Faith and reason are not spheres of influence that overlap, they are completely separate. Faith is defined as knowledge ‘verified’ by faith. The definition is circular. Faith is belief without reason. Faith is by definition, irrational (knowledge lacking reason). Faith claims knowledge of the unknowable; it is contradictory. The fact that it is irrational does not make it inherently unethical or bad. It is what it is, it is irrational. Faith in god is not a type of knowledge; it is belief without reason. Religious faith is a conventional abstraction.
Faith is different from belief as well. Belief is a statement or idea of pre-knowledge or pre-understanding that can be verified and tested using the scientific method. A belief can be proven true or false. Newton believed gravity existed before he could fully define it or state it into a hypothesis.
Faith is irrational belief. Belief that cannot be tested.
This website is organize like the book it is based on. If you would prefer a physical copy, you can purchase Why and Because – The Art and Science of Moral and Ethical Understanding.
If you prefer to listen to the audio version, you can purchase the audio book here: Why and Because – The Art and Science of Moral and Ethical Understanding
I’d agree if all Religion are built on Faith .
but Your definition lack the accuracy you should read more about Religion to be able to make such judgement and get into this inaccurate conclusion and I tell you why
The Islam is the only religion that does not recognise Faith as a Foundation stone and reject every blind faith or any kind of Irrationality ..
Islamic Belief is based on many Evidences That a healthy rational person cant denial and you can find the foundation of Islam in the Quran
The Quran is Special kind of book that provide Logical proofs and evidences , falsification tests and Challenges for EVERYBODY …….
Muslims they dont have Faith but rather they have what call in Arabic Iman and you can see the difference from the dictionary
Faith : In English faith mean: a promise to believe something even if it seems to be impossible, you believe it without evidence.
Iman : In arabic the root for this word is Confirmation[amana] mean when you check on something you believe it because you looked and you saw an indications that it’s true, this doesn’t mean proving every item, but you look and see that this agree with what do you know so far….
I like the idea your Site and i would love it more if you can publish more accurate informations 🙂
you can help yourself buy reading this small article it can be helpful there is many information in one place.
http://www.themodernreligion.com/essays_Gary_Miller.htm
Good Luck
There is quite a bit to unpack in your comments.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share the old testament and a belief in God. God is defined as the intelligent designer of the entire universe, omniscient, omnipotent, omni-benevolent, omnipresent. These are all (negative) descriptors of a being outside of human knowledge that are impossible to confirm and excepted as an article of faith. Positive descriptors (testable attributes) are required to really define a being.
The past humans that channeled God: Mosses, Jesus, and Mohamed provided more attainable vessels for God’s alleged messages. These figures provided positive attributes which made them more attainable. These positive attributes allows believers to have a personal relationship to what was previously a very impersonal God.
The writers of the old Testament got one thing right, if you provide God with positive descriptors, you limit his power… so they skillfully avoided that by describing a being outside of human knowledge. So any believer in God, is by definition taking a big leap of faith to belief that God is real and has all the powers ascribed to him (or her, or it).
If you accept a false premise argument, many rational arguments can be made off the initial premise if it is unquestioned. I’m unfamiliar with the many Islamic Evidences that you reference but I can pretty much guarantee you there is a lot of belief without evidence in the Islamic faith, just like all faith; and it starts with a belief that God is real. It’s impossible to prove that something does not exist, but if one wants to claim something does exist then the burned of proof is on them, not the non-believer.
Recommended reading, “Atheism, the Case Against God” by George Smith. It’s the best book I’ve come across that deconstructs the rational arguments most people of faith uses to rationalized the irrational. Most religious people I know literally cannot open the book to explore its contents due to the fact that the main article of faith amongst the major three religions is that God will punish you if you don’t accept him completely. The fear of God’s wrath for simply questioning the idea of him is a major sin. So most people self-censor their doubt to avoid this conflict. It’s powerful stuff… I was raised religious and it took quite a bit of effort to explore the other side. I broke free early… if you’ve devoted your life to religion it would be extremely difficult to question that.
That said, you can know ethics and understand it more fully through introspection AND still be a believer in God. Being religious and having a secular understanding of ethics is not at odds per se. If your religion instructs you to act unethically towards others than there would be conflict, at which point the non-believer would be justified in questioning any dictates of faith that inspired unethical acts.
The difference between Islam & all other religions is the same. They all rely on faith – irrational belief.
So don’t Atheists all have Faith in no God and the Afterlife? God and the Afterlife can neither be proven nor disproven.
Faith is belief in something without reason. If there is no reason to believe in something, how does faith enter into it?
