What is Faith?

[bobhikes]

Didn't faith impede scientific progress for centuries? Me, I'd put more faith in skepticism than poorly evidenced beliefs.

No general faith does not impede scientific progress. A scientist needs faith in their intelligence and beliefs before they can seek answers and eventually determine fact. You never start off with fact and sometimes you need a lot of faith in yourself to overcome years of consensus theory that was never fact. It's never faith that impedes scientific progress but power of an Organization with fear of losing power to the unknown. These Organizations use faith because fact won't support them. This doesn't negate the necessity of faith but just like with any tool it can also be used for harm.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Point out one fallacy you 'believe' that I committed and I will demonstrate how I did not commit it.

I've done so many times and no doubt will again soon. But why bother? We don't speak the same language in that area.

I asked: "Who is better qualified to say what is evidence for a claim than the person who makes the claim?"

Do you have a problem with your reading comprehension skills?
I was not referring to evaluating evidence, I was talking about presenting evidence to support a claim.

And I answered you: "Anybody qualified to evaluate evidence and the claim that it is said to support." Yes, you are referring to evaluating evidence. How does that elude you? Do you think it's possible to call something evidence for a claim without evaluating it and finding it to be evidence for that claim? This is what I mean by us not speaking the same language here.

Can you present evidence for the claim that Baha'u'llah made to be a Messenger of God?

No. I have no evidence in support of that. Neither do you. What you offer as evidence doesn't support that claim.

I made no claims

You don't know what a claim is. That sentence was a claim.

I believe His claims are true.
Do you have a problem with your reading comprehension skills?

There's another claim. Regarding my reading comprehension skills, more evidence that there is a communications problem here.

claim is a demand of ownership made for something (eg claim ownership, claim victory)

Wrong word. Same spelling and pronunciation, but a different meaning.

Claim: state or assert that something is the case, typically without providing evidence or proof.

Yes, that's the word. It still boggles the mind that you can't connect that definition to your claims.

There is evidence for God but there is no evidence for leprechauns and pink unicorns.

It's the same evidence - messengers.

The only thing God has in common wiith leprechauns and pink unicorns is that God had never been observed, but there is no reason to think that if God existed God could be observed.

There is no reason to think that if leprechauns and pink unicorns that they could be observed.

God does not exist in the material world so there is no way to observe God or test for God.

Likewise with leprechauns and pink unicorns. You've never observed one, right? That's how we know that they exist in an undetectable state.

 

[muhammad_isa]

No, he is the judge and jury and judges everyone who disagrees with him as guilty of poor reasoning.

Yeah.
They cannot get close to G-d with such an attitude, so they are spiritually blind.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I wrote, "The Bible praises faith as a virtue. It has to, since it depends on belief by faith. It's central tenets can only be believed by faith, because the supporting evidence is inadequate to justify belief by the standards of critical analysis."

OK, you disagree. Do you have a reason, or is your reason "Just because"? What did I write that you consider incorrect, and what in your opinion makes it incorrect to you? If you have no such answer, what makes you think it's incorrect?

I disagree with that, because it can't be supported well with the Bible.

OK, and that's just fine. But your way of processing information differs from mine. For example, I asked you to provide a counterargument if you had one, meaning a sound argument that contradicts mine in a way that they can't both be correct. The reason is that rebuttal, which is what I just described, is how differences of opinion are settled by two or more critical thinkers, who DO employ the same method for processing information and ought to be able to come to the same conclusions from the same evidence. They are looking for the sound argument that can't be successfully rebutted, because a correct idea cannot be successfully rebutted, and that's the one they're both trying to identify.

I don't think your claims has really much to do what Bible actually says.

That's relevant to you, but not to me.

they are spiritually blind.

