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The Grand Illusion

Roadtoad

Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
Roadtoad
Joined
Nov 27, 2002
Messages
15,468
Location
Citrus Heights, CA
Just out of curiosity, do you believe that true faith must acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist? In other words, if you're genuinely interested in the truth, can you do so by claiming that God must exist, or is there wiggle room on this?

My own belief is that if you are searching for Truth, you must acknowledge that believing in God could be fruitless, that He may not even exist.
 
Anyone who claims to care for truth but admits no possibility of error is a liar (and, in keeping with current vogue, probably a racist to boot). The instant one loses all doubt, they cease to care for truth, and care only for their own correctness.
 
Just out of curiosity, do you believe that true faith must acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist? In other words, if you're genuinely interested in the truth, can you do so by claiming that God must exist, or is there wiggle room on this?
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Roadtoad,

I'm a believer and I for sure think one must be open to the possibility, otherwise it just isn't faith. I have found that the depth of my faith is inversely related to the height of my doubt. Those who doubt little have very little to claim as genuine faith-- that is of course my opinion.

Flick
 
Roadtoad said:
... do you believe that true faith must acknowledge the possibility that God does not exist?
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I think it's implicit in the definition of faith. That is, Nobody knows for sure - but you do because you have faith.

It's like the Bible says: Let him who is without faith cast off his stones and follow me.

I don't remember where that quote is exactly... But I think its in one of the testaments.
 
To find Truth, one must search within, and go without.













That's what my fortune cookie says. How about yours?
 
Bruce said:
That's what my fortune cookie says. How about yours?
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Nice cookie. Mine only has lottery numbers, and a message that says, "Go f*** yourself."

I need to find a better restaurant.
 
Before my conversion to Evil St. Nick, I belonged to the believer crowd, and part of the basic reasoning I was taught to use when speaking with non-believers about god, morality, heaven, hell, etc..... was something along the following lines. Asking the non-believer; blah blah blah, this is how you get to heaven, but even if you believe in god and that jesus died on the cross for you sins, AND you are wrong, at the very worst, you lived a moral and good life, BUT if you are right, you go to heaven, how can you beat that? Point being, many christians leave open the this possibility, and at least where I come from, even use it as part of the coversion tatic.

And last week, my fortune cookie was empty. What do I do with that?

Santa (breaking into homes every christmas eve) Clause
 
Roadtoad said:
My own belief is that if you are searching for Truth, you must acknowledge that believing in God could be fruitless, that He may not even exist.
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Yes, absolutely.
 
I believe in electricity, gravity, light & etc..

I do not consider the possibility that they do not exist.

If someone claims to believe in God, but consder the possibility that it may not exist, are admitting they don't really believe.. Sounds more like ' hope '..
 
I'm sort of with Diogenes.

Thing is, I really have no concept of what mental state, feeling, thought, whatever people are describing when they mention faith. So far as I know, it is not part of my experience. Oh, I assume many a thing that hasn't been proven, and I have my blind spots (thinking something is true when it isn't), but faith just doesn't seem to be part of my experience.

Given that, I find it impossible to answer Roadtoad's question.
 
Diogenes said:
I believe in electricity, gravity, light & etc..

I do not consider the possibility that they do not exist.

If someone claims to believe in God, but consder the possibility that it may not exist, are admitting they don't really believe.. Sounds more like ' hope '..
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Do you believe (i.e., hope) that the sun shines tomorrow?
 
Santa666 said:
And last week, my fortune cookie was empty. What do I do with that?
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It was a homeopathic fortune. Those are the most powerful ones... it's sure to come true!



Originally posted by Diogenes
I believe in electricity, gravity, light & etc..

I do not consider the possibility that they do not exist.
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Really? If someone a few years from now came up with a TOE that explained what we have come to know as electricity and light better than our current theories of electromagnetism, et al, said "electrons" and "photons" were not real, they were really just "X", and it was better supported by evidence than our current theories, you'd still cling to the old ones? I'm not saying this is likely, but hey- it happened to Newton, right?
 
Diogenes said:
I believe in electricity, gravity, light & etc..

I do not consider the possibility that they do not exist.

If someone claims to believe in God, but consder the possibility that it may not exist, are admitting they don't really believe.. Sounds more like ' hope '..
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This is not the same, Diogenes. These are repeatable physical effects.