Whether there’s reason or not is just a matter of opinion. Atheists act as if they KNOW that nothing happens when you die when they have absolutely no evidence whatsoever of that. If anything, NDE’s show potential evidence that there is some sort of Afterlife. There’s not no reason to believe in a Higher Power or Creator. That’s only another Atheistic Belief.
“Atheists act as if they KNOW that nothing happens when you die when they have absolutely no evidence whatsoever of that.”
The reason for this is we do know and there is plenty of evidence in favor of death being a final state that occurs after living.
Philosophic answer: Belief is an assignment of positive values to something. Atheist to not believe in the notion of God. Non-belief in not a type of belief it is the absence of belief. God is a thing with properties. Most theist who understand that positive attributes limit a thing choose to simply define God by everything unknown, making it a somewhat useless conceptual notion if you think about it.
Example: If God has the positive attribute of being benevolent, then he shouldn’t do evil shit. If he is all knowing, there is nothing that escapes his knowledge. If he is all powerful, he can do anything. One positive attribute limits him, just these three make the notion of God easy to disprove because if they were all true then no pain or suffering would exist.
Anatomical answer: What you think of as you, is your brain doing it’s thing. We are our brains, then it stops working, we stop existing. That level of understand is likely all that is required to understand death.
Poetic—Scientific Answer:: “We are made from star stuff…We are the universe contemplating itself” – Carl Sagan. Life is miraculous. The fact that we exist and develop into the complex thinking creates we become is incredible. Science has, within a short few hundred years explained most of the What, Where, How, and Why questions of existence, and the answers are more spectacular than fiction. Do you live on? No, not as “you.” Do your atoms exist after you die, yep. There is only one you, you get only one life, best to make it count.
Emotional Answer: I absolutely get why people find comfort in religion. The best meme of religion is arguably the notion of heaven. But that meme fails apart rapidly if you think about it for just a few seconds. Let’s say your beloved grandfather dies at 87-years old and you see him in heaven when you die at 87-years old. How old is he in heaven? How old are you? What’s his relationship to your grandmother? Are they in separate heavens? Does your grandfather in heaven prefer to be forever 25-years old and single? What do you and your loved ones do all day in heaven? The meaning of our relationships dissolve rapidly without the connections that form them.
The GOD-Subsidy: The best fictions of religion make no sense and the worst memes of religion result in an awful lot of evil in this existence. Religious text are to some degree, a recording of collective wisdom (albeit, centuries old wisdom at this point… so a bit dated), still, there are likely value lesson to be had within them. That said, some of the core components are rotten to the core. The worst aspect of religion in my mind is the GOD-subsidy paid by society for maintaining everyones’ false beliefs as being equally valid with fact based conclusions about the world. Willful ignorance is a core tenant of religion and it has many, many, many negative consequence. In fact, the more powerful humans become, the more dangerous willful ignorance becomes.
No one can know for sure what happens when you die, no matter how many sources you site, the fact is no one knows.
Well…we do know what happens when you die; life ends. The idea of a spirit and the concept of heaven are wonderful ideas, but are untenable.
Do dogs have spirits that go to heaven? How about mice? Crickets? If you think the answer to the latter is “obviously no,” then why is that?
That’s what he is trying to say “faith is same as belief but subtracting reason
Atheists do not have faith in god. Atheists and agnostics are not two different categories of people who disbelieve in religion, they are two different axes on a Punnet square about beliefs on religion. Theism is whether you hold a religious belief and gnosticism describes whether you claim to know whether God is real. This means you can be an agnostic atheist, a gnostic atheist (who you are talking about), a gnostic theist, or even an agnostic theist. Gnostic atheists are actually pretty rare; most atheists are agnostic atheists once you really drill down. I don’t believe in your specific religion but neither do most theists, as none of the world religions can even boast a third of the world’s support. You already don’t believe in most of the world’s religions and the only difference is that I don’t believe in yours either.
I prefer to look at atheism in two ways. Implicit atheist and explicit atheist. An implicit atheist is every child before they are taught religion. An explicit atheist is someone who has been taught a religion or who is familiar with multiple religions and concludes they are all a collection of false claims. I’m an explicit atheist. People who claim atheist cannot provide God does not exist are wrong. All atheist need to prove God does not exist is for a theist to provide a few positive claims about their God. Once you have a handful of positive claims about an entity, you can test those claims. I know God does not exist for the same reason I know Leprechauns don’t exist; and so does everyone else if they care to be honest with themselves.
