Conversation with a Pastor

What are you talking about? To say I don't believe in Christian doctrine implies Christian doctrine is wrong. Otherwise, why would you not believe the truth?

And if you're implying that Christian doctrine is wrong then you have as much of a belief system as the Christians. Your belief system just entails that their claims are wrong. But you can't prove their claim is wrong, ergo you have faith.

 

I disagree, to suspend belief is not to say that it is wrong. To suspend belief in god does not mean I have to accept there is no god (which the poster was claiming). I am just rejecting the conditions in which Christains use to justify what is god; nothing more nothing less.

Secondly you can't prove Christian claims are wrong because it's logically IMPOSSIBLE to prove a negative.

For example Christians claim god to have human characteristics like justice and compassion. SUSPENDING BELIEF(skepticism) of that doesn't mean I to a certainty believe he doesnt hold those qualities. I'm just eliminating the assumption he does.

 

"proving a negative" means that you feel like their claim is false

Ergo you have faith that it's wrong.

Further, I'm not sure you understand the words which you're using. What does "suspend" mean? Suspend is a temporary condition. So tell me what you think "suspend belief" actually means.

 

And just to answer the thread... faith (at least the way Jesus used it) is essentially a lack of doubt.

Now, whether or not faith is good is dependent upon what you're having faith in. Faith in God, faith in Jesus, faith in a loved one... that faith is good. Faith that someone will die a painful death because of something they did... faith that no one will catch you raping a little child... that faith... not so good.

 

But is "feeling" like the claim is false mean certainty to any thing else?

To use my example from my last post I would say it means putting the burden of proof to those claiming god has the human characteristics of compassion and justice.

I don't know why it's so hard to understand this guys. Rejecting an assumption does not lead me to call something else truth. This is pretty much what skepticisim IS.

 

It's kinda sad that the two of you have/are ruining this thread. Couldn't you move your debate to private messaging?

 

It doesn't matter if you call something else truth. That's COMPLETELY and utterly irrelevant. You don't need to state something else is truth to state one thing is wrong. And if you state one thing is wrong, yet you can't prove it to be so then you are relying upon faith just as much as the individual whose claim it is.

 

Sorry I'll withdrawal.

 

Smart man.

 

You are 100% confused.

If you don't believe in something, clearly you believe it doesn't exist. That's what atheism is. It's the believe that there is no God. It's a belief. If you were agnostic, like Lizarddust said, then you could argue that you have no opinions either way. However, an atheist has a clear belief that there's no god. Point blank.

 

Yes you have.

 

At least you are consistent. You are now assuming I am an atheist.

 

Did you really mean to be so small as to post that?

I was simply suggesting that, it you really want to continue, take it to private messages.

 

And we did. But did you really mean to tell people who were talking about the topic of faith to take their discussion somewhere else? All while defending a thread topic that was essentially a guy having a mental masturbation session in regards to patting himself on the back for POSSIBLY making some woman at a church, whose job it is to try to help people, question her faith?

 

Her faith is remarkable, indeed.

You shot words at her for which she had no answer better than that evil ideas do not occur to her.
She was very solid a Christian.

Her better answer would have to ask you, "Why do science people have Hypotheses?"

Faith in some idea which later experiments prove correct is the value of faith for people who seek Truth.
Even in Science, many bad ideas existed on every subject, and they were discarded.

Bad social ideas, like your own faith that sexual promiscuity is OK, need be discarded too.
Don't they?

 

Another one who reads only part of a post.

 

Yes, as a minister of a "new thought" church told me, many and maybe most clergy are fortifying a belief structure they believe they need and is needed by others but have doubts about, even if they are unaware of those doubts. Their knowledge is centered around defending their model of that religion, not about critiquing their behaviors in relation to it. Joseph Campbell (world renown comparative theologian) wrote that our myths must be functional to the members of the culture to remain viable. Faith (a belief in the unseen) is the attachment of an emotional value to one's model of a potential outcome or circumstance. This can be a great coping mechanism if the emotions attached are positive or hopeful in nature or fear producing and pessimistic if a negative value is attached. Having those around us staying hopeful usually helps us stay in a positive frame of mind and some people need all the help they can get. The only way attaching an emotional value to a future probability model in helping evaluate the probability more concisely is if we are using it to focus away from other probabilities that we have attached negative values to. Using faith wisely and knowing ourselves may be a powerful resource or if not, a source of cognitive dissonance.

 

You're simply misusing terms.

Belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
Unbelief is lack of religious belief; an absence of faith.
Disbelief is the inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real. One synonm is 'lack of belief.

Good luck.

 

I read all of it, and quoted what answered the question.

 

Seems to some there is no such thing as an absence of faith.

 

I would add unconvinced and or skeptical

 

Cognitive Dissonance is the refusal to believe what one knows is true.

Bad social ideas, like faith that sexual promiscuity is OK, need be discarded too.
Don't they?

 

That is not what cognitive dissonance is.

 

?
If one has no belief in one thing, does that infer he has belief in opposition to, or different from...?

If one has no faith in the religious idea, that sexual promiscuity fills a nation with destructive bastards, does that mean he believes bastards are not destructive,...
...or that sexual promiscuity does not mean "bastards are coming upon us?"

 

...?
What is it?