Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

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Tart
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Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

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Post by Tart »

I wanted to ask other Christians of their opinions of what they believe about "Faith", "Proof", and "Evidence"...

I think I disagree sometimes with other Christians... That is, that "Faith" is belief without proof or evidence... I just dont believe that. However I recognize that Faith in Jesus, as Savior, is certainly an important component of Christianity. That is to say, we make a conscious decision to accept God, and to have Faith in an all powerful, and all knowing God, that He is in control.. But I personally just dont believe that this is based on no evidence, and neither do i believe that there is no proof of it...

Actually I think Faith is a perfect way to sum up righteousness... I dont think it is possible to live faithfully while sinning, as Christians. But the great thing about this is that Faith isnt based on our action, but on Christ... So when we stumble, it isnt a hopeless situation of falling away, but a renewing situation with Christ, and God "who remains faithful"...

But clearly, there is evidence of God... All around us. Many say creation is evidence of God, physics and natural order is evidence of God, many say humanities ability to connect with god, and to rule as like god, is evidence of being made in Gods image. However i think Jesus is the best evidence of God. And even more so, I personally think Jesus is the proof of God.

While I dont think anyone could deny that there is evidence of God, even if they dont believe it. Because "Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion."... Some people might deny there is any proof of God. But isnt "proof" a subjective word? It is suggesting that something is convincing or not, which might be different for different people...

However, what we can say definitively is that, if Jesus really is the Son of God, lived doing many great signs, died in accordance to the scripture for the forgiveness of sins, and was resurrected by God.. If these things are objectively true, despite what anyone person believe about them (whether they believe the evidence or not, it doesnt matter) If Jesus really is the risen Messiah, and the Son of God, in an objective sense, then Christianity is true, and that is despite what people are convinced about as being "proven". And that even goes the other way too. Paul even confessed in 1 Corinthians 15, that if Jesus wasnt really resurrected, then Christianity is a lie and no one should believe it.


But some times I see Christian saying there is no proof, and that faith isnt based on evidence or proof, and things like that... If you believe that, please feel free to elaborate. I just am curious what Christian believe on the subject.

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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

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Post by Divine Insight »

Tart wrote: I wanted to ask other Christians of their opinions of what they believe about "Faith", "Proof", and "Evidence"...
I can answer this as a Christian, because I was a very devout and strong Christian at one point in my life. I have since come to realize that the religion is necessarily false. But that doesn't change the fact that I once believed.

I don't want to get too long in this post, but I feel that I need to say that as a very young child I was confident that a "God" was watching over me. This was even before I was old enough to have any clue about Christianity. And I certainly wasn't thinking of God as being Jesus at that time. For me at that time, God had nothing to do with religion. God was simply a higher entity that I could feel the "presence" of and even "commune" with in no-verbal telepathic ways where God would basically answer my concerns non-verbally by simply giving me insight to the correct answers to my concerns. For me this was a very real experience. So for me, "God" was real.

Caveat: I feel that I need to qualify this as an adult since I now believe that what I was actually experiencing as a child was simply my own vast consciousness. I was most likely simply providing myself with the answers I wanted to hear and simply believing that these came from a higher being. None the less, from the perspective when I was a child this was a direct experience of "God".

Also note that this had nothing to do with the "Biblical God". I was far too young to have any idea of religion at that time. So for me this was simply a higher consciousness, that I was perceiving to be a higher entity.

In any case, for me the "existence" of God was an experienced given. So there was no question in my mind that "God" exists.

As I grew up in a Christian family I was naturally introduced to the Bible as the story of God. And that Jesus was his only begotten Son, etc. The whole Christian doctrine. This was taught to me from the perspective of a local Free Methodist denomination. They focused almost exclusively on Jesus, Love, and Forgiveness. It was actually one of more passive versions of Christianity. And they always viewed the Old Testament "Through the eyes of Jesus".

Well, naturally I believed all of this. And this was because I had placed "faith" in my parents, pastors, and other elders. I had "faith" that they knew what they were talking about. This turned out to be an extremely naive and misplaced "faith". In fact, later in life every single one of those adults ultimately confessed that they have no clue whether the Bible is true or not, they too, have simply accepted this because it's what they had been brought up to believe.

In any case, I became a "born again" Christian in Christ. And I decided that I would indeed do as God had asked and "spread the word" or "teach God's Word". However, in order to do this I also realized that I would need to fully understand "God's Word" which is the Bible. So I set out to do just that.