I see you aren’t familiar with the lengths people will go to make their God unfalsifiable. God defies logic, so any logical contradictions are just our lack of understanding. Just this one claim makes their claims unfalsifiable, and the COULD BE RIGHT. But when they abandon logic they abandon the ability to know anything in favor of believing they’ve been given knowledge already, so it is not a sound epistemological footing. But again, the fact that it negates our ability to have any true knowledge doesn’t mean that it is necessarily false. We actually could be a brain in a vat with no one else actually in existence, it’s just not a useful assumption to live our lives based on.
I see that you removed the “Faith can neither be proven nor disproven” part from your definition. LOL, let me guess, you’re an Atheist who made these definitions? LOL…what a coward.
Faith can neither be proven nor disproven. That is true, by definition.
What is your definition of faith?
The only thing one needs faith in is explanations for the unknown. If something is unknown, your explanations are by definition not explanations.
If faith can neither be proven nor disproven, such as God, then Atheists would have Faith that there is no God, since God can neither be proven nor disproven.
Do you believe in leprechauns, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus?
The reason you and anyone willing to acknowledge reality can answer “no” to the above questions is that all of these concepts are assigned positive values, i.e. traits that can be tested. Most believers of God retreat into the corner of agnosticism when pushed on their notions of God (assigning only negative values to God, i.e. traits outside of human knowledge), but for most religious people their concept of God is assigned positive values.
Quick test: 1) Is God all knowing? 2) Is God all powerful? 3) Is God benevolent? I’ve presented three positive attributes of God most people of faith hold as accurate claims of their God. Given the realities of the world that are natural (or created by God if you prefer) – earth quakes, floods, tornados, droughts, etc., and natural deprivations—viruses, cancers, bacterial infections; God can not be all three things claimed. Only a malicious God, or an ignorant God, or an absent God would allow these natural evils to inflict an innocent man, woman, child, or animal for that matter. And I’ve just picked three attributes. If I listed more, I’d could provide more examples that discount the idea of God. I could take a small fraction of the Bible or any religious text, hold it to scrutiny, and it will fall apart. Any false positive claim can be proven to be false.
Faith is a claim of knowledge without reason, and in most cases faith defies reason. Atheist know God is not real, for the same reason we all know leprechauns, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus don’t exist—We have critically evaluate the claims of those who makes claims of these fictional characters existence and found them to be invalid. Most religious people are atheist of all other Gods, except THEIR God.
There are two kinds of atheist in this world: implicit atheist and explicit atheist. Everyone is born an implicit atheist. If you have never been introduced or indoctrinated into a concept of God, the concept would not necessarily germinate your head. Explicit atheist are people, like myself, that have critically evaluated the concept of God and have come to the conclusion that it is utter non-sense.
Where & how does cowardice creep in?
I was raised under religious influence for the first 28 years of my life, while being in a country where its people would publicly call for your death should you express the slightest doubt in God, or Islam for that matter. I agree with every single definition in this article.
Well said, but irrationality in this sense is all that goes beyond the scope of what science or our senses can verify. I tell you, while the verifications of these two faculties of judgment have served us well and still does, they also have a lot of limitations, which is where faith or the irrational, like you called it becomes our guide.
Plus, some of what we would call sensational scientific discoveries emanated from that space of irrationality. Even some life-saving decisions we make at the crossroad where our rational faculties have fallen-short are made from this field of irrationality, which is what we call a hunch/intuition.
The thing is, it becomes religion and officially irrational when you try to live your life base on another’s faith/irrationality about something.
That is the suicidal thing with religion.
I’m not sure I follow your line of thought, what are you defining as “the suicidal thing?”
Hunches and intuition are based on an assumed mental model of the world; based on previous knowledge and understanding. I would not define that as irrational.
The unknown is not irrational, its simply not known 🙂
All the above comments have been made without the slightest understanding of Hinduism. Read Hindu scriptures for a better understanding of your argument faith or belief.
Ashok,
How would a better understanding of Hinduism change the definition of faith or belief? If you’d like to enlighten us, please do so. There is no limit to the size of a comment you can make, that said, maybe give us the Cliff Notes version of Hinduism as it specifically relates to faith and belief, or ethics in general. While you are at it, try to defend the ethics of the caste system.
Belief is a claim of knowledge whether logical or illogical.
Faith is trust in a belief, whether logical or illogical.
Knowledge involves logic.
Wow! Just found this. Fascinating conversation. I’m just a bit bummed that Ashok didn’t respond with more on Hinduism. Now, I have to look it up myself.
Faith and belief both mean same but applied in different environment.
