What is faith ....

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"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Well, if somebody invokes rights or some other moral statement then you can ask them how you can know about this truth and essentially from there break it down into unknowability. This is most effective against moral standards you don't necessarily agree with as you can possibly get them to agree with one that you do believe because deep down most people in our society have some moral similarities. This means that you might be able to insert a neutral seeming ethical philosophy such as utilitarianism as your opponent will likely accept it. If there is no moral similarity on any level between you and your opponent though then argument is somewhat useless.

Already posted that quote.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp1046045.html#1046045

I believe you omitted numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

well, depending on what kind of debate you are in, in a debate when something substantial is needed, then it would be useless, because it does not provide a solution, other than creating more questions or possibly confusion, depending the case, instead of answers.

There is something curious about this translation, which I wonder, it seems a contradiction, the word 'evidence' with 'not seen', or it is not?

I think it's quite eloquent.

That is one definition, but not the most general.

Philosophy: The search for knowledge and truth, especially about the nature of man and his behaviour and beliefs

Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary. K Dictionaries Ltd. 28 Nov. 2007. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/philosophy>.

Also, I think there is more to reason than logical deduction.



Are people not more likely to believe something that gives them psychological benefit? This has no bearing on actual truth value, but it does have a bearing on how much I trust others’ beliefs to be truth. I am less likely to believe people who make claims based on wishful thinking. That’s all I’m saying.

Especially the "hoped for" part. In other words faith is wishful thinking.

So every time you hope for something, you're wrong?

Please read sentences more carefully.

Did I say that?

What didn't I read?

No, just as 'hoping' does not necessarily make things right either.



^ This sentence also has a meaning.

well, the 'wishful thinking' might have been interpreted like that. And well, Ragtime was defending his position.


well, in the end it doesn't make much sense to me, when you hear, reading the Bible properly or carefully, in context, etc. considering a good number of different interpretations existing. At least when it comes to that particular verse, I believe everyone agrees there.

Well if you base your belief on hope alone with nothing else backing it is usually wrong. I know Ragtime will say he does have backing, but of course I disagree.

Hence why it's "faith". And not all faith is blind. There's informed faith -- such as we all use every day. When we start a well-tuned car, we believe it will start. In fact, most of us are positive that it will, yet we have no proof or actual knowledge that it will, only that it probably will. And more than 99% of the time, we're right. That's informed faith. Knowledge gets us most of the way to the conclusion, and blind faith gets us the rest of the way. That combination makes informed faith, such as when many Bible prophecies have already come true -- that's hard knowledge which indicates God's existence and His truths.

So, informed faith is used when Christians decide: "God, it looks like you're real. I'm not totally sure, but I'm willing to leap in the direction that the knowledge is clearly pointing, and trust in you."
As I said, we all use informed faith on a daily basis. Anytime you turn a doorknob expecting the door to open, you're using faith. Faith based on past experience. It's no different for Christians. They've experienced God doing obvious miraculous things in their lives, and they remember those things as supporting evidence for God's existence and other truths.

Faith empowers, because a true skeptic or empiricist who values his life cannot drive a car or board an airplane that's about to take off, because his survival during those events has not been proven to him. So, a totally faithless person is infinitely weak -- impotent to make any decision whatsoever that he cares about at all. By contrast, the man of faith can accomplish even what he has not yet imagined he can, simply because he is willing to proceed down an uncharted path, by trusting his past knowledge to approximately indicate future results.

But true skeptics and empiricists are frozen in their tracks. They never really live. Their own philosophy paralizes them in the real world -- the world that requires firm decisions to be made from finite knowledge. Therefore, nothing can ever be accomplished and enjoyed without faith. It's impossible, as I've shown.

I agree that we all have had faith in something, ideology, belief and in someone, always, there are different types of faith and degrees of faith, I actually can't imagine a person without it.


well, I agree in the sense that your faith, it is an informed faith, as you have the knowledge from studies of the Bible, and from teachings from the church, which you have learned and you have faith in all of it based on that information.


I'm inclined to say that this may sound a little like (over)generalization, if someone can't drive a car or board a plane, then it would be for a lot of reasons, as would be characteristics of paranoia, anxiety attacks, etc. in some cases, but yes, in other cases, it might be because of not knowing the outcome and deciding not to take the risk, which it works as a defense mechanism.


if by empiricists you mean or include scientific method, then I would have to disagree here, as that either proves, disproves or discovers or expands new explanations about some things accepted as 'true' for a period of time.

But I agree here when it comes to strong skeptics or perhaps debunkers and philosophies such as nihilism, in which they would not have anything good to offer to society, if they are strongly attached to those things and if that influences their behaviour.

In order to do something productive for the good of society or humanity and stuff like that, you have to have some faith in a certain ideology you are following wether it is christian, other religion or secular. I really don't see accomplishing those positive aspects without it, if you just tend to reject any ideology for the sake of "skepticism".