Back to basics: Give me an argument as to why a god exists

[FaerieStories]

Hi, I'm new here and I see a lot of active topics on specific concepts where users are already heavily engaged in debate, making it a little hard for me to join in. So to test the waters a little (and to help me decide whether or not to stick around here), let's go back to basics and have a debate about the most fundamental question at hand here: does a god exist?

As a non-believer, I have yet to discover any convincing reason as to why I should believe in a god. So, if a Theist would like to get the ball rolling by giving me a reason why god exists, that would be great.

(PS: unrelated question: what is the general breakdown of belief/non-belief on these forums? Is it an even mix of believers and non-believers, or is there- as tends to happen on the internet- a larger proportion of atheists to Theists?).

[theopoesis]

Science is the best way of understanding things in the natural world.

We will never have evidence for the supernatural, because when evidence is found for a phenomenon previously thought to be supernatural, it cease to be 'supernatural' and becomes a part of the natural world.

We can't make any claims about any supernatural entities whatsoever.
Yet religion insists on doing this, without any means to back up their claims.
but unlike their supposed deities, religion IS a part of the natural world, and like it or not, it IS man-made.

There is not any reason to consider the claims these religions make to be anything but wishful thinking or potenitally dangerous means of controlling our fellow man.

There is not one good argument that can exclusively lead to the existence of one particular God. The ones that claim there is, will sooner or later be exposed by manner of pointing out various logical fallacies, an absolute refusal to display intellectual honesty, or any other means, and they all have.

You can't scientifically prove 'God'
You can't logically deduct 'God'
The only thing any of us can do at best is hope/feel/think there is a God, and that's why I am an atheist

Theists have got nothing. No argument that hasn't been refuted.
not in any 'official' debates, not on any of these sites.
The only question is how long people are willing to cling to these myths.

Well, it's official. Dantalion called the fight done. Apparently, my years of study were to no avail. I guess I lost. Must be time to delete my account and start watching more Sunday football. Thanks for the heads up man. If I hadn't seen this, I might have spent a few more years around here wasting my time. And the money wasted on tithes! Heaven forbid! (can a new atheist say that? Heaven?). My church will be sad when I leave, but I'll just tell them you showed me the light.

Well dear theopoesis, if at any time you want to bring forth an argument for the existence of your god that hasn't already been refuted, and are willing to discuss it with intellectual honesty, go for it, I'm very curious.

If not, you will be pleased to learn my 'showing you the light' comes free of charge, you don't even have to start hating entire groups of humans or stop eating certain foods.

Feel free to read higher up in this thread and see some of my arguments.

[Dantalion]

Science is the best way of understanding things in the natural world.

We will never have evidence for the supernatural, because when evidence is found for a phenomenon previously thought to be supernatural, it cease to be 'supernatural' and becomes a part of the natural world.

We can't make any claims about any supernatural entities whatsoever.
Yet religion insists on doing this, without any means to back up their claims.
but unlike their supposed deities, religion IS a part of the natural world, and like it or not, it IS man-made.

There is not any reason to consider the claims these religions make to be anything but wishful thinking or potenitally dangerous means of controlling our fellow man.

There is not one good argument that can exclusively lead to the existence of one particular God. The ones that claim there is, will sooner or later be exposed by manner of pointing out various logical fallacies, an absolute refusal to display intellectual honesty, or any other means, and they all have.

You can't scientifically prove 'God'
You can't logically deduct 'God'
The only thing any of us can do at best is hope/feel/think there is a God, and that's why I am an atheist

Theists have got nothing. No argument that hasn't been refuted.
not in any 'official' debates, not on any of these sites.
The only question is how long people are willing to cling to these myths.

Well, it's official. Dantalion called the fight done. Apparently, my years of study were to no avail. I guess I lost. Must be time to delete my account and start watching more Sunday football. Thanks for the heads up man. If I hadn't seen this, I might have spent a few more years around here wasting my time. And the money wasted on tithes! Heaven forbid! (can a new atheist say that? Heaven?). My church will be sad when I leave, but I'll just tell them you showed me the light.

Well dear theopoesis, if at any time you want to bring forth an argument for the existence of your god that hasn't already been refuted, and are willing to discuss it with intellectual honesty, go for it, I'm very curious.

If not, you will be pleased to learn my 'showing you the light' comes free of charge, you don't even have to start hating entire groups of humans or stop eating certain foods.

Feel free to read higher up in this thread and see some of my arguments.