Faith is related to spritual environment, while Belief is related to physical environment.
I’ll agree that people use the term faith for spiritual things and the term belief for the physical environment; and within that distinction the two terms mean about the same thing. If that’s how you parse things, go one step further. Why the distinction at all?
The physical world is reality. The spiritual world is a world of make believe in your head. Faith requires belief without reason. Belief is generally conceptualized as an incomplete mental model of the world that may be proven true or false. Additional information, knowledge, and understanding alter one’s beliefs. Faith in something is a mental filter that blocks out information, knowledge, and understanding of items that conflict with one’s spiratural beliefs; their tenants of faith.
“Faith is belief without reason.” I think a better statement would be, “Faith is belief without proof.” There are far too many scholars in all religions that use reason to talk about God to say faith is belief without reason. Also, my faith will be proven right or wrong at some point, which goes against other assertions on this page. All in all this page was unhelpful, aside from helping me understand what non-believers think.
We are what we were taught. I BELIEVE Religion was an invention from wise human to get humanoids living in a limited space with limited resources. To expan religion is to expand its resources and power to be more influential to others, and gain control over resources and power. It’s still a tribal mentality for human race. And we called ourselves civilized.
“We are what we were taught” is reductive. I would recommend reading Steven Pinker’s book “Blank Slate” or listen to his TED talk on the subject. In short, we are not born as blank slates, there is a fair amount of knowledge that comes prewired. In addition, much of human growth is self taught, guided by curiosity. I agree that religion is a human invention, a tool used mostly as a means for social control. Like any tool, it can be used for good or harm. “Any tool can be a weapon if you hold it right.” Tools can be well designed or poorly designed for the task at hand. Tools that were once effective may become obsolete, think hand tools relative to power tools.
The Us vs Them memes that we readily accept (because we are prewired to) are a “creative-destructive” force that helped civilizations form and become what they are today. They aren’t the only moral constructs to credit, but they are certainly important when recounting history. Ironically, and somewhat predictably (see Jared Diamond’s “Why to societies collapse“), the Us vs Them memes that helped us form civilization, may be the primary thing that ends it.
Creative-destructive forces are all around, and as the name implies, they are both good and bad. If well regulated and balanced to favor “the good,” then creative-destructive forces can be a net benefit over a long term. Capitalism is a good exampled of this. Capitalism is generally thought to be a mechanism for rapid progress because it allows for efficient movement of capital, and it provides room for—and is some cases encourages—failure, which sparks innovation along the way. The problem is unregulated capitalism leads to an accumulation of power that becomes inefficient, stifles innovation, and basically makes surfs out of the majority of people—creating an unstable and explosive social order. Well regulated capitalism can be good, unregulated capitalism rarely is a net good.
Religion historically was the regulating force for the Us vs Them memes. That said, the major religions are the social equivalent of “free market fundamentalism.” They super charged the Us vs Them memes, and looked to convert as many people into the fold as possible, through persuasion and force. Religion has been dying a slow death for centuries, and for good reason, it is an obsolete tool.
Science has taken over as a means to explain the world around us. Governments have taken over societal organization and control. Spirituality has been somewhat democratized. Unfortunately the teaching of right and wrong as derived from the Enlightenment has lead many to believe in ethical relativism—the idea that right and wrong are cultural constructs, only valid within a given culture. This is wrong and societies all over the world need to better understand how to derive ethical truth. It’s a big mission, but this website is a humble start 🙂
As I understand it, ethics is founded on the principle that some things are right (good) and other things are wrong (evil). In very simple terms, one should do the right and avoid the wrong, i.e. be “ethical”. However, the very concepts of good and evil are rooted in and derived from the basic proposition that man is created in the image of God and therefore has intrinsic, derived dignity and value. Being in the image of the Divine, man is to be treated with honor and respect. Without that logical basis, atheists have no intellectual ground upon which to stand and proclaim that some things are “right” while other things are “wrong”. They have rejected the very foundation upon which such an intellectual framework stands, and therefore have no basis for making such claims. It seems intellectually dishonest to smuggle in categories of thinking from belief-systems which you reject. The existence of good can only be explained by man’s having been created in God’s image. The existence of evil can best be explained by the Fall. i.e. man refusing to obey his Creator and submit to His authority. God is NOT the author of evil, nor is He to be held responsible for it. The sinful, selfish nature of fallen man explains all that is wrong in the world. Atheists don’t have answers.
I’m assuming j.bayati landed on this page and read nothing else.
All of his questions are answered on this site:
What is ethics?
How do we know ethics?
