Question for skeptics.

Originally posted by Darfius
In all sincerity, and in all honesty, do you think Christians truly have faith entirely devoid of evidence?

I must stress intellectual honesty, please.

It appears that it's one of those chicken-and-egg things: if you believe in God, you'll see lots of evidence backing up your belief. If you don't, you'll see little or nothing to make you believe. This doesn't mean that either opinion is objective or accurate, it's just intellectual inertia: the 'obvious' explanation for what we see is the one we happen to have been using up to the present, unless that explanation is clearly wrong. This applies to my beliefs as much as anyone else's, even if at the time I'm unaware of thinking in this way.

I've heard that there are actually parts of the brain dedicated to reinforcing existing belief systems, and others dedicated to taking in new ideas. Patients with brain damage to the former end up confused and gullible, struggling to make coherent sense of the world; those with damage to the latter ignore things which 'don't make sense' according to their current beliefs, and find it hard to learn anything. How much it takes to convince someone of something would depend as much on the relative strength of these processes as it would on the weight of evidence.

Originally posted by Coletti
Your highlighted definition of faith confirms what I have said. “...firm belief in something for which there is no proof.”

Since faith is firm belief, then we must define belief. And belief is well defined as intellectual assent.

Few beliefs are base on proof, as you have said. We can not prove the sun will rise tomorrow. And you agree that we f ...[text shortened]... good evidence” is simply you personal bias against all things you associate with religion.

All you're doing is tampering with the definition of faith to try to make it synonymous with belief. They are not the same thing. My dicitionary gives a special clarification about the difference between the two:

Belief: an assent or act of assenting to something offered for acceptance. Belief may suggest mantal acceptance without directly imlying certitude or certainty on the part of the believer <had the strongest belief in his own capacity for success> Faith implies certitude and full trust and confidence in the source whether there be objective evidence or not <faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen --Heb. 11:1 (AV)>

All people who have faith have belief, but not all people who have belief have faith. Believing that your brakes are going to work on any given occasion is not an example of faith. Faith would be if you drove your car from the brake shop at a high rate of speed, not knowing whether they had finished the job, but trusting completely that the car would stop when you stepped on the brake.

Your strategy, of course, is to try to demonstrate that since everyone has "faith" about something, then faith is an entirely reasonable thing. Therefore faith in the existence of god is a reasonable proposition. I'm sorry, but it is not. Faith and reason are wholly incompatible. Not just some of the time, or most of the time, but 100% of the time. If something can be reasonably believed then there is no need for faith. It is superfluous. Faith only becomes necessary when a proposition cannot be reasonably believed. And the stronger the belief, then the greater the need for faith becomes.

As for faith being a belief in something for which "there is no good evidence", this is not a personal bias on my part at all. Far from it. It is simply the definition of the word.

Originally posted by rwingett
All you're doing is tampering with the definition of [b]faith to try to make it synonymous with belief. They are not the same thing. My dicitionary gives a special clarification about the difference between the two:

Belief: an assent or act of assenting to something offered for acceptance. Belief may suggest mantal acceptance without directly ...[text shortened]... is not a personal bias on my part at all. Far from it. It is simply the definition of the word.[/b]

What a silly debate.

Rwingett: Faith is irrational.

Coletti: Faith is firm belief, everyone has firm beliefs, hence faith is not irrational.

Rwingett: Faith is not just firm belief!


Now, why does the meaning of the term 'faith' matter? If Coletti wants to claim that faith is firm belief, fine. Your point is that his firm beliefs are unjustified by the available evidence, and since it is a tenet of rationality to apportion the strength of one's belief in accord with the available evidence, his firm beliefs are irrational.

Originally posted by rwingett
Faith would be if you drove your car from the brake shop at a high rate of speed, not knowing whether they had finished the job, but trusting completely that the car would stop when you stepped on the brake..

Originally posted by rwingett
All you're doing is tampering with the definition of faith to try to make it synonymous with belief.

Who's tampering?? You said regarding faith and belief that they are not "synonymous." You wrote:

Originally posted by rwingett
They are not the same thing

This contradicts the almost every definition of faith you yourself provided:

belief and trust in ... belief in ... firm belief in something ...something that is believed

So obviously you are wrong. And your own references show that. The only deference is that faith tends to be firm beliefs, or strongly held beliefs. But essentially, you can substitute "firmly belive" with "faith."

Here's a Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary definition:

something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary


If you look up belief and look at the list of synonymous you will see "BELIEF" is the very first one. Again, you could not be more wrong.

Now lets look at your biased view of faith:

Originally posted by rwingett
... Faith and reason are opposed to one another. As the amount of reasonable evidence is whittled away to nothing then the need for faith increases in direct proportion....Faith and reason are opposed to one another... Faith is believing something very strongly in spite of the fact that there is no good evidence to do so.

But your definition in your last post says:

Faith implies certitude and full trust and confidence in the source whether there be objective evidence or not

You said faith means there is "in fact no evidence." But your definition say it is regardless of the presence of objective evidence.


Now you have also said that faith is oppose to reason:

Originally posted by rwingett
Faith and reason are opposed to one another.

And bbarr asserts:

Originally posted by bbarr...his firm beliefs are irrational

Lets look at rational.

def: having reason or understanding b : relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason

Compared to belief:

Belief: an assent or act of assenting to something offered for acceptance

and

conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence

Both reason and belief speak of mental acts with regard to knowledge, statements, information, ideas. If fact, they entail understanding and knowledge. You can not have mental assent to ideas if you don't understand them, and you can not understand anything unless you can logically reason about them.

