"Faith"

[David Sklansky]

"Regarding your second problem as how to choose among various religions if one is searching, then I would say that you do indeed have to use your rational evidence evaluating faculties as well as your 'heart' to discern same. Even so, if you do winnow the choices down to one, that one will still fall short of 100% certainity which is where faith is required to cross that last bit of doubt. Maybe that doubt will only be 1%, but it will still be there or as I said above, that religion would possess 100% certainity which God does not give so to allow the free will to choose or not. And if one cannot make that last % leap, then perhaps that is where one can choose to accept Pascal's Wager (search other threads on this those who want to criticize - it's already been discussed) even if for only a year, to see if your 'heart' supplies that last bit of faith to what was lacking in historical/empirical evidence."

Actually I should have stuck only to the second problem as it is the more clearcut one. And it is so unassailable. If all religions claim that part of the reason to believe in them is pure faith, how can they expect someone to switch from his religion to theirs? Worse yet, how can they believe that God would expect it, perhaps even sending them to hell if they don't? That person who doesn't switch will point to his own faith and what can they say in return? If they try to say that evidence is overwhelmingly in their favor, their own faith argument goes away. (And even if they were right about their own evidence they are basically saying that the guy who deeply believes his own religion should be punished merely for being stupid, as opposed to lack of faith.)

I suppose one way out of this would be to say that Religion A has a 3% chance of being right, Religion B a 2% chance, All the rest are 1%. So you use your mind to switch from D to A and your faith to go from 3% to 100%. As farfetched as this is and as unacceptable as this explanation would be even to most religious people, it still doesn't explain why almost no one switches from the religion of their birth.

[David Sklansky]

"For what it's worth, I don't find the Christian evidence to be that filmsy. Some things I point to -"

When I say flimsy I mean in comparison to how strong it would have to be to overcome the evidence against it. Going back to the Salem witch trials, someone said that the evidence wasn't there. I want to strangle that poster. SO WHAT. Why do you guys mangle my point? Said point being that even if there was INCREDIBLY STRONG evidence they still wouldn't be witches.

[davelin]

[ QUOTE ]
"For what it's worth, I don't find the Christian evidence to be that filmsy. Some things I point to -"

When I say flimsy I mean in comparison to how strong it would have to be to overcome the evidence against it. Going back to the Salem witch trials, someone said that the evidence wasn't there. I want to strangle that poster. SO WHAT. Why do you guys mangle my point? Said point being that even if there was INCREDIBLY STRONG evidence they still wouldn't be witches.

[/ QUOTE ]

I apologize for mangling your point, I missed the Salem witch trial arguments.

[Jake (The Snake)]

[ QUOTE ]
A terrific analogy that I think would help clear up your second problem is that religions are all trying to climb the same mountain and starting from different base camps. If you assume that religions are just different ways of achieving the same goal, it should be obvious that different religions are not in opposition of each other, but rather parallel to each other, so picking a particular religion is merely a matter of preference (at least from God's viewpoint).

[/ QUOTE ]

I forget the name of the philosopher who wrote this theory, can anybody help me out?

In any case, I have a couple major problems with this. If God exists, why would he not care which religion you are a part of? Religions cant vary greatly from one to another. Certainly God wouldn't like the fact that people believe he has a son named Jesus if it's not true. If the only thing he cares about then, is faith in ANY God, then what if you have faith that your pet cat is God? Does that count?

[felson]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. I'll mull this over for a while.

David, does this constitute your "big gun," or is there more to come?

[David Sklansky]

Not sure how many big guns I have or whether I'll use them. Most aren't original. Meanwhile what about my question? Do you believe the evidence for your specific type of Christianity is so strong that thinking people (or better yet super smart logical robots with no vested interest) should believe the probability that it is basically true is over 50%?

[FrankLu99]

[ QUOTE ]
If all religions claim that part of the reason to believe in them is pure faith, how can they expect someone to switch from his religion to theirs? Worse yet, how can they believe that God would expect it, perhaps even sending them to hell if they don't? That person who doesn't switch will point to his own faith and what can they say in return? If they try to say that evidence is overwhelmingly in their favor, their own faith argument goes away.

[/ QUOTE ]

if religions are based on blind faith i would venture out and say that there is no way of telling which religion is correct. it would be chaotic. who is right and who is wrong? it is a good thing that religions are not based on pure blind faith (at least the ones i am familiar with).

How do i know if a religion is correct? you must analyze the evidence of validity of the religion. what kind of evidence can i look at? prophecy and fulfillment (and if you so choose to do so, the probablity of them).

Christianity is NOT based on a blind leap of faith. Rather, our faith is based upon substantial evidences. The following are but a few examples:

Hundreds of miraculously fulfilled prophecies.
The empty tomb.
The testimony of more than 500 eye-witnesses to the resurrection.
Numerous archeological finds.
The whole counsel of the Word of God.

So if there is evidence for Christ being the Messiah why dont people believe in Him? Maybe they havent examined the evidence.


note - Faith as defined in the Hebrews of the NT: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

[ QUOTE ]
it still doesn't explain why almost no one switches from the religion of their birth

[/ QUOTE ]

How did you arrive at this assumption?

good nite,
frank

PS A lot of what is in this post is not original in idea(approx 0%). i dont explain things well so for some of the post i just cut and pasted from another site.

[PoBoy321]

[ QUOTE ]
If God exists, why would he not care which religion you are a part of?

[/ QUOTE ]

The purpose of the mountain analogy is to say that the specifics of a religion are inconsequential so long as you arrive at an ultimate religious meaning. What that meaning is is debatable, but whether you get their through believing in Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, Vishnu or Oden doesn't matter.

[ QUOTE ]
Religions cant vary greatly from one to another.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, there are many common threads between major religions. Certainly in the Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), but also in many other religions. For example, the story of Noah's Ark is important in the Old Testament, but nearly identical stories appear many other religions (Greek mythology and Hinduism for sure, although I believe it appears in others), which leads to the logical conclusion that the same message is being conveyed in all of the religions.

[ QUOTE ]
what if you have faith that your pet cat is God?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well now you're just being ridiculous. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[PoBoy321]

Whoops, I just realized that he's a poster here. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[tomdemaine]

" I refuse to prove I exist" says God "for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing."
"Ah" says man "but the babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It proves you exist and so therefore you don't QED."
"oh dear says God I hadn't though of that" and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.