The Problem with Religious Moderates

[HuskersNow]

You admit you have faith, I have never called it blind faith, I have never "made a positive" claim as to your level of faith, just that it does exist in some level. It doesn't matter if the gap that faith covers is a foot wide, or a mile wide, you still rely on faith to cover it. And since all that consists of is human perception, 2 people can be presented with the exact same arguments and come to different conclusions. That is what makes humans both great, and imperfect at the same time in my opinion.

You are making the "positive" claims that my faith is "blind", you are asserting that my belief is founded on absolutely nothing. That's your assertion, you may not believe in my experiences, and I may not have evidence to back them up that is acceptable to you, but that does not "prove" that my beliefs are invalid or blind, you just don't accept them.

The claim has been made that believing in God is "ignorant", but yet the assumption that my, or other experiences are invalid is in itself ignorant. I don't choose to believe that other religions are correct, but I don't tell people they are wrong for what they believe. If I disagree, I present my opinion based on my experiences, it's up to them to decide what works for them.

I think we may be using different definitions of the word, "faith." Some define it as not being based on evidence. But, that is basically how I defined it in my case. By substituting belief for faith above, I think my position can be interpreted by others better.

No, I know that you think you possess "evidence" through personal experience that God exists, but that is not really evidence at all. For one thing, I could make any claim and state that it is true because of some personal experience and no one could disprove my claim. I can't prove that your assertions are necessarily invalid, but I can assign probabilities to certain propositions. I don't think that your personal experiences that prove to you that God is real are valid because no one can disprove your claim. It fails the falsifiability test.

On human perception: you (paraphrasing) say that since our experiences are necessarily subjective, that conclusions made using our senses aren't necessarily true. When a group see a movie in a movie theater, it is possible that they could all have just imagined everything that they think they saw on the screen and that every individual there imagined the exact same thing, but is that really likely? Isn't it much more likely that they actually saw a movie on the screen?

 

[HuskerNMO]

You admit you have faith, I have never called it blind faith, I have never "made a positive" claim as to your level of faith, just that it does exist in some level. It doesn't matter if the gap that faith covers is a foot wide, or a mile wide, you still rely on faith to cover it. And since all that consists of is human perception, 2 people can be presented with the exact same arguments and come to different conclusions. That is what makes humans both great, and imperfect at the same time in my opinion.

You are making the "positive" claims that my faith is "blind", you are asserting that my belief is founded on absolutely nothing. That's your assertion, you may not believe in my experiences, and I may not have evidence to back them up that is acceptable to you, but that does not "prove" that my beliefs are invalid or blind, you just don't accept them.

The claim has been made that believing in God is "ignorant", but yet the assumption that my, or other experiences are invalid is in itself ignorant. I don't choose to believe that other religions are correct, but I don't tell people they are wrong for what they believe. If I disagree, I present my opinion based on my experiences, it's up to them to decide what works for them.

I think we may be using different definitions of the word, "faith." Some define it as not being based on evidence. But, that is basically how I defined it in my case. By substituting belief for faith above, I think my position can be interpreted by others better.

No, I know that you think you possess "evidence" through personal experience that God exists, but that is not really evidence at all. For one thing, I could make any claim and state that it is true because of some personal experience and no one could disprove my claim. I can't prove that your assertions are necessarily invalid, but I can assign probabilities to certain propositions. I don't think that your personal experiences that prove to you that God is real are valid because no one can disprove your claim. It fails the falsifiability test.

On human perception: you (paraphrasing) say that since our experiences are necessarily subjective, that conclusions made using our senses aren't necessarily true. When a group see a movie in a movie theater, it is possible that they could all have just imagined everything that they think they saw on the screen and that every individual there imagined the exact same thing, but is that really likely? Isn't it much more likely that they actually saw a movie on the screen?

I'm basing my definition on a dictionary, you?

Johnny, Danny and I were in a room (and we were the only 3, there was no video or audio of the situation), Danny shot Johnny and killed him, I saw it. Would a court of law allow that testimony? Nobody can disprove my testimony, yet the court would allow me to testify and a jury would make judgement based on it. You are right that you can make a judgement on my evidence, I never claimed you couldn't. But just because you can't falsify something doesn't make it invalid or untrue.

