About Belief, Religion and God

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
301

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Not one of these–apostles, prophets, whatever–carried out miracles because his faith was that strong. They worked miracles because they were tasked specifically with being a part of key moments, periods, in revelational/salvational history. Not because they earned it (we all fall short), but because they were the men carrying out the plan, in the Lord’s service. Atheist Christian theology, the stuff found on blogs, is not Christian theology.
[/quote]

If you say so - I’ll take what is written.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’m going to wind this down. At this point I’ve repeated my position a number of times on the major question put foward, met the ‘unbeatable’ Joshua Challenge in single combat, and even tackled some side questions that are just barely relevant. As far as I’m concerned this remained civil. And, hey, who can ask for anything more?
[/quote]

Your position is incoherent, that is the problem. As to the Joshua Challenge, it’s not ‘unbeatable’, I don’t even know what that would mean in the context of a philosophical dilemma. What it points out is that your morality is subjective and arbitrary.

302

…and an exam about your religious values: Account Suspended?

303

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…and an exam about your religious values: Account Suspended?

[/quote]

I like ebon’s musing. The author is really intelligent. He used to participate on the CARM boards before it went south.

304

[quote]Meatros wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Not one of these–apostles, prophets, whatever–carried out miracles because his faith was that strong. They worked miracles because they were tasked specifically with being a part of key moments, periods, in revelational/salvational history. Not because they earned it (we all fall short), but because they were the men carrying out the plan, in the Lord’s service. Atheist Christian theology, the stuff found on blogs, is not Christian theology.
[/quote]

If you say so - I’ll take what is written.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’m going to wind this down. At this point I’ve repeated my position a number of times on the major question put foward, met the ‘unbeatable’ Joshua Challenge in single combat, and even tackled some side questions that are just barely relevant. As far as I’m concerned this remained civil. And, hey, who can ask for anything more?
[/quote]

Your position is incoherent, that is the problem. As to the Joshua Challenge, it’s not ‘unbeatable’, I don’t even know what that would mean in the context of a philosophical dilemma. What it points out is that your morality is subjective and arbitrary. [/quote]

See my other posts.

305

I guess we will agree to disagree Sloth. Although, if you will, can you clear up the Christian Joshua Challenge for me? I swear I’m not being difficult, but let me see if I follow you here:

Are you contending that the Joshua Challenge is basically the same for Christians as the one that atheists present; ie, Christians talk about the faith it takes and all that to do such things or what such things mean.

Or are you saying that there is more to it then just the challenge I’m talking about? Like, there’s some other issue in Joshua that is referred to as the Joshua Challenge? Like, for pure example, in the book of Joshua it also talks about how if you have enough faith you can eat 20 hot dogs…In other words, something completely different then what I was referring to.

Thanks for the civil conversation and all.

306

For the atheistic understanding, what we’ve discussed, I’m not sure it’s called the Joshua Challenge. Though the same conversation takes place.

Now, for those things actually called “Joshua Challenge,” it’s a common enough title for events and retreats.

The phrase is also used to refer to Joshua challening the people to remain faithful.

It’s also used to refer to the challenge put to Joshua. To remain strong in the absence of Moses. To leave the wilderness and continue on, despite the loss of this leader.

307

Ah, okay, fair enough.

308

Meatros,

To be honest saying all atheists believe this or all agnostics believe this is an unfair generalization. It would be like saying all Christians believe this or all Buddhists do this. That’s why when I talk about my faith I use the term Christian to identify myself with common beliefs, but I don’t like to be clumped in the same category as others since we have differing ideas in certain areas. I’m sure as an atheist your beliefs differ from others that call themselves atheists.

I know that I went through a long phase of disbelief myself. I guess I would have been more agnostic though as I always believed that there was a God just not that it was what I had been taught for years. I still believe in a much more logical approach to God probably than many. If you’ve ever heard of Lee Strobel he’s an author I would recommend checking out. He was an atheist that went to church basically so that he could write an article on how false it was, but he ended up becoming a Christian. He takes a very rational view towards explaining his faith.

309

[quote]BBriere wrote:
Meatros,

To be honest saying all atheists believe this or all agnostics believe this is an unfair generalization.[/quote]

I’ve been talking about what the words mean, not what the people they pertain to believe. Further, wasn’t it you who started the generalizations by suggesting there is no such thing as an atheist?

