On faith

In any such argument the atheist is bound to ask the simple most question about the basis of theist's faith in God. He doess not understand it because he rationalizes it and thats why he is an atheist. The problem comes when he does not accept the simple answer that this faith is not open to such scrutiny; from rationalistic point of view this answer appears absurd and foolish, so he starts acting smart like offering comparison with unicorns or dogs, and makes a mockery of himself.
It is absurd and foolish. You have no reason for faith in god, so you argue that reason isn't reasonable.
 
It is absurd and foolish. You have no reason for faith in god, so you argue that reason isn't reasonable.

I could very well say that jan is living in delusion by being a theist and living a rich theistic life in her mind. But you sir are definitely living in delusion by being a firm atheist. 100%. You have no life experience nor spiritual understanding because that requires intelligence.
 
God is definitely real. I know this with 100% certainty. The only thing that stands in the way of me uniting with God is the lack of material evidence. I have seen self-aware sunlight. I have seen a transparent intelligent, morphing Being which then disappeared never to be seen in the same form again. I have been attacked by at least one demon. I have seen the hands of Christ. But as I continue to understand the proof of God with my mind and try to see Him with my mind's eye, I have no doubt that I will play a major role in bringing humankind not only towards intellectual understanding but physical evidence.
 
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But as I continue to understand God with my mind and see Him through my mind's eye, I have no doubt that I will play a major role in uniting humanity with Him.

I think a theist should never bring this kind of argument in when he is with atheists. This is an obvious pain area for atheists to accept, and none can blame them for at least this.
 
I think a theist should never bring this kind of argument in when he is with atheists. This is an obvious pain area for atheists to accept, and none can blame them for at least this.

I just edited my response.

YOU CAN ACTUALLY FEEL THE SPIRITUAL GREATNESS WITHIN YOU.
 
Then why are you here?

In reading through some of the thread, it seems that there’s a common theme that if someone believes in God, then he/she can’t be taken seriously when it comes to science? Not sure if I understand the correlation. Science and faith can be compatible.
 
In reading through some of the thread, it seems that there’s a common theme that if someone believes in God, then he/she can’t be taken seriously when it comes to science? Not sure if I understand the correlation. Science and faith can be compatible.

That is by those who neither understand science nor they have any clue about faith...
 
For those who believe, no proof is necessary.

'For those who believe, no proof is necessary' is self-evident on one level. If somebody already believes something, then he or she will need no additional convincing. That person already believes.

The difficulty there is that the self-evident observation very easily turns into a circular argument: I believe and have faith that unicorns exist. So unicorns definitely exist. So the only justification I need for knowing that unicorns definitely exist is my faith in unicorns. Faith is just trust and confidence, it isn't a magical way of learning supernatural facts.

Distinguishing truth from fantasy is a major difficulty in this kind of unevidenced belief. Just because somebody has unshakeable faith in the truth of some idea, doesn't make the idea true. Schizophrenics illustrate that every day with how strongly they believe in the truth of their fixed and unshakeable delusions.

The issue that most interests me is the metaphysical one. It isn't whether some particular individual believes in something, whether God, unicorns or ufos. It isn't the importance of the belief and whether it somehow 'works' in that individual's psychology. The act of publicly making truth-claims about it moves an object of belief into the objective sphere. So the questions concerning the object of belief move from being individual, psychological and subjective, towards being ontological, epistemological and public: Should other people believe in its literal existence? Are beliefs about it really true?

For those who doubt, no proof is possible.

'Proof' is a very strong word. I'm inclined to agree that no apodeictic (logically necessary) proof of God's existence is possible. Yet philosophical theologians have tried to concoct them for centuries. (Aquinas, most notably.) They haven't had a great deal of success, but the fact that they've made the attempt at all does show that they felt that giving their faith a stronger foundation was important to them. (It didn't 'out' them as atheists, as some people in this thread would suggest.)

'Evidence' or 'persuasive argument' are weaker ideas than 'proof' and attempts to produce evidence of God's existence or persuasive arguments for it might conceivably succeed. Religious experience might arguably constitute such evidence and conceivably the recent cosmological 'fine-tuning' arguments might someday be spun into a plausible cosmological theistic argument.

I agree that many atheists of the more fundamentalist sort probably can never be convinced. They are as fixed against theistic belief as the theistic faithful are locked on its truth. But I believe that many of the more agnostic sort of atheists can be swayed by evidence and argument. But that requires that theists produce the evidence and argument, and not just posture about how superior their theism makes them and how atheists have hurt their feelings by disagreeing.
 
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I could very well say that jan is living in delusion by being a theist and living a rich theistic life in her mind. But you sir are definitely living in delusion by being a firm atheist. 100%. You have no life experience nor spiritual understanding because that requires intelligence.
I'm not a hard atheist. I'm willing to consider evidence.
 
To people of faith here, calling atheists delusional, ignorant, etc...isn't that sort of counter productive to ''witnessing'' for your faith? Not judging, but just an observation. Can't we share our beliefs without the need for ad homs?
 
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