The Epistemology of ethics
Understanding Ethics
The problem with faith
The core issue with religion and faith in general
I also don’t believe your definition is proper. Well in fact, its very poor. It takes but a minute to look up the definition of faith to see that it doesn’t assume irrational belief. I’ve thought a lot about this lately and here is what I have come up with.
1. Faith is inseparable from belief but belief does not require faith.
2. Outside of the strict dictionary definitions, “faith” is used in a deeper sense.
3. Faith does not assume “without evidence.”
4. Faith does not assume “unalterable”
Here is the important part and Ill phrase it in two ways.
5a. Faith is a belief you put hope in, or…
b. Faith is a belief that has personal value to you.
6. Faith is rarely used in a negative. We don’t say, “I don’t “faith” that” though we often say “I don’t believe that.” Although some may say “I don’t put my faith in that,” it is obvious that this carries a deeper meaning which has everything to do with 5a and b.
So… I did Google it and this is the top result:
faith
/fāTH/
noun
1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
“this restores one’s faith in politicians”
2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
Merriam-Webster has more interpretations of the meaning of the word faith:
Definition of faith (Entry 1 of 2)
1a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY
lost faith in the company’s president
b(1) : fidelity to one’s promises
(2) : sincerity of intentions
acted in good faith
2a(1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God
(2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion
b(1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof
clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return
(2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction
especially : a system of religious beliefs
the Protestant faith
on faith
: without question
took everything he said on faith
Words can mean different things to different people; that’s why it’s important to define what you mean by words that have several connotations. The distinction between Faith and Belief provided here is pretty well accepted, but even if it was debatable, your six point list does not define faith in epistemological terms, rather it speaks to the emotional value you perceive faith to have. It’s a feeling seeking words to describe it. That’s an OK place to start, but you have failed to define what faith is.
Faith is absolutely belief without evidence. If you had evidence for something, you would not need faith in it. I know the earth revolves around the sun; there is proof. I don’t need faith in this.
I would agree that faith is belief you put hope in. There is really no reason to believe in heaven outside of the hope for it. If you give the idea of heaven just a bit of thought, the notion rapidly falls apart.
Wether the use of the word faith is positive or negative, it should not change the meaning of the word. “I don’t have faith in X” is not an uncommon utterance. Regardless, the definition of the word should have consistency amongst uses.
Why should faith carry a deeper meaning than belief?
What does it mean to have a deeper meaning?
I would argue that faith in something, without questioning it or having proof for it is shallower than a complete understanding of something after critical evaluation, and validation of a given mental model.
Final question. Why is questioning one’s faith considered a sinful act?
I know the answer to this, but I’m curious if you know.
NOW, FAITH IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR, AND THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN!
So if religious faith in a God is irrational. What do call the atheistic belief that all that is known to man came from nothing? Surely placing the irrational in a higher power is more logical than placing the irrational in the impossible.
All that is known did not come from nothing. Matter is quite literally something. The material world, i.e. “the world” and everything we observe is real, it has real properties, we can really test them, and really validate our mental models of the world. It is quite common for religious people, in an attempt to hold on to irrational view to question everything into absurdity (see nihilism and philosophical skepticism).
Irrational thought ought not have more power than rational thought. If fact, trying to argue an irrational position ends up leading to incoherent ramblings; which should be rightly rejected as nonsense.
Having watched a few YouTube videos involving the late Christopher Hitchens debating with religious advocates, I could not help accepting that the religious advocates always struggled if they attempted to argue logically and so they usually adopted other forms of argument. One (stated eloquently by Sir John Lennox) was that everyone has faith, including Christopher Hitchens in his “faith” that science could explain the universe. I was astonished that such an eminent man (Sir John is/was a leading mathematician) was either unable or undesirous of distinguishing between faith in God (for which there is no evidence and is not subject to the scientific method) and “faith” in science (which is belief based on evidence, can be tested and is, in fact, subject to continuous testing).
Atheist also lived by faith that there is no God
Atheist come in two forms:
1) Implicit Atheist: We are all born as implicit atheist – there is no belief because there is no knowledge of god. Religion has to be taught/indoctrinated.
2) Explicit Atheist: People who are understand the assertions religious people claim about their god(s) and who explicitly reject these as products of fiction.
Atheist in the generic form is simply a non-belief in god.
Explicit Atheist know that there is no god. They know this, they same way they know there is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Leprechauns, etc. All people of faith make claims of attributes of the things they claim exist. These attributes can be tested. Belief in god is childish at best.
