A hypothetical dilemma?

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Faith by definition is simply acting on a belief.

No, it's not. This is the first time I have ever heard faith defined that way

None of the definitions given here:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith
Define faith as acting on a belief, they simply define it as "belief without evidence"

Ickle Magoo

Soul Winner wrote: »

Faith by definition is simply acting on a belief.

No, I think it just shows that sailing to Australia before satellite images of the globe, digital mapping & radar involved faith in the basic maps you did have. Nowadays, there is no doubt that there is an Australia, no argument as to where it is & what it looks like because we have the ability to see pictures of it from space.

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I wouldn't even call that faith, I'd call it hope

Well, I hope it gets there too but my faith would be based on the assumption that we would actually get there in one piece, not because planes may or may not fly but because it's statistically unlikely the plane would crash.

sink

Soul Winner wrote: »

Say you lived in present day New Zealand and had been to Australia several times and you had a small sailing boat and you set out for Australia because you believe it existed based on previous experiences of the place having been there, then that is to act on a belief which is faith. But let us say that you lived in the 15th century, and nobody ever heard of Australia and you say that you believe it exists based on a revelation you got in a dream but had no tangible evidence of it and you set sail for Australia then? You are still acting in faith based upon a belief. Faith by definition is simply acting on a belief.

Hmmm, I dont buy it. I have never come across such a convoluted definition of faith before and I don't consider it the common definition as understood by the rest of the worlds English speaking population. Enough of arguing semantics. What you are really trying to is to elevate spiritual revelation so it appears equal to concrete physical evidence, which is ultimately futile no matter how you choose to define words.

Soul Winner

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

I believe aeroplanes fly because I've seen them fly, I've flown in them before & I know an avionics engineer & a pilot.

OK then, can explain your belief that radiation exists. Have you ever seen radiation? Do you doubt that it exists because you have never seen it? No, but you believe it does exist because you will tell me that you have seen the bad effects that radiation has on the cell structure of the body and point me to examples like the horrible tragedy of Chernobyl, and yet when you see the good effects that God has in people lives you don't accept that He exists because you can't see Him.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then, can explain your belief that radiation exists. Have you ever seen radiation? Do you doubt that it exists because you have never seen it? No, but you believe it does exist because you will tell me that you have seen the bad effects that radiation has on the cell structure of the body and point me to examples like the horrible tragedy of Chernobyl, and yet when you see the good effects that God has in people lives you don't accept that He exists because you can't see Him.

You don't have to literally see something to know it exists. Radiation is not visible to the naked eye but it can be proven to exist in other ways. You say yourself we can see its effects. I can't see air but I'm pretty sure it exists because I'd be dead if it didn't.

I don't accept god because I have yet to see something that couldn't have happened just as easily had he not intervened and I have yet to see any evidence that disasters and general bad things have a tendency to be avoided. They seem to happen as frequently, if not far more frequently than good things

sink

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then, can explain your belief that radiation exists. Have you ever seen radiation? Do you doubt that it exists because you have never seen it? No, but you believe it does exist because you will tell me that you have seen the bad effects that radiation has on the cell structure of the body and point me to examples like the horrible tragedy of Chernobyl, and yet when you see the good effects that God has in people lives you don't accept that He exists because you can't see Him.

FYI light is radiation, everything you see is just radiation impacting your retina. I know microwaves exist because they can heat up my dinner, I know x-ray's exist because i've seen the resulting images of x-rays passing trough my body and impacting a photographic filament.

Ickle Magoo

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then, can explain your belief that radiation exists. Have you ever seen radiation? Do you doubt that it exists because you have never seen it? No, but you believe it does exist because you will tell me that you have seen the bad effects that radiation has on the cell structure of the body and point me to examples like the horrible tragedy of Chernobyl, and yet when you see the good effects that God has in people lives you don't accept that He exists because you can't see Him.

You prove to me a tangeable correlation between God & good deeds in the same way as I can re radiation with a map around Chernobyl & I'll believe you. I don't just choose to believe exposure to radiation causes genetic mutation or cancer. As we can produce radioactive material, there is actually tangeable substance to radiation.

You see the good effects God has in peoples lives, I just see peoples lives. You seem to equate something to Gods doing, I don't see it. I've never seen, heard or witnessed God in any way shape or form. I've seen pictures of Chernobyl, I can read numerous reports on what radiation poisoning can do to the body & look at the pictures of those affected & know one influenced the other. That the likelihood of genetic mutation around Chernobyl being 7 times the national average is based on more than just blind faith.

