What is fatih?

dan719

In response to Brian Calgary's request I ask the following questions; What is faith? Where does it come from? Why do some poeple have it and others not?

Note; The answer 'from the bible' is not acceptable- to believe in the Bible itself rquires faith.

Edit:My apologies for the typo on the thread title. Hopefully BC can change it?

philologos

thats the tricky one Dan. You cannot say an answer from the Bible is unacceptable because the Bible largely defines what faith is to Christians. However I will leave the Bible aside for now.

I believe that faith in the Christian regard is believing in the existence of a God, known as YHWH. Realising that this God is the only God in the world and that He is one. Understanding that He gave His only Son for us to pay the price for our sins. Believing in Christianity also requires a belief that God's Holy Spirit can work inside us and make us into better people, and that we can work according to the Law that Jesus and Moses have given us in the past, and indeed attempt to apply this Law to our daily lives. Belief in Christianity also recognises that the Bible gives understanding to our faith and it enables us to know who God is. The Bible also shows us of God's relationship with man.

A bit longwinded but this is what I make of the Christian faith.

PDN

Smellyirishman wrote:

Such as?

Evidence such as the symmetry and order I see in Creation, also the transformed lives of other people after they put their faith in Christ. While not constituting conclusive logical proofs these certainly would, by any reasonable definition, be classed as evidence.

Scofflaw

PDN wrote:

Evidence such as the symmetry and order I see in Creation, also the transformed lives of other people after they put their faith in Christ. While not constituting conclusive logical proofs these certainly would, by any reasonable definition, be classed as evidence.

Except that as our Creationist friends would remind us, evidence requires interpretation. The uninterpreted facts of physics do not inexorably lead mathematically to faith, otherwise there would be no atheists. Faith is one possible conclusion, but not the only one - and within that, how does the symmetry and order of the cosmos lead to Christian faith as opposed to any other? Again, the existence of other faiths suggests that the 'evidence' can be interpreted many ways - why did you choose to have faith at all, let alone the particular faith you have?

cordially,
Scofflaw

BrianCalgary

Sorry guys all deleted, as the only ones left actually answered the OP's question. The others wanted to try and redefine the OP's question.

Stick to answering the question.

robindch

bc wrote:

The others wanted to try and redefine the OP's question.

Not really. The OP's post, as it stands, lacks a generally-agreed meaning, so everybody's going to talk about different things and no consensus will be reached. Perhaps if you could restore my deleted post, you will see what I mean.

And I can't speak for anybody else, but I think it would annoy posters less if posts that you feel are off-topic were moved to another thread rather than being deleted, so that the off-topic conversation can continue.

Scofflaw

robindch wrote:

Not really. The OP's post, as it stands, lacks a generally-agreed meaning, so everybody's going to talk about different things and no consensus will be reached. Perhaps if you could restore my deleted post, you will see what I mean.

And I can't speak for anybody else, but I think it would annoy posters less if posts that you feel are off-topic were moved to another thread rather than being deleted, so that the off-topic conversation can continue.

Seconded - although that might create rather a lot of threads titled "general disagreement".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Sapien

BrianCalgary wrote:

Sorry guys all deleted, as the only ones left actually answered the OP's question. The others wanted to try and redefine the OP's question.

Stick to answering the question.

I don't know how it could have been construed that I redefined the OP's question - rather I restated in, even insofar as I repeated a number of his questions verbatim. I did this because I was afraid Jakkass's off-the-mark reply would lead to yet another procession of Christian articles of faith, and the important and oft overridden question originally posed yet again ignored.

Either way, the ellipsis as it stands makes very little sense. What went on between Smellyirsihman and PDN before you took out your razor? Why is PDN talking about evidence in response to a question about faith?

Scofflaw

Sapien wrote:

I don't know how it could have been construed that I redefined the OP's question - rather I restated in, even insofar as I repeated a number of his questions verbatim. I did this because I was afraid Jakkass's off-the-mark reply would lead to yet another procession of Christian articles of faith, and the important and oft overridden question originally posed yet again ignored.