Except that you didn't give an argument as to why a god exists.
You have explained phylosophically why the existence of the Trinity God would make sense to you.
The main problem we have here is what you have already identified.
Your methodology. One can use presuppositionalism and the claim of personal experience to back up ANYTHING. I'm sorry but that methodology does not fly.
Sure, if you want to defend your beliefs on the basis they are just beliefs and dont make any truth claims about the natural world, I agree with you that evidentialims is not a very good way to deal with that.
Ans as long as you stay within purely phylosophical realm I see nothing wrong with you argumentation.

But that doesnt make it an argument for the actual existence of a god in this reality. What you have done is presupposed something, stated that presupposition is backed up with your own personal (and unverifiable therefore not useful in debate) experience, made the whole thing work in your mind and called it a day.

You can't take unverified claims for granted in a debate.
Doing that is de facto admitting that you aren't in a position to be able to give a not yet refuted argument for the ecistence of a god.
Don't expect other people to acknowledge your presuppositions.
I don't have any, so any claim you make as to the contrary must be backed up with evidence, unless you want to remain locked inside the phylosophical realm, where we can use presuppositionalism to defend purple spacedragons all you want.

Now if you are talking about apologetic presuppositionalism, it's even worse.
We KNOW you presuppose the existence of God, the question is can you back up that claim using evidence. And to be able to do that you have to step out of the realm of presuppositionalism. Otherwise it's just questionbegging and therefore not logically valid.

[ThatGirlAgain]

Either you are a bigot, close minded, dishonest with yourself or totally afraid (Christainphobe?) to experience it yourself and try to understand it from our level.

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[theopoesis]

Good morning to you, FaerieStories:

Your ability to surmise what God would or would not do is astounding..

Not really. It's not a huge leap of logic to assume that a god who wanted to be believed in, would make himself be believed in.

Nor is it a huge leap to suggest that a God who wanted to allow free will wouldn't force others to believe in him.

Your view of philosophy of science is more ambitious than most philosophers of science that I've read, except strong proponents of scientism like EO Wilson. I've written extensively on my views of scientism elsewhere, but we need to get you to understand a priori vs. a posteriori first.

"Sciencism"? Isn't that one of those buzzwords used by people who don't understand science and think it's akin to a religion, a bit like how creationists use the word "evolutionism"? What is 'sciencism'?

That's a big negative there. Not scientism at all.(Scientism by the way, not sciencism).

Scientism is simply the belief that science, and only science, can explain everything in the world. A major proponent of scientism is E.O. Wilson in his book Consillience. EO Wilson, by the way, was once considered the fourth best scientist in the world. Important guy, but not necessarily a nice guy. I once asked him a question in a lecture and he said "you'd have to be an idiot to think that." Sadly, I was only a freshman, and compared to him at the time was basically an idiot in my knowledge of science. But he didn't have to point it out!

One of the major scientists whose work has been critical of Wilson, and who believes that there is room in the humanities in particular for an approach outside of the scientific method, is Stephen Jay Gould. Gould's The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Majister's Pox paints a more limited scope for science. You'll notice, by the way, that this is the same Stephen Jay Gould who developed the idea of punctuated equilibrium, an important branch of evolutionary theory. Hardly a creationist. But he, like Wilson, is quite influential in his field.

Really, any survey of introductory work on philosophy of science usually explains that there are certain criteria that must be met for science to be science. Falsifiability. Testability. Repeatability. Measurability. And so forth. Reading Karl Popper or even going back in history to Francis Bacon, you get the idea that science has limitations and cannot know certain things because the scientific method is not applicable to them.

Which is why I say that your views of science are far more ambitious than most philosophers of science and even scientists I am aware of, with the exception of EO Wilson.

So no, not a creationist misunderstanding of science. Not an idea from those who don't understand science. And I dare say, if you've not heard of it, I'd be more curious as to your credentials when it comes to philosophy of science than I'd be curious about mine.

So in essence you're asking for proof for the existence of God, but you know it can't be given through deductive philosophy, sight, or science.

Uh, no, don't put words in my mouth. I know it can't be given through deductive philosophy. It CAN be given through sight and science.

I apologize, and did not mean to put words in your mouth. In what way would a non-physical entity be subject to testing from science?

No, not aka God of the gaps. You say secularism can explain communication.

What? No, I did not say that. Putting words in my mouth yet again. 'Securalism' is not a tool for explaining things. I said communication can be explained secularly with tools such as biology, sociology and psychology.