All beliefs depend on the functions of reasoning and understanding. You can not believe the irrational - because by definition - it is not something that can be reasoned about. You may disagree with a belief, you may think someone's beliefs entail contradictions or inconsistencies, but unless that person is speaking complete utter nonsense, to simply say someone's beliefs are irrational is, in itself, a moronic thing to say.

bbarr, that was probably the stupidest thing I've read from you, and I am greatly disappointed. I may often disagree with you , but I'd never say your beliefs are irrational. I think I deserve a little more credit for my capacity for reason than you have just shown me.

Originally posted by Coletti
bbarr, that was probably the stupidest thing I've read from you, and I am greatly disappointed. I may often disagree with you , but I'd never say your beliefs are irrational. I think I deserve a little more credit for my capacity for reason than you have just shown me

Coletti, please reread my post. I am not asserting above that faith is irrational. I'm pointing out to Rwingett that his point doesn't depend on any particular definition of 'faith'. This is why I began the last sentence of my post with "Your point.....".

Originally posted by bbarr
Coletti, please reread my post. I am not asserting above that faith is irrational. I'm pointing out to Rwingett that [b]his point doesn't depend on any particular definition of 'faith'. This is why I began the last sentence of my post with "Your point.....".

[/b]

😳 oops.

I read that too quickly. Me a cuppa! 🙂

(P.S. I know it's 'mea culpa'. I was just thinking it would take longer to look it up. I hate trying to spell French words... Luckly it's Latin.)

Originally posted by rwingett
I see nothing to indicate that DNA has an extra-terrestrial origin.

You mean the opinion of two respected Nobel Prize winners, who not only are athiests, but also have a significantly greater amount of knowledge regarding science than Darwin ever managed to amass ?

I therefore conclude that it most likely had a terrestrial origin.

Your conclusion however seems pale in comparison with that of 2 Nobel Prize winners. No offense, but it seems to have no grounding and certainly no scientic basis on making this conclusion.

It's a matter of probability, not belief. I have no vested interest in the origin of DNA. This is a far cry from the theist who believes that his god is factually true,

Well, clearly you may have no interest in the origin of DNA, nor would an ethiopian cattle farmer. If however you choose to support the ToE and advocate the 'free thinking' way of life, you would need to have a vested interest in the origin of DNA, no ? As we are not discussing God but rather abiogenesis (which afterall I assume you credit for the creation of DNA) , I do believe a substance for which there is no explantion for is rather critical is supporting or disproving ToE. Afterall I may claim God created the universe, but when you question me regarding the feasibility of inbreeding between Adam and Eve, can I really claim that I have no vested interest in that ?

So simply put, assuming DNA on Earth did originate from a meteor and that the Earth is roughly 4.5 Billion years old, if 4 billion years (4.5 billion - 500 million for the Cambrian explosion) was not sufficient to produce the complexity that is DNA, we have to attribute DNA to another source, a souce that managed to produce DNA in atleast 11.5 billion years (assuming the universe is 8 billion to 12 billion years old and life started with the Cambrian explosion).

Gotta say Rwing, if Earth could not produce DNA in 4.5 billion years and it contains a perfectly hospitable environment (as we know), would you really have no vested interest in where it actually originated from ?

Somewhere there would have to have been something special to give birth to DNA.

Originally posted by Darfius
In all sincerity, and in all honesty, do you think Christians truly have faith entirely devoid of evidence?

I must stress intellectual honesty, please.

Depends entirely what you consider as evidence. Evidence for one is wrong on a daily basis.

Should 1 person claim that he saw Joe Dimaggio in a Dunkin Donuts and you trust this person, then yes that serves as evidence. Should 5 friends claim that they saw him in Dunkin Donuts, then this serves as even more evidence. Should 20 unrelated people claim they saw him in Dunkin Donuts, then the evidence is strong. However, perhaps it was someone that really just resembled Joe Dimaggio and not actually Joe Dimaggio himself.

There will never be acceptable evidence that Jesus is the son of God, or that God exists, for that would defy the basis of our judgement, faith. That basic is judgement is what differentiates Christianity from all the other major religions.

pc

Originally posted by pcaspian

I see nothing to indicate that DNA has an extra-terrestrial origin.

You mean the opinion of two respected Nobel Prize winners, who not only are athiests, but also have a significantly greater amount of knowledge regarding science than ...[text shortened]... would have to have been something special to give birth to DNA.

Francis Crick is human. He can't get everything right. Plus the scientific community has not exactly latched on to Crick's notion of Directed Panspermia. There are several perfectly valid theories about the origin and development of DNA on earth that do not rely on Directed Panspermia, or on the hand of god. If you actually read some reputable scientific literature instead of your slanted biblical websites you might stumble across a few. Richard Dawkins talks about a few theories in his book The Blind Watchmaker. He particularly looks at one developed by Graham Cairns-Smith, which he calls the 'inorganic mineral' theory. I won't waste my time explaining it, as I'm sure you're not interested, but that is one example of a theory that has some plausibility to it. Certainly much more so than Crick's Directed Panspermia.

Your claim that the amount of time required to develop DNA on earth was insufficient is, I'm afraid, simply false. You may have a vested interest in attributing DNA to another source, but I see absolutley on reason to do so when there are many much more plausible theories around. But whether it is Cairns-Smith's 'inorganic mineral' theory, or the organic 'primeval soup' theory, or some other similar theory that turns out to be correct, that is what makes no difference to me. I simply see no reason to mix any aliens or gods into the picture.