Either way, the ellipsis as it stands makes very little sense. What went on between Smellyirsihman and PDN before you took out your razor? Why is PDN talking about evidence in response to a question about faith?

Smellyirishman suggested that faith was belief without evidence, and PDN stated that he came to his faith through evidence....hence the "such as?".

summarily,
Scofflaw

robindch

...and I suggested that using a belief to justify itself isn't a good way to go. In a discussion of beliefs, this seems pretty on-topic to me.

Mind, you, as the topic is "What is fatih", shouldn't we be talking about Istanbul instead?

Zombrex

dan719 wrote:

What is faith?

A believe that something we hope for will be made real

Faith is nearly always associated with hope. Very few people have faith in bad things

dan719 wrote:

Where does it come from?

It comes from the human need to believe that the world around us has some form of agency and that this agency will align itself to helping to provide what we hope for or cannot provide ourselves. The idea that some force will help us in things we cannot control.

This most commonly manifests itself in concepts such as God, a God that is there to help us in things we don't has control over. But it can also be seen to a lesser extent in things like horoscopes or faith healing.

dan719 wrote:

Why do some poeple have it and others not?

It depends on how seriously someone takes this belief in said agency

PDN

I would say that faith is a belief, based on some evidence, but lacking sufficient evidence to constitute conclusive proof.

This definition holds true for non-religious types of faith too. For example, a jury in a court case may consider various types of evidence that suggest the guilt or innocence of the accused. On the basis of this evidence they reach a verdict, but sometimes that verdict is subsequently proved to be incorrect. This is because their verdict required an element of faith. The evidence was not so conclusive as to consitute cast-iron proof.

We operate in the realm of faith every day. For example, I believe that I am really the father of my daughter. This is not just an unsupported hope. I have evidence. I have my knowledge of my wife's character - that (as far as I am aware) she has no history of unfaithfulness. I also have the evidence of physical similarities between me and my daughter (the poor girl has inherited my nose). I do not have conclusive proof that my daughter was not actually fathered by another man, but the evidence I do possess is a reasonable basis on which to base my faith.

Now, the degree of evidence may vary from case to case, but I have rarely if ever met anyone who had faith in anything based on no evidence at all.

If something is conclusively proved, then it would appear to me that no faith is necessary, or even possible. So, if I accept René Descartes' dictum of cogito, ergo sum, then I need no faith to believe in my own existence. Faith, by this definition, is something that joins up the missing gaps between the pieces of evidence we possess.

I believe the OP is incorrect to attempt to exclude the Bible from this discussion. If I have tested Biblical promises and principles and have discovered that they work for me, then it is entirely logical for me to treat other Biblical promises, principles & statements as evidences on which to build further faith propositions.

Of course some people will come to false conclusions by faith. This is because they have insufficient evidence, have evidence that is false or 'tainted', or because they have interpreted the evidence wrongly.

This definition of faith may help explain why we theists believe that atheism is a faith. There is no definitive proof that God does not exist. Atheists have what they feel is evidence suggesting God's non-existence, but it takes a step (or even leap) of faith to move to the conclusion that there is no God.

Conar

PDN wrote:

This definition of faith may help explain why we theists believe that atheism is a faith. There is no definitive proof that God does not exist. Atheists have what they feel is evidence suggesting God's non-existence, but it takes a step (or even leap) of faith to move to the conclusion that there is no God.

Sorry to butt in but I just wanted to comment on this point.
I as an Atheist don't have what I feel is evidence suggesting Gods non-existence, I simply see no evidence of his existence so see no point in believing.
I see no point in collecting evidence to disprove something that has no real evidence of existence in the first place.

Excelsior

Faith, as it would be applied to my Christianity as opposed to one of George Michael's less irritating songs, would have to be defined in terms of trust.

