I was grateful to see a few people had read my posts and taken time to comment so soon after I started. I know posts and comments on topics like religion can often be one side telling the other they are wrong, proselytizing, etc. I am not interested in that. I really would like to understand why people think the way they do and honestly would like to understand believers answers to my question. I don’t have much of an opportunity to discuss religion in the real world, so I would like to answer one of the comments here, even though I fear the comment was more proselytizing.
In response to my post on the fundamental question for faith, Russ says:
Because you are unable to use faith to determine truth does not prove that others cannot. In addition, the existence of false gods and false religions does not prove that there is no true faith.
I never said my inability to use faith proves others can’t. I simply asked what is the basis for anyone? I’m admitting ignorance, so how does Russ determine which faith statements are true and which are not? I honestly would like to know if there is any justification for discerning true faith statements from false statements. Russ does not answer me in his comment.
His second sentence is true, of course. Just because there are a wide variety of faiths doesn’t mean they are all wrong. It is estimated that there are about 30,000 religions in the world. All that proves is that at least 29,999 are false. One of them could be true, but since the 30,000 contradict each other, only one could be completely true (others could be partially true, since many claims overlap). It is possible that you have the right one. I did not claim the existence of “false Gods” disproves a real God. I would simply like to know how to determine which are false. They are all faith claims. Each uses the same subjective validation. How do you determine true faith claims from false faith claims?
In fact, I think the existence of so many different religions is a direct result of this problem. Many new denominations arise from a split in an old denomination. An issue of doctrine arises and the believers are split into two camps that disagree. Since there is no way to distinguish which claim is correct, they simply split into those that have faith in claim one and those that have faith in claim two. Later, each of these will split again. There is no way to resolve the splits.
It is instructive to compare this with science. In science, we also sometimes see controversies in which scientists are split into two camps. For example, in the 1980s there were some who said the K-T extinction was caused by a meteorite and those who said it was caused by volcanic activity. But unlike with faith, in science there are ways to resolve these disputes and determine a false statement and a true statement. After about a decade of debate, it was resolved and you no longer will find anyone claiming that the iridium anomaly or shocked quartz is caused by volcanoes. In science, schisms always eventually reunite. In religion, they continue to split and split again. The reason for the difference is criteria to distinguish true from false statements.
The problem becomes even more serious when we realize that people make faith claims other than those that are part of a denomination. Each individual in a congregation may believe God has communicated with him or her and act out of faith. So instead of 30,000 different faith claims, we have hundreds of millions.
Conservative Christians often object to what they see as a moral relativism that arises without God. However, if there is no objective way to determine the truth of faith claims, then it is they who are the relativists. Another commenter points out that the believers he talks to say faith comes from God and they validate it by the subjective feeling of assurance. However, every one of millions of often contradictory beliefs claim to come from God and they all feel the same subjectively. Sometimes people do terrible things based on faith. Unless you are a relativist, they can’t all be true.
Russ goes on to quote a Bible verse of uncertain relevance to support his claim. But the claim of authority for the Bible is itself a matter of faith, and others claim authority for the Koran. How can we determine which claim is false? Since the existence of God is not evident or undeniable to me, does that disprove his quote that claims it is? As a scientist, I know that one of the least reliable means to evaluate a theory is to determine whether it subjectively feels right or seems evident. As Carl Sagan said:
Science is based on a fundamental insight-that the degree to which an idea seems to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true, and the way to distinguish factual ideas from false ones is to test them by experiment.
That’s the way science does it. How does faith do it?
Tags: faith
May 30, 2008 at 8:12 pm |
That’s the way science does it. How does faith do it?
Science deals with the physical universe. Faith deals with the immaterial universe. The scientific method is the best tool known to mankind to determine truth in the physical universe – however, it is incapable to determine truth outside of the time-space-continuum.
So, how does faith determine truth?
I believe in you. I believe in you because you have chosen to reveal yourself to me. However, if you had not chosen to reveal yourself, I could never know you.
The same is true with God. God is unknowable unless He chooses to reveal Himself to man. Therefore, any religious system that attempts to know God by the efforts of the “believer” is destined for failure.
So the question is, has God revealed Himself to man?
When we look at the creation, we see order. We see design. We “see” through the eye that God has placed in our head and we hear through the ear the sounds of the creation. We understand and communicate and design with the mind that God has placed in this body of clay.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him? [Psalm 8:3,4]
God has revealed Himself to mankind through the creation. The creation is undeniable. Yet in spite of the fact that science has never witnessed “something” come from “nothing”, man is sure that the universe is the exception to this rule.