[quote]BBriere wrote:
It would be like saying all Christians believe this or all Buddhists do this. That’s why when I talk about my faith I use the term Christian to identify myself with common beliefs, but I don’t like to be clumped in the same category as others since we have differing ideas in certain areas. I’m sure as an atheist your beliefs differ from others that call themselves atheists.[/quote]

I’m still confused why you are telling me this, when it was you who stipulated that atheists were empiricists. I’m not the one who has been generalizing.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
I know that I went through a long phase of disbelief myself. I guess I would have been more agnostic though as I always believed that there was a God just not that it was what I had been taught for years. I still believe in a much more logical approach to God probably than many.[/quote]

Fair enough.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
If you’ve ever heard of Lee Strobel he’s an author I would recommend checking out. [/quote]

I’m very familiar with him. I’ve read two of his books and watched his ‘faith under fire’ show. I do not thinking highly of him.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
He was an atheist that went to church basically so that he could write an article on how false it was, but he ended up becoming a Christian.[/quote]

Not quite. He was an atheist who became a christian WHO THEN decided years later to write a book “skeptical” of Christianity. He states this on the first few pages of the Case for Christ, IIRC.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
He takes a very rational view towards explaining his faith. [/quote]

Not really - he generally only interviews those who already agree with his conclusions. He plays the role of the skeptic and he fails abysmally at it. I will give him some credit though, some of his material is interesting in that it brings out a good representation of the fundamentalist side of Christianity.

310

I know. I was referring to the fact that I made a generalization about atheists which was unfair. Again, it’s like if I someone met Christians who believed in snake handling and said that obviously Christians believe in snake handling. I think Lee Strobel does a good job at presenting the fact there are some who are “familiar” with Christianity but honestly have no idea what it’s really about. It’s unfortunate the for Christianity the voice too often is with either the views of television “preachers” who may or may not teach the true message of Christ or with theology professors that try to make the message as non offensive and devoid of it’s true meaning.

Therefore many people are presented with a radical view like God wants you to be wealthy and have whatever you want or Jesus was a peaceful, loving man that differed from the God of the Old Testament.

311

[quote]BBriere wrote:
I know. I was referring to the fact that I made a generalization about atheists which was unfair. Again, it’s like if I someone met Christians who believed in snake handling and said that obviously Christians believe in snake handling.[/quote]

Okay, I hear you. I agree with you btw. I’m guilty of generalization as well. I try my best though, although there is more that one can generalize about Christian then there are about atheists - at least in my opinion. Then again, with Christians like John Shelby Spong, I’m constantly trying to figure out what those similiarities might be… :wink:

So far, I have: Something to do with Jesus and the bible. :wink: har har…

[quote]BBriere wrote:
I think Lee Strobel does a good job at presenting the fact there are some who are “familiar” with Christianity but honestly have no idea what it’s really about. It’s unfortunate the for Christianity the voice too often is with either the views of television “preachers” who may or may not teach the true message of Christ or with theology professors that try to make the message as non offensive and devoid of it’s true meaning.
[/quote]

Perhaps I’m harsher on Strobel then I should be. I obtained one degree in a field near Journalism and I just don’t find his approach as honest as I think he tries to come across. That said, I do think he does a good job of exposing Christians to difficult issues that they might not have considered before. So I will give him that. He also tends to interview the best experts in the particularly narrow field (typically fundamentalist mindset), so there’s that too. What I have a problem with is that he presents it all as a dichotomy, to some extent, when critical scholarship is not that cut and dry.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
Therefore many people are presented with a radical view like God wants you to be wealthy and have whatever you want or Jesus was a peaceful, loving man that differed from the God of the Old Testament.[/quote]

Fair enough, this is a good point for Strobel as well.

312

Don’t forget, Christianity also has something to do with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I think they were Jesus’ brother and pet respectively. At least so is to my understanding. Seriously though, it’s a real short coming of some Christians that they don’t know the Bible. That’s why some of these television preachers have such a huge following. They preach a good message that sounds like something that would be in the Bible, but they never actually reference it. It’s kind of like being an umpire but never actually reading the baseball rule book. Or trying to get in shape after only reading an article on H.I.T.

313

[quote]Meatros wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
Joshua is a really weird book, no doubt about. I am not certain why God brought armageddon on those people. Perhaps the answer is in the Penetuch, but I don’t know. I will have to research it and see.[/quote]

I think it perfectly illustrates the subjectiveness of God’s morality. Then again the entire idea of God creating a ‘chosen’ people doesn’t make much sense if you accept the idea that he created everything and everyone.