Again, I did not mean to put words into your mouth. I'm talking worldviews here. Secularism would be the worldview which uses secular knowledge, secular methodology, and secular approaches to reach conclusions, which should presumably buttress its support of its initial secular premises.

You're arguing semantics here, but then skipping the bulk of what I had to say in this paragraph. Fine. Let's reword it, try again. You're saying communication can be explained secularly with tools such as sociology, but I'm saying that many of the leading thinkers using these secular tools argue, conclusively in my opinion, that given this secular starting point, communication doesn't occur. Think Jacques Derrida or Stanley Fish. So I'm saying I studied secularism, I studied secular thinkers, and ultimately, based on their secular starting point, they've gone pretty close to proving that communication doesn't happen. But communication does happen, therefore they went wrong somewhere in their argument. I believe it is with their secular starting point. Therefore, I am not a secularist. My starting point is God.

I'm saying knowledge of God is synthetic a priori, meaning it is a proposition whose predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept (i.e. not the ontological argument), but whose justification does not rely upon experience but is neessary axiomatically.

For example, in order to pursue science, you must accept the law of cause and effect. But this is not a matter of experience (Hume debunked this), nor is it analytic: "everything has a cause" isnt tautologically true. But it is a necessary axiom for science.

Of course it's a matter of experience. How absurd to say that it isn't. Science has proved to us again and again that it works- and that means that whatever it is doing, it is doing something right. By experience we know that science's study of cause and effect is indeed successful. If it wasn't, you and I would not be having this conversation using bits of metal and plastic to send messages along thin bits of metal wire.

No, no, no. You're just not understanding anything here.

David Hume was a very important scottish philosopher of the 17th century. Hume put forward a brand of skepticism regarding cause and effect. The idea of cause and effect suggests that there is a necessary connection between the cause and the effect. Every time the cause happens in an identical fashion, we get the same effect. However, we have no way of actually experiencing, of actually seeing the necessary connection. All we observe is a series of subsequent events. Technically, our idea of the cause could simply be the logical fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, "after, therefore because of." There's no reason why we couldn't, at some point in the future, learn that our "cause" doesn't actually cause anything at all. Our idea of cause and effect is merely the "constant conjunction" of two phenomena.

So, Hume argues, you don't actually see the cause. You don't actually experience "cause." You just experience two subsequent events. But science has to accept cause and effect as an axiom. If it doesn't allow for causation to exist, then it can't make sense of the world scientifically. It has to accept it as true a priori. It cannot accept it a posteriori, that is as a result of experience. Now this a priori acceptance can happen two ways. There are two kinds of a priori truths. The first is true by definition. It is (1) analytic. So, "bachelors are single." The word "bachelor" contains in it the idea of single. It's a necessary truth, and an analytic one. You can look at the sentence and immediately know that it is true. Now you can look at the phrase "every effect must have a cause" and it is not true analytically. But you must still accept it as true a priori, that is independent of experience (remember, you can't experience "cause"). Therefore, we say it is (2) synthetic. It's a synthetic a priori truth.

Now, of course science works. Of course science built my computer. Of course medicine has cured diseases. Of course we have built cars and planes, discovered cells and stellar nebulae. But my point is simply that all off these successes of science depend upon the acceptance of the cause/effect relationship as a synthetic a priori truth. There are certain things that science must assume as an axiom, a presupposition, before it can even begin to work its success.

Now, back to our original point. I'm saying that faith in God is a similar synthetic a priori truth. You can't look at the sentence "God exists" and say it is a necessary truth. (The ontological argument tried that and failed, in my opinion). You can't deduce God from experience alone (though I believe I have experienced Him, I can always question this). But, if you don't accept God as real as a presupposition, if you choose the course of secular modernism, then you will eventually run the course of postmodernism and truth, reason, morality, experience, and communication will all come unraveling underneath you. That seems to be what I am seeing happen as I read secular books in the secular world. And therefore, I believe in God.

I'm not some idiot who denounces science. I'm not completely clueless about the successes of the secular sciences. I'm just a guy who is having a very, very hard time getting you to understand what I'm saying.

And I'm not saying I want there to be a God so I believe. I'm saying I have experiences that seem to be of God.

...and then you make the logical leap that they are indeed of god? How do you get from A (you have experiences) to B (those experiences must have been god)?

