1 + 1 + 1 = 1

[wesleythenazarene]

Seriously last one, lol

No, we do not have faith in the big bang like you have faith in god.  The big bang is demonstrably true.  But if for some reason science finds a better explanation, I am willing to accept that answer instead.

Faith is trusting in something (at least that is the way I define it). And you just said that if science gives you a better explanation you would believe it - because science tells you so. So you have trust that science in right. Therefore you  have faith that science is right. It's still faith.

[Azdgari]

If faith means trust, then you should use the word "trust" as it is less ambiguous.

[jdawg70]

This must be my last reply today as I am getting on a plane in a few minutes. Sorry I cannot respond to everyone. Let me simply share a few things, then you guys can bash them while I am on a plane.

1. You are right you can demonstrate micro-evolution and it was a bad analogy - sorry (however it might still work with macro-evolution - but I will concede this for the sake of argument). I was simply trying to show how it is impossible for us to demonstrate God because we are created by God and have no power to make God do things.

But it's not necessary for us to make god do anything.  It is only necessary for us to come up with some manner of recognizing if god does something.  We certainly don't have any power or control over the moon, but we can certainly observe and measure the effects that it has.

2. As for spiritual things it seems that the thought of this group is that all things deemed spiritual are silly and therefore not allowed in an argument. I understand but also ask you to think about what you can actually objectively observe. You see a bird. But what makes you know the bird is real, you see it. But how can you trust your eyes, because you have seen other things. How do you know those other things were real...etc... In this you see that philosophically everything at some point has to be accepted on a personal understanding of reason. (Many argue that many people see the bird - so it is real - but how do you know that many people are real). You think the bird is there is true because you believe your sense of sight, or maybe touch and sound. You believe that evolution is real (and by the way I have never said it is not) because you believe in the scientific process's that have shown evolution. I believe that God is real because my personal understanding of reason allows me to separate physical and spiritual.

Do you have a process for separating the spiritual from the imaginary?

3. As for the Trinity (the original post) from the earliest of church fathers humans have struggled on how the trinity works. It is part church dogma, it is completely doctrine, and is has its foundations in the Bible. But never the less, if you don't think God is real, then why do you care about the Trinity. I would rather you decide if there is a God. If there is not - then it doesn't matter. If there is, then the arguments of spirit, the Bible and others will take on new light. But as for Christians we understand the trinity as this: God is one, we as humans perceive God through our experiences which have shown the collect Christian body that God is Father, God is Jesus, and God is spirit. These are ways in which we understand God - they are not different Gods.

But according to the Catholics they are distinct 'persons'.  It's difficult to determine whether the Catholic understanding of the Trinity jive with your understanding because...well, the concept, frankly, is just plain incoherent.  Three distinct entities that are in fact the same entity but still distinct just doesn't make sense in the same way that a 12-sided triangle doesn't make sense.  Or are we going to start discussing the merits of spiritually understanding 12-sided triangles and '7 + 4 = Balloons'?

4. As to what helped to become a theist. It was a long process (about 10 years of various studies) and there was no one thing that led me to believe that there was a God. It was studying the complexities in science and seeing how in-probable it was that it was all random. This lead me to a creator entity. That lead me to study who this entity was and there was no answer untell I studied textual-criticism of the Bible and other things which lead me believe the disciples saw a risen King and because of that they were willing to die to stand up for what they believe in.

I guess at some level I have to take it on faith. But so do you. You believe in the Big Bang theory, but if you follow it all the way down you get to - where did the particles come from, magnetic fields, where did magnetic fields come from, laws of physics, where did the laws of physics come from - and you have to faith you will someday find an answer.

Well, I have hope that someday humanity (or some other sentience) will find the answer.  And the questions you pose are indeed very interesting questions - all the more reason to not just make up an answer.

[Bluecolour]

^^Why have hope? What purpose does it serve?

[jdawg70]

^^Why have hope? What purpose does it serve?

Well, it doesn't really serve any purpose per se.  To make me feel better I suppose, but nothing beyond that.

[median]

1. You are right you can demonstrate micro-evolution and it was a bad analogy - sorry (however it might still work with macro-evolution - but I will concede this for the sake of argument). I was simply trying to show how it is impossible for us to demonstrate God because we are created by God and have no power to make God do things.

If it is impossible for you to demonstrate this God, how is this any different from not being able to demonstrate unicorns, fairies, or other gods? You keep throwing around this term "God" as if it actually refers to something, but you give no reason why we ought to think that it does (just like we have no reason for thinking the term "Santa Claus" refers to anything real). Do you see how this is no different from just being gullible and credulous?

