Why not just show itself?

[3rd rock resident alien]

I believe several premises of the thread-starter may need re-considerations. Using the same logic from the last post- if God, Budda or Allah stands at Times Square with a sign saying This Way To Heaven or Believe Me, will the Dow Jones plummet or the Church or mosques register record-admissions? Why would God or his messengers want to do that? The message is already with us. God is not obligated to reveal to humans any more than humans are obligated to find out if we should choose/want to believe. The unhealthy detachment we exhibit with the advent of Science seems to be the crux- prove it to me, show it to me, let me touch it, and then let me decide.... This paradigm is flawed fundamentally.

It is a business enterprise with no liabilities. A kind of business that always collect and gives nothing in return except a speech.

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

It is a business enterprise with no liabilities. A kind of business that always collect and gives nothing in return except a speech.

Great speaker!!!

[+Paranoid Android]

this is for Pa and MW also, faith is not practical as a lifestyle.......

I don't rely on faith when I get in a car, I rely on the rules, offensive drivers training, experience, maturity, evidence ..faith has little use in this situation...faith grows into trust based on evidence and tangible feedback....I stepped out on faith when I first stared dating my hubby while he was earning trust via his behaviors etc........had faith not grew into trust because hubby was proving himself to be trustworthy ..faith itself could of not sustained our relationship, it would of been impractical to think it could and unrealistic IMO.........

I do not disagree that one may use faith as a temporary whilst the tangible evidence is accruing to validate the trust in the first place and many pov would be weighed for merit and value not just my subjective experience ( though this does play a small role depending on what we are talking about, certainly what kind of vegetable i am gonna eat requires little critical analysis as opposed to following a religious construct no questions asked ...( I do not mean the questions that already have the answers either) .....of course I have to be vigilant in my humanness, I can be biased, I can be egocentric, even lazy at times I have taken others word on things to great issues for myself because I didn't do my own leg work or I have even ignored the evidence in favor of emotions and comfort ( people overlook alot when they are emotionally invested, often really important things that could change everything....)... part of critical awareness is taking into account the short comings one has too...

I think you missed the point of my car analogy. You may know the rules and base your driving on that. But you also take it on Faith that other drivers are going to know the rules and abide by the rules. You need Faith to assume that other drivers are not going to drive on the wrong side of the road. You see someone turn on their indicator to change lanes or turn into another street, and you adjust your driving accordingly (slow down so as not to hit them when they slow down to turnoff the street, or perhaps go around them to avoid the issue). You are taking it on Faith that the person is going to use their indicators appropriately.

As I said, it is absolutely impossible to live a life that does not involve Faith.

i would say critical awareness would play real big in assuming a beleif system that has no evidence other than to except it on faith.....

I have no problem putting my Trust in God's promises ("Trust" is synonymous with Faith, Sheri - at least the Bible's version of Faith; today's modern definitions have changed the two definitions slightly). When I come to God in "Faith", what that means is that I put my Trust in the promises God made in the Bible. I trust that the authors were being truthful in their portrayal. I trust that God truly did make these promises. And I trust that God will honour those promises. There is no blind faith (ie, "believing in the absence of evidence, or perhaps even in contradiction to the evidence). That is not the Faith that we speak of (at least, not the kind I speak of).

Just a thought,

[Novice]

It is a business enterprise with no liabilities. A kind of business that always collect and gives nothing in return except a speech.

Not quite- science has given us much but we are still having difficulties grappling with the tiny and the big- what makes up the subatomic world and how does the the universe tick. It does not give us the answers to everything, yet, so, should we take it at face value all we see and understand is all there is to it? Requiring proof by sight+miracles of God is a scientific method and not altogether persuasive(to the masses), that eventually should he show himself in person he would probably end up in a scientific interrogation chair or on a dissection tray. Thread-starter's premises has been colored by sixty years of Hollywood-visualizations(perhaps indoctrinations). Bottom-line thirst in all religions (at the origin/conception) was a need to answer if there was a purpose to life and whether higher authority metes out fate/destiny and most important of all, continuation(or promise) of something after death. The reverse, with the gaping hole that is God we don' believe, is where we are at. Science explains everything but does it really? The Taoists- if you can weed out and talk to the genuine ones, will tell ultimately the ways of the universe (the tiny & the big) will remain elusive, and can not be known. We probably should find this God of ours with other means.

