Despite what many religionist would like for the rest of us to believe, I am here to declare once and for all that faith does not equal fact. No matter how you spin it, faith is believing in someone or something for which there is no objective or empirical evidence whatsoever.
For the purpose of this article I will be quoting from the New Jerusalem Translation of the scriptures. The bible defines faith: 1 Only faith can guarantee the blessings that we hope for, or prove the existence of realities that are unseen. 6 Now it is impossible to please God without faith, since anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and rewards those who seek him. Hebrews 11:1,6 (NJB). The biggest flaw with this definition is that you cannot “prove” the existence of the unseen you can only hope that he is there. In other words you only believe it because you read it and the bible said it.
According to the teachings found in the bible no man has seen God, and it is best that way since the bible states that if you did see him you would die! The bible states that Moses knew God face to face Exodus 33:11 and Deuteronomy 34:10 but then it turns around and says that no man can see God not even Moses in Exodus 33:20-23! The best look of God that Moses got according to the bible was a look at his back. Here is a problem, recent scholarship has come to doubt the very existence of Moses, outside of the biblical myths he is nowhere to be found!
It’s incredible that even in today’s modern era Christians, Muslims, and Jews insist on their beliefs as unequivocal fact! Nothing could be further from the truth. Religious beliefs skew the mental process to the point where up is down and down is up. There is no logic or reason for a belief in god or any other deities. It’s funny how Christians like to use the old “ where did everything come from, nothing can exist from nothing” argument. I am content to acknowledge that when it comes to origins neither science nor faith has the answers. But I am not willing to accept faith as a valid means of discovering facts or truths. There is a natural explanation for all of this as has been proven through the theory of evolution by the process of natural selection. We may never know how this all began, but saying some fictional deity invented 6 or 7,000 thousand years ago by some nomadic tribe is the source of everything is outright ludicrous and insane.
Christians in particular, speak about their faith as a fact. Everyone else is wrong and only their book and doctrinal beliefs are correct. Every other religion is of Satan and of pagan origins and everyone who does not accept their beliefs is a heretic. What they fail to realize is that the origins of Judaism and Christianity are derived from those same previous religions and myths that they condemn. Judaism and Christianity borrowed a lot of things from Babylonian myths and other cultures that they came in contact with. This is a known fact among those scholars and people such as myself who have studied comparative religion.
In particular I like Hebrews 11:6 which states that in order to please God you must “believe that he is”. It sounds a lot like the tale of Santa Clause doesn’t it? “If you don’t believe in Santa you won’t get any presents for Christmas little Timmy.” Even the fictional Jesus had issues with this in the N.T. where on one occasion he returned back to his home town and it states that he could not perform many miracles there because of the unbelief of the people.
In other words, God’s power is limited to how much you believe in him! How stupid is that? If you don’t believe he can’t show you anything because you have not submitted your will, mind, and reasoning skills to him. The bible literally requires that you suspend your critical thinking skills and take everything that is said there as fact. I guess as long as there are people with limited intelligence or great minds who refuse to use them there will always be religion.
Chatpilot you really have a way of stating the obvious It’s incredible that even in today’s modern era Christians, Muslims, and Jews insist on their beliefs as unequivocal fact! Nothing could be further from the truth.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, Nothing could be further from the truth.. Certainly some followers of religions consider much of what they believe to be fact in much the same way as some atheists believe as fact that Christians, Muslims, and Jews insist on their beliefs as unequivocal fact
However, what is true is that mainstream religion and theology scholars agree that theology like all other fields of learning theology and religion is an evolving area of study with few absolute proofs.
Now I want to present an idea to you. Let us call those theists who are misguided and believe that even though there is debate about a topic it is fact – let us call them religious fundamentalists.
Now what can we call atheists who are misguided and know that the views they ascribe to theists as if they were facts (e.g. It’s incredible that even in today’s modern era Christians, Muslims, and Jews insist on their beliefs as unequivocal fact) and are actually not even generally true – shall we call them atheist fundamentalists?
Let us draw out what these two groups of fundamentalists have in common – for a start they both seem to ignore scholarship when it spoils their arguments.
Am I being unfair to point out a pot calling the kettle black?
Sala kahle -peace
akakiwibear, as usual a nice try from a believer to deny the obvious. When a theist argues for his beliefs he has no facts to back up his beliefs, he bases his beliefs on faith. To call theology a field of learning is an insult to learning in general.