To make a very long story as short as possible, the bottom line was simple. The more I studied the Bible the more I realized that it could not be true. I had also been taught that the Bible has answers to all our questions which turned out to be dramatically false. The Bible not only didn't have answers to my questions, but the more I read it the more questions arose. Questions that the Bible never answered.

I eventually realized that I could not possibly teach what's in the Bible because it's simply indefensible. It cannot be taught in any rational way because, quite frankly, it makes no sense and contradicts its own claims repeatedly.

Not only this, but even I could not come away from the Bible with a rational picture of it. So how could I possibly teach others when it doesn't even make any sense to me?

So I finally realized that neither Yahweh, nor Jesus have anything to do with any actual God. The Bible is "not" the work of God was my conclusion.

What about "Faith"?

Well for me, there are two kinds of faith. On is placing faith in the idea that something is true. The other kind of faith is that when you know something is true, you go a step further and place faith in the character of what you know to be true.

In other words, I didn't need to have faith that my mother existed. That was obvious.

What could be said is that I had faith that my mother was an extremely honest, sincere and decent person who always had the best of intentions. Again, this was obvious to me as well, but one could say that I also had "faith" that she would always be this way. And in her case that happened to be well-placed faith right up to the day she died.

So on the question of God there are also these two different types of faith.

One is having faith that God exists at all.

And the other is having faith that if God does exist, God is trustworthy and decent, etc.

I think Paul was speaking to the first type of faith, (i.e. having faith in things hoped for and unseen), things you don't otherwise know are true. So I think Paul was speaking to the kind of faith it takes to believe that a God exists at all.

And so this is typically the type of faith I associate with Christianity. Christians are placing their "faith" in the idea that the Biblical God exists. It may also be true that they also have "faith" that the God is trustworthy and righteous, but that would be additional faith associated with the character of what they already believe exists as a matter of faith.

So Christianity is a purely "faith-based" religion. Placing faith in the idea that this specific God exists at all.

So that's my view on the meaning of "faith". Obviously the more evidence we have the stronger our faith becomes until we no longer need to call it faith at all. For example I knew my mother existed. So there was no need to have any faith that she existed.

Now we could say that I also "knew" that "God" existed. Remember my childhood experience with having experienced God's presence in my mind. And many Christians use these sort of experiences to claim that they too know that "God" exists.

I have since come to highly question this experiential "evidence" for the existence of any "God", including my own experiences. I have since come to realize that these could be nothing more than my own thoughts, perception, and imagination.

Now let's move on to the evidence for the existence of "God".
Tart wrote: While I dont think anyone could deny that there is evidence of God, even if they dont believe it..
I too have difficultly looking at the complexity of nature and trying to envision this having been nothing more than the result of some sort of cosmic random accident. In fact, I find this next to impossible to believe. However, I have also since learned that there are many mathematical reasons why these things would indeed occur naturally without any need for any intervening guidance.

In short, the universe can easily have evolved from a primal beginning into its current state without any intervention required. There is certainly no need for any "baby-sitting" type of God to help the universe evolve. If there was any intelligence required it could have all been done at, or before the Big Bang. So there is simply no need for an intervening God.

So now the question becomes one of whether there was some intentional intelligence behind the start of the universe? This I cannot know. I have come to realize that it could have indeed started by some random act. Just because the result of that random act seems impossibly well-organized to me doesn't make it so. So I need to be careful about jumping to those kinds of unwarranted conclusions.

So now the question becomes, "Is there any evidence for an intervening God?"

I would say no. Absolutely not. There is not only no evidence for an intervening God, but there is actually no evidence whatsoever that such a God has ever intervened in life on earth. And an intervening God is not required for the universe to evolve as it has. So there is no evidence for any intervening God.

Could we make an argument that surely there must have been some sort of intelligence behind a universe that ultimately evolved into conscious sentient beings?

Well, we could certainly entertain those types of arguments as being rational hypotheses. But these kinds of questions only lead to more questions. Like, from whence to that original intelligence come from, etc. So going down that path seems to ultimately lead to even bigger more profound questions.

None the less, let's say that we're just stuck on this and we can't accept that the universe could have come to be as it is without some sort of intentional intelligence behind it.

Then what?

Should we then jump to the conclusion that the Greek Pantheon of Gods must be true and Zeus must then be the God of all Gods?

No of course not. Such a conclusion would be unwarranted.

And the same is true of the Hebrew legends of Yahweh.

Just because we have accepted that there must be an intelligence behind the universe it doesn't automatically follow that Hebrew Mythology must then be true, and of all the off-shoots of Hebrew Mythology Christianity must be the One True Off-Shoot. Therefore Christ must be the Son of God.