[+Sherapy]

You are very nearly thinking the same way as me tangerine (scary) but fortunately there are stil afew elemental differences. For me i take nothing on faith, but i chose to invest faith in things.

So i would not step out into the road in faith (it contradicts logic) but i would believe/accept my wife's word utterly and completely because i choose to invest faith in her'. When i step into an elevator i have some knowledge and understanding of how it works, but i remember as a child the first time i went on an escalator. I had no idea how it worked. I watched other peole get on but it went so fast and the steps folded i and out at an unpredictable(to me) rate. Then my mum hopped on. I jumped on in faith. I was scared but i had faith in my mum( if not in the escalator) As it turned out i stumbled and fell both getting on and getting off . Mum was there to catch me if i needed it, but she had stood back, knowing i had to deveop my own faith in travelling by escalator some time. I was soon going up and down escaltors in the big city shops for hours while mum was shopping (quite an experience for a little boy from the country)

Today my invested faith in escalators (and skill in using them) is so engrained i dont even think about it, but i do remember the first time i placed/invested my faith in one (and in my mum)

So i have no faith in the existence of god ( one cant have faith if one has knowledge-same as belief)

But i do chose logically and rationally to invest faith in god. Like the escalator it is hard at first, but as you gain confidence, as the machinations of god/elevator become clearer; and simply with a deposited positive balance of experience /outcomes to confirm and justify the validity of your faith, riding the escalator and riding along with god both become so natural easy and fun that one does it almost without conscious thought.

Learning to ride along with god was the sort of exhilarating and fun experience i had not had since spending hours riding the escalators in myers and david jones and john martins.

However, if there was a gaping hole where the escalator should have been , would i have stepped out into it, in faith?

No way.

And if god was nothing but a gaping hole to be stepped onto /into, in faith, could i have done so?

No way.

I can invest faith in reality, but i either cant, or chose not to, invest it in things which do not exist.

I dont try to walk through doorways that arent there (well not often, anyway) but i do hop in my car each day, with absolute faith that it will start up and transport me to where i want to go. God also starts up as required, and transports me where i want to go, so i choose to invest faith in him.

If, occasionally , my car should fail to start (and in 12 years it has never done so )it is probably because i did not maintain it properly, or I am doing something wrong (like trying to start it in drive)

If, occasionaly, god should fail to respond as i expect (and sometimes his responses are unusual, unpredictable and quite funny) then it is, likewise, most likely due to lack of maintenance'on my part, a failure by me to read the operating manual, or an unrealistic expectation of the performance i can logically expect.

Should i really be suprised if i ask god to help me win the lottery, and he choses not to do so ?

Ps tangerine you could not drive a car if you did not have faith(or place your faith) in things and people. When another driver indicates he is turning off a roundabout or changing lanes, do you take this into account in your reactions?

If you do, you are placing faith in the other driver(you cant know he will do as he has indicated) Unless you were able to drive with such faith, you could not drive at all, because you would never know for sure what another driver was about to do.

(It even requires a modicum of faith sitting at a set of traffic lights and "believing" that they will eventually turn green) Do you remember what it feels like when you realise something has gone wrong and they are stuck on red? Your faith has been misplaced /let down. Now you will have to invest faith in the intentions and intelligence of other drivers, if you are ever to get across that intersection.

MW and PA .. the driving that is not faith based is called 'offensive/defensive driving, its a skill that is taught in certain fields, I used to work for the post office and its a 8 hour seminar that teaches this( including a field test) ....... i do not apply faith to the other guy I prepare for the worst and apply a strategy that works...

I do not apply faith( confidence) to the other "drivers" I prepare for the worst and apply a strategy that works...

I trust this strategy as it has bore itself out, but even then things can go wrong...I am on my toes( skeptical) lets just say...

