions change.  A new skydiver would might feel fear while he's standing at the door, and this fear is a result of him temporarily losing faith in the parachute.  An experienced skydiver retains his faith even while starting down at the ground thousands of feet below him.  In the same way, Christian faith requires that God logically exists; it's not a belief despite evidence to the contrary.  The problem, especially for people like Mangled, is that faith is only really noticeable when it seems misplaced.  When you do a math problem, you have faith that the mathematical rules will work, and of course they always do.  But when you don't understand a problem, even if you don't completely lose faith in math, you may start to think, "Did I misread that? Maybe the author of the text was mistaken?"  That's when retaining your faith is important.

So do I have faith? Of course I do.  Everyone does.  Do I have faith in God? Sure.  It's easy enough to say something along the lines of "How can you believe in God when there's so much evil in the world?" But think about that statement.  Evil can't exist unless there was good to compare it to.  The more evil something is, the more it underlines that there is a good out there.  I could go on about how the existence of morality and things like altruism help provide evidence for God, but that's a little off topic.

Next evidence for God: Existence, not only of matter and energy, but also of all the natural laws, as well as constraints such as time.  How can such things exist unless they were created by someone unbound by them? And once you understand that time is a creation, it only makes sense that the creator wouldn't require an origin.

Finally, I know that God has worked in my life; I've felt it.  My life has changed in ways that wouldn't have happened if I were left to my own devices.  I know this seems like sort of a cop-out: "You can only be sure God exists of you're a Christian," but consider this.  If a blind person asked what colors are, what could a normal person say except, "You'd have to be able to see to understand"?

So yes, I have faith, those are my reasons, and I disagree with your definition.

Date Posted: September 08, 2008, 11:38:31 am

I've also said before that religion is not the basis for peoples morals, despite however much they think that they are. Morals come from the evolution of society. It has only been in the last 50 years that racism has become an immoral thing in modern society, it has only been in the last 200 years that slavery has become an immoral thing in western society, and yet, the most popular religions predate these by hundreds of years. If the British Empire got its moral values from the Bible then why on earth did they set up the slave trade? They were Christians.

No, morals existed before religion.  Everyone has a concept of good and evil; it's what we call a conscience.  Ever wonder why things are universally considered right or wrong? It's because they just are.  Courage is always good.  Deception is always bad.  But you mentioned that morals are based on society, so let's explore that.

"You shouldn't be selfish." "Why not?" "Because it's bad for others." "Why should I care about what happens to others?" "Because it will indirectly hurt you" "So I shouldn't be selfish because it's bad for me? Isn't that selfish?" "Oh, right...well then you just shouldn't be selfish." "Why not?" "Because you just shouldn't."

Ultimately, any conversation about morality will end in "because you just should" or "because you just shouldn't."  Why is cannibalism wrong? Because it just is.  Why is bestiality wrong? Because it just is.  You'll find that there are universally accepted notions of what's right and wrong that transcend society.  Were we born with an understanding of morality? Where did it come from if not from society?

[Mangled*]

1 - Actually, faith IS based on reasoning.  Let's say a kid is learning how to swim.  He has faith that people CAN swim; he sees it all the time.  However, when his teacher lets him go to swim on his own, he'll probably be scared.  He'll have lost faith in swimming.  Note that it is the losing of faith that is irrational, not faith itself.  Or consider going in to have surgery.  You can have faith that anesthesiologists know what they're doing and will put you out just fine.  But when they put the mask over your face, any fear of what might happen (Am I going to suffocate? Will the anesthetic knock me out or just paralyze me?) is the result of losing faith in the doctors.  Again, the loss of faith is irrational, but the faith is completely logical and acceptable.  When you go skydiving, you have faith that your parachute will open, as it's the only logical reason for you to fling yourself out of a plane.

This means that true faith is sticking to reason even when your emotions change.  A new skydiver would might feel fear while he's standing at the door, and this fear is a result of him temporarily losing faith in the parachute.  An experienced skydiver retains his faith even while starting down at the ground thousands of feet below him.

2 - In the same way, Christian faith requires that God logically exists; it's not a belief despite evidence to the contrary.  The problem, especially for people like Mangled, is that faith is only really noticeable when it seems misplaced.  When you do a math problem, you have faith that the mathematical rules will work, and of course they always do.  But when you don't understand a problem, even if you don't completely lose faith in math, you may start to think, "Did I misread that? Maybe the author of the text was mistaken?"  That's when retaining your faith is important.

So do I have faith? Of course I do.  Everyone does.  Do I have faith in God? Sure.  It's easy enough to say something along the lines of "How can you believe in God when there's so much evil in the world?" But think about that statement.  Evil can't exist unless there was good to compare it to.  The more evil something is, the more it underlines that there is a good out there.  I could go on about how the existence of morality and things like altruism help provide evidence for God, but that's a little off topic.

3 - Next evidence for God: Existence, not only of matter and energy, but also of all the natural laws, as well as constraints such as time.  How can such things exist unless they were created by someone unbound by them? And once you understand that time is a creation, it only makes sense that the creator wouldn't require an origin.