When I say I hold to the Christian faith I could just as easily say that I believe in the Trinitarian God.

When I say that I believe in the Trinitarian God I could just as easily say that I trust in Jesus. Jesus is revealed to me in the Bible (my Barthian proposition is never out of reach), in the life of the church, in the testimony of the Holy Spirit and I believe in the Logos-created universe (that's not some crypto-Creationist ideology).

What that breaks down to is probably for a series of other threads where various people can try to redefine what I mean for me.

Zombrex

PDN wrote:

This definition of faith may help explain why we theists believe that atheism is a faith. There is no definitive proof that God does not exist. Atheists have what they feel is evidence suggesting God's non-existence, but it takes a step (or even leap) of faith to move to the conclusion that there is no God.

Well as an atheist you can probably guess that I'm going to disagree with that

The problem is of course that Christians don't like the definition that faith is belief without evidence because that appears to make their belief irrational. To you it isn't irrational at all. They say we do have evidence, as much evidence as the atheists who say God doesn't exist. It takes as much faith to believe God doesn't exist as to believe he does. I appreciate where you guys are coming from with that

I suppose just to get it out of the way, atheists don't actually say we have evidence that God doesn't exist. We say that there is no evidence that he does that cannot be explained by some other less fantasical/supernatural explanation, and therefore it is more likely that God is a creation of the human imagination rather than an actual thing. You might see that as immaterial, but it is actually a key point.

But getting back to the subject at hand, I think though you miss a key component out of faith, that being the desire that something is true because of the positive consequences that will happen if it is. Which is why it extends beyond simply a judgement based on evidence that something is true.

For example I believe it is true that my bus will come in the morning to take me to work. Now I have some evidence for that, but of course it is always possible it will not come.

Now would someone really say that I have "faith" that my bus will come. Not really, because I have no particular belief that the bus service will set out to get me to work. As Excelsior says I don't trust that the bus service will help me, it runs its service without even being aware of me and it will stop running its service with the same detachment.

Another example would be the Lotto. You often here people who really need money to get them out of a jam say that they have faith that they will win on the Lotto. I've never heard anyone ever use the word "faith" to describe the belief that they won't win on the Lotto. They believe, have faith, they will win the Lotto because they need to win the Lotto. No one needs to not win the Lotto, and as such no one has faith that they won't win the Lotto.

Which is why I think it is wrong to say that atheists have faith that God doesn't exists beyond the reason about evidence given above.

Firstly it is impossible to demonstrate that God doesn't exist because of the way he has been defined in the first place by modern theists. God is untestable, invisible, non-corporeal, and tends not to interact with the universe very much, by definition. The amount of things that the human imagination can come up with that fit that description is possibly infinite, though no one would say I have faith that none of those other things exist.

Secondly there is nothing invested in the idea that God doesn't exist. That doesn't provide me with anything, there is no hope or trust for something better that will improve my life associated with saying "God doesn't exist" any more than saying "I'm not going to win the Lotto today"

PDN

Wicknight wrote:

Well as an atheist you can probably guess that I'm going to disagree with that

The problem is of course that Christians don't like the definition that faith is belief without evidence because that appears to make their belief irrational. To you it isn't irrational at all. They say we do have evidence, as much evidence as the atheists who say God doesn't exist. It takes as much faith to believe God doesn't exist as to believe he does.

I was trying to keep as close to the OP as possible. Therefore I was simply pointing out that both theism & atheism require a step of faith, rather than getting into arguing about which needs the most faith.

For example, I would imagine a survivor of the Rwandan genocide might well need much more faith than I do in order to believe in God. It is entirely possible that their experiences would provide them with more evidence not to believe in God. Similarly, I would probably need much more faith than Wicknight in order to be an atheist. This is because I have many years of experience of God answering my prayers, therefore I would need to take quite a leap of faith to overrule all that evidence.