Let's try this in a syllogism:

(1) I have purported experiences of God
(2) My experiences either are of God, or they are not of God
(3) My having these experiences depends upon my ability to experience
(4) My wondering whether these are experiences of God depends upon my ability to reason
(5) My knowledge that it would be bad to accept these experiences as being of God if they are not comes from my ability to understand true morality
(6) My experiences would not be of God if God did not exist.
(7) If God does not exist, then I must take a secular approach to the world.
(8) The best secular approaches to the world that I have read today ultimately conclude that experience, reason, and morality are unreliable, illusory, or non-existent (depending on which one you are talking about).
(9) If experience, reason, and morality are illusory, unreliable, or non-existent, then I cannot trust my conclusions that God does not exist.
(10) If experience, reason, and morality are illusory, unreliable, or non-existent, then I cannot even be thinking these things reliably.
(11) I am thinking these things, and I appear to be thinking reliably. In fact, I must assume I am thinking reliably in order to be able to think successfully at all.
(12) Therefore, I reject the null hypothesis that God does not exist.
(13) If God does exist, and I think I am experiencing God, and the existence of God allows me the potential of accurate experience and reason, then I have no basis for doubting that my experiences are from God.
(14) therefore, I will continue to believe.

f I grant these experiences, I can build a worldview that is not self defeating. If I deny them, I reject my experiences and wind up with a worldview that, in my mind, as a result of postmodernism, is self defeating. So its logic + experiences + God, or its nihilism.

I could come up with a hundred different worldviews, none of which self-defeating, and none of them could be proven to be true.

Please feel free to present to me a worldview of your choice. Be sure to include its views on ontology, epistemology, morality, existence, nature, progress/time, human identity and personhood, purpose, society, communication, and praxis. Then we can assess whether it truly is not self-defeating. While you're busy with that, I'll just note that I have studied secular existentialism, Marxism, scientism, humanism and have concluded that each is self-defeating. So you'll have to avoid using those examples, or at least defeat my counter-arguments.

What of it? Filling a gap in knowledge just because something can't be proved not to be the case is incredibly flawed logic.

I find it ironic that the individual who is unfamiliar with David Hume (a tremendously important philosopher), with the distinction between a priori and a posteriori, and who does not know about scientism and seems to have limited experience in philosophy of science, would continue to insist that my argument is using flawed logic.

In fact, I have yet to be successful in helping you to understand the sort of logical proposition that I am putting forward so that you can properly assess it: synthetic a priori.

I am not saying gap in knowledge therefore God. I am not saying unprovability therefore God. This is, for the last time, not a "God of the gaps" argument.

What I am saying is that, to function in the world, we must have a worldview. We must be willing to reason, to judge, to experience. Every worldview (every single one of them) must have axioms, presuppositions, a priori truths, things that are accepted as necessary prior to testing or demonstration. We must assume something.

What I am also saying is that the only coherent, non-self defeating worldview that I have uncovered, the only way that I can intellectually function in the world, the only way I can think, judge morals, experience while simultaneously trusting my thought, judgment, and experiences is to adopt a particular worldview: Trinitarian Christianity. Therefore, I take as axiomatic, as a presupposition, as a priori synthetic truth that God exists. Perhaps I am wrong. I am here dialoguing and willing to change my views if anyone ever sufficiently challenges me on them. But it's going to take a lot more than one argument for the existence of God, or one argument against the existence of God, for me to change. What is at stake here is not just the existence or non-existence of God. What is at stake is an entire worldview. If God goes, everything goes, and the person who eliminates the idea of God had better also be able to build something in the place of my current worldview. Otherwise, I have no reason to change, for I have no reason to discount my experiences in favor of the cognitive dissonance it would take for me to act as if I had a worldview which allowed for my engagement in the world, all the while believing that such engagement was futile.

[kayky]

Theopoesis,

I am very impressed with your line of reasoning. But I am curious. On what basis do you go from a belief in God to Trinitarianism?

[theopoesis]

Except that you didn't give an argument as to why a god exists.

Quite correct. Instead, I delivered an argument for why the existence of God is not the correct question. An argument for why the entire worldview is what is relevant. An argument for why the Christian worldview seems superior. An argument for why the Trinitarian God is a necessary axiom of the Christian worldview. And therefore, an argument for why it is reasonable to accept the existence of a Trinitarian God as a pre-requisite for engagement with the world.