[quote]pat wrote:
But like I said before, fuck with the Jews and it’s your ass. Look at history, has anybody whose ever fucked with the Jews not pay dearly for doing so?[/quote]

In what sense? Certainly the Romans didn’t pay for doing so. Their empire collapsed centuries after their atrocities and as a result of a variety of factors. God was not one of them. The same goes for the Germans, who systematically exterminated 1/2 (more?) of all the Jews on the planet. Yet, it was mankind - not god - who stepped up to stop the atrocity.

It is only the ‘perfect’ and ‘all good’ god that has wiped out humanity time and time again. The bible reads like a primitive people putting together a justification for their treatment. It does not read like a divine revelation. Yes, that’s my opinion I realize, but it’s one that is backed up by the fact that the bible evolved over the eons. The beliefs evolved as well. There is an apologetic that this is a progressive revelation - but that makes no sense in light of what the bible actually says. God talked to people back in the Hebrew days - God was literally seen back then - yet, we are supposed to suppose that his message was garbled? That third and fourth hand sources contain more of his ‘revelation’ then a supposed first hand account (the pentatuach). THAT’S even with accepting the church’s stance on the authorship of the Old Testament. I don’t think many scholars today accept that the Pentatuach was written by Moses (especially when detailing his own death). IIRC, the documentary hypothesis is the widely accepted notion of how those books came about.[/quote]

This is a rather large discussion and I do care to indulge but I am not certain how much can do so. As for the old testament, it is a complicated thing to understand all the facets. As for Joshua. It is a difficult thing to comprehend but as you said, God wiped out people several times previously. There is two ways to look at this. From the perspective of ancient times, there were many nations with many religions based on material worship. God was establishing himself in this time when war and conquest was absolutely everything to mankind at the time. So God exploited this to establish himself as the one true God and quite frankly, it worked.
Second perspective is looking at it from God’s perspective. Death is just a transition, not the end of life. What he chooses to do after with the folks of Jericho or Ai I don’t know. But the bottom line of Joshua was to establish the one God and to do it in a means that all, in that time, understood, which is force.
Another thing to understand is that all the history that occurred in the early OT is spread over long stretches of time, but our reading of it makes it seem that all the events happen quickly in succession. As the OT continues and the writing become more modern and more coherent to our understanding the time stretches out and God gets less “mean”. I do not know if this fact is a matter of literature, or fact. If you ask me what I think about it? I don’t like it one bit. I figure that he’s God and he should be able to fix anything by a sheer act of will. So personally, I don’t know why he chose to do it the way he did it.

As for the Jews historically, I really don’t know. What I happen to know, nobody has come out better fucking with Jews.

314

[quote]Vegita wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Vegita wrote:

Pat, I am spiritual, or beleving in spirit and god, so I’m gonna ask you the questions slightly different, because I agree with what you just wrote. But why christianity? Were you given a platter of religions to choose from and selected christianity logically because you found it to be the most logically real religion? Or did christianity choose you because you were born into a christian family and you were taught christian values from the time you were a young person with a highly maleable mind?

V[/quote]

There is no doubt being raised as a Christian played a role in my continuing to be so. If I were nothing and able to choose a religion, would I choose Christianity, I don’t know. This does not mean I blindly accepted it either, but it is able to stand up to scrutiny.

My over simplified view of religion is this, it is a means by which to communicate with God. The rituals and history associated with religion is a way to make things uniform. Especially in the old days, where communication was very slow and education was scant at best, the easiest things to do for the people is to establish rules and rituals to formalize this communication with out everyone having to be “enlightened” by another.For instnace, the Buddhists hole up in temples for years to get enlightenment, who has that kind of time? If everybody were able to spend loads of time educating, learning and postulating, then organized religion probably would not be necessary. Also, these things were done to help out the community at large. For instance, look a circumcision. Why circumcise, well hygiene ain’t so good so if you want to keep your dick, cut off the foreskin so it does not get infected. Why on the 8th day? Because the clotting factors in the human body are highest on that day. The danger is when the rules and regulations become the focus of the religion and not the relationship with God. When this happens you become pharasedic, where the rules become more important than God himself. This, unfortunately happens a lot in religion. “Whoops, you sinned. You’re fucked now.”
That is rituals as applicable to religion.