So I would not agree that atheism necessarily requires more faith, simply that both atheism and theism both require some faith.

I suppose just to get it out of the way, atheists don't actually say we have evidence that God doesn't exist. We say that there is no evidence that he does that cannot be explained by some other less fantasical/supernatural explanation, and therefore it is more likely that God is a creation of the human imagination rather than an actual thing. You might see that as immaterial, but it is actually a key point.

The fact that another possible explanation exists is in itself evidence. For example, there was a case in the UK recently where 2 parents were convicted of poisoning their child with a salt overdose. The key point of evidence that convicted them was the testimony of scientists that there was no way for the child to ingest so much salt except as a deliberate act by the parents. The case was subsequently overturned on appeal because scientists changed their mind (I'm tempted to digress on why I don't overly trust pronouncements of scientific proof here, but let's keep on track). New evidence was presented - evidence that caused the parents to be released. This new evidence was the discovery of a medical condition - an alternative explanation as to how a child could ingest so much salt. Note that there was no proof that the child in question suffered from said condition. The existence of an alternative was itself sufficient to shake the faith on which the original verdict had rested.

I suspect, as often seems to happen when I talk to you, Wicknight, that we are disagreeing over the semantics of a particular word (in this case evidence) rather than over a substantive issue. This is because we hold such opposite positions and because words have such a value-laden power in rhetoric.

But getting back to the subject at hand, I think though you miss a key component out of faith, that being the desire that something is true because of the positive consequences that will happen if it is. Which is why it extends beyond simply a judgement based on evidence that something is true.

For example I believe it is true that my bus will come in the morning to take me to work. Now I have some evidence for that, but of course it is always possible it will not come.

Now would someone really say that I have "faith" that my bus will come. Not really, because I have no particular belief that the bus service will set out to get me to work. As Excelsior says I don't trust that the bus service will help me, it runs its service without even being aware of me and it will stop running its service with the same detachment.

Now you are certainly touching on another component of faith, one that Excelsior has already mentioned. Christians use faith in its biblical sense of including trust and commitment, rather than just mere belief.

However, the fact that the bus service is 'detached' from you does not necessarily exclude faith on your part. In fact, you used the very telling phrase, "my bus". That little pronoun implies at least some level of commitment and trust. Yes, there is always the possibility that the bus won't come at all, but you also have evidence that suggests the bus will come. You have experiences of buses coming on previous occasions, you know other people who catch buses, you may even possess physical evidence in the form of a timetable and a bus shelter. The fact that you go and stand each morning in the spot suggested by the evidence (ie the bus stop) displays your rather touching faith in Dublin Bus. You would not, however, stand in your kitchen and expect the bus to come there to collect you. Why? because you have no evidence on which to place such faith.

Another example would be the Lotto. You often here people who really need money to get them out of a jam say that they have faith that they will win on the Lotto. I've never heard anyone ever use the word "faith" to describe the belief that they won't win on the Lotto. They believe, have faith, they will win the Lotto because they need to win the Lotto. No one needs to not win the Lotto, and as such no one has faith that they won't win the Lotto.

I have faith that, if I purchased a Lotto ticket, I would not win. Millions of others share my faith which is why we don't play the Lotto. The fact that you don't hear us use the word 'faith' is no proof that our belief in the improbablities involved does not constitute faith. Our avoidance of the Lotto is an action (or in this case an inaction) based on a belief which is in turn based on evidence (in this case the evidence is the statistical odds that I am more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the Lotto).

Secondly there is nothing invested in the idea that God doesn't exist. That doesn't provide me with anything, there is no hope or trust for something better that will improve my life associated with saying "God doesn't exist" any more than saying "I'm not going to win the Lotto today"

I disagree with you here on two levels.

Firstly, faith does not have to be addressed to things we perceive to be good or beneficial. For example, I have encountered African villagers whose lives are dominated by evil spirits. They have no concept of a good God - only a rear of malevolent entities. This is undoubtedly a form of religious faith, and it based on evidence (extreme poverty, harsh climate, 80% rate of HIV infection etc.) Their faith is entirely in placating these evil spirits.