People go see movies all of the time and come up with different conclusions, I'm not arguing that the movie on the screen didn't exist, I'm saying human perception plays into what we take out of the movie. Go watch the movie inception in a group of 10 people, then ask those 10 to write down what they thought happened without discussion. Will all 10 write the same thing?

That's all I can do, present my experiences with others, I never claimed I could prove them, others are free to pass judgement on them.

 

[Manhattan]

So, for all of this discussion in faith in God and what not, what of belief in Satan? Do the people in this thread who believe in God also believe that Satan is out there too? It seems like most of the religious right attributes things to God that would be reserved for Satan. "Religious Moderates" may tolerate other people believing in God - allegedly a benevolent being - but do they also tolerate believing in Satan? On another note, why is devil-worship not more credible than the worship of God? At least devil-worshipers believe in faults and vices which are actually human and observable trends and behaviors in our world.

I would imagine that every Christian believes in the existence of Satan. Jesus himself spoke to Satan and paid a visit to his home, so that lends quite a bit of credibility to his existence in the Christian world. Why do you ask, because I have never seen anyone doubt/deny Satan's existence in any of these discussions?

How would worshiping Satan be "more credible" than worshiping God? Wouldn't it have equal credibility? It's not as if Christianity is for those without faults and/or vices - quite the contrary. Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." - Mark 2:17 Basically, being Christian admits that you have fault, that you need help, and that you cannot save yourself of your own volition.

I think what you're getting at is the twisted mentality that Christians should be above these things - they aren't, usually dreadfully so. But this is why a lot of Christians catch well-deserved flak, and why the phrase "holier than thou" came to being. Instead of evincing humility some Christians act as though they are part of an exclusive, better club than non-Christians, which is silly because it's entirely opposite of what Christ tells them to do.

I was just thinking out loud. I just brought up Satan because I feel like it is very easy for these discussions to get narrowed into a "God or not?" arguments when there are really far many more things at stake and up for grabs here, like Satan.

By more credible, I simply meant that Satan worshipers embrace human desires - things that are supposedly "sinful" - rather than the arbitrary guidelines of a religion.

 

[HuskersNow]

I'm basing my definition on a dictionary, you?

Yes I am. Words can have more than one definition. Some people give a very specific definition to the word "faith," while others give it a very broad definition that can include evidence. By substituting "faith" for "belief," I am not trying to change the meaning of what I wrote, but I am trying to make sure that someone doesn't misinterpret what I wrote.

Johnny, Danny and I were in a room (and we were the only 3, there was no video or audio of the situation), Danny shot Johnny and killed him, I saw it. Would a court of law allow that testimony? Nobody can disprove my testimony, yet the court would allow me to testify and a jury would make judgement based on it. You are right that you can make a judgement on my evidence, I never claimed you couldn't. But just because you can't falsify something doesn't make it invalid or untrue.

Some events could transpire that would put your testimony in doubt, decreasing the likelihood that your testimony is accurate. While other events (like whether you're known as a honest person) could add clout to your testimony, increasing the likelihood that your testimony is accurate. Practically, most people use probability in their everyday lives. If they didn't, then they wouldn't know what to do ever and couldn't live normally. The difference between your testimony and the testimony in the example you gave me is that we know that someone died in the latter, but we don't know if you're just making up the former. If you can never show that an idea is true or not, then why would you believe in that idea? If the evidence that you propose is really genuine, then that should increase the probability that God is real. Since we can't possibly determine if what you experienced actually happened simply based on your testimony, then we can't use it to increase the probability that God exists.

People go see movies all of the time and come up with different conclusions, I'm not arguing that the movie on the screen didn't exist, I'm saying human perception plays into what we take out of the movie. Go watch the movie inception in a group of 10 people, then ask those 10 to write down what they thought happened without discussion. Will all 10 write the same thing?

That's all I can do, present my experiences with others, I never claimed I could prove them, others are free to pass judgement on them.

I think that events can be interpreted incorrectly. Someone can see the effects of gravity and say that what's happening is that God is willing an object to fall to the ground. While someone else can see the same event and interpret it using the theory of gravity. One of those explanations is far more probable.

I would really like to know what your religious experience was like. Could you give me a rundown on what happened?

 

[huskerjack23]

I'd also like to point out that I personally felt the absence of God in my life. When I logically deduced that god doesn't exist, a huge weight fell of my shoulders and I ended up almost crying. Feels good man.