PA, when one says they have great confidence ( faith )that one will do what they say ...In this sense it only means you have a high degree of belief in said belief ..whether its reasonable or unreasonable is another aspect..

faith is not an alternative to reason......I'd add that faith is not a route to truth..Its as if one is using the term winning as a synonym for playing, instead of as one possible outcome of playing.... faith is quaint but it can hardly be called a satisfactory way of proving one is winning..( staying with our ex)

to use faith 'as if' it were an alternate route to truth cannot skirt the imperative question does faith alone really have any likelihood of being true.....a rose any other name will still smell the same and the unavoidable fact about faith in the new sense is its still applied to the belief and its still supposed to imply confidence in said belief..to say I take something on faith does not get it off parole........

let me ask you both this:

so how can you show me that the beleif in the g-d character is "true" trustworthy simply by having confidence( faith )in it ?

certainly you can't expect me to accept claims of faith, books claiming to be inerrant or claims of personal sightings ( of one's own religious experiences) on the ground they 'might' be right or on the grounds they are assumed to be true .... possibility and assumption is just not veracity..........

we have to find some justification for 'truth' or 'knowledge' within the context of faith, so we have to come up with something that is a known fact (truth) in order to support our having faith in the first place... if we want to use the term faith as our avenue to truth one must show that its applicable in all fairness......

if we are to use personal experience of the religious kind as MW does well I have had similar experiences as have many on um and each has reached different conclusions so how could his subjective experience be the error free one?

unfortunately agreement is not the only essential for avoiding error because both myself and the umers including MW could be wrong so as far as using personal experience its not feasible other then as an opinion, if one feels their opine is a fact or a truth this proposition only shows that it is indicative of their pov...in other words one has succeeded in showing their belief is justified by justifying their own belief/truth .. it doesn't make it magically a fact......

then to decide if something is in error we must invoke something other then argument ..we have to have some independent means of checking beliefs....

Hence some of my reasons for why faith is not practical or applicable for the most part........

Edited April 23, 2009 by Tangerine Sheri

[3rd rock resident alien]

Not quite- science has given us much but we are still having difficulties grappling with the tiny and the big- what makes up the subatomic world and how does the the universe tick. It does not give us the answers to everything, yet, so, should we take it at face value all we see and understand is all there is to it? Requiring proof by sight+miracles of God is a scientific method and not altogether persuasive(to the masses), that eventually should he show himself in person he would probably end up in a scientific interrogation chair or on a dissection tray. Thread-starter's premises has been colored by sixty years of Hollywood-visualizations(perhaps indoctrinations). Bottom-line thirst in all religions (at the origin/conception) was a need to answer if there was a purpose to life and whether higher authority metes out fate/destiny and most important of all, continuation(or promise) of something after death. The reverse, with the gaping hole that is God we don' believe, is where we are at. Science explains everything but does it really? The Taoists- if you can weed out and talk to the genuine ones, will tell ultimately the ways of the universe (the tiny & the big) will remain elusive, and can not be known. We probably should find this God of ours with other means.

Its a business novice. You sell the idea of god with whatever you wish of a right and wrong actions for its followers. You collect money for god created everything.

It is a plus if your idea of life after death is what anyone can dream about. You then collect more for you get more followers. The taoists can sell their own versions and then collect. Its all the same.

[Agent. Mulder]

Its a business novice. You sell the idea of god with whatever you wish of a right and wrong actions for its followers. You collect money for god created everything.

It is a plus if your idea of life after death is what anyone can dream about. You then collect more for you get more followers. The taoists can sell their own versions and then collect. Its all the same.

Ugh.

i actually agree with 3rd rock, in some sense.

the church Does seem to push for followers, and for money.

however, it actually hands back a lot to the community. like molesting little boys.......im just kidding. they actually do help out the community and people in need. despite asking for donations.

i dont see 3rd rock and his sun doing Any of that, at all.

(and dont gimme some BS "the sun helps you everyday". thats pathetic. the blazing sun doesnt help a homeless person sitting on the street, dying in the heat)

*edit* i didnt mean for the last part to rhyme. i feel like im rapping

Edited April 24, 2009 by Agent. Mulder