Another example would be my belief in hell. I see nothing positive in the concept of hell at all. I have no desire for anyone to go there. The thought of hell horrifies me. Yet I have faith that such a place (or state of being) exists because of the evidence. In this case the evidence is what I read in the Bible, a book that I have already found to be reliable and helpful in regard to other matters. (Note: if anyone wants to pick a fight on this point please do it in another thread to avoid derailing this one). My point is that the concept of hell is not helpful or beneficial to me at all, but I still hold it by faith.

Secondly, I would suggest that you are incorrect in stating that your atheism does not provide you with benefits. You have already, in another thread, stated very forcefully that Christian teachings on sexuality would, if followed, interfere with your own sexual desires and preferences. If I shared your views then I would certainly see myself as having a vested reason for rejecting at least Christianity and other moralistic faiths, if not in rejecting the concept of God altogether. I can think of a whole host of reasons why it would suit people to adopt atheism.

PDN

Excelsior wrote:

Faith, as it would be applied to my Christianity as opposed to one of George Michael's less irritating songs, would have to be defined in terms of trust.

When I say I hold to the Christian faith I could just as easily say that I believe in the Trinitarian God.

When I say that I believe in the Trinitarian God I could just as easily say that I trust in Jesus. Jesus is revealed to me in the Bible (my Barthian proposition is never out of reach), in the life of the church, in the testimony of the Holy Spirit and I believe in the Logos-created universe (that's not some crypto-Creationist ideology).

What that breaks down to is probably for a series of other threads where various people can try to redefine what I mean for me.

Yes, this is certainly, for Christians at least, an important aspect of faith. It is not just a matter of intellectually believing that God exists, but also of trusting his goodness, his truthfulness and therefore committing ourselves to him. This is why the Bible (to the irritation of some non-Christian posters) speaks of believing on Jesus, rather than in Jesus.

For those of my generation that does, of course, necessarily involve believing in the existence of God first. After all, I would not entrust myself to someone without first establishing that they really do exist and are trustworthy. Postmodernism has muddied the waters somewhat in this regard. There are those who believe that whether something works is more important that whether it is true. Those who follow such a philosophy (and it is increasingly widespread) appear quite happy to embrace Christianity (and other religions) for the benefits it conveys, without necessarily being convinced of the existence of God or having any evidence at all. I freely admit that this baffles me.

Zombrex

Oh

My rather long, detailed reply to your post PDN seems to be gone (evidence God exists?). Will try to reply to your post again when I get a chance.

Scofflaw

I'm not sure we really have a mystery here, despite the unlikeliness of actually resolving anything.

Faced with the world, we can adopt one of two initial positions: we can seek explanation of it, or not. A large number of people simply don't seem to seek any explanation - they take the world "as is", and don't bother to think beyond that mechanistic level. They will probably have a vague adherence to all the explanatory frameworks common to their culture, without feeling any need to inquire deeply into, or resolve contradictions between, these frameworks.

What of those who seek an explanation? First, what if no-one offers an explanation? Presumably the inquiring mind will cobble together some kind of explanation, or more likely a pastiche of naturalistic and non-naturalistic explanations, without distinguishing between them. This is observable in children, who know that you can operate a door by turning the handle, but also believe you can make the rain stop by singing at it - a stage often called "magical thinking".

In most societies, it is highly unlikely that a child will be left to resolve these questions on their own. Instead, they will be taught one or more of the explanatory frameworks available in their culture. Traditionally, these were predominantly non-naturalistic frameworks, involving one or more supernatural entities. Recently, a single naturalistic explanatory framework has been added - science.

