Posted on 01/31/2014 2:06:06 PM PST by James R. Aist
Several years ago I heard someone make the statement that "To help someone accept Christ, just show them that they already use faith in their everyday life, and explain to them that all they have to do is use the same faith to believe in Jesus." Well, I didn't know why at first, but that statement just didn't seem to ring true, especially in light of what the Bible actually says about faith. So, I began to search it out more carefully, and that's how I came to realize that there are actually two kinds of faith, and that they are really very different.
(Excerpt) Read more at ipost.christianpost.com ...
If God doesn’t exist, you’re probably right—the word faith is irrelevant.
But if God does exist, then faith matters more than anything.
His flesh body is but his 'soul/spirit intellect returned to the Maker that sent it. WE allllll get a return trip after this flesh journey.
If there is no God, then all that exists is time and chance acting on matter. If this is true then the difference between your thoughts and mine correspond to the difference between shaking up a bottle of Mountain Dew and a bottle of Dr. Pepper. You simply fizz atheistically and I fizz theistically. This means that you do not hold to atheism because it is true , but rather because of a series of chemical reactions… … Morality, tragedy, and sorrow are equally evanescent. They are all empty sensations created by the chemical reactions of the brain, in turn created by too much pizza the night before. If there is no God, then all abstractions are chemical epiphenomena, like swamp gas over fetid water. This means that we have no reason for assigning truth and falsity to the chemical fizz we call reasoning or right and wrong to the irrational reaction we call morality. If no God, mankind is a set of bi-pedal carbon units of mostly water. And nothing else. D
You can't possibly know this, nor does anyone else. We're only a few thousand years out of the caves, and we've achieved space travel. Imagine what we'll know in a million years.
You seem to be making the case for God by saying that without him, life would be meaningless to you. While that may be true, it doesn't mean it is or would be meaningless to me or everyone else, nor does you wanting it to be true hold any weight over whether it is true.
I would love for their to be an afterlife, or some objective greater meaning. That doesn't mean there is one.
I never said they were the same thing. That said, your worldview is blinding you to something far more real than gravity. I fully realize you find that hard to believe, but it's true. The object of your faith is science, and mine is Christ. Your faith is built on empirical evidence, and mine is on historical evidence.
I don't have any faith in science, at least not in the same sense as your religious faith.
Scientific conclusions change all of the time, and if General Relativity or Mass/Energy Equivalence were disproven and replaced with better theories tomorrow, it wouldn't affect how I live my life one bit. In fact it would be exciting since we'd be a step closer to knowing the mechanics of the universe. There could be a massive change in the way science is conducted in the next few generations. Maybe we will ditch the current scientific method(s) for something else. That's what is great about science; it could all be wrong if we come up with a better explanation.
Could you say the same if they disproved Jesus' existence, or his claims?
Of course not. You've already made up your mind, and no amount of reasonable evidence could make you conclude otherwise.
There are only two options:
1) A God or gods is controlling the universe, or
2) According to atheists and Darwinists time and chance are the only factors at work in controlling the universe.
Where is your evidence that these are the only two options? Have you ever heard of Deism? What about a solution that is beyond human comprehension? I find it silly to think that a species only a few thousands years out of the caves has learned so much that they've narrowed the nature of an infinite cosmos down to Options A & B.
And time is relative. I find it hard to believe that something that is directly related to (or possibly "controlled" by) mass and gravity is "controlling the universe".
You are missing the point, the object of your confidence is the scientific method. Regardless of which theory prevails your confidence is still the scientific method. In reality your religion is humanism.
Scientific conclusions change all of the time, and if General Relativity or Mass/Energy Equivalence were disproven and replaced with better theories tomorrow, it wouldn't affect how I live my life one bit. In fact it would be exciting since we'd be a step closer to knowing the mechanics of the universe. There could be a massive change in the way science is conducted in the next few generations. Maybe we will ditch the current scientific method(s) for something else. That's what is great about science; it could all be wrong if we come up with a better explanation.
Here is a quote by one of your fellow Darwinists:
“I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning; consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption…. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do…. For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from an certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom..” Aldous Huxley, “Confession of a Professed Atheist,” Report: Perspective on the News, vol. 3 (June 1966), p. 19. From an article by Helming, “An Interview with God.”
Could you say the same if they disproved Jesus' existence, or his claims?
Of course not. You've already made up your mind, and no amount of reasonable evidence could make you conclude otherwise
You are dead wrong. My faith in Jesus is NOT based on credulity, rather it's based on solid historical evidence. If you could prove Jesus Christ was not God, then I would have to change, but my faith is based on CERTAINITY and not the whims of changing opinions.
Credulity. That many be how you see Christianity, but you are dead wrong, and I can destroy that position.
Nope. As I stated above, I'm open to mankind abandoning the scientific method for something else, maybe 100 years in the future or a million years; something that works better.
I don't really understand the point of the Huxley quote, and evolution only stands until we find a better explanation that fits the evidence, so I'm not really a Darwinist, since even Darwin was wrong on most of his conclusions.
Like I've been saying, you are perfectly comfortable feigning certainty about things that you couldn't possibly be certain about, whereas I'm not comfortable doing that. Maybe that's a better explanation of faith.
I am very familiar with Deism, and it falls under believing in God, albeit a god who sleeps all the time, and does not control the universe. For that reason most classify Deism as a form of atheism.
And time is relative. I find it hard to believe that something that is directly related to (or possibly "controlled" by) mass and gravity is "controlling the universe".
I am very aware time is related to matter. God controls the universe. Matter is not eternal.
What happened to historical evidence? How does history tell you what happened 10 billion years ago or a trillion years in the future?
This is why I largely prefer science. Scientists (at least the good ones) don't draw massive conclusions from no evidence.
Oh really! Science tells us inert matter through a virgin birth became living. btw, I don't see the earth as billions of years old.
That's fine. Every cosmologist and geologist not on the Discovery Institute payroll disagrees with you.
People who make it their business to know the age of the Earth know that it's billions of years old. Those who see a young earth are exclusively grouped in the English speaking evangelical community and are NOT in the business of knowing how old the Earth is.
I’m sorry I am just now seeing your post to me. I’ve been really busy and I have been away for a while. I’d like to ask you some questions about what you said in your post if you don’t mind. I don’t quite understand what you mean. How can a domain imperceptible to empiricism be perceived? Empiricism means a method of gaining knowledge through sensory perception, or am I wrong? I don’t understand how that would work. If you don’t want to respond I’ll understand since it’s been a while since the thread was originally posted. Thanks.
Rationalism is different than empiricism in that it focuses on logic and reason to perceive truth. Empiricism focuses on the five senses to verify truth. The spiritual domain requires faith to verify truth, which is provided by God Himself.
Angels without bodies may be perceived through faith in the spiritual domain. Some knowledge is provided spiritually, without any other source.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.