The main problem we have here is what you have already identified.
Your methodology. One can use presuppositionalism and the claim of personal experience to back up ANYTHING. I'm sorry but that methodology does not fly.

That is incorrect. I've suggested that there are two main ways to evaluate between competing presuppositions. The first is to ask whether it accords with experience. And the second is to ask whether it is self-defeating. I have suggested that secularism is self defeating, and that my experience fits Christian theism. I have granted that I do not expect the experience part to persuade anyone but me, but I had assumed that the claims that secularism is self defeating would be fairly obvious as a reason why presuppositionalism can, in fact, arbitrate between worldviews. Those which are self-defeating are inferior to those which are not.

Sure, if you want to defend your beliefs on the basis they are just beliefs and dont make any truth claims about the natural world, I agree with you that evidentialims is not a very good way to deal with that.
Ans as long as you stay within purely phylosophical realm I see nothing wrong with you argumentation.

Are you suggesting that philosophical arguments cannot in any way relate to reality? It seems like that is what you are saying.

Furthermore, I have never suggested that my beliefs are just personal beliefs that do not make any truth claims about the world. Nor do I intend to do so.

But that doesnt make it an argument for the actual existence of a god in this reality. What you have done is presupposed something, stated that presupposition is backed up with your own personal (and unverifiable therefore not useful in debate) experience, made the whole thing work in your mind and called it a day.

Please read closer, good sir. What I have done is in fact suggest that other worldviews are self-defeating. It's not a "I feel like presupposing this, so I will." It's a "this is the only presupposition that seems to work" kind of thing.

You act like I just want to believe something, I experience some weird experience, I pat myself on the back, and I call it a day. You ignore my arguments in this thread, which as I said in my first post are simply brief versions of more extensive arguments elsewhere:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=15395
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=19897
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=20025
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=16503
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 3&start=10
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=15639

There are more where those came from.

All you've done is triumphantly declare victory in your first post, not read or ignored any arguments I've presented here about the self-defeating nature of secularism, and then dismissed my position as unverifiable experience alone. I for one am not impressed, nor persuaded to change my position.

You can't take unverified claims for granted in a debate.

Wrong. Every debate has its assumptions. What is important is to demonstrate that those assumptions are necessary. At a minimum, we would have to assume the law of non-contradiction, for example. Otherwise, debate could not proceed.

What I am doing is suggesting that God's existence can be presented as a reasonable assumption. Like any axiom, it cannot be verified, but it can be determined whether it is a good axiom to hold.

Doing that is de facto admitting that you aren't in a position to be able to give a not yet refuted argument for the ecistence of a god.

Well, seeing as you haven't refuted my line of argument for God's presuppositional logical necessity...

Don't expect other people to acknowledge your presuppositions.
I don't have any, so any claim you make as to the contrary must be backed up with evidence, unless you want to remain locked inside the phylosophical realm, where we can use presuppositionalism to defend purple spacedragons all you want.

I only expect people to acknowledge my presuppositions if I can demonstrate that they are necessary presuppositions, which is what I have been working on here for a few years.

I'm not sure what "I don't have any" means. Is it referring to experiences of God? That would make some sense, and I'd gladly grant as much, trusting your experiences. I certainly don't expect you to experience the world as I do.

In context, I am taking "any" to refer to the previous noun: "presuppositions." "I don't have any presuppositions." Which I find very unreasonable to suggest. You don't have any presuppositions?

Ok, how about this. Why don't you prove that language works, but you can't use language to do that (it would be begging the question). Or how about you prove the law of non-contradiction, but you can't assume the law of contradiction. In other words, your syllogism must assume that every proposition's negation is or can be true. Why don't you prove that there is such a thing as truth, but you can't claim that any steps in your argument are true. Why don't you prove that your ability to reason works, but you can't use reason to do so because you have not yet proven its validity.

Everyone has presuppositions, and dozens of them.

Now if you are talking about apologetic presuppositionalism, it's even worse.
We KNOW you presuppose the existence of God, the question is can you back up that claim using evidence. And to be able to do that you have to step out of the realm of presuppositionalism. Otherwise it's just questionbegging and therefore not logically valid.

Actually, any good argument is going to have a degree of tautology, circularity, question begging. The conclusions must support and confirm the assumptions or else it's a self-defeating argument. So I admit that a circular argument for the existence of God does not count as proof of the argument's truthfullness, but if I can show that alternative worldviews are self-defeating, that their conclusions refute their assumptions, than at least I have reason for suspecting that my view is superior to their own. I still have to accept it on faith, but I know with some certainty that the alternatives cannot be true because they are self-defeating.