I've decided that this means that they won't let their imaginations speculate the way the faith-based thinker does. This is the central struggle - these two different camps and ways of deciding what's true about the world. One uses a disciplined and sharply proscribed method, empiricism, and the other admits intuitions and other speculations, which it calls spiritual knowledge or spiritual truth, and is critical of those who won't go there with them. I am used to seeing words like materialist, scientism, and myopic in such discussions. Such thinkers are deemed to have little inner life and no color to their lives. I think characters like Spock and Data define critical thinking for them - mechanistic thought with no passion. Here's a good illustration of that from a well-known critic of atheists. He's describing a robotic vacuum mindlessly bumping into walls measuring its environment and having no other inner life:

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't believe in hell, nor do I want to live exactly like others. I just see common general elements in all of humanity. Why would general universality stifle creativity and uniqueness? Once morality is solved then people can live however they desire. I never claimed everything was binary, with morality you certainly have right and wrong but beyond that there are no restrictions on the good side. I can't deny I see a bad side to humanity though.

If there were no common elements than empathy wouldn't be possible. Humanity already has many political, religious, and social divisions. Ignorance and blind falsehoods cause war just as much as evil. Humanity needs to self discover the common elements of our humanity. And what I think we'll find is that there are peaceful people, and then there is arrogance, and hatred. I don't really think that utopia nor peace for all will ever happen. I just want to mitigate the effects of bad things with wiser people.

I can't help but find common themes and patterns that everyone must grapple with over and over again, generation after generation.

Well, what if it can't be solved without in effect claiming objective authority?

E.g. even empathy can be shown to have a "dark" side.

 

[101G]

I argue that it is illogical to expect to ever have proof of God since God is not subject to proof.

The only way we could ever have proof that God exists, making faith unnecessary, is for God to appear on earth so we could see God with our own eyes, but there is a good reason why God never appears on earth.

God is a Spirit, not SEEN, correct. now this, Romans 1:19 "Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them." Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:"

101G.

 

[F1fan]

No general faith does not impede scientific progress. A scientist needs faith in their intelligence and beliefs before they can seek answers and eventually determine fact. You never start off with fact and sometimes you need a lot of faith in yourself to overcome years of consensus theory that was never fact. It's never faith that impedes scientific progress but power of an Organization with fear of losing power to the unknown. These Organizations use faith because fact won't support them. This doesn't negate the necessity of faith but just like with any tool it can also be used for harm.

You are referring to secular faith. Religious faith is an approach where the individual assumes full authority to reject facts, science, and promote any idea they like for personal reasons. Secular faith is described as a fundamental part of living as a rational being, while religious faith offers no advantage and is completely optional. Religious faith is often a liability, as these discussions reveal.

 

[Trailblazer]

What is this evidence for God? Is it more personal, subjective evidence?

Evidence is anything that you see, experience, read, or are told that causes you to believe that something is true or has really happened.
Objective evidence definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

What is subjective and objective evidence?

Subjective evidence is evidence that we cannot evaluate. In fact, we have two choices; to accept what somebody says or reject it. ... Objective evidence is evidence that we can examine and evaluate for ourselves.
Objective evidence - definition and meaning - Market ...

We can examine and evaluate the evidence for the Baha'i Faith for ourselves thus it is objective evidence. For example, we can examine and evaluate the evidence for Baha'u'llah for ourselves because there are actual facts surrounding the Person, the Life, and the Mission of Baha'u'llah.

This does sound strangely like an ad pop....
People, for various reasons, are prone to magical thinking. Their god beliefs aren't homogenous, and widespread beliefs are usually an accident of politics. None of the beliefs is objectively supported.

I am not saying that God exists is true because many or most people believe in God so what I am saying is not the fallacy of ad populum.
I am saying that it makes no sense that so many people would believe in God in the absence of evidence. You call it magical thinking but most of the world's population believes God is real. How can that many people be wrong?

My belief in my religion is objectively supported by the objective evidence surrounding the revelation of Baha'u'llah, as noted above.

I don't agree. What is this evidence?

You don't agree with what?
I asked: "Why do you think that if God exists there would be testable or observable evidence for God?"

There is no objective evidence for God but there is objective evidence for the Messenger of God.

So why do you believe in him?

Because of the objective evidence surrounding the revelation of Baha'u'llah, who I believe was a Messenger of God.

 

[Trailblazer]

But there are thousands of "messengers of God out there, all with different messages. Stop by a psychiatric hospital and you might find a dozen of them.