4 - Finally, I know that God has worked in my life; I've felt it.  My life has changed in ways that wouldn't have happened if I were left to my own devices.  I know this seems like sort of a cop-out: "You can only be sure God exists of you're a Christian," but consider this.  If a blind person asked what colors are, what could a normal person say except, "You'd have to be able to see to understand"?

So yes, I have faith, those are my reasons, and I disagree with your definition.

For simplicity I have numbered the paragraphs and my responses accordingly.

1 -  I understand where you're coming from here, but I wouldn't say faith comes in to play here. As we all know, humans are capable of swimming. If you go to a swimming pool you can see lots of people swimming. You can see swimming contests on TV. In this case you're not putting faith in humans being able to swim, I'd say more so you are putting faith (or lacking faith) in your own ability to swim. There is a degree of trust which you put in the lifeguard. Again, I don't think you're going out on a limb if you put your faith in a lifeguard to save your life. After all, that is what they are trained and employed to do. The same applies to the anaesthesiologists and the skydivers really. 

you can have faith in virtually anything but on a long enough time-scale your faith will be most likely be broken.

If you went swimming 5 times every day for the rest of your life, you would eventually either drown or lose the ability to swim in old age. If you went skydiving 5 times a day for the rest of your life you would eventually die or have an accident preventing you from doing it again. Again, apply the same to anaesthesia and you'll be lucky to last a week. Nothing has a 100% safety record. And besides, after you have done it once it goes from being faith to belief, as your faith is confirmed.

But this is faith in the possible, the normal, the every-day. There's nothing profound in it.

2 - Faith is a belief, despite lack of evidence. It's impossible to disprove something that doesn't exist other than to point out that there is no proof in the first place. And I don't think a persons moral values have anything to do with religion. I think it's more to do with what the society around them indicates, the people who raised and taught them. If else, where do non-believers get their morality?

3 - I disagree strongly. There doesn't need to be a creator at all, and the rationalisation which you call evidence here is extremely weak. What you're essentially saying is that there must be an (intelligent) creator because things exist. You're also saying that that creator, then, doesn't need it's own origin.

Slightly contradictory in terminology and also can't be proven either way.

4 - What do you think blind people see when they dream? You may not be able to describe colours to them but that does not mean they can't see them when they dream. Perhaps it is them who cannot describe what they see to you.

[Smegma]

2 -  Faith is a belief, despite lack of evidence.

What if the claim is self-evident?

[{LAW} Gamer_2k4]

2 - Faith is a belief, despite lack of evidence. It's impossible to disprove something that doesn't exist other than to point out that there is no proof in the first place. And I don't think a persons moral values have anything to do with religion. I think it's more to do with what the society around them indicates, the people who raised and taught them. If else, where do non-believers get their morality?

3 - I disagree strongly. There doesn't need to be a creator at all, and the rationalisation which you call evidence here is extremely weak. What you're essentially saying is that there must be an (intelligent) creator because things exist. You're also saying that that creator, then, doesn't need it's own origin.

4 - What do you think blind people see when they dream? You may not be able to describe colours to them but that does not mean they can't see them when they dream. Perhaps it is them who cannot describe what they see to you.

2
Read the append on my last post for my thoughts on this.

3
So matter either always existed (which is impossible, because in a time based universe, everything needs a distinct beginning), or it came out of nowhere (which is also impossible based on the laws that govern the universe).  The only solution is a source that doesn't have to abide by either law; also, since the concepts of beginning and ending are dependent on time, it would be utterly illogical for someone outside of time to have a start (or an end, for that matter).  Honestly, if God is stuck in time like we are, then he's not much of a God, is he?

4
Did that really keep you from understanding the analogy? Really? And even if blind people can't describe what they see to me, isn't that the exact same point I was trying to make?

[Mangled*]

3
So matter either always existed (which is impossible, because in a time based universe, everything needs a distinct beginning), or it came out of nowhere (which is also impossible based on the laws that govern the universe).  The only solution is a source that doesn't have to abide by either law; also, since the concepts of beginning and ending are dependent on time, it would be utterly illogical for someone outside of time to have a start (or an end, for that matter).  Honestly, if God is stuck in time like we are, then he's not much of a God, is he?

4
Did that really keep you from understanding the analogy? Really? And even if blind people can't describe what they see to me, isn't that the exact same point I was trying to make?

3 - Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. However, events before and during the Big Bang are anybody's guess. A perpetually expanding and retracting universe makes the most sense so far. But science is about discovering the truth, that's why they built the Large Hadron Collider, to observe particle behavior that occurred milliseconds after the Big Bang. Science doesn't pretend to know the answers.

4 - I understood the analogy but the point you were trying to make with it is a moot one. With regards to Gods existence he is colour and we are all blind, I don't think we should be pretending that we know what colours look like in this instance. I simply applied reverse meaning to the analogy in my previous post. "You can only be sure God doesn't exist if you're an Atheist".

[Smegma]

2 -  Faith is a belief, despite lack of evidence.

What if the claim is self-evident?

[darkangel]

Someone very wise say this once... A man don't believe in faith until he finds his way trough life