Furthermore, to ask that someone prove a presupposition with evidence is silly, really. If it is based on evidence, then it isn't a presupposition. I think high schools should begin to require basic classes in logic. You're the second person in this thread that I've spoken with who doesn't understand the difference between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. Asking me to demonstrate an a priori truth with evidence is like asking me to solve a mathematical equation using a hammer. It's just the wrong tool.

[dianaiad]

Hi, I'm new here and I see a lot of active topics on specific concepts where users are already heavily engaged in debate, making it a little hard for me to join in. So to test the waters a little (and to help me decide whether or not to stick around here), let's go back to basics and have a debate about the most fundamental question at hand here: does a god exist?

As a non-believer, I have yet to discover any convincing reason as to why I should believe in a god. So, if a Theist would like to get the ball rolling by giving me a reason why god exists, that would be great.

(PS: unrelated question: what is the general breakdown of belief/non-belief on these forums? Is it an even mix of believers and non-believers, or is there- as tends to happen on the internet- a larger proportion of atheists to Theists?).

Reason cannot, by itself, explain why there is reason. Science cannot, by itself, explan why there is science. Man's descovery and application of science are products of reason.

Reason and science can explain the existence of matter, but cannot explain why there is matter. They can explain the existence of the universe, but they cannot explain why there is a universe. They can xplain the existence of life, but they cannot explain why there is life. They can explain the existence of consciousness, but they cannot explain why there is consciousness.

Science is a critical aspect of human existence, but it cannot address the spiritual nature of man. In theis respect, science is a dead end around which the Atheist refuses to reason. Reason itself informs man of its limitations and, in doing so, directs him to the discovery of a force greater than himself --a supernatural force responsible for the origins of not only human existence but all existence, and which itself has always existed and will always exist. For most, the supernatural reveals itself in the Creator --God. Man seeks God's guidance through faith and prayer. The Agnostic accepts the supernatural, but is not so sure of the form of its existence. The Deist accepts that God created the universe and man's condition but left it to man to sort things out through reason.

--Mark Levin, Liberty and Tyranny.

That sums it up...

A perfect example of how a god becomes the explanation for anything and everything a believer is ignorant about. A god of the gaps.

If what you read in the above is the 'god of the gaps' argument, then you really do need to go back and read it again. The god of the gaps idea is that anything that science attempts to explain, and cannot (or isn't 'there' yet) is explained away with 'God did it."

But that's not what was written. Indeed, Levin didn't come close to that. He's right; science doesn't even attempt to address the 'why' of things, just the 'how,' and the 'what.' THAT evolution works, and HOW it works...that is the province of science. Why (if there is a why) life began in the first place?

Science doesn't care, doesn't address it, and doesn't pretend to do so.

As for me, my first thought when some theist tells me that 'God did this.." is to say, yes, He did. Now let's find out how, shall we?

I.E., a god can be used as an explanation for anything and everything. Thus, if you can't explain or don't know X then a god must be responsible.

.........and you can't accept that God explains the why, and science is about us figuring out what and how, can you?

My grandmother made an awesome apple pie. Science can tell us how she made it, what ingredients she used, how each one was harvested or gathered, what each one did in the pie and how, all the laws behind the changes made to it while it baked, the laws that governed how the oven works, the laws that define when it was safe to eat it without burning one's tongue, the laws that govern what happens to the calories ingested when we all ate it, even why, after eating one of Grandma's meals, we all wanted to take naps.

What science cannot do, and does not address, is why she baked the pie in the first place.

[dianaiad]

Than you are only left with one other option and that is to pray, go to church and a reliable Bible study and experience faith yourself. You are too stubborn to accept anything short of that.

'Faith' is utterly incompatible with reason, learning or finding out the validity of things. I utterly reject the very concept of faith. Not out of 'stubbornness' or 'closed mindedness', but because I know what faith is, and I know that it is a very poor way to learn things about the world. Faith is believing something with no good reason to just because it makes you feel good to do so. This is intellectual dishonesty of the highest degree and the utter antithesis of learning.

You have no clue what 'faith' is.

Faith is not the reason one believes. Faith is the trust one puts in the reasons one believes. My favorite example is that of a bridge. My sister will not go on one. She'd rather take a boat in the middle of a storm than go on a bridge--even when all the statistics tell her that she's far more likely to have a mishap using the boat than driving across the bridge. She simply points out, with perfect accuracy, that every bridge will eventually fail; she just doesn't want to be on it when it does.