2. As for spiritual things it seems that the thought of this group is that all things deemed spiritual are silly and therefore not allowed in an argument. I understand but also ask you to think about what you can actually objectively observe. You see a bird. But what makes you know the bird is real, you see it. But how can you trust your eyes, because you have seen other things. How do you know those other things were real...etc... In this you see that philosophically everything at some point has to be accepted on a personal understanding of reason. (Many argue that many people see the bird - so it is real - but how do you know that many people are real). You think the bird is there is true because you believe your sense of sight, or maybe touch and sound. You believe that evolution is real (and by the way I have never said it is not) because you believe in the scientific process's that have shown evolution. I believe that God is real because my personal understanding of reason allows me to separate physical and spiritual.

I didn't say you weren't allowed to use the term "spiritual" in an argument. All I'm saying is that if you do you're going to be pressed to demonstrate 1. a coherent definition of this "thing", and 2. how you know this thing is real. If you can't do those two things, then it is really hard to see why you are basing your entire life upon this belief. Again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We have seen nearly all the arguments for God, and they all fail at one point or another. It's time for demonstration! Not just talk.

Now, your response here regarding the epistemic question of certainty, along with ontology, brings to mind the famous term (which was utilized by the great philosopher David Hume) Skepticism! How do we "know" that birds actually exist. Well, that question depends highly upon what you mean by the word "know". So, of what are you speaking about? Put simply, in my terms, knowledge is justified true belief. That is, we can ascertain that something is most probably true if it can be demonstrated to us via the avenues of evidence and sound reasoning. It is really of no consequence to me if the bird happens to be a figment. At that point, who cares? However, this argument is hardly a good justification for "having faith" in your religion. I know so many Christians want so badly to put their beliefs on the same footing as science but that is absurd. Scientific facts are demonstrable (and they certainly don't require you to dedicate your life to them!), but your religion is NOT demonstrable. So again, they are not even in the same category and cannot rightly be stated as analogous.

3. As for the Trinity (the original post) from the earliest of church fathers humans have struggled on how the trinity works. It is part church dogma, it is completely doctrine, and is has its foundations in the Bible. But never the less, if you don't think God is real, then why do you care about the Trinity. I would rather you decide if there is a God. If there is not - then it doesn't matter. If there is, then the arguments of spirit, the Bible and others will take on new light. But as for Christians we understand the trinity as this: God is one, we as humans perceive God through our experiences which have shown the collect Christian body that God is Father, God is Jesus, and God is spirit. These are ways in which we understand God - they are not different Gods.

What you claim to "understand" is exactly what is in question here. We are asking for a justification for your believing this stuff. Why have you accepted the bible as the divine word of a deity named Yahweh?

4. As to what helped to become a theist. It was a long process (about 10 years of various studies) and there was no one thing that led me to believe that there was a God. It was studying the complexities in science and seeing how in-probable it was that it was all random. This lead me to a creator entity. That lead me to study who this entity was and there was no answer untell I studied textual-criticism of the Bible and other things which lead me believe the disciples saw a risen King and because of that they were willing to die to stand up for what they believe in.

As Christian apologist William Lane Craig once said, "Two fallacious arguments, put together, do not make a sound argument." Just because you perhaps had lots of different "small" arguments that convinced you doesn't in any way mean those arguments are valid or sound. So what were they? What were these arguments? You mention improbability but is that the best you can do? That is called the Argument from Ignorance fallacy. Lots of improbable things happen all the time and, for all you know, the universe just is that way. At best, you'd be left with agnosticism, not belief. This leads me to think there was something deeper which actually drove you to believe this stuff.

I guess at some level I have to take it on faith. But so do you. You believe in the Big Bang theory, but if you follow it all the way down you get to - where did the particles come from, magnetic fields, where did magnetic fields come from, laws of physics, where did the laws of physics come from - and you have to faith you will someday find an answer.

Eh! No. First, I do NOT have to "have faith" that someday I will find the answer. What if I don't care to find the answer? How does that strike you? What if I simply admit that I don't know? Is that too much for you? I do not "believe" the Big Bang theory. I understand the science and accept the evidence.

But there is another, bigger, problem here. You are making a fallacious equivocation in terms when using the word "faith". Faith is not merely trusting something. Part of faith is being COMMITTED or FIXED to it. It is actually pretending to know something you don't know, and then DEFENDING it as if you know it's true. But that is nowhere near what science does. In fact, it is backwards. Honest investigation requires skepticism and a willingness to hold ideas only TENTATIVELY (not dogmatically as you apologists do). Faith is not a pathway to truth because people can put "faith" in anything and hold to it tightly.

Whether we are talking about where things "came from", how things developed in the universe, etc faith cannot get us the answer we need because faith is unreliable for separating fact from fiction.