Why Catholic? I believe in Jesus, I believe he is who he said he was and he started it himself, period. If I am going to be Christian, why not the tradition that Christ himself established? Problem is, Christ started it, but he doesn’t run it, people do and people fuck up, a lot. Actually, to me that fact that Catholicism, has survived and so well, is a miracle in itself. People with in the church have done their level best to destroy it, yet it’s here and thrives (despite Europe).

I also like the rituals of the church and it does succeed in my goal which is to get closer to God. He hears me a lot more than I hear him, but it works and I am at peace.

As long as people are in charge of religions, there will be abominations to come out; people are to stupid to do other wise. I am ok with this because I my self am not perfect and hence don’t deserve a perfect church. I would be oddly out of place.

In the end, it doesn’t much matter as it is between you and God. And what happens beyond that, is your choice, not God’s.[/quote]

I wish all christians thought as you do, you and sloth are farther apart from eachother, than you and I are, yet you and sloth are christians and I am not. As I mentioned previously, the single best part of christianity and the only thing that should be focuesd on in my opinion is the life and teachings of Jesus. I think what I just read leads me to believe you hold a somewhat similar view.

Also, thank you for admitting that your religion is not perfect, and it is precicely because of man that it isn’t. If you go back and read my arguments against christianity being valid, it is mainly that even if there was a unified message from god back then, I do not believe it could have passed through 2000+ years of mens influence without becoming tainted and falsified. I can read scripture and with just a little changing of the message, something which could very reasonably happen on purpose of by accident I can relate almost all of the scriptures directly to my own personal experience with my higher self. So it is resonable to me that at the very least, Jesus was a human with a very wide open channel to his higher self or god if you will. But I just can’t go much farther than that with some of the claims made by the bible.

V[/quote]

I basically stick to my life philosophy which is to keep is simple. Between the 10 commandments and the ethical teachings of Jesus, that is more or lass all you need. If you take care of the big stuff the little stuff takes care of itself.
No religion has exclusive rights to God. All people have equal access should they choose it.
Jesus advised to love God and love your neighbor with equal vigor. Do this and you are doing what God wants.

315

[quote]ephrem wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…i misunderstood Pat, i generally use the term “metaphysical” in a divine or spiritual sense, not abstract thought. But even seen in that light, i don’t get how this relates to anything godly or absolute. Explain?
[/quote]

Metaphysics is not the stuff of religion. There are many aspects, facets, and layers. Everything rolls up, however. We can agree perhaps that, say morality exists. Where does it come from? And then where does that come from, etc. This is actually what becomes the cosmological form of argument for the existence of God.

If you follow the chain of questions you have one of two scenarios, an infinite regress or a stop or conclusion.
Infinite regress is a logical fallacy, because it begs the question…For innstance, “Why are we here, because we’re here…Roll the bones” ~ Neil Peart

You cannot answer a philosophical question with a logical fallacy, it invalidates the arguemt, so you have to stop it to make it deductively correct. So you have a succession of things, each caused by the other. What properties must something have that started the process?
Well, it has to be able to cause with out being caused. If it is not, it cannot be the initiator. If it cannot be put in to existence, it must necessarily have always been as well. It could not just pop into existence with out itself being caused. And there you have it, the cosmological argument for the existence of God.

The beauty of the argument, is that you can start at any point. When dealing the physical, you have the problem of time, events preceding one another. However, once you hit the metaphysical, time ceases to be a problem as metaphysical objects are not subject to time. For instance, the “idea” or “point” of chair is the same whether discovered a million years ago, or today.
Lastly, in metaphysics, you only discover what is there, we are not capable of anything original. The “laws” of physics was discover not invented. The principals of math were discovered not invented. If it were invented, we could change the ‘rules’ and we cannot. It’s not relative, but completely concrete. I like to be rooted in the concrete.

My biggest challenge with atheists is to get them to understand that they deal in the metaphysical everyday, if not constantly. Once we get past that point, then the order becomes much easier to understand. [/quote]

…there are a couple of flaws in your line of reasoning pat. That morality exists does not automatically lead towards a Creator. Time is a philosophical concept that does not actually exist. Therefore, you can’t say one thing, the Universe, must have a Creator because it cannot exist by itself, when that same Creator is able to exist by itself…

[/quote]

That morality exists does not automatically lead towards a creator in the sense that you cannot use the line of reasoning that: “Morality exists, therefore
God exists.” But that’s not how it works. Morality exists, what is morality? It is good vs. evil? What is good? what is evil and where did it all come from. As continue to regress as to the origin it will eventually lead you to an uncaused-cause.
Time is the measurement of movement and change. If nothing moved and nothing changed, there would be no time. Time does not itself exist as a separate entity. It’s just a measurement. It is a sticky thing to say time does not exist when it is necessary for the sciences, for you cannot measure against that which does not exist. But we can measure with time.
As to the universe, well where did it come from? Big Bang? OK where did that come from? And so on. An infinite regress cannot be the answer as the answer eventually begs the question. The only way to stop it is to have an uncaused-cause. That which can cause and not be caused itself. When you think about the properties an uncaused-cause must have, it must be eternal and sit outside the causal chain, necessarily. The buck stops there.

