Faith is...

Originally posted by Palynka
FAIL

Like I said, even the smart ones change their opinions SLOWLY over time. Which means, translating for the less smart among us, that smart people can and will disagree at any given day.

You assume, of course, that changing your opinion over time is always the "smart" thing to do. I conceed that we all have misconceptions, therefore, it is important to keep an "open mind", about things, however, I have had my opnions change slowly over time as well only to realize that I was headed in the WRONG direction.

Originally posted by whodey
You assume, of course, that changing your opinion over time is always the "smart" thing to do. I conceed that we all have misconceptions, therefore, it is important to keep an "open mind", about things, however, I have had my opnions change slowly over time as well only to realize that I was headed in the WRONG direction.

I guess it's possible that you're marginally intelligent, but it's going to take a lot of time to convince me of that.

Originally posted by whodey
Really? So we all assume that you are a "smart" one, unless you have adopted positions that seem unreasonable to you. Therefore, everyone that disagrees with you must be something other than smart.

Of course, this type of thinking is not new and leads itself to elitism that we much of both in Washington and the upper regions of religious thought.

Havi ...[text shortened]... s? If so, is it "reasonable" to assume that the Biblical account of the flood is accurate?

Your ark analogy is a good example - a rational argument can convince people about whether or not something "ark-like" was found on Mt Ararat that dates back to the time when scripture writes that Noah was alive. But regardless of the result of the argument, its not going to change anyone's deeper religious beliefs about the existence of a great flood and why that flood occurred.

Likewise, a rational argument can convince people about specific facts about a given political situation - but it won't have much of an impact on deeper "general philosophy" - Palynka will continue to believe what he believes, and whodey will continue to believe what he believes (and Melanerpes will continue to believe what he believes) - it seems like there's something very deep down that even the best arguments just can't penetrate.

Originally posted by Melanerpes
But what is it that "convinces" people of the merits of a given political philosophy?

Why is it that after much time is spent debating on various issues, it seems like no one's position on anything ever really changes very much? The right wingers are just as right-wing as before - the left-wingers are just as left-wing as before, and those in the middl ...[text shortened]... here - my position has totally changed on that issue". But this never seems to happen.

So what you are asking is the quesiton that stumps us all, namely, what contributes to a belief system or erradicates one?

I think for any belief system there needs to be evidence. The more evidence the more "faith" you have in something. For example, suppose someone walked up to you and said that there is a pink elephant in your back yard. You would think him to be mad, right? However, what if someone else walked up to you and said the same thing? Perhaps you might think that they are both mad or maybe playing a practical joke on you. However, the more this persists the more you will begin to question your own sanity and sense of reality, assuming, of course, you don't see the pink elephant.

Having said that, perhaps if they say there is a real elephant in your backyard. It might be more believable to think this since you have no basis to believe that pink elephants exist. You see, the more belief systems you violate the harder it is to begin to believe.

Originally posted by whodey
So what you are asking is the quesiton that stumps us all, namely, what contributes to a belief system or erradicates one?

I think for any belief system there needs to be evidence. The more evidence the more "faith" you have in something. For example, suppose someone walked up to you and said that there is a pink elephant in your back yard. You would th ts exist. You see, the more belief systems you violate the harder it is to begin to believe.

But how often do people truly look at evidence objectively?

One problem is that most of the time, you can take a group of people with widely diverging political beliefs and show them a set of facts, and each of them will find a way to use those facts as evidence to bolster their own beliefs - and each person will walk away feeling even more convinced about their own beliefs than before.

If it's something blatant like pink elephants - yeah, showing someone a pink elephant in their backyard will get them to admit that there's a pink elephant in their backyard. We all can agree that the sky is blue and the grass is green. It's the more subtle stuff where "faith" starts getting involved.

Originally posted by sh76
A) morally praiseworthy

B) morally negative

C) morally neutral

D) morality is irrelevant

??

Discuss

It depends on what you have faith in.

Originally posted by Wajoma
Faith is the belief in something without proof or reason, generally I trust people because generally people are trustworthy, that is not a matter of faith, get bitten a few times and you may build a profile of those that cannot generally be trusted, again, not a matter of faith.

Faith is the abandonment of reason.

this is ludicrous.

so because I choose to have faith in, lets say, democracy I must therefore have abandoned reason?

You seem to be under the illusion that everything can be determined with empirical proof and this should be the only reason why one should believe something, too bad the world isn't as simple as that.

Originally posted by Palynka
Like I said, even the smart ones change their opinions SLOWLY over time. Which means, translating for the less smart among us, that smart people can and will disagree at any given day.

You will certainly change your mind gradually eventually...
... or not.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
You will certainly change your mind gradually eventually...
... or not.

The dog barks and the caravan rolls on...

Originally posted by Palynka
The dog barks and the caravan rolls on...

You will never change your mind.

Originally posted by FabianFnas
You will never change your mind.

The dog barks and the caravan rolls on...

Originally posted by Palynka
The dog barks and the caravan rolls on...

Hearing things that doesn't exist is called tinnitus.
I don't hear any dogs.

Originally posted by sh76
A) morally praiseworthy

B) morally negative

C) morally neutral

D) morality is irrelevant

??

Discuss

What do you mean by Faith?

Originally posted by Melanerpes
Your ark analogy is a good example - a rational argument can convince people about whether or not something "ark-like" was found on Mt Ararat that dates back to the time when scripture writes that Noah was alive. But regardless of the result of the argument, its not going to change anyone's deeper religious beliefs about the existence of a great flood and like there's something very deep down that even the best arguments just can't penetrate.

I disagree. If the Ark has been discovered, it would present horrible delimmas for those who attack the veracity of scripture. In fact, the two most attacked stories in the Bible are Noah's Ark and Creation. One dilemma is the fact that the same author of Gensis who wrote about Creation also wrote of Noah's Ark. So if Noah's Ark is confirmed to be legitimate, it would give credibility to the story of Creation. Of course, this is only one dilemma. The other dilemma is how did it get up there? It must have been a flood. Of course, you could argue that the ancients hiked up the mountain top to build a boat. LOL. It is laughable to imagine them hauling that much lumber to such an altitude when it is problematic just to hike their safely. Of course, then they would have had to build the thing. And the last dilemma would be if it was put there by a flood, which it must have been, then how did they manage to have that much time to build a boat for an unforseeable flood? In fact, how did they have the technical know how to even build the thing?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
I cannot read anything about 500 years.

Google it. Even critics who say it does not add up to 500 years exactly conceed it is, in fact, a calendar for the coming of the Messiah. They also conceed that it is around the 500 year mark. The fact that laymen like you and I cannot interpret such time keeping is of no surprise. They simlpy had differnet calendars than we do today as well as described the passage of time in a different way. What is a surprise is that Jews in the Talmud wrote that the calendar pointed to the time of Christ. That is problematic for critics for two reasons. The first reason is that if anyone can calculate that mombo jumbo it should be those rabbis. In addition, it is problematic because they have no reason to point to Christ because they reject him as Messiah.