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

No, it's not. This is the first time I have ever heard faith defined that way

None of the definitions given here:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith
Define faith as acting on a belief, they simply define it as "belief without evidence"

Faith is always associated with trust, reliance etc. I can believe that Jesus exists but it is a different thing for me to trust Him with my life. That trusting is action, and is more than simple belief that He exists.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Faith is always associated with trust, reliance etc. I can believe that Jesus existed but it is a different thing for me to trust Him with my life. That trusting is action, and is more than simple belief that He exists.

You're just arguing semantics. Belief can be used in the same context and faith can be used in other contexts

You can trust a pilot when he tells you he's competent without ever getting on a plane

Soul Winner

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

...there is actually tangeable substance to radiation.

OK then what about gravity? Is there actual tangible substance to gravity? Where is gravity?

sink

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then what about gravity? Is there actual tangible substance to gravity? Where is gravity?

Gravity is a force not matter.

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

You're just arguing semantics. Belief can be used in the same context and faith can be used in other contexts

You can trust a pilot when he tells you he's competent without ever getting on a plane

Nope, you are trusting the pilot when you actually get onto his plane, before that you are just believing that he is a competent pilot. Would you trust him with your wife alone for instance? Meaning would you leave him alone in your house for a night with her alone? If you would then that is trusting his integrity rather than just believing he could be trusted. Trust is an act of the will not just a belief held by the mind alone.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then what about gravity? Is there actual tangible substance to gravity? Where is gravity?

Gravity is a force and therefore not a physical object but that does not mean it doesn't exist. To observe gravity one should jump off some buildings. Why are you asking these questions that you know the answers to? You will never succeed in convincing anyone that belief in god is the same as belief in gravity because nothing has ever happened that can be definitively pointed to as evidence of god's intervention. All you have is a list of perfectly natural good stuff that can be countered with a list of bad stuff 1000 times longer

Ickle Magoo

Soul Winner wrote: »

Faith is always associated with trust, reliance etc. I can believe that Jesus exists but it is a different thing for me to trust Him with my life. That trusting is action, and is more than simple belief that He exists.

We started off with faith, then belief, now it's trust?

If you are choosing to believe something that someone else doesn't, that belief is an action too, btw. I don't know if these words have more significant meanings theologically, but in general usage they are much of a muchness.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Nope, you are trusting the pilot when you actually get onto his plane, before that you are just believing that he is a competent pilot. Would you trust him with your wife alone for instance? Meaning would you leave him alone in your house for a night with her alone? If you would then that is trusting his integrity rather than just believing he could be trusted. Trust is an act of the will not just a belief held by the mind alone.

I'm not going to argue that point with you anymore. We're just repeating ourselves

Soul Winner

sink wrote: »

Gravity is a force not matter.

Yeah but where is its tangible substance? Does it have any? If not then how do you know it exists like the way you know radiation exists?

Ickle Magoo

Soul Winner wrote: »

OK then what about gravity? Is there actual tangible substance to gravity? Where is gravity?

I don't need to prove a tangeable quality about gravity, the fact you don't float around like people in space do proves it exists. Can you do the same with God? Can you show me a direct result & prove he had something to do with it?

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

I'm not going to argue that point with you anymore. We're just repeating ourselves

OK

sink

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yeah but where is its tangible substance? Does it have any? If not then how do you know it exists like the way you know radiation exists?

Stop with this ridiculous line of argument, where is your brain? If you are not going to engage it then I don't see the point of engaging you.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yeah but where is its tangible substance? Does it have any? If not then how do you know it exists like the way you know radiation exists?

He says gravity is not matter and then you ask him to point to the substance. He just told you it doesn't have substance because it's not matter. Not everything in the universe is matter. There is also energy and one form of it is gravity. I know gravity exists because it has been proven to exist countless billions of times, unlike your god

Soul Winner

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

Can you do the same with God? Can you show me a direct result & prove he had something to do with it?