To say there can be no true Messengers because there are false messengers is illogical.
The fact that some messengers were false does not prove all messengers were false. That is the fallacy of hasty generalization, unless and until one has actually considered all the variables.

Hasty generalization is an informal fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence—essentially making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables.
Hasty generalization - Wikipedia

Hasty generalization usually shows this pattern:

1. messenger a was not a true messenger of God
2. messenger b was not a true messenger of God
3. messenger c was not a true messenger of God
4. messenger d was not a true messenger of God

Therefore, messenger d was not a true messenger of God.

It is true that the world is full of men who claimed to speak for God, but logically speaking that does not mean that there were not one or more Messengers who did speak for God.

How does one determine which, and if, any of these is reporting the truth, if there's no objective, testable evidence backing the claims?

As I said in my previous post, there is objective evidence but it is not testable. Testable is for science, not for religion.
We determine which claimant is telling the truth by looking at the objective evidence that supports their claims.

It sounds like the 'evidence' needed to justify your faith in God is based on equally unjustified faith in messengers.

The faith in the Messenger is justified if He is truly a Messenger of God. The way we determine that is by looking at the evidence.
It can never be proven 'as a fact' that everyone will believe that a Messenger spoke for God, but we can prove it to ourselves.

 

[Trailblazer]

I don't care about belief. I don't need to believe something to act on it. All I need is to choose to hope that it will manifest if acted upon. Then I will find out. (And have my "evidence".)

That is an interesting perspective, but what do you hope for? What is "it"? Don't you have to believe something in order to hope for it to become manifest?

So you will get the evidence that what you were hoping for was true when "it" manifests itself, but what is "it"?
It is what you were hoping for, what you believe will happen.

That's why God is so useful to us in terms of faith (as opposed to "belief").

I do not understand what you mean by belief.
What do we have faith in? It is what we believe but cannot prove as a fact, since God can never be established as a fact.

 

[Trailblazer]

It's not the "beliefs" that are working for them. It's their faith.

I don't care about belief. Belief is just the presumption that what we think is true, is actually true. And people think all sorts of things are true that they can't actually know to be so. Most belief us just ignorant hubris. Faith is different. Faith is based on our hope that something is true. Not that our blind presumptions that it is. Faith is honest. And that's why it's often much more effective.

Okay, now I understand what you meant by belief, which is not what I meant.
I think you are referring to belief in the context of definitions 2 and 3 below. I am talking about belief in the context of definitions 1 and 4 below.

belief

1. something believed; an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.
3. confidence; faith; trust: a child's belief in his parents.
4. a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith: the Christian belief.

Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words

The world's leading online dictionary: English definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more. A trusted authority for 25+ years!

www.dictionary.com

In that sense I agree. It is not our confidence that something is actually true, it is their faith, which is based on our hope that something is true, since what we believe cannot be proven to be true. If our beliefs could be proven to be true they would be facts, not beliefs.

So, for the Baha'is, it is our faith in what we believe that is working for us.

 

[Trailblazer]

What you call "evidence", are in fact just claims.

You could not be more wrong. The claims are not the evidence. The evidence is what supports the claims.

View attachment 73713

It is not circular reasoning because the claims are not the evidence. The evidence is what supports the claims.
A claim is not evidence of anything except tat a person can make a claim.

You just make an exception for certain such things and then call it "faith".

On faith, you can believe anything, including the gazillions of unfalsifiable things you ignore every single day.
Like the undetectable dragon standing behind you right now.

On faith and evidence I believe what is supported by the evidence. We need faith to believe in what can never be proven, only believed, or as @PureX said, what we hope for.

 

[Trailblazer]

Yeah.
They cannot get close to G-d with such an attitude, so they are spiritually blind.

and spiritually dead.

 

[osgart]

Well, what if it can't be solved without in effect claiming objective authority?

E.g. even empathy can be shown to have a "dark" side.

People do claim objective authority already. I don't think morality is solved through authority. It's solved through introspection and reason. It's solved by knowing yourself. I can't control what other people do. But if enough people have consensus than it becomes authority. I'm merely recognizing a reality beyond tangible evidence, I'm not claiming I have all the answers in that reality. I'm not looking to change people, I just see basic elements everyone goes through.