In general, people will accept whichever of these non-naturalistic frameworks they are first taught, and usually accept it exclusively, since it is the nature of the non-naturalistic frameworks to state that they are exclusive of all other non-naturalistic frameworks. Science is not exclusive, and can be used in conjunction with nearly any non-naturalistic framework - and a religion that would regard itself as entirely excluding naturalistic explanations will be very difficult to sustain.

Now, the point of all these frameworks is to explain the world to us. Christianity explains the world one way, Islam another, Buddhism yet another, and so on - all in non-naturalistic terms - and science offers yet another explanation, this time in naturalistic terms.

Do they work? Of course they do. Religions have not survived millennia as explanatory frameworks without making sense. To assert otherwise is utterly ridiculous.

So someone, like PDN, who uses Christianity as his dominant explanatory framework, is acting entirely rationally. Christianity explains much that science does not - it answers the "why" questions (and a child's first question is 'why', not 'how'). Even better, in conjunction with science, it becomes possible to answer almost every human question about the world. The explanatory force of Christianity-plus-science is immense - under its force religion after religion has been relegated to the history books. Indeed, Christians no longer have to evangelise the pagans by the sword - they come in of themselves.

Does science require faith, as the non-naturalistic explanations do? Of course it does - if you had no faith in science, you wouldn't seek for a scientific explanation of an unknown phenomenon, because you would have no belief that science could offer an explanation.

Now, where a lot of atheists, in my opinion, come adrift, is in the justification of faith, and as PDN mentioned earlier, in the kind of evidence required. Faith in science - faith that science does, and can explain the world - is justified, atheists argue, because it provably works: washing machines, the Internet, etc. Faith in non-naturalistic explanations, they assert, has no such proof - there are no god-powered washing machines, nor an internet of spirits. That is true, but entirely misses the point.

What scientific advance has changed the character of an alcoholic, or a wife-beater, or a gambler, so that they give up their addictions or violence and strive, of their own volition, to lead better lives? Yes, we can 'cure' depression, and thereby remove negative behaviour associated with it - but nothing scientific can cure a moral ill. Does this mean that science is false? Obviously not, since the things that science has done are inarguable. So why should the absence of god-powered washing machines be taken to denote the falsity of Christianity, or any other religion? Religions are not naturalistic frameworks.

So when PDN says that he has seen lives changed for the better by Christianity, he is offering evidence for the utility (and thereby veracity, by any standard) of his preferred framework. We can offer a scientific explanation of why the adoption of a religion changed those lives for the better, but we cannot actually repeat the operation with science. As long as we cannot do that, religion offers something science cannot. Since one need know nothing about science to use its fruits, whereas you cannot use the fruits of religion while knowing nothing about it, it's more rational to use religion as a framework in your life than science.

Also, I would say that the "evidence for God" is entirely irrelevant - it only matters whether the framework is useful. Of course, the Christian framework assumes the existence of God, but it does not actually require Him!

To reiterate: science can tell you nothing about whether you should cheat on your wife, or beat your children, or steal. Religion can, and does, offer such guidance. Most of the time, we need such guidance more than we need to understand stellar formation - and if we do need to understand stellar formation, we can subsume the scientific explanation without damage to our religion (unless your religion uses the stars as deities, of course).

Faith, then, is nothing more than the belief that events and phenomena can be dealt with by your preferred explanatory framework(s). The mysteries of your faith are the bits you don't understand, but are willing to accept on trust - evil in the case of religion, science outside your expertise in the case of science. I have not worked out for myself the dynamics of stellar formation - I take it on trust that if I chose to do so, I would find the process conformable with scientific methodology, and that I would come to similar conclusions.

I'm an atheist only partly because I find the non-naturalistic frameworks I have looked into to be internally self-contradictory, and not infrequently silly - much more important is the fact that emotionally I can live without explanations for the things they purport to explain. I do not require an explanation for evil, and am perfectly happy with "chance" as an answer to "why me?". If this was not true, I am certain I would seek a non-naturalistic framework to give me those answers.