How about the universe? The best scientific model that describes the origin of the universe is the standard big bang model. That model postulates that all matter, energy and even time itself came into existence from a nothingness state called 'the singularity' at a finite time in the past. Now you tell me how everything that now is can come from nothing and by nothing? Because if you are a proponent of that model and are an atheist then that is what you believe. That everything that now is, came from nothing and by nothing.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

How about the universe? The best scientific model that describes the origin of the universe is the standard big bang model. That model postulates that all matter, energy and even time itself came into existence from a nothingness state called 'the singularity' at a finite time in the past. Now you tell me how everything that now is can come from nothing and by nothing? Because if you are a proponent of that model and are an atheist then that is what you believe. That everything that now is, came from nothing and by nothing.

The only logical answer that it is currently humanly possible to give to that question is "I don't know". We are not yet advanced enough as a species to be able to say how the universe came into being but that does not automatically translate to "God did it" and it most definitely does not indicate that the Judeo Christian God did it. Just because you have an answer to the question does not mean it's the right answer

sink

Soul Winner wrote: »

How about the universe? The best scientific model that describes the origin of the universe is the standard big bang model. That model postulates that all matter, energy and even time itself came into existence from a nothingness state called 'the singularity' at a finite time in the past. Now you tell me how everything that now is can come from nothing and by nothing? Because if you are a proponent of that model and are an atheist then that is what you believe. That everything that now is, came from nothing and by nothing.

The singularity is not nothing, we don't know what it is exactly but the theory states that it contained all the energy (which includes matter) that the universe still contains to this day, which is far from nothing, it is in fact everything which is the opposite of nothing.

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

He says gravity is not matter and then you ask him to point to the substance.

He was the one pointing out that tangible substance is proof of radiation's existence and all I asked for was the same for gravity. But he says that gravity is a force and therefore has no tangible substance but it does exist because we can see its effects. Is that proof that it exists though? I say no. But I don't doubt that gravity exists either yet I'm supposed to think that God doesn't exists because there is no tangible evidence???

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

He was the one pointing out that tangible substance is proof of radiation's existence and all I asked for was the same for gravity. But he says that gravity is a force and therefore has no tangible substance but it does exist because we can see its effects. Is that proof that it exists though? I say no. But I don't doubt that gravity exists either yet I'm supposed to think that God doesn't exists because there is no tangible evidence???

That is again a semantical argument. Just because he used tangibility to prove one thing does not mean he has to use it to prove everything. Different things are proven in different ways

There is no evidence of any kind of god's existence. A collection of bronze age myths are not evidence

sink

Soul Winner wrote: »

He was the one pointing out that tangible substance is proof of radiation's existence and all I asked for was the same for gravity. But he says that gravity is a force and therefore has no tangible substance but it does exist because we can see its effects. Is that proof that it exists though? I say no. But I don't doubt that gravity exists either yet I'm supposed to think that God doesn't exists because there is no tangible evidence???

Throw a stone in the air and it falls to the ground, that is tangible evidence of gravity.

Soul Winner

Sam Vimes wrote: »

The only logical answer that it is currently humanly possible to give to that question is "I don't know". We are not yet advanced enough as a species to be able to say how the universe came into being but that does not automatically translate to "God did it" and it most definitely does not indicate that the Judeo Christian God did it. Just because you have an answer to the question does not mean it's the right answer

I'm not saying that it translates into "God did it". But the scientific evidence points squarely in the direction of an Ex Nihilo creation event. If God didn't do it then nothing did it. But how can nothing do it?

Soul Winner

sink wrote: »

The singularity is not nothing, we don't know what it is exactly but the theory states that it contained all the energy (which includes matter) that the universe still contains to this day, which is far from nothing, it is in fact everything which is the opposite of nothing.

Yes but at the singularity all the laws of physics disappear so how will you ever be able to test how it came into being? You will never ever ever ever be able to know by the scientific method.

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

I'm not saying that it translates into "God did it". But the scientific evidence points squarely in the direction of an Ex Nihilo creation event. If God didn't do it then nothing did it. But how can nothing do it?

You are still making the assumption that you claim not to. Your assumption assumes that we know everything about the universe. The options are not god or nothing. As the carlsberg ad says, it's not just A or B, there's always C, C being something that we have not yet discovered or we do not yet understand

And even if we were to accept that an all powerful creator created the universe, that does not prove the bible any more than it proves the quaran or whatever book the ancient greeks followed

Sam Vimes

Soul Winner wrote: »

Yes but at the singularity all the laws of physics disappear so how will you ever be able to test how it came into being? You will never ever ever ever be able to know by the scientific method.

Now that is a bold and entirely baseless assumption unless you happen to be in possession of a time machine which has allowed you to ask the last man who will ever live