[screwtape]

Seriously last one, lol

Faith is trusting in something (at least that is the way I define it). And you just said that if science gives you a better explanation you would believe it - because science tells you so. So you have trust that science in right. Therefore you  have faith that science is right. It's still faith.

Faith is an amorphous, ambiguous word.  It is not one thing.  It is many things.  Often times when discussing it in the context of religion, the meaning shifts from one definition to another without notice.  While I do have a kind of faith in science, it is categorically different than faith in an invisible, undetectable, aloof god.  So I think you've not thought very hard or long about what faith is.

My essay on faith:
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,10690.msg240850.html#msg240850

[median]

Seriously last one, lol

Faith is trusting in something (at least that is the way I define it). And you just said that if science gives you a better explanation you would believe it - because science tells you so. So you have trust that science in right. Therefore you  have faith that science is right. It's still faith.

Faith is an amorphous, ambiguous word.  It is not one thing.  It is many things.  Often times when discussing it in the context of religion, the meaning shifts from one definition to another without notice.  While I do have a kind of faith in science, it is categorically different than faith in an invisible, undetectable, aloof god.  So I think you've not thought very hard or long about what faith is.

My essay on faith:
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/forums/index.php/topic,10690.msg240850.html#msg240850

Screwtape,
I liked your essay. However, I have a slightly different approach to the definition of faith. Dr. Peter Boghossian (atheist philosopher at the University of Oregon) once allowed Christian philosopher Phil Smith (of George Fox University) to present his various "definitions of faith" to his class at UofO (see below). In a fashion similar to your essay (though, to your credit, much more affirming of each definition) Mr. Smith reasons that there are at least 7 different definitions of faith. Since it is likely that most here have not seen this video I will just deal with the varying definitions you presented, and present where I think you "hit the nail on the head" so to speak.

The problem with these "shifting" definitions of faith is that they are mere equivocations. Christians shift categories of what faith is (trying to use it in exchange for nearly any ambiguous religious terminology). Now the definitions you presented are as follows:

1.   Faith is religion
2.   Faith is trust
3.   Faith is loyalty
4.   Faith is believing without evidence
5.   Faith is some kind of mechanism that keeps you religious

Regarding 1,2, and 3 I think we have good reason for thinking these definitions are false. 1) Religion is not "faith". Religion is, well...religion. While it is true that religion requires faith I don't think these terms can be used synonymously (at least not without some serious ambiguity), in some very key places. If someone says, "I put my religion in Jesus" it simply doesn't make sense. If Jesus said, "Anyone who has the religion of a mustard seed will be saved" it sounds absurd. So faith is not religion. They are different things. 2) Now trust is not faith either. Do we "trust" a fast talking salesman who comes to the door? How about a fast talking religion that comes to the door? Trust is based on evidence and is placed tentatively (meaning it can be easily changed). Even if one trusts strongly in a loved one, that trust can be easily broken with a proverbial stab in the back. But faith is not like this at all because religious people who "just have faith" are fixed (or "set") in their beliefs (i.e. - their beliefs cannot be easily changed). So trust and faith are not synonyms either. 3) How about loyalty? I think it is easy to see that this idea falls apart upon further examination. Can we exchange those terms in a religious sentence like, "I have loyalty in Jesus" and still be coherent? I think not. Like the term religion, loyalty is...loyalty. It is a kind of devotion or dedication. It is not faith (more on this in a second).

For the last two, we have faith as believing without evidence and faith as some kind of mechanism that keeps you religious (I say credulous). I think #4 hits the mark the closest and I think #5 is simply a by-product of #4. When someone believes without evidence they tend to create the mechanism by which they will continue to practice their religion. In that sense, #5 is not faith but a by product of faith.

Let me turn for a second though to something in your essay that I found very telling. Pertaining to faith, you stated, "It is the trick of the holy man to keep his customer base." Bingo! Faith is not only believing without evidence. It is a perseverance toward credulity. It is the continuance of belief due to intellectual laziness and personal delusion. And this motivation toward this perseverance is brought on by clergy and those who prop up it's foundation "just believe". This is why Dr. Peter Boghossian calls faith "pretending to know something you don't know."

So, whenever religious folks, apologists and such, attempt to obscure and/or equivocate on the definition of faith we shouldn't allow it. Faith is believing something when you have no good reason to do so. It is really just gullibility with a mask. It is nowhere near the tentative trust in evidence that apologists want us to think it is, for one because they aren't trying to scrutinize their beliefs like we scrutinize scientific hypotheses. Indeed, they do the reverse. They start with their conclusion and work backwards. Now that is main fault with faith. Here is the general difference:

Science: Hypothesis -> Testing/Scrutinization -> Verification -> Tentative Trust
Faith: Conclusion -> Fixed Belief -> Confirmation Bias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLGCLqX7NHY

Finally, I don't think Christian apologists are really being honest in this thread and/or toward this OP. Why? Because their belief in their personal interpretation of their "experience of Jesus" is FIXED and unwavering. It is SET and unalterable (contrary to their words) and it is based upon something unalterable (at least in the short run). So why did they even answer the OP in the first place? I think this is because they want to appear open-minded. That is all. It is merely another case of self-delusion.