In summary - I don't think there's anything strange or mysterious about faith. I think we all have it, as a standard human characteristic - we have faith in our chosen explanatory framework, be it religious or naturalistic, to supply answers to the questions we can't live without answers to. Where we differ is in the questions we demand answers for.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex

[Edit]Reposted with swear word removed[/edit]

PDN wrote:

I was trying to keep as close to the OP as possible. Therefore I was simply pointing out that both theism & atheism require a step of faith, rather than getting into arguing about which needs the most faith.

Do you know of any religion that has "faith" that only hell exists and everyone is going there (ie that there is no upside or hope to religion?) That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. People tend not to hope that bad things will happen to them. Its not how our brains work.

PDN wrote:

I can think of a whole host of reasons why it would suit people to adopt atheism.

Well of course the major flaw in that logic, that has been pointed out before, is of course if someone still believes that God exists yet decides to reject Christian teaching, he isn't an atheist.

If I believed in God I would believe that rejecting his teaching would have far greater negative effect on my life than the positives of being able to have pre-marital sex.

The point is I don't believe in God and as such "teachings" have no meaning.

It does sometimes feel that you guys genuinely believe that atheists are just kidding themselves, that we really know in the back of your mind that God exists, yet we don't want to follow the rules so we pretend we don't, in the same way that an unruly child might pretend his parents doing exist.

TBH I would much rather believe in a force in the universe that is there to help and protect me. That is a much more comforting position than the alternative. I would happily not have pre-marital sex if I genuinely believed that I would survive death. Atheism provides no comfort to me.

The reason that I'm an atheist is not because I don't want to believe in the things you believe in. It is because I don't.

Well that is my point. Atheism isn't "faith", any more than believing my pencil is still in my draw would be considered "faith". It misses the key component of the desire for what one believes to be true.

PDN wrote:

Similarly, I would probably need much more faith than Wicknight in order to be an atheist.

I think rather than evidence you would simply need to be open to the idea that what you experience isn't real. If someone has a lot invested in an idea being true it becomes much harder for them to consider otherwise, no matter what evidence is presented.

I would imagine now even if 20 doctors put a set of CAT scans in front of you and said that all these years you have been experiencing simply tricks of the mind you (or none of the regular Christian posters on this forum) would not accept that as evidence God doesn't exist nor even evidence that he wasn't talking to you. I would imagine you would believe that the "tricks of the mind" where actually how God decided to communicate with you.

Which goes back to my original point. There is no "evidence" that God doesn't exist, since God is completely untestable. No matter what evidence is put in front of people if they want to believe in God, if they are invested in the consequences of that belief, they will continue to believe in God. The believe itself is "faith", in that they want it to be true.

PDN wrote:

So I would not agree that atheism necessarily requires more faith, simply that both atheism and theism both require some faith.

Perhaps a better way of me explaining this is to say that rather than requiring faith, atheism actually requires someone to abandon the concept of faith, at least in terms of deities.

A person who seriously has faith believes that there is a force external to them in the universe that will cause the future to align to produce good things for them. This can take a lot of forms, some believe in more abstract concepts such as "destiny" or "fate" that gives people a sense that the future holds important things for them. Others believe in things like astrology, believing that the universe itself will align to indicate personally how someone can avoid problems.

To someone like yourself that force is God. God, as a concept, is there to prevent bad things that you cannot prevent yourself, such as death. He is an agent in the universe that can offer comfort and hope to you over issues that you cannot provide your own hope or comfort.

Rather than atheism simply being a different form of this faith, it is actually a realization that none of this is real, that the universe doesn't actually work this way.

It is a rejection of the idea that there is any force in the universe that is concerned with us to the point of providing comforting solutions to our problems.

Faith itself is not real. Its a nice idea, that even atheists engage in from time to time (I have faith that Nintendo will turn the Wii around for hardcore gamers and Nintendo fans). But it isn't real. Us wanting something to be true has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it actually will be true.

