Why is faith considered a virtue rather than the curse it really is?

[Skeptisch]

We went through the scientific revolution and enlightenment when many of the greatest minds in Europe developed new scientific, mathematical, philosophical, and social theories.

Today, in the year 2010, close to half of the population of the richest and most advanced nation on earth, the US of A, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, only 39 percent of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” 25 percent confirm they do not believe in evolution, and 36 percent don’t have an opinion either way.

Proponents of intelligent design—who assert that natural selection cannot explain the complexity of human beings and many other life forms—routinely slight evolution as a mere ‘theory’ despite overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrating it’s far far more than some hunch.

Also today many of us still believe and worship a God who lets 18000 children die from sickness and malnutrition every single day of the year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-17-un-hunger_x.htm Presently we can also see what God thinks of the poorest people in the western hemisphere!

At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and good will, actually exists?

 

[Reverend Rick]

So what is your point?

 

[Sunstone]

In what way, if any, is faith more of a curse than a virtue?

 

[Katzpur]

Also today many of us still believe and worship a God who lets 18000 children die from sickness and malnutrition every single day of the year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-17-un-hunger_x.htm Presently we can also see what God thinks of the poorest people in the western hemisphere!

At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and good will, actually exists?

Oh dear. Not again.

I'm just curious how many children God should let die from sickness and mulnutrition every day. What kind of a number would work for you? And when you've told me that God shouldn't let any children die, would you be so kind as to tell me at what age He should let people die? And by what means?

 

[Skeptisch]

In what way, if any, is faith more of a curse than a virtue?

This professor says it much better than I can:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins (attributed: source unknown)

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

 

[Skeptisch]

To Reverend Rick and to Katzpur,
At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and goodwill, actually exists?

 

[madhatter85]

To Reverend Rick and to Katzpur,
At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and goodwill, actually exists?

long before the creation of this thread

 

[Copernicus]

At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and good will, actually exists?

Theodicy exists just to answer that question. Faith in God takes a lot of mental effort, so the real question ought to be what people think makes the effort worth it.

 

[Sunstone]

If this thread were a man, it would be a drunk, weaving and puking man.

 

[footprints]

We went through the scientific revolution and enlightenment when many of the greatest minds in Europe developed new scientific, mathematical, philosophical, and social theories.

Today, in the year 2010, close to half of the population of the richest and most advanced nation on earth, the US of A, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, only 39 percent of Americans say they “believe in the theory of evolution,” 25 percent confirm they do not believe in evolution, and 36 percent don’t have an opinion either way.

Proponents of intelligent design—who assert that natural selection cannot explain the complexity of human beings and many other life forms—routinely slight evolution as a mere ‘theory’ despite overwhelming scientific evidence demonstrating it’s far far more than some hunch.

Also today many of us still believe and worship a God who lets 18000 children die from sickness and malnutrition every single day of the year. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-17-un-hunger_x.htm Presently we can also see what God thinks of the poorest people in the western hemisphere!

At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and good will, actually exists?

Science does not enlighten, science educates. Albeit in the full context of the word, knowledge tends to enlighten people as it gives them greater knowledge, so they are enlightened to this new knowledge, be it perceptional or not.

Faith is considered a virtue simply because it drives people to higher goals. Einstein couldn't have formulated his theory of realativity if he didn't have a faith and belief in himself or what he was doing, he would have given up after his first failed attempt.

It is only those who cannot see the full value of faith, that consider it a curse.

At what point should we start wondering if a deity exists? At any point a person wishes to, this I thought would have been obvious. Many people have already wondered this and drawn their conclusions.

 

[Thief]

God gave Man dominion.
It is not God that allows the pain and suffering.
Man allows it.

 

[John D]

This professor says it much better than I can:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins (attributed: source unknown)

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

...I guess not everybody is as intelligent and independent like you...
Somewhere in the scriptures (bible) it is stated that faith brings hope - that is enough for me.
Do you want to take that away also from the millions dying of hunger,war and desease !
Maybe you will need hope as well

 

[footprints]

This professor says it much better than I can:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins (attributed: source unknown)

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Dawkins basis premises on his own faith and belief, albeit can only see this in others and not in himself.

Dawkins attacks a perceived symptom and not a root cause, this is never a rational nor reasonable view point, albeit would seem rational and reasonable to Dawkins or anybody else who holds the same faith of belief in this view point.

 

[emiliano]

This professor says it much better than I can:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.
-- Richard Dawkins (attributed: source unknown)

Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Professor, Wow! What is he a professor on???????????????:sarcastic

 

[Copernicus]

God gave Man dominion.
It is not God that allows the pain and suffering.
Man allows it.

Is that your take on Haiti?

 

[Baydwin]

I prefer free-thinking over faith any day. I think it's even more important for theists, such as myself, to think and wonder and research rather than simply accepting any information that it thrown at us. It shows that we at least have made an informed choice, and really that choice should be respected even by those who disagree with it.
But faith requires nothing bar the suppression of doubt, which in my opinion is not a virtues pursuit.

Professor, Wow! What is he a professor on???????????????:sarcastic

Evolutionary biology. A well respected one at that.

 

[Katzpur]

At what point should we start wondering if this supernatural deity, full of love and goodwill, actually exists?

So you have mastered the art of answering a question with another question, I see. My question was entirely reasonable and I will continue this conversation if you will respond to it.

 

[Skeptisch]

Faith is considered a virtue simply because it drives people to higher goals. Einstein couldn't have formulated his theory of realativity if he didn't have a faith and belief in himself or what he was doing, he would have given up after his first failed attempt.

It was, apparently, not clear what “faith” we talk about in this thread. It is the faith in a supernatural God. The one God Albert Einstein was very particular about:

“I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”
Albert Einstein

“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Albert Einstein

 

[Skeptisch]

Until recently Richard Dawkins was professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University. His “The God Delusion” just came out in paperback and his latest book, “The Greatest Show On Earth”, is still on the best seller list.

He also says this:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

 

[Baydwin]

He also says this:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

I respect Professor Dawkins' scientific understanding and works, but I have to say his appreciation for things religious is woefully superficial.