That kind of conclusion is totally unwarranted.

In fact, based on the fact that the universe has clearly evolved on its own since the Big Bang, and there is no need for any intervening "baby-sitting" God to guide it every step of the way, the most likely types of religion would be the Eastern Mystical religions which actually are compatible with this view.

So if we're going to start with the premise that the universe must have been intelligently designed, then the most rational conclusion would be that something like Buddhism would be the most likely religious description of "God".

What do I believe today?

Today I am agnostic (i.e. without sufficient information to answer this question)

I simply don't know whether our universe was created by an intelligent designer, or whether it was some sort of natural accident.

Both ideas seem equally mystical and absurd to me. The idea that random stuff exists that can accidentally explode into a universe that evolves to contain conscious sentient beings is indeed quite hard to accept.

However, the idea that some intelligent designer is "out there" somewhere designing universes is equally absurd and just as hard to accept.

So both idea are equally absurd as far as I'm concerned. Yet at least one of them must be the truth.

Do I care?

Actually whether I care or not is irrelevant to the truth.

I think it would be great if there is some sort of mystical magical "God" who could potentially maintain my consciousness for eternity. :D

Who wouldn't want that? That would be great.

Am I worried about it?

Absolutely not. If I get to live for eternity that's great. If I just die when I die then I'm no worse off than I was before I was born. :D

I've resigned myself to accept whatever is. After all there really isn't much sense in worrying about something I have no control over.

Should I be worried that some God will damn me to eternal punishment?

I can't imagine why any decent God would ever do such a dastardly thing.

I could see being worried if I had done horrible things to other people in my life. Then perhaps repayment for my horrible deeds would be in order and justified. But this just isn't the case for me. I've never done anything to harm anyone. In fact, I was so willing to give other people the shirt off my back to solve their problems that I have been accused of letting people take advantage of me more times that I care to repeat.

In fact, in some cases people were abusing my generosity to such a degree that even I had to finally take a stand and say, "no more". I don't mind helping people, but when it comes to the point where they are depending on me for a free lunch it simply has to stop.

But would a God condemn me to everlasting punishment?

Not a decent righteous God. No way. Only a demonic unrighteous hateful God could ever do something so unjust and evil.

So no, I'm not the least bit worried about being damned to hell.

That could only happen if our creator is an evil demon.

This brings us back to the question of FAITH?

One of the things that Christians use the term "Faith" to mean is that they have faith that God is righteous and just and will always do whats right.

Well, if that's the case then they shouldn't be worried about being cast into hell unless they are convinced that they truly deserve such an eternal state of torture.

They also shouldn't worry about "saving" the souls of other. If they truly believe that their God is just then just let the fate of the souls of others up to God. After all, to worry about saving someone from damnation can only mean that they fear that God might fail to save someone who doesn't truly deserve to be damned.

Evangelism itself is nothing more than an extreme display of distrust in their God.

In short, Evangelists have absolutely no faith in God to do the right thing on his own.

For if they did, they would just stay out of it and let God do his own thing.
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Post #3

Post by The Tanager »

I agree with you, Tart. The faith talked about in the Bible is not a blind faith, but a trusting of God because you have good reasons to trust God.
Tart wrote:Some people might deny there is any proof of God. But isnt "proof" a subjective word? It is suggesting that something is convincing or not, which might be different for different people...
I would separate 'proof' and 'convincing'. Proof to me conjurs up mathematical or logical proofs where there is no doubt about the truth of the matter. But that only happens, maybe, in pure mathematics. Everything else is about what is the most plausible, rational thing to believe given the evidence, at best. So, I would say there is no proof, on level of a mathematical proof at least, for God. Although, I think it far outstrips any other worldview in its plausibility.

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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

Post #4

Post by JehovahsWitness »

Tart wrote: I wanted to ask other Christians of their opinions of what they believe about "Faith", "Proof", and "Evidence"...