Outside of religion, isn’t faith and hope the same? Or, is hope preconceived notions based on previously verified knowledge as you said about belief. For instance, if I am trying a new medication to alieve an illness, and I have faith this will work, is that different from belief that it will work.? Saying in essence that faith is based on nonsensicle hope while belief is based on the fact that the medication has worked for some people, so it will for me. But, now back to religion, people of faith don’t just draw their faith out of thin air. They derive their faith from printed and verbal history passed from generation to generation based on what is supposed to be factual past occurrences and hope that it is true cause surely something or someone with far more power can make their lives better, or it’s based on fear and they follow out of fear for their lives because of that same power. Hope is one occurrence in both belief and faith, secular or religious. I hope this medicine will alieve my illness so I will feel better and be more functional and happy. Therefore, based on all the information at hand and the hope I have for it to work, I believe that it will work. Thus, add my positive determination to believe and you have faith. Now apply that to religion. Aren’t all people’s God (or whatever you call it from another country) merely hope that their pain will be relieved. Yet, we fight wars over differences in how that was taught. That’s why I do not like organized religion. But I have faith that something or some entity more powerful than me and working for good, even the power of belief, the universe, positive thinking, all of it will hopefully bring me peace, happiness and love of my neighbors. Everyone just wants relief from their pain — physically, mentally or emotionally. So, why can’t we just believe that our faith mixed with a little hope will draw the necessary energy toward our lives to do just that, religion or not!
Laine,
Your thoughtful comments are appreciated.
The distinction between belief and faith noted here are to provide with reader with a notion that they are different; or at least they are being used separately here. Words can have many meanings, hence it helps to define how one is using them. “Faith,” “hope,” “wish,” “pray,” are all used in the vernacular to mean basically the same thing. Whether there is evidence or not so support and idea, emotionally we have “faith” in it.
The goal in making this distinction is not to say that having faith is bad or unethical; because it is not. Having faith in yourself is necessary to achieve goals and to be happy. Having faith in yourself, others, in treatments, etc. are all likely good and necessary forms of faith; whether or not a valid evidenced based belief system supporting that faith can be readily assessed.
That said if we bring religion into the mix, one’s faith in “X” may have ethical bearing if the person’s faith in “X” causes them to act unethically towards others. Simply believing in “X” may retard their ethical framework. Referring to one’s faith as a type of knowledge is invalid from a rational argument standpoint because faith is not a type of knowledge, rather it is a desire to believe something to be true for which no evidence is present.
Furthermore, despite some of the positive aspects of religion, all religions make up easily falsifiable B.S. and all religions promote willful ignorance as a virtue, which given the harm that causes is a form of evil. Let’s reverse the “belief in God is a net good” narrative for a moment. Is it OK for someone’s faith in “X” to supersede an objective fact? Are we OK with anyone, let alone millions or billions of people believing in absolute fantasies that cause real world harm and unfair treatment to others? Are we OK training kids to believe in fantasies; fantasies that continue throughout life? It would be nice if one’s religious belief was simply like their self confidence, known to them with little impact to anyone else but them. Religion is not that personal. Organized religion is written down, it is taught, it requires payment in many forms, and when “one’s” crazy notions become shared crazy notions, they do real world harm.
On the other side about the debate on the comments: I think that god is the bastard son of reason, i mean the idea of god as an all powerful being is the product of generalization given that no human can experience the infinite. It is a bad construct that creates a lot of logical paradoxes, so the best is to avoid this issue with logic and instead use the feelings. This debate leads to no point and indeed the arguments are not motivated by facts but instead by personal traits and beliefs.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_cognition
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4vHnM8WPvU
Belief is finding something searched for. Faith is keeping it there.
You sum the Problem with Modern Atheism up with saying Faith really is Belief without Evidence, and to prove that saying If You Know something, then You don’t Need Faith. This is Circular Reasoning, and assumes the Definition. Then again, You define Faith in a way that adds the Word itself in the Definition, making the Definition itself a Circular Point.
“Faith is defined as knowledge ‘verified’ by faith. ”
No One defines Faith as Knowledge Verified by Faith.
You can’t use the Word Faith in the Definition of Faith, for the same Reason You can’t include any word in its own Definition.
You also undermine the Idea of Atheists being Free Thinkers by citing George Smith and Steven Pinker. I Myself Tire of Modern Atheists who go about obviously quoting other Atheists Ideas, and forming a clearly shared Belief System, only to say Atheists have no Common Beliefs, only a Lack of belief in a god. If this were so, why would Pinker or Smith matter?