[screwtape]

I'm glad you liked my essay.  I like it too, but when I reread I see where I could have made it better.

Anyway, you say that certain ideas that I include as faith aren't really faith.  I think you are looking at just a very narrow context of the word.  I agree with you that where the rubber hits the road in these theological discussions, your definition is kind of what we are all really talking about.  But I was making a point that the word is tough to nail down and not effective for communication.  I wanted to make explicit all the various common uses of the word. 

The word faith is synonymous with religion.  http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/faith 
But I agree, that is not usually what we are talking about, nor how we use it.   

It is also trust and loyalty.  http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/faith 
And again, I agree that this is not really what people mean when they talk about faith.  However, trust is one meaning xians will often try to shift to when called out.  They also claim "trust" when they really mean "blind faith".   That's a point I would include if I were to update that essay.  They say "I'm not talking about blind faith, I'm talking about trust..." and then they go on to very precisely describe blind faith.  It might be asking too much to listen to me, but I would be happy if they just listened to themselves.

One of the practical points I came away with after posting that essay was to insist that people not use the word "faith" and be explicit about what they really meant.  Most of the time they don't even know what they mean.  Usually they should say "confidence".  "I have grown in my faith" is just another way of saying "I'm more confident in my superstitious beliefs".  "I have faith" can be translated as "I'm confident" or sometimes, "I'm not listening to you!"

[Tonus]

I guess at some level I have to take it on faith. But so do you.

That presumes that we're on an even level in terms of evidence or justification for belief.  And that's just too simple.  For example: I may have faith that science will eventually discover the origins of life and of the universe.  That faith may be mistaken, but it's based on the progress that science has made in answering so many questions and finding ways to make things work.  You may have faith that the universe is a product of god's creation, but it's based on... the claims in an ancient book?  The majesty of a starry sky?  The gaps in scientific knowledge?

Anyway, have a safe trip.

[median]

Screwtape,
I actually agree with your thesis that the term "faith" can be quite slippery. But I'm not sure it can't be nailed down. Let me explain. Of course, it is often the case that we can't agree on a definition of that term, with apologists/believers etc, because they want to make it slippery, just like they want to make science a wide open door for any quack hypothesis they "believe" in. But that doesn't mean there isn't one main definition. It just means they don't like that definition. But this drives closer to the point I was making regarding equivocation. The term "faith" is either useful (at which case believers won't want to use it because it has one main definition they don't like), or it is meaningless because it is so utterly ambiguous and vague that it has no explanatory value. If the religionist takes option #2 then he/she is fixed on using a term that doesn't help us get any closer to what they are talking about (just as I maintain the term "God" doesn't refer to anything specific.

So if they want to use this term "faith" to "mean lots of things", who cares!? I can use the term "blark" to mean anything I want but that is really just an obfuscation and it doesn't contribute to honest discourse or truth seeking/investigation. They might as well say, "I'm just going to use this term, and although it won't mean the same thing to both of us, I'll just use it anyway." As far as I'm concerned, that is just not good enough, and really, it's not good enough for them either! If a salesman came to their door and used this kind of slippery verbiage they would either 1) stop him to clarify/nail him down, or 2) say, "No thank you" and shut the door. But do they do this with their funny little "faith" word game? Nope. And that is because they have made an assumption about the bible and/or Christian doctrine (i.e. - they've started with their conclusion) and are now trying to defend it by any means. What a dishonest way to go about seeking truth!

[Tonus]

I don't think it's possible to get theists to agree to a single definition of the word "faith," which is why I prefer to use the word "belief" even though it's not the same.  I can remember when I was a believer and I could define faith any number of ways depending on which definition was most convenient.  And I was quite sincere about it, as I think many believers are.  I think it's an attempt to get out from under the definition that states that it's "belief without proof."  I never saw it that way as a believer, even though that is what it was.

Frankly, even if you do get them to define it, I'll bet that most of them will re-define it the moment it becomes necessary to do so to protect their belief system.

[median]

So then it seems pretty clear, Christian doctrine (including the trinity doctrine) is both ambiguous and self contradictory (which should not be the case if there was truly an omnipotent deity who "wished that all would be saved"). Apologists try to spin and rationalize the definitions of terms, trying desperately to avoid refutation, but in the end their rationalizations (and spin doctoring of word meanings) makes their theological positions pure unpalatable nonsense.