Those of us who have faith in deity don't do so BECAUSE we have faith. We have faith because we believe in those evidences and experiences that tell us about the God we believe in.

As well, 'faith' seems to be a noun of action, not of some passive mental state the way 'belief' is. "Faith,' in other words, is being willing to behave as if those things we believe to be true ARE true. Even my sister sees the irrationality of her opinion of bridges; she honestly believes the statistics, sees the traffic crossing the bridge every day without problems...but she has no faith in it. She will not cross.

YOU live in faith every day. You do things simply because you believe that the world is the way you expect it to be, but you don't KNOW that it is. Even setting your alarm and getting up in the morning to go to work is an act of faith; faith that the sun will rise, that your car will start, that the freeway hasn't been torn up by some repair or semi locking up the underpass. You work each day in the faith that you WILL get a paycheck as payment for your work.

All of that is faith.

Faith is no different when it is religious faith; it's still being willing to behave as if what one believes to be true is true. The only difference is in the quality of evidence one puts one's faith in. You don't like the evidence others use for their belief in God. They do.

Please do not use 'faith' as if it were a swear word, then...we all, every single one of us, live our lives by it.

[Dantalion]

Than you are only left with one other option and that is to pray, go to church and a reliable Bible study and experience faith yourself. You are too stubborn to accept anything short of that.

'Faith' is utterly incompatible with reason, learning or finding out the validity of things. I utterly reject the very concept of faith. Not out of 'stubbornness' or 'closed mindedness', but because I know what faith is, and I know that it is a very poor way to learn things about the world. Faith is believing something with no good reason to just because it makes you feel good to do so. This is intellectual dishonesty of the highest degree and the utter antithesis of learning.

You have no clue what 'faith' is.

Faith is not the reason one believes. Faith is the trust one puts in the reasons one believes. My favorite example is that of a bridge. My sister will not go on one. She'd rather take a boat in the middle of a storm than go on a bridge--even when all the statistics tell her that she's far more likely to have a mishap using the boat than driving across the bridge. She simply points out, with perfect accuracy, that every bridge will eventually fail; she just doesn't want to be on it when it does.

Those of us who have faith in deity don't do so BECAUSE we have faith. We have faith because we believe in those evidences and experiences that tell us about the God we believe in.

As well, 'faith' seems to be a noun of action, not of some passive mental state the way 'belief' is. "Faith,' in other words, is being willing to behave as if those things we believe to be true ARE true. Even my sister sees the irrationality of her opinion of bridges; she honestly believes the statistics, sees the traffic crossing the bridge every day without problems...but she has no faith in it. She will not cross.

YOU live in faith every day. You do things simply because you believe that the world is the way you expect it to be, but you don't KNOW that it is. Even setting your alarm and getting up in the morning to go to work is an act of faith; faith that the sun will rise, that your car will start, that the freeway hasn't been torn up by some repair or semi locking up the underpass. You work each day in the faith that you WILL get a paycheck as payment for your work.

All of that is faith.

Faith is no different when it is religious faith; it's still being willing to behave as if what one believes to be true is true. The only difference is in the quality of evidence one puts one's faith in. You don't like the evidence others use for their belief in God. They do.

Please do not use 'faith' as if it were a swear word, then...we all, every single one of us, live our lives by it.

To be honest dianaiad, the difference between religous faith and the faith I will get my paycheck is that the latter faith is based on something that is demonstrably true.
I mean, the word faith in that meaning is better replaced by 'trust'. And earned trust at that.
Trust that, if broken, I can take legal action against.
Your 'faith' analogy would only be correct if the company would keep telling people they'll get paid, without proof that any of those payments are actually taking place.
So faith is not the correct word here. If my friend tells me that he's going to pick me up at 8, I have 'faith' (better:trust) in him because I can demonstrate that every time he claimed he would be there, he actually was, and as a friend he has earned some degree of my 'faith' (trust).
There really is a big difference bewteen religious faith and the thing you (imho wrongly) call faith in your previous post.
So could you give another example of 'faith' that I would have that really could be likened to religious faith ? (as in not based on validated trust)

[Nickman]

faith (f th) n. 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief, trust. 3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. 4. often Faith Christianity The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. 5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. 6. A set of principles or beliefs.