I think I disagree sometimes with other Christians... That is, that "Faith" is belief without proof or evidence...
My personal opinion as one of Jehovah's Witnesses is as follows:


Faith is absolutely not believing without evidence, that would be "gullibility".
Faith (that is not "blind faith/gullibility) is believing based on solid evidence (information is a type of evidence); it is based on proof (proof from personal experience, proof presented in reliable reports etc..). Faith should be based on truth and while not all that is true can be verified, one can justifiably be convinced that something is true because we have enough information about the subject and have personally experienced and verified certain facts relate to those truths. A Christian's faith in God should be based on the bible which is the book of truth.
Faith is much more than simply acknowledging God exists (Satan isn't an atheist) or being familiar with the bible (many people are familiar with the bible but they don't have any faith), ultimately, faith is a "fruit of the spirit" meaning it is a gift from God. As person learns the relevant information (see above) and shows God he wants to serve Him, God rewards that person with helping that one build solid faith. As the Apostle Paul said, "Faith is not a possession of all men" since not all people show God they they have the qualities that merit being blessed with it. True Christians have absolutely no doubt that God exists, that the bible is God's word and that God is the rewarder of those that love Him.


JW

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FAITH, GOD and ...THE BIBLE
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Post #5

Post by marco »

The Tanager wrote:
So, I would say there is no proof, on level of a mathematical proof at least, for God.
Were God interested in our interest then he would easily supply proof that gave us the same satisfaction of proving the angle sum in a triangle is 180 degrees. The existence of things around us, working in conformance with formulae we have found makes us wonder whether there is a designer but does not tell us.


I think that seaching for our finite intellect to define God is met with the same frustration of trying to put a gallon into a pint bottle.

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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

Post #6

Post by marco »

JehovahsWitness wrote:

Faith is absolutely not believing without evidence, that would be gullibility.

God rewards that person with helping that one build solid faith. As the Apostle Paul said, "Faith is not a possession of all men" since not all people show God they they have the qualities that merit being blessed with it. True Christians have absolutely no doubt that God exists, that the bible is God's word and that God is the rewarder of those that love Him.

Faith is indeed believing without evidence; otherwise it amounts to something else.


What you go on to illustrate in fact shows that faith is a firm belief in one's own rightness. This is shared by members of various religions; Catholics have it, as do Muslims and Jews. Possibly Jehovah's Witnesses and Presbyterians have it as well: a firm conviction that God has revealed himself unerringly to them, and sometimes Only to them. This conviction is often so unshakeable that those who have it would willingly die for it. Given that we have seen people martyred for a belief there is a temptation to say that a belief worth dying for must be true. But they can't all be true though each is characterised by an unproven conviction that there lies truth. I suppose it must be very difficult to escape from such convictions.

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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

Post #7

Post by JehovahsWitness »

marco wrote:

Faith is indeed believing without evidence; otherwise it amounts to something else.

I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear (my bad) I was saying what *I* believe faith to be according to our (Jehovahs Witness) definition of faith based on our interpretation of the bible. I hope I didn't give the impression I was speaking about what you and other atheists that are like you believe it is. Please forgive me if I did.


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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

Post #8

Post by JehovahsWitness »

marco wrote:
What you go on to illustrate in fact shows that faith is a firm belief in one's own rightness
Emphasis MINE

What is it specifically I said that gave you this impression?
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"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" -
Romans 14:8

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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

Post #9

Post by marco »

Tart wrote:

I think I disagree sometimes with other Christians... That is, that "Faith" is belief without proof or evidence...

If you introduce "evidence" then anything can be used as evidence. A tree growing in the garden would do. Faith is believing without proof. Many are persuaded by the traditional pointers to God: order, moral rules, first causes... God is the substitute for "I don't know." It is a satisfying substitute because it explains the Earth's daily tour, the changing seasons, the wonder of space, the butterfly's wings … There may be other complex explanations but sadly we are not all Einstein. Any port in a storm will do. And so we have faith. For those who have it, no further explanations are needed. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.


Faith is exactly what those who danced for rain had; what warriors had when they prayed for victory, what Aztec priests had as they cut the living hearts from sacrificial victims; modern faith may have dressed itself in better garments. It is still belief without proof.

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Re: Faith, Proof, and Evidence (for Christians)?

Post #10

Post by marco »

JehovahsWitness wrote:
marco wrote:
What you go on to illustrate in fact shows that faith is a firm belief in one's own rightness
Emphasis MINE

What is it specifically I said that gave you this impression?

I know you are defining faith in terms of what you believe. However, the word doesn't change identity depending on its user. The Latin word "fides" meant to the Romans what it means to me.


When I read I obviously have to interpret what is being said. I'm usually up to scratch in doing this. Here's what you said:
"As person learns the relevant information (see above) and shows God he wants to serve Him, God rewards that person with helping that one build solid faith."
I am deducing that you are one of those people described here and so you have a conviction your faith is rightly placed. I cannot see any doubt involved which means you have a belief in your own rightness here. If there is another meaning it quite eludes me.

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