"Faith"

[David Sklansky]

The interesting argument has been made that God purposely allows the evidence for his existence to be somewhat flimsy. He presumably wants us to believe in him but not because there can be no doubt. Why he would need that I don't understand but that is another subject.

But I have two problems with the idea that God wants us to believe in him on the basis of the combination of flimsy evidence plus faith. One is that the evidence was not flimsy four hundred years ago. There was no way of knowing then that sciecnce would eventually explain and do things that it seemed then required a god. so it didn't take as much faith then to believe.

My second problem occurs when this faith argument extends to a specific religion. If there was only one religion it might make sense for God to want to test people's faith. Believe or not. Show some faith. But with a dozen religions out there, all requiring faith in their particular brand, how can a human being be expected to choose? At random? He can't just use faith, because that gives him no guidance. The only alternative is to look at the evidence to see which religion is most plausible. But that contradicts the idea that faith should play a major part. It (evidence) also clearly is not how most people choose a religion since the vast majority go with the one they were born into.