[quote]
…the Universe exists, that i can verify. Whether God exists is something i can only believe in, and that i’m unable to. Watch this vid: The Known Universe by AMNH - YouTube on The Known Universe: The Known Universe takes viewers from the Himalayas through our atmosphere and the inky black of space to the afterglow of the Big Bang. Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world’s most complete four-dimensional map of the universe…

…you say you like to be rooted in something concrete, yet opt for a belief instead of reality and that is something i don’t understand. You may believe to have everything figured out by believing in God, but these beliefs don’t actually prove or mean anything what our reality in concerned…[/quote]

One of the main goals of philosophy is to explore what actually can be “known” and when I say known, I mean with 100% certainty. You say the universe exists and you can verify that. Really, how do you know? Books, TV, your senses? Can books TV not be wrong? Can I not fool your senses?
Could I not take a couple hundred micrograms of LSD and totally alter your sense of reality?
Des Cartes went through this rather painful exercise where finally determined that the only thing he could prove is that he has thoughts and can think and therefore, he does in fact exist. So goes his famous quote “I think, therefore I am” Des Cartes was wrong. All he could prove is that something exists, he could not prove that he existed or has possession of it. Kant stated that “Reality exists, but we cannot know what it is.” That’s more like it.

The reason I am name dropping dead guys is to assert that these exercises have been done and the conclusions tend to be that we cannot know with 100% certainty that everything we know about our universe isn’t some sort of grand illusion. It’s not that I think it is, it’s just not provable.
So empirical / a posteriori knowledge is useful knowledge. A priori knowledge is real knowledge as it functions on pure reason. You need both to get through life. Most things fall under the first, but what is truly knowable falls under the latter.
Damn, that wore me out…

316

[quote]ephrem wrote:
…and an exam about your religious values: Account Suspended?

[/quote]

Not sure what this is supposed to do? I could come up with an assholish multiple choice questionnaire for atheists too.

  1. You’re the leader of a country and a region has just spoken ill of you. Do you:

A. Cut off their supply lines and starve them to death.
B. Send in the army and kill them all off with a guns.
C. Bulldoze the houses, kill all the men and collect the women and children and throw them in to concentration camps.
Please explain you answer…

317

[quote]Meatros wrote:
Again, for the Christians, I ask:

Why ought we do what God tells us to do?

Is it just because he can punish us? If so, then there is no special basis for morality (ie, God is not needed as an absolute basis for morality), since it equates to might makes right.[/quote]

This would first require believing God exists. Otherwise it doesn’t make much sense.

318

One term I don’t like to hear used is “blind faith.” It’s true that some Christians as well as many others, religious or not, have blind faith. What does it mean? Basically a faith in something that has never been seen or proven. Yes, I realize that in any religion faith in the unseen is necessary. However, if you believe you must be well knowledgable in the essential teachings of that religion. For Christians this means reading the Bible, for Jews the Torah, for Muslims the Koran, Zoroastrians the Avesta, etc. This can also apply to someone who espouses Darwinian evolution but doesn’t know the contradictory scientific findings or that Darwin used his theories to promote racism. Regardless of what you believe, be well versed in it and be ready to defend your beliefs based on your knowledge. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul holds the Bereans in highest esteem because they test even his writings against what is already written in the Bible. I feel half the television “preachers” such as Joel Osteen would have know leg to stand on if Christians really tested his words against what was in the Bible. I more respect an atheist that is well versed in his theories than any believer that can’t quote the most basic scriptures. Don’t use true “blind faith.” Know what your belief system is based on.

