Faith is believing something without empirical evidence to support the belief.
If you believe in monsters, you are exercising faith. If you believe in God, you are exercising faith. Yes, God and monsters have some important differences. Monsters, in theory, are part of the physical world, so monsters can, to a great degree, be empirically argued against. God is outside the universe, so our laws of rationality and empiricism are ultimately absurd when trying to prove or disprove God. It is not the faith's that are different, but the objects of faith that are different. Faith still has a denotative meaning that does not rely on the object of faith. But I will concede that in a deeper examination, the comparison does break down. If in playing this game, you applied the connotative meanings, which are more subjective, you would get into trouble. One of the problems with the game (among its many) is that you must be predisposed to accept the writer's definitions of "rational," "faith," and what constitutes a valid comparison. For example, you must be willing to accept as valid an argument from the extreme (the guy who said faith drove him to murder), in order to answer the question in a manner that does not raise a hit. But in this extreme, as in others, there are unknown factors that would not mean his expression of faith was really a valid expression of faith. So the rules are really stacked against you in this game in arriving at the "proper" conclusions. H. -----Original Message----- From: Angel Stewart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 2:47 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Battleground God *mumbles blissfully from his stupor* Faith in god and religion different context from faith in monsters' existence/non existence. Different kind of faith. *turns on his side* Mmm..Muffins... -Gel -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 6:30 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Battleground God At what point are you confused. I'll try to break it down further, if you like. But it's just a set of logical propositions reaching a conclusion: To deny one has faith in the existence or non-existence of God is irrational. H. -----Original Message----- From: Angel Stewart [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2002 2:21 PM To: CF-Community Subject: RE: Battleground God *falls over in confused stupor* -Gel -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] I think it's a valid comparison. The Loch Ness monster seems to be a creature of myth. Perfectly rational people believe they have seen Nessy, but there is little if any empirical evidence to support the existence of the Nessy. It is equally hard to prove that God does not exist as it is to prove that Nessy does not exist. As I suggested earlier, the flaw of the game is that it presupposes that faith is not rational. Pure faith can be a rational response to ones environment. You need not be crazy or stupid to have faith. And since all things that cannot be proven one way another (such as the existence or lack of existence of God or Nessy) are matters of faith, to say that faith is irrational is to say that all people are irrational, because all people, at the end of the day, base their ultimate beliefs about God on faith. If all people are irrational, than the statements of none can be trusted. But since we can observe that some people are rational, and since all people have faith, and since in rational people, their faith is founded on some sort of reasonable response to experience, then we must conclude that faith is rational. It is the proclamation of a lack of faith that is irrational because the person who proclaims a lack of faith is denying all evidence to the contrary that he cannot disprove the existence of God. H. ______________________________________________________________________ Structure your ColdFusion code with Fusebox. Get the official book at http://www.fusionauthority.com/bkinfo.cfm Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
