Did you ever walk down the street and not take reasonable precautions to avoid being shot at? Do you regularly fear a car will seek you out and run you down?
Do you go to bed at night confident you will wake up in the morning?
When you leave the house, do you lock your door and turn on an alarm? Or do you perhaps do nothing?
When you take a shower, do you expect the water to be hot? Do you expect the cable to be working when you sit down to watch TV?

If you answered yeah, thats because you have faith in things. Man, decency, law and order, profit, technology, etc, etc. Its a lie to think faith is not a necessary fundamental for human life on earth.

That has nothing to do with having faith in jesus or god. You expect the water to be hot because you probably burned your ass last time. And you expect to get hit by a car cause you saw this dude getting run over by a car last week. etc etc etc .......

So what are you trying to prove with this.

I told you. That faith is a necessary part of everyone's life, and is just as human as anything else.

And my point wasnt that you expect to get hit by a car, its that you probably dont expect to. LoL you must be real fucked in the head if you walk down the street every day assuming someone is going to get you.

Oh, Im sorry, I worded that car part thing wrong by later adding, "If you answered yeah to any of these..." Oh well.

there is a difference between having faith in something you can use your senses with and having faith in some random deity

[This message has been edited by Bogey Man (edited 05-25-2002).]

Yeah I'm pretty much fucked up in tha head . I expect everything, that's why I never get fucked up by shit like that. Now one thing: THIS SHIT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE KIND OF FAITH YOU'RE TALKIN ABOUT. Having faith in jesus and having faith in being able to take a goddamn shower can't be compared you dipshit.

Xeno,

Mark this day on the calander, I agree with Spirit on this one. As I read the initial post, faith in a diety was not part of the post, that was added by interpretation later.

Spirits' definition of faith is exactly the way I see it...that something will happen. I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. Why? Because, I have faith in the laws of physics. Why? Because, they (the laws of physics) have always worked so far. What if they stop working? No problem, it won't matter anyway, because now I will certainly gain knowledge of all the Universal secrets (as will everyone else, simultaneously).

Nox

quote:

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Originally posted by Nox:
Xeno,

Mark this day on the calander, I agree with Spirit on this one. As I read the initial post, faith in a diety was not part of the post, that was added by interpretation later.

Spirits' definition of faith is exactly the way I see it...that something will happen. I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. Why? Because, I have faith in the laws of physics. Why? Because, they (the laws of physics) have always worked so far. What if they stop working? No problem, it won't matter anyway, because now I will certainly gain knowledge of all the Universal secrets (as will everyone else, simultaneously).

Nox

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True, very true. I never said I didn't have faith. I just don't have faith in religion.

My intent was to make people understand that faith is human and all of us have it. Once we understand that, atheists can get off their pedestal and realize what seperates them from the theists is a simple degree of faith, not a lack of it. That blurs the lines and tends to quell the conflicts, doesnt it?

Likewise, religious people can stop believing they have a monopoly on faith and understand that atheists are only different from them by degrees, not clear lines.

quote:

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Originally posted by Spirit of '22:
Likewise, religious people can stop believing they have a monopoly on faith and understand that atheists are only different from them by degrees, not clear lines.

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CLAP CLAP Bravo,

finally we understand each other.

Group hug

I agree and disagree though
assuming has most of the elements of faith but they're not necessarily equal.

You can't have faith in something that is Objective...

Hot water, Cars, physics, and the sun coming up are all objective facts of living on this planet...you can't have Faith in these kinds of things.

Faith is used for things that you can't explain using facts...it's the bridge that connects Story Book Guidance to Reality.

That's not quite true. You can like have faith in a person, which means that you trust him and BELIVE that he wil succees or whatever. Faith is like trust in something or someone or whatever.

Trust in a person isn't objective

correction, trust is not objective, I guess you could argue that trust in a person is, if you got technical.

>>>Hot water, Cars, physics, and the sun coming up are all objective facts of living on this planet...you can't have Faith in these kinds of things<<<<

You can and do.

And what about Law? Law is an abstract thing. What abour hierarchy? Thats abstract. Decency? Respect? Intelligence? Love? Hate? All abstract things people have faith in.

Het Spirit, what's your point here? Everyone knows what's he/she beliveing in (or at least should know).

[This message has been edited by XeNobiTe (edited 05-26-2002).]

I don't have faith in people having any of those things.

Hoping is also different than faith.