So man can know general things about the Creator by looking at the creation. The vastness of the creation speaks of the Creator’s power and the age of the creation speaks of the creator’s authority over time and the design in creation – the eye and the ear and the mind – speak of the wisdom and knowledge of the creator. Truly, the heavens declare to man the glory of the God who created them.
However, most men refuse the witness of the creation. Instead, they insist that the universe is the product of nothing. For out of nothing comes all that we see and know.
…although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools… [Rom 1:21,22]
When a person can look into the creation – the vastness of the heavens and the wisdom of the design of the body, etc. – and that person has no desire to know or to worship the Maker of the creation, God insists that that person is “proud”.
God resists the proud… [James 4:10]. He is not obligated to reveal Himself any further to those who deny the witness of the creation. To those who will receive the witness of the creation, He will give further revelation – for He is unknowable to man unless He chooses to reveals Himself.
May 31, 2008 at 2:39 pm |
Your answer has two components. First, you offer reasons for God. You refer to design and order and an indirect reference to first cause. This is the use of reason, not faith, and that is not what I was discussing. There have been reasoned arguments for God at least since the time of Plato. I have carefully and considered them and don’t find them convincing, but they do use reason. If you and I wanted to discuss it, we would both understand the rules of reason and evidence. We might still disagree, but we would agree on how to approach it.
The second part of your answer relies on God revealing himself, which requires faith. Order in nature can be used as an argument for God, but not that God lived as a man 2000 years ago and was resurrected. Let’s just say that I found the reason based arguments for God convincing and I grant you that God exists. I sincerely want to know more about him. I want to know if there is one God or many. Is God three people in one? Was Mohammad his prophet? Is the book of Wisdom God’s word as the Catholics say or apocryphal as Protestants say? Am I saved by faith or works? Did the angel Moroni reveal gold tablets with the book of Mormon to Joseph Smith?
The only answer you give is that God might choose to reveal himself. There are people who claim God revealed each of the above. There are people who claim different books as revelation. They all feel it with exactly the same strength and conviction as you. I have studied how people believe things, and many people feel with absolute conviction things that are demonstratively false. So even if I were to feel this revelation strongly myself, that means nothing.
It certainly doesn’t solve the problem of relativism. Believers often claim that if you are atheists, then anything goes. If it feels good, do it. Whatever I feel is right, since there is no higher power. Morality is purely subjective (I don’t believer that is true, but that is the claim). But the only evidence you have offered is subjective—if it feels good, believe it. Each of hundreds of thousands of people all feel that way. If the criteria for assessing faith claims is simply a feeling of revelation, then if someone believes that revelation has shown us that Yahweh was an alien who designed humanity, as the Realians do, then you cannot possibly argue against it.
May 31, 2008 at 8:27 pm |
“We “see” through the eye that God has placed in our head”
I have heard this many times, and it makes no sense to me. When people consider the world around them, they see what they want to see. I can walk through a peaceful meadow and, if I try real hard, imagine that a god somewhere made this beautiful spot just for me, so that I’ll say, “Wow, what a cool god to have made all this beauty!” And then I can walk through some other spot of the world that is run down or ravaged, and exclaim, “Surely there is no god.” The believer will say that it’s man’s fault for the state of our world . . . we messed up what God intended. My point is that God can be found anywhere if you are looking for him, or are willing to consider only that God must have made it all. There are other ways of “seeing” the world . . .
“God opposes the proud” is simply a self-righteous way of saying, “If you’d just believe it, you’d get it.” I hear that from my Christian friends and I think, “Then why are there so many believers . . . ” for they are the ones who more often that not betray a sense of pride.
I’m rambling. and perhaps butting in, but I’m enjoying the conversation.
Brian
June 1, 2008 at 3:07 pm |
I didn’t comment on those things, because I wanted to focus on the main question that wasn’t answered, but I agree. It seems to me God has the perfect job. He gets all of the credit for the good and none of the blame for the bad.
June 2, 2008 at 2:48 pm |
You want to measure the value of faith so you place faith on your scale and it measures zero. So how do you know if the problem is with faith or if the problem is with your scale? A scale designed to measure the physical world is of no value when it attempts to measure the immaterial world.
… But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty… [1 Cor 1:27]
Every person exercises faith. Every time you board an aircraft you are placing your faith in the crew and the controllers and the engineers and the assemblers and the inspectors.
So faith is of no value when it is placed in something that is unreliable. But is it of value when it is placed in sound designs and systems.
Faith in science is admirable for the scientific method is repeatable and predictable. However, evolution is not repeatable so it stands to reason that faith in evolution is of no value.
You cannot prove that faith in God is of no value. To prove that faith in God is of no value, you must first prove that God is not reliable. You cannot prove that God does not exist. And, you cannot prove that God does not reveal Himself to some while resisting others.
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. [1 Cor 2:14,15]