Consider the question of whether black holes exist. For a while, it was not known how one might go about looking for one, and no observational evidence was to be found.

Now, I can doubt that they exist, because GR may be incomplete, but by its many successes, there is a very good chance they do. However, I have no evidence. Therefore, I doubt their existence (and like a good scientist, even doubt the preliminary data lending support to observation), but still believe they exist, and have faith that evidence will be uncovered.

Likewise, a theist may believe God exists, but still hold the possibility that he could not. Similarly, I can have faith that my (hypothetical) wife will not cheat on me, as evidenced by many year of it not happening and our vows, but that is tempered by the fact that I rationally know that it could happen. In fact, I would go so far as to say one can only have faith on an issue in which one acknowledges the possibility of the opposite being the case. If there is no possibility for error, it's fact, and requires no belief and no faith.
 
roger said:
I'm sort of with Diogenes.

Thing is, I really have no concept of what mental state, feeling, thought, whatever people are describing when they mention faith. So far as I know, it is not part of my experience. Oh, I assume many a thing that hasn't been proven, and I have my blind spots (thinking something is true when it isn't), but faith just doesn't seem to be part of my experience.
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I don't think "faith" is an intellectual experience. It's something you "know" in your gut.

By example, one might say: "I know Mary loves me." Hey Mary says she does and sometimes acts as if she does but she could be Anna Nicole Smith, golddigger. There is no way to know but who has not been blinded by the love they feel.
 
Atlas said:
I don't think "faith" is an intellectual experience. It's something you "know" in your gut.

By example, one might say: "I know Mary loves me." Hey Mary says she does and sometimes acts as if she does but she could be Anna Nicole Smith, golddigger. There is no way to know but who has not been blinded by the love they feel.
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I can't say I've ever had that experience.

If your statement is true, then I don't understand why religious leaders argue that you need to have faith. Their argument assumes conscious choice, whereas your's seems quite uncontrolled.

I may be reading you wrong. I liken what you wrote to love - I feel love for people, but don't reason it out and decide "yes, they have all the required qualities for me to love them, therefore I will love them".
 
Piscivore said:
The way Hinkley "knew" that Jodie Foster would fall in love with him if he just got her attention?
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Very similar. Something that would make you so happy if it were true and something that engenders feelings so utterly undeniable that they just have to be true. We substitute the undeniabilty of the feeling for the undeniability of the reality we allow those feelings to suggest.
 
roger said:
... If your statement is true, then I don't understand why religious leaders argue that you need to have faith. Their argument assumes conscious choice, whereas your's seems quite uncontrolled.

I may be reading you wrong. I liken what you wrote to love - I feel love for people, but don't reason it out and decide "yes, they have all the required qualities for me to love them, therefore I will love them".
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Yes, likening it to love is what I intended. I agree that few ever reason about those they love. There is not much reason can help with. If you feel hunger, reasoning about it won't make it go away. Same with love. But love can be reciprocated. And it can take other forms. You can love a person or a dog or a shiny locket your mama gave you.

I say that to get at your first point above. Why do religious leaders argue that you need to have faith. All the forms of love I mention could be assigned to felt measures of preciousness. Each could be given a different word descriptor than love. The word would not change you feeling of dearness.

But by shifting words one can shift meaning. One can denigrate the feeling you might have for a dog if you compare it to the feeling you might have for your mother or lover. One might even be able to designate the feeling you have for the locket as greed and separate you from it.

Faith takes on a loftiness that other forms of "not knowing" do not. Faith sounds stronger that Wish. I believe that words can be used not only to describe feelings but also to generate them. If you can convince a listener that the good feelings they have about the beautiful world are manifestations of a truth behind reality and name it "faith" you can manipulate the person's feelings in later conversations invoking that shorthand term. The more it is used the more real it becomes and gets closely asociated with a particular emotional state. Likewise, faith can be achieved not through the manipulation of feelings of light and joy, but through feelings of fear and death and hell. It's pretty easy to guess at the source of a person's faith in a short conversation with them.

My point concerns human emotional states and the words we choose to describe them. Religious and political leaders manipulate the masses by skillful manipulation of power words that mean something slightly different to each individual but can be used to create emotional states.

People are not driven to act by idea nearly to the extent they are diven by the hungers, yearnings and emotions that are the blood and guts of human existence.
 
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