I'm not saying that I don't have faith in some things
I have faith in the people I already know
I'm just saying that I don't like your examples

[This message has been edited by Bogey Man (edited 05-26-2002).]

spirit is absolutely right,

i would've used what i consider a better argument though.

your perception of the world you live in is based purely and entirely on faith.

anything you believe, and a lot of what you hold as truth is nothing more than faith in the hopes that you are right.

does bush want to drill alaska because he's an oil man and it will benefit him after presidency.

does bush want to drill alaska because he recognizes the need to ween ourselves off of middle east oil.

does bush want to drill alaska because he's a republican and will stop at nothing to fuck up the environment.

or does he want to drill alaska because of the economic growth such an endeavor might accomplish by providing new high paying jobs which will be taxed and money spent in american businesses.

which one is the correct intrepretation?

only one person knows for sure, and he may not tell you the real reason behind it.

but these are all legitimate realities accepted as truth and fact, because it is the reality you choose to put your faith in.

unless it is something like 2+2 which can definitively be proven, it is just a belief that you have put your faith in as a definition of reality.

which is absolutely the same as faith in any deity, or faith in no deity.

each is a reality perfectly legitimate and physical to one, and completely unfounded and naieve to the other.

i live in a society where minorities are heralded as national icons and heroes for all of america to admire, for example,

colin powell, michael jordan, sammy sosa, michael jackson, bill cosby, richard pryor, stevie wonder, and these are just a few of the public figures, not to mention the millions of minorities who own their business and are successfull, not to mention the millions of minorities who have jobs with tremendous responsibility.

yet i also live in a society where racism is considered to be a very serious problem,

i live in a society where we have to enforce the percentage of minorities that work in a business.

i live in a society where every august one of the biggest issues of the football season is how many black coaches there are.

i live in a society where michael jordan could run for president and probably win, while in the very same city just down the street a cries of racism will erupt as a black man is arrested matching the description of a man who just robbed a liquor store.

sounds like two different worlds to me, yet both extremes are used to defend a perception of reality you have "faith" in.

assuming doesn't equal faith

Hoping doesn't equal faith

objectifying doesn't equal faith

I have faith that certain family members and friends will be there for me, not that they exist, I know they exist because I can see them, I assume they are existing right now since I saw them a little bit ago, and I hope they will continue to exist

there are variables that make them all different

"I have faith that certain family members and friends will be there for me"

and you are basing this upon...

personal observation?

faith based on perception?

what if they aren't there for you?

you have faith that certain family members and friends even care about you.

have you ever been let down?

is there somebody you don't particularly like, but you don't dislike them either, but they consider you a good friend, and it's easier to be civil than it it is to explain yourself.

i'm sure you do, the conversation always ends with get a hold of me sometime let's go hang out.

i had to say it like that, because you wouldn't know it if the situation were reversed.

but here's a guy who has faith that you are his friend and it's an existing reality to him,

truth is though, you couldn't give a shit if you seen him again or not.

"there are variables that make them all different"

so true, but we use faith to fill in the variables.

i'm sorry, but i disagree

I assume something because it is something that i have observed in the past

I believe something because I can see it

I hope for something because I want it, or I want something to happen

and I have faith in something because of a gut feeling

That gut feeling is a product of believing something. Faith and belief are the same thing dude, youre arguing semantics.

Uh-oh. Seems like I must interrupt your nice chat with my usual rubbish.

Spirit of '22, I find that idea interesting, though I must disagree with you in some parts.
Of course, when you say you're not afraid of a car running you down, you say "I don't _belive_ it to happen.". Now there's the word belive.. Where have I heard that one before.. Oh yes, in religion! Thought in this way, you get the idea that beliving in god is the same thing as beliving in not to be run down by a car. It's not to me. You see, if you think you can cross the street without getting killed, you normally see there are cars and then there's you. It's up to your choices if you get run down (or up to the choices of the drivers), it's about things you can see. God and such is something else that require real faith.

But I don't think that was what you meant, right? You meant that everyone belives in _something_. This I can agree. An atheist has to belive in something. To me, atheist belives in everything that's explained and "normal".

samuli how do you define normal?

or is your concept of normal something you have faith in?

I believe something because I can see it, I believe I have hands because I can see them, there is no faith required in seeing objects

I have faith in things that I can not logically explain

Now if you want to argue that I need faith to believe that my senses are not playing tricks on me that is one thing, but you've been arguing that I need faith to believe in an actual object

I would say that I'm 'conditioned' to expect those things that you mentioned. A child doesn't consider the probability of occurance of these events until it 'learns' the cause-and-effect of it's life.

Faith is not the correct word to use when describing the perceived probablity of the re-occurance of any specific event.

Faith is employed as a substitute for evidence.

btw, when I turn on the tube, and the cable actually works, I see it as a divine event.

Faith is when you believe in something that there is no real proof of. You have to have faith to believe in gods, for example, but you do NOT need faith to believe that you will wake up in the morning.

There is a HUGE difference and I'm completely sick of hearing the same stupid argument.

This is why I hate philosophy: people just come up with the same retarded ideas over and over and mistakenly believe that they must be right about everything. Just because you think you came up with a new idea doesn't make you correct or intelligent.