319

[quote]pat wrote:
This is a rather large discussion and I do care to indulge but I am not certain how much can do so. As for the old testament, it is a complicated thing to understand all the facets. As for Joshua. It is a difficult thing to comprehend but as you said, God wiped out people several times previously. There is two ways to look at this. From the perspective of ancient times, there were many nations with many religions based on material worship. God was establishing himself in this time when war and conquest was absolutely everything to mankind at the time. So God exploited this to establish himself as the one true God and quite frankly, it worked.[/quote]

That’s looking at the conquest itself and not the particulars. Although, from a ‘creator’ aspect I’m not entirely convinced that this view makes as much sense as it appears to at first blush. The reason I say this is because God created everyone. He then destroyed the wicked and everyone came from the line of Noah. In a sense, everyone is his creation. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to suggest that he would favor one group over another - I mean, why would one group get ‘inside’ knowledge, so-to-speak, to confirm their beliefs and all, while the other groups, who you would, would obviously need a little more input (since they were going against God’s wishes), didn’t get any confirmation.

[quote]pat wrote:
Second perspective is looking at it from God’s perspective. Death is just a transition, not the end of life. What he chooses to do after with the folks of Jericho or Ai I don’t know. But the bottom line of Joshua was to establish the one God and to do it in a means that all, in that time, understood, which is force.[/quote]

This is a little trickier. Are we talking about interpreting this event through New Testament eyes, in which case the people would all be damned to eternity for non belief. Or are we looking at it through the beliefs of the Jews at the time, in which case, they would be pretty much damned to Sheol for a little while and then they would essentially evaporate?

I don’t think from any perspective that it makes sense to kill the children. I mean, why would God have allowed the Amorite (sp?) women to become pregnant if he was just going to slaughter the children anyway? Why not incorporate the children into the tribe? Surely God could have provided them with excellent resources and instruction so that they would realize that they had been raised wrong (or for the really young ones, just raise them correctly).

[quote]pat wrote:
Another thing to understand is that all the history that occurred in the early OT is spread over long stretches of time, but our reading of it makes it seem that all the events happen quickly in succession. As the OT continues and the writing become more modern and more coherent to our understanding the time stretches out and God gets less “mean”. I do not know if this fact is a matter of literature, or fact. If you ask me what I think about it? I don’t like it one bit. I figure that he’s God and he should be able to fix anything by a sheer act of will. So personally, I don’t know why he chose to do it the way he did it.[/quote]

Yes, the history is spread out, but Joshua is basically a campaign and the life of Joshua.

The ultimate trouble with all of this is that if you give God a free pass for such atrocities, then what does it really mean to be ‘holy’? Or ‘moral’? Why believe that God will have your ‘back’ in the future?

[quote]pat wrote:
This would first require believing God exists. Otherwise it doesn’t make much sense. [/quote]

Yes it would - by all means, presuppose it and then answer the question.

320

[quote]BBriere wrote:
One term I don’t like to hear used is “blind faith.” It’s true that some Christians as well as many others, religious or not, have blind faith. What does it mean? Basically a faith in something that has never been seen or proven. Yes, I realize that in any religion faith in the unseen is necessary. However, if you believe you must be well knowledgable in the essential teachings of that religion.[/quote]

I do think that a lot of Christians engage in blind faith - the sort you are talking about. I do not think that all of them do though. I think that there are other Christians who take ‘faith’ to mean ‘trust’. In this, I mean that the Christians believe they are rationally justified in believing in God/Bible/etc, and they TRUST his covenant in the same way (well, a similar way) that I would trust my wife not to break the vows of marriage.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
For Christians this means reading the Bible, for Jews the Torah, for Muslims the Koran, Zoroastrians the Avesta, etc. This can also apply to someone who espouses Darwinian evolution but doesn’t know the contradictory scientific findings or that Darwin used his theories to promote racism.[/quote]

Um…Darwinian evolution basically dissolved with the modern synthesis in the 1940-50’s. Further, Darwin was actually advanced in racial equality for his day and age. He didn’t use his theories to ‘promote’ racism. I’m not even sure what you mean by that.

[quote]BBriere wrote:
Regardless of what you believe, be well versed in it and be ready to defend your beliefs based on your knowledge. In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul holds the Bereans in highest esteem because they test even his writings against what is already written in the Bible. I feel half the television “preachers” such as Joel Osteen would have know leg to stand on if Christians really tested his words against what was in the Bible. I more respect an atheist that is well versed in his theories than any believer that can’t quote the most basic scriptures. Don’t use true “blind faith.” Know what your belief system is based on.[/quote]

You are the second person to bring up Joel in the last two days. Did something occur with him or something?