Organization: Penn State University
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 18:45:24 EDT
From: <MVS104@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Faith is illogical

In article <austin.719039534@munagin>, austin@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU (timothy james
austin) says:
>
>jay@oclc.org (Jeff Young) writes:
>
>
>>Heb 11:1 - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
>>things not seen.
>
>>-----------------
>>Gratuitous Definition:
>
>[deleted]
>
>>Many Christians base their belief in God on faith.  I wish to show
>>that the Christian God cannot exist if faith is a requirement.
>
>Faith and belief are almost interchangeable.  The basis for Faith in
>God (or lack there of) would be what brought to to that belief.

Faith and belief interchangeable? Doesn't seem that way to me.
As example: I believe the sun will be back tomorrow. I base that
belief on the evidence that it's been doing that for quite some
time. I have nothing on which to base belief in god, so I call
that sort of belief "faith" to separate it. As for your basis for
faith in god, I can't answer that until someone fixes up that
sentence...

>>DEF: Faith as I interpret it is either belief without supporting
>>evidence, or belief that the evidence points to God's existance
>>in spite of naturalistic explainations for the evidence.
>>If you disagree with this definition, please provide a counter-example.
>
>Faith, as used in the bible is just a strong belief or certainty in something.
>It says nothing about whether the object of faith is "naturalistic" or not.
>From this definition you could say that "I have faith that the sun will rise
>in the morning" and still be using faith in context.

Well by this def. we might as well chuck the word "belief" since
you want everything to be called faith in your context. We're
trying to separate belief (some evidence) from faith (no evidence).

>>1) Faith, by this definition, is the acceptance of the logical
>>fallacy of Special Pleading.  Why should we accept a supernatural
>>explaination over a natural one?
>
>If this is just something that the "laws" of science agree with then we
>are really just saying that something that we observe is natural.  The laws
>of science are just what our observation and thought processes have come
>up with.

Yes, something "natural," something people can see and repeat and
demonstrate, as opposed to the "god did it" explanation, which is
basically a dead end.

>A supernatural definition would be considered something above nature by many
>people.  If God is behind our world and the way it works, then there is
>really no distinction between natural and supernatural.  The way nature works

So the rest of your argument is based on your new assumption that
"god is behind the world and the way it works," which, so help me,
sounds sooo much like that old thread, "god is existence." And we
all know how that got stomped on and mashed into a fine pulp...
You're just trying to assume that god is natural to eliminate the
"supernatural" context and confuse people. Sorry, god isn't natural
until we find him hanging out someplace.

>was predetermined by God.  Not that this is an argument for God it just says
>that your definitions are rather limited.  Accepting God is not so much a
>matter only of rejecting a natural explaination but determining why there
>are any explainations at all.

Considering we have to assume your definition of god being existence
to make this work, well, I'm not making those kind of assumptions
today. Our defintions are rather "limited." We like having one word
meaning one thing. You want "natural" to include god, which has not
been demonstrated as "natural" by our definition of it.

>Observing the world and saying what we see is natural does not mean that
>there is any reason why the world is like it is.  There is no reason
>why the world is orderly and observable.  A naturalistic explaination
>does not say why anything happens it mearly says that it does, and that we
>observe it happening according to defined patterns.

Right! We're observing the world, not making assumptions about why
the theory of gravitation worked out to be just that way. I don't see
any way of us finding out, since I'm not assuming there was someone
who worked them out in advance of the big bang. You want so desperately
to explain god away as a natural part of scientific inquiry by making
god "natural." No one is assuming any reason for things happening
except for god-believers.

>As far as I can tell no one knows why the world comforms to reasonable well
>defined patterns (If any one has a good answer then let me know!).

Well, we're not too worried about "why"...we're more interested in the
patterns themselves, as they have a bearing on our lives...

>Tim Austin.
>
>austin@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au.

Martin Schulte
Newsgroups: alt.atheism