ReplyDeleteThe study of God is the study of something which really can't be studied. No one has seen God and belief in god is entirely based on faith. There is no religious scholarship that is based on truth. All religious texts are mainly derived from oral traditions which are not very reliable at all. And the copies in the case of the bible are all just that. There are no extant originals anywhere.
Christians, Muslims, and Jews state the existence of Jehova and Allah as fact! They don't question it, they believe it and defend it at all costs.
The only hypocrites in this argument are the theist. Making unfounded claims based on myths and ancient traditions. And then not living according to those myths but rather cherry picking through them to select only those things that suit their needs.
Hi Chatpilot, you seem to have lost my last comment, so I will try and say it again.
ReplyDeleteYou post that religions claim God as fact - yet even you must know that not to be the case – that is intellectually dishonest.
You say Christians, Muslims, and Jews state the existence of Jehova and Allah as fact! Now you know you are not being honest when you say this. You know belief in God is an act of faith – you have said it often enough! e.g. No one has seen God and belief in god is entirely based on faith. well duh!
You continue to misrepresent even what you know to be true when it suits your arguments. Religions do not claim belief in God because god’s existence is a fact. Belief is irrelevant to facts – they proven true they do not require an act of belief.
There is no proof absolute for existence of God – I know of no religion that claims there is.
Even the Creed (you know that document that mainstream Christian churches use a a basic statement of belief) starts “we believe ..” This is an position of faith – it does not start “God exists ...”, it starts with a position of faith.
Certainly many claim there is good evidence that God exists – on this they base their belief.
Now as there is no proof absolute one way or the other it takes an act of faith by atheists to believe the case they present for there being no God – or at least for dismissing the evidence that there is.
You talk of there being no God as if it were a fact, yet you have no proof to support your position – it is an act of faith – get over it! There are many things in life we all believe (or not) as an act of faith based on the inconclusive evidence available to us ... e.g. GM foods are safe?
Sala kahle - peace
"Now as there is no proof absolute one way or the other it takes an act of faith by atheists to believe the case they present for there being no God – or at least for dismissing the evidence that there is."
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding me? There is no evidence for the existence of God whatsoever to dismiss. The fact that religious beliefs themselves are derived from ancient mythology makes them invalid. Religions have been around since the dawn of man and they were created to explain the then unknown natural world.
What a theist states on paper and what he truly believes are two different things. Sure they believe in God by faith, but that faith is a fact to them. Christian martyrs of the first century and Muslim suicide bombers were not dying for a guess. They were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt about their beliefs.
Most theist argue the God position from a position of fact and when you ask for evidence you get nothing but circular argumentation and subjective personal experiences which are invalid as a whole.
Not all non-believers state that there is no God but based on the facts I personally am sure there is no God. Man invented God and the world is just fine without one. There is no need for a god.
If you just pull your head out of the bible or the Koran long enough to weigh the evidence for and against the possibility of the existence of God the evidence is heavily against such a possibility. That is what I base my conviction on the idea that there is no God at all.
What a theist states on paper and what he truly believes are two different things. ... well that makes it easy for you - So if their fimrly stated position, held for 100s of years does not fit in with your argument you just dismiss it ... is atheist rationality?
ReplyDeleteSala kahle -peace
Much more rational than believing in the invisible dictator that lives up in the sky.
ReplyDeleteI love "sophisticated" theological arguments.
ReplyDeleteSeems like that if a god wanted the world to know about it's love, you wouldn't have to perform the mental gymnastics that 99% of the population is either unwilling or unable to do.
Additionally, we must ignore all of the logical inconsistencies associated with humans that have multiple conflicting religious ideals, based upon little more than interpretation of bronze age texts - and I guess there are some newer ones too (mormon, etc...) - seems like either revelation is one of the worst forms of communication ever invented or it has to be placed in the same boat as palm reading and ESP.
I am with you on that one Dennis there is no logic in religious beliefs.
ReplyDeleteAll you have done is switch from one belife
ReplyDelete(faith) to anouther. This age old question is,
in the pure scientific definition, UNKNOABLE.
The two opposing belifes are simply two sides
of the same coin. Belife. Either view may or may not be correct. My view is, that ANY statement proclaiming to "Know" the truth about the origine of the universe is confusing belife
with knowledge.
jeff, I agree with you to a certain extent. I don't think that the religious version of creation is even a viable one. The idea of God in my mind was an obvious creation of man. And therefore falls under the classification of myth. Almost every culture has its own version of creation myths and this alone disproves the idea of a god or first cause etc. I am content to state that I don't know how exactly the universe and life came to be but I am not willing to resort to myths to explain what to date is not entirely explainable.
ReplyDelete