I suppose the dark side of empathy would be it can be tribal, and there's little universal agreeance.

 

[Trailblazer]

Romans 1:20 "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:"

That is true, the invisible things can be clearly seen by those with spiritual eyes, so the nonbelievers have no excuse, not one that will work on God.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That is true, the invisible things can be clearly seen by those with spiritual eyes, so the nonbelievers have no excuse, not one that will work on God.

Yeah, now remember that there is no truly universal evidence and all that, but that is not unique to only the nonbelievers.

 

[CG Didymus]

Yeah.
They cannot get close to G-d with such an attitude, so they are spiritually blind.

Again, as if all people in all the different religions believe the same thing. Here's what one Christian organization believes in. It contradicts Islam and the Baha'i Faith. They think they are close to God. What do you think? Are they, or are they spiritually dead and blind? And the same questions about the Baha'is... Do they have a new message from God for today, or are they mistaken? Several religions think that they have the true beliefs, and all the others are off a little bit or are completely false and fabricated.

Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Statement of Faith​

• We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God revealing the love of God to the world. 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 3:15-17; John 3:16.
• We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19; John 10:30; Ephesians 4:4-6.
• We believe in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, in His virgin birth, in His sinless life, in His miracles, in His vicarious and atoning death through His shed blood on the cross, in His bodily resurrection, in His ascension to the right hand of the Father, and in His personal return in power and glory. Matthew 1:23; John 1:1-4 and 1:29; Acts 1:11 and 2:22-24; Romans 8:34; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Philippians 2:5-11; Hebrews 1:1-4 and 4:15.
• We believe that all men everywhere are lost and face the judgment of God, that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, and that for the salvation of lost and sinful man, repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ results in regeneration by the Holy Spirit. Furthermore we believe that God will reward the righteous with eternal life in heaven, and that He will banish the unrighteous to everlasting punishment in hell. Luke 24:46-47; John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Romans 3:23; 2 Corinthians 5:10-11; Ephesians 1:7 and 2:8-9; Titus 3:4-7.

 

[F1fan]

Yeah.
They cannot get close to G-d with such an attitude, so they are spiritually blind.

@Trailblazer can't get close to God either, and that's because her dogma states that it sn't possible and thus the need for messengers. Do you agree with that dogma, or do you think believers can access God directly? If you assert the latter then her dogma is incorrect, yes?

 

[F1fan]

You could not be more wrong. The claims are not the evidence. The evidence is what supports the claims.

No he is correct, as other critical thinkers are. You have admitted to lacking "proof" and this seems to be substantial and valid evidence that is sufficient to judge a concept true, or likley true. Your own explanations are that you lack this level of evidence, and that is the bare minimum we require. You faithful don't need evidence as we can determine from your own testimonies. You are not unique, other religious folk believe in their versions of "truth" with an equally low level of evidence.

You keep thinking that the requirement for critical thinkers should be on par with the low level of the faithful.

It is not circular reasoning because the claims are not the evidence. The evidence is what supports the claims.
A claim is not evidence of anything except tat a person can make a claim.

You make claims every time you state what you believe. That is in the defintion that was posted earlier. Evidence comes after a claim, and the degree of evidence is what allows critical thinkers to make valid assessment and conclusions. Your evidence is weak at best, and that means we thinkers defer to the logical default of disbelief.

On faith and evidence I believe what is supported by the evidence. We need faith to believe in what can never be proven, only believed, or as @PureX said, what we hope for.

Your standard is well below the norm for court and critical thinkers. So you are correct that your weak evidence is good enough for you, but we don;t care. It's irrelevant. It shows us how little respect you have for reasoning and truthful understanding. Like other theists you want to believe what you want to believe, and you justify it to yourself. This is why all the diverse theists on these threads have different beliefs. Vritical thinkers are vastly more uniform and that is because we respect reasoning and follow the evidence.

 

[muhammad_isa]

You keep thinking that the requirement for critical thinkers should be on par with the low level of the faithful..

G-d knows best who is a "critical thinker".
If your version of "critical thinker" means to toss away all evidence of G-d,
then I am glad not to be one.