You’d also not spell god ibn lower case, as it is used as a name. Check the Grammar Rule before You tell me this is Me being Angry that My god is not respected or tell Me My God’s name is Yahweh, another overused trope.
The Truth is, Faith is not Belief without Reason. Faith means Trust. People who believe in God vary in Why, and reducing it to being Brainwashed as a baby or some other Hoakey explanation is not Rational, it is dismissive.
There are Reasons People give for why they Believe in God, and Evidence they Give. I need not Give it here, since it is not hard to Find, and if You have Read Books By Atheist Authors, You can find on Amazon on on Archive Dot Org plenty of Arguments for God’s Existence. By Arguments, I am referring to Formal Philosophical Arguments, which must be Logical and Need to include Evidence to Qualify. Even the Well Known Arguments which The Atheist Community claims have been debunked are rooted in Evidence, and this would be True even if they had been Debunked.
Not that they have, most of the Time the Debunking takes the form of Knocking down a Strawman.
For all the Talk of Reason, Modern Day Atheism’s Proponents tend to be Irrational. After all, Steven Pinker is Popular and He literally Claims Thomas Hobbes was an advocate for Democracy, which is false, and claims The Enlightenment’s Advocates were peaceful and opposed Violence, which is Laughable considering what they said and, more importantly, what they did. Then again Atheists like Dawkins claim The Soviet Union never Killed in the Name of Atheism, even though the State Atheist Government that made being an Atheist a Requirement to be part of The Government and actively Promoted Atheism by Censorship and abuse, and which had Anti-Religion Campaigns, was not motivated by Atheism. Please spare me the usual drivel about seeing Religion as a Rival Power, they were Ideological Atheists driven to eradicate Religion in order to have an Atheistic Society.
Which calls into Question what You said about Religion and Yourself. Its another common Rhetorical Trope, and I don’t Believe You are remembering Your own Life Experiences, I Think its just Repetition of Your own Faith Community’s Dogmas we’re supposed to Pretend don’t exist as e repeat the Mantra Atheism is not a Religion its a lack of belief in a god. Atheism is a Religion like Not collecting Stamps is a Hobby.
You said this.
“Most religious people I know literally cannot open the book to explore its contents due to the fact that the main article of faith amongst the major three religions is that God will punish you if you don’t accept him completely. The fear of God’s wrath for simply questioning the idea of him is a major sin. So most people self-censor their doubt to avoid this conflict. It’s powerful stuff… I was raised religious and it took quite a bit of effort to explore the other side. I broke free early… if you’ve devoted your life to religion it would be extremely difficult to question that.”
This is Demonstrably false. Plenty of :Religious People”, by which We mean Christians mainly but can include Muslims and to a far lesser extent Jews, have posted reviews and discussed it, and plenty have said they often Read Books that Challenge their beliefs. Imagining Religious Communities as ordering their Members to not Read Atheist’s Books as You must Accept God Completely or else Go to Hell, and being driven by Fear to avoid such is nonsense.
And before You ask, while I have not Read Smith’s Book, I have Read Dawkins “The God Delusion”, Hitchens “god Is Not Great”, the Three Books by Sam Harris, and have even Read Enlightenment Now and Better Angels of Our Natures by Steven Pinker, as well as other such Works, and I never felt a twinge of Fear when I did. Neither did I feel compelled to change My Views.
The Irony is, Atheists such as Yourself refuse to Read the Works of Theologians and Philosophers. You Fear what They have to say. Or more to the Point, You Fear having Your Image of Atheists, and thus Yourself, Undermined. After all, the Myth is You are Intellectual and they are not. You are Logical and they are illogical. You are Rational and they are Irrational. You also like to View Yourself as More Intelligent than they are. If confronted with Ideas that are Rational, Logical, and Intellectual, then You could Mock them and pretend they are Stupid, but You;d Know they weren’t, and that would erode Your Confidence. If You couldn’t Understand what they were saying, that may mean you aren’t as Knowledgable or as Intelligent as You Pretend to be, and that would certainly Erode your Confidence.
But You also Delude Yourself with this Fantasy of Your own Knowledge and Superiority, to the Point where You act as if the Things You are saying about Religion are Actually True, when they aren’t. This is why You ask such nonsensical questions as this, all whilst saying You Already Know The Answers. If You Knew The Answer though, this Means You aren’t so much Asking a Question to Lear something, You are Trying to get the other person to Think and Realise how Wrong they are.
“Final question. Why is questioning one’s faith considered a sinful act?
I know the answer to this, but I’m curious if you know.”
