Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

To: b_sharp

By reducing the Christian (or other religion's) concept of 'faith' to be equivalent with the 'faith' we have that our car will start in the morning is to rob it of all significance in the hearts and minds of spiritually centred people.
= = = =

Hogwash.

But perhaps avoidance or routine conscious ignorance of real Christian faith allows a certain amount of hogwash in one's thinking about it.

I say again . . . the specialness of Christian faith is THE ONE it's invested in. That makes all the difference. And that difference is more than sufficient for any measure or criteria seeking difference as meaningful or worth bothering about.

Life is life. Life in Christ--Resurrection Life is special . . . infinitely special . . . because of THE ONE it's IN.

Otherwise it's just life.

But, hey, even mundane faith is a lot better than the horror of even attempting to live life without faith--as impossible as that would be to go very far with.


329 posted on 09/24/2006 4:12:06 PM PDT by Quix (LET GOD ARISE AND HIS ENEMIES BE SCATTERED. LET ISRAEL CALL ON GOD AS THEIRS! & ISLAM FLUSH ITSELF)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 303 | View Replies ]


To: Quix
"Hogwash. "

You seem to have missed my point.

My point is not that your faith in God isn't special, in fact I am trying to get you to realize that faith in God is very different than the trust we have that things will behave consistently.

If you conflate the two meanings in an attempt to make science look like a religion you are guilty of equivocation, plain and simple.

I have faith that my car will start in the morning because I have experience that under the same weather conditions as I expect tomorrow it has started before. My faith that it will start is based on past experience and the consistency of those experiences. If I did not have those experiences I would have no faith that it would start.

Do you believe in God because he was there yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, or is your faith deeper than that? I'm sure that your faith in God is not based on some consistency in his actions.

If for some reason you disagree with me and you claim that the definition of faith is predicated on the object of the faith then you are faced with a dilemma. By claiming that science is a religion and acceptance of evolution is faith based then you are elevating evolution to an equivalence to God. Or the definition of each of those you mentioned in your previous post


. . at stop lights . . .
. . . at the MD's . . .
. . . at the food counters . . . especially when contemplating spinich! LOL . . .
. . . in close relationships
. . . in the Papal encyclicals proffered by the High Priests of the religion of science . . . many of which have been proven to be hoaxed, fudged etc. . . .
. . . that their car will start on cold mornings . . . wellll . . . that some cars will . . .
. . . that their spouses or significant other's will come home again day after tomorrow.

the Synthetic Theory of Evolution [my addition]

are different faiths than the faith in God (by the definition of faith you gave above) so you can't claim that science is the same as religion.

This can be simply stated. If the object of faith defines faith then all faiths with different objects are defined to be different. All faiths with the same definition must have the same or equivalent objects.
(BTW, this also works for the case where there are just two different classes of object, God and everything else) If you want to claim that evolution is a faith based religion you have to either elevate Evolution to equivalence with God, or lower your faith in God to be nothing but the observation of consistency and repeatability in physical events.

Or you can retain the specialness of your faith in God and just admit that science has nothing to do with religious faith.

379 posted on 09/24/2006 6:05:13 PM PDT by b_sharp (Objectivity? Objectivity? We don't need no stinkin' objectivity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 329 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson