"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.

[Mayhap]

Ira Progroff, an American and disciple of Carl Jung, served in WWII in Germany. He learned of the book burnings there and knew that many of the books burned were bibles and other religious books. He wondered, 'what if all the religious books in the world were burned?'.
What would happen to religions? There would be no Bibles or Korans or Sutras to lean on. Well, the answer is that man would have to reach into himself and find the answers. He would have to create inspirational texts anew. He would have to become the prophet. In a sense, man would then really find God. He would find God in his own creativity.

/M

[RJT]

I agree that the test of one’s faith seems to be much harder in post Age of Enlightenment.

I don’t really believe that God condemns those who have never heard of Him or Jesus (referencing your other post, regarding the Jesus question.). I don’t even believe that God tests the unbeliever so much as the believer. And I certainly don’t believe that God condemns true believer in one religion and rejects those who believe another. Contrary to what most think (and I could be wrong here, but fairly sure I am correct) most Christian Faiths no longer believe that you ain’t getting to heaven if you have never heard of Jesus.

I have greater admiration for those who have searched various religions and then find belief in a chosen one. Not to discount the true believer born into his/her religion. One problem I have in the test of my faith is much of the baggage carried by being born and educated in it. How much of my belief is tradition and how much is true belief? There was a post in your other thread asking how shaken you would be if probability didn’t really exist. This hit me pretty hard after I thought about it. It seems that I would be more shaken by that than by your question if Jesus wasn’t God. That really got me thinking how little faith I might really have. Well, at least, let me put it this way: It was a barometer of my faith. And was I wasn’t too pleased with my personal barometric pressure.

Personally, I took the route (when I began my adult discernment of my faith) of reading philosophers. That left me well short of any real answers. Then I went to the Bible and much of the history of the Christian Faith. Read a bit of the more esoteric writings, etc. Eventually, one simply has to take a “leap of faith” or not.

I never delved into other religions - I figure if Christianity isn’t it, then I’ll pass on the others. Right now I would say I am tight/passive striving to achieve tight/aggressive status in my faith.


On a lighter note. Is it a coincidence that Hunter S. Thompson just died and you seem to be having a question of God’s existence? Perhaps he is trying to tell you something. Or did he just will you his stash?

[andyfox]

You might be right that one should at least entertain the possibility of god's existence, but the evidence for the creation of God by man, rather than the other way around, is devastatingly overwhelming, the large number of religions being part of that evidence. Faith is merely a way for the particular religion's apologists to explain away
the flimsiness of their case.

Wouldn't God know that his most intelligent creation would eventually figure out that he was a crock?

[PoBoy321]

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a flawed assumption. If you assume that God wants us to find him, rather than simply believe in him, then this problem should become clearer.

Your first point about the necessity of faith four hundred years ago because of a lack of science, doesn't mean that the presence of science today necessarily destroys the notion of faith. There are still many events in which faith that a higher power exists is almost necessary. For example, a few billion years ago, the Earth was nothing but trace elements. Out of those trace elements, life emerged. Science has proven that this happened, but that does not mean that this explains HOW it happened. I'm certainly not trying to make an argument for creationism, but it's like finding a turtle on top of a fence post. You see the turtle on top of the fence post. It obviously didn't get up there itself, but you have no evidence that anyone picked it up and put it there. Stil, you assume that there was some force that put it there.

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).

[David Sklansky]

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)."

That's a nice answer. But Felson wouldn't like it. Which is all that really matters to me.

[PoBoy321]

I haven't really been keeping up with the God posts on the Psych forum, so this is the first I've heard of Felson. Does anyone want to point me in the right direction to try to find some of his literature or something?

[BluffTHIS!]

Since I am the one who brought this up on two occasions I will try to answer it as best I can. Although you say it is a different subject, the question as to why God would need to have this faith rather than offering enough proof so as to remove all doubt, is that were He to do so then that would contravene your free will. Although I suppose you could argue that one has the free will to deny the truth of the statement 2+2=4, such a denial in the face of incontrovertable mathematical evidence would be totally irrational.

Regarding your first problem with the combination of 'flimsy evidence' and faith and your belief that less faith was called for 400 years ago because of scientific knowledge that has rendered many things once attributed to God's direct intervention explainable by natural causes (which I believe all nonetheless spring from God as the first cause in creation), I would maintain this was not the case at all for the following reason. You are looking at the evidence aspect of this only from a scientific/logical perspective and not from the most important perspective of all, namely the human heart/soul which created by God can respond to the evidence of God's love for it and all creation, primarily the radical notion that He so loved us that He sent his only begotten Son to live, die and be resurrected for our eternal salvation (I am only considering a Christian perspective here). Even though I regard Christianity as the only true religion (I won't go into Christian sects here), any good in any other religious belief system still comes from the Christian God even if that belief system/religion does not possess the fullness of God's revelation and truth that Christianity does. The faith required to believe this and in a son of God who was allowed by God to be humiliated, beaten and crucified was no less 400 years ago than now precisely because it does not seem logical.

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.

[Harv72b]

Just playing God's advocate for a bit...

I have read David Sklansky's teachings. While I did not really understand or even truly believe them at first, I put my faith in him and gave it a shot. I immediately noticed a profound improvement in my poker life. The more I incorporated his teachings into my game, the more I benefitted.

I have never actually seen David Sklansky. I have never heard his voice. And while I have read his words, it is possible that they written by others and only ascribed to David Sklansky. I could demand that he show himself to me, but I understand that he has other things to do and might ignore my demands, and anyway it doesn't really matter, so long as his book continues to help me in my day to day poker life.

I know that there are other authors out there who claim to be as wise as David, and I have read some of their writings as well. And while I see that there are great similarities in overall tone between many of their words and those of David Sklansky, I also note the subtle differences in the texts, and always come back to David Sklansky's teachings.

Does David Sklansky particularly care if I have read his word, understood it, and used it to my best advantage? I doubt it. He has given us his lessons, and trusted us to use them to the utmost. And isn't that really enough?

[img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[davelin]

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

1) The creation of the universe and the aspect of a intelligent designer
2) The mystery of life
3) Absolute good and evil outside of just human experience
4) The higher "status" of man has a created being
5) The archaelogical discoveries of the OT
6) The OT prophecies of the Messiah as fulfilled in Christ
7) The confirmation of the scholarship of the NT

Maybe you can debate the merits/validity of each one, but I believe these along with others point toward Christianity as the truth.