The Thing is, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all allow You to Question Your Faith, and Paul in The new Testament even Praises The Bereans for doing this.
Literally no Christian Authority in the Mainstream, normal Christian says it is a Sin to Question Your Faith. Indeed, even The Church Fathers spoke of Doubt, and of Questioning The Faith, and generally said it was a part of Formation of The Faith in General.
The ridiculous idea that Religion tells You it is a Sin to Question it is nonsense.
Atheists Like You have No Understanding of Religion as a Topic and fixate on Christianity. Even thenthough it is Quiet Obvious that You Know nothing about Christianity either.
I do not Care if You say You use to be a Christian, because You never were in any Meaningful Sense of the Word. And that is not a No True Scotsman Fallacy. I Know You will say it is, but You Will also Claim My Argument is No True Christian ever leaves The Faith. In Reality, My Argument is more basic than that. My Argument is, You do not Understand Christianity, and since everything You Know of Religion came from Atheist Sources and those Sources are Clearly Biased and inaccurate, it is unreasonable to expect Me to believe You ever had a Meaningful connection to Christianity. Its either that or You Know what You are saying is False, so its more Charitable to say You simply do not Know.
Also, I am aware that My Denomination is not the Only One and have been told there are 30’000 Denominations and had the Which one is the True Church Question lobed at Me. I am Well Aware that different churches Teach Different Things, and what You said is not art of any of them.
And Really, this is easily shown in a Follow Up Post.
Continued Below.
Here’s a link to the Ten Commandments.
Read them.
The #1 sin as stated in the Ten Commandments is “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have any strange gods before Me.”
This is follow up by… #2: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” and
#3: “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.”
These are God’s rules, not mine.
What is the punishment for non-belief or insubordination to God? A one way ticket to hell!
When are you taught this? As a child.
How often is it repeated? Weekly at a minimum and daily if attending a religious school.
How detrimental is this? Read the twitter accounts associated with ex-evangelicals. These memes scar people for life.
Most religious beliefs ought to be considered psychological child abuse.
Beyond the trauma religion instills into its victims, it also steals your sense of reality.
Explicit Atheist to not have faith that God or gods do not exist; we know that the notion of God or gods are fictional. We know this the same way you know that other peoples gods are wrong, or more simply the way we know leprechauns, unicorns, and fairies don’t exist. We look at the empirical claims of religious people and find them to be impossible, improbable, ridiculous, and simply wrong. Santa Claus is a more compelling story than God. While that may sound extremely condescending (because to someone who believes in God it is), I could make a strong argument that the story of Santa Claus is more believable with less inconsistencies than the stories about God in the Bible.
Just a few thoughts on your rebuttal.
1) You may have weakened your argument about the 10 commandments by “cherry picking” your evidence. For instance you neglected to mention the commandment against murder or bearing false witness – both things that ethics likely agrees with. To say that obedience to those commandments would scar people for life would also paint ethics with the same brush. To say these commandments are less important is also fraught with difficulty. To say that non-compliance is a ticket to hell disregards the important part of gospel teaching (Christianity in particular) , the ability to repent, God’s mercy, and the ability to change one’s life to be better and to treat others better. The fact of all practicing Christians falling short of this ideal is not a argument against the ideal. As a side argument, is the “cherry picking” of ex-evangelicals experience over the experiences of a faithful church goers. It might be worthwhile to check those experiences out.
2) The argument in your last paragraph is superficial and may also be cherry picking (but you give no particulars). One certainly can view other’s claims as improbable, wrong, or ridiculous, but people do that all the time in political and ethical arenas. The thing to do, if you really want to find the truth is to test it rather than argue about it. Testing requires faith and the willingness to change your life in response to what you find out. I find that most people are too invested in their life as is to be willing to risk a change. For me, I chose a faith in God and it has made all the difference in my life.
There’s a lot of projection in your rebuttal.
Convention dictates that when making a list of 10-things, the first items on the list are the most important.
Also, in a list of 10, 4 represents 40%… which is a lot. Not exactly cherry picking.
If you read the Bible, the main theme is obedience to authority. God’s authority, but god is never defined in useful terms or his authority but the importance of obedience is impossible to miss.
Improbable, wrong, and ridiculous are terms to which factual accuracy can be applied. These terms have meaning.
Testing does not require faith. Testing is the exact opposite of faith. Testing anything seeks to verify a claim. Faith is belief without reason, without proof.
You can have faith in whatever you want, and if it makes you happy, that’s great. That said, don’t expect others to take your beliefs seriously or try to impose your views on others if you cannot back up your mental models of the world with verifiable facts.