PDN wrote:

The key point of evidence that convicted them was the testimony of scientists that there was no way for the child to ingest so much salt except as a deliberate act by the parents. The case was subsequently overturned on appeal because scientists changed their mind (I'm tempted to digress on why I don't overly trust pronouncements of scientific proof here, but let's keep on track).

Well this is getting a bit off topic, but neither was the initial assessment that there is no way for a child to ingest that much salt, nor the second assessment that there actually is, were "science". They were the opinions of the doctors, asked for their opinion. Which is quite different.

PDN wrote:

The fact that you go and stand each morning in the spot suggested by the evidence (ie the bus stop) displays your rather touching faith in Dublin Bus.

But it doesn't, that is the point.

I have no preconceived faith that the bus will come because I am waiting for it.

If the bus comes that is great, but the bus isn't coming because I want it to come. That is the key point. The bus is independent to me. Dublin Bus don't give a hoot about me, and the fact that I'm waiting for the bus won't in any way effect them. The bus will either come or it won't come. Having faith that it will come because I need it to come is irrelevant.

That is the key difference.

Atheist view the universe has possessing no agent that concerned with what I or anyone else wants. The universe doesn't care, in the same way that Dublin Bus doesn't care about little old me standing at the bus stop. It goes about its business.

That is why to an atheists faith is irrelevant. Faith is the hope that something we believe is true because we need it to be true.

But what we hope has no effect on what is real.

Our belief in something has no actual bearing on whether or not it is real. If I believe my bus is coming, or if I believe my bus isn't coming, has no bearing on if the bus will come.

PDN wrote:

The fact that you don't hear us use the word 'faith' is no proof that our belief in the improbablities involved does not constitute faith.

Well I think it is "proof" that that isn't what people mean when they say "faith"

People don't use the word "faith" when describing the belief that they won't win the lottery because no one hopes to not win the lottery.

PDN wrote:

Our avoidance of the Lotto is an action (or in this case an inaction) based on a belief which is in turn based on evidence (in this case the evidence is the statistical odds that I am more likely to be struck by lightning than to win the Lotto).

It certainly is, but I wouldn't call that faith.

Faith implies a positive outcome

As I said earlier no one has faith that something bad will happen because that is not how human hope works. We hope for good things, and we have faith that these good things will happen.

PDN wrote:

For example, I have encountered African villagers whose lives are dominated by evil spirits. They have no concept of a good God - only a rear of malevolent entities. This is undoubtedly a form of religious faith, and it based on evidence (extreme poverty, harsh climate, 80% rate of HIV infection etc.) Their faith is entirely in placating these evil spirits.

But don't you see, that is actually hope.

They see agency in the universe, just as you do, forces beyond their control that effect their lives. To them the universe itself is out to get them. They have hope though that they can improve their lives by placating these evil spirits. By doing so they hope to improve things, even if that means simply not letting things get worse. That is faith

Some people believe that they have to please good forces and good things will happen. Others believe that they have to please bad forces and good things will happen, even if the "good things" is simply things won't be as bad as they were before (atheists of course don't believe the universe works like this at all)

Have you ever met a group of humans that hoped that things would get worse?

PDN wrote:

Yet I have faith that such a place (or state of being) exists because of the evidence.

Well you have faith that the whole system exists and is real, not just hell. I imagine if someone just presented you with hell you wouldn't believe in it at all, nor would you have trouble believing in a religion that had no concept of hell.

Your faith is that the universe described by the Bible is real. Part of that is accepting that it is all real, including hell. You have that faith because you hope that God exists because of the upsides of that belief (love, compassion, sense of purpose, after life etc etc). Hell is a secondary logical concept, formed because if heaven exists and only the faithful go there then there must be some where that the unfaithful and they must go somewhere else. Otherwise what is the point of being faithful? You accept it because you accept all of this. You have faith in it because you have faith that all of it is true.