I love you . . . but you chose to burn . . .

[Hannibal]

theMutant:

That may be true for non-Catholics but not for Catholics.

No, it’s true of everyone who holds to a belief based on faith, and not reason, or logic or evidence. It’s definitional to faith.

Faith is the claim that one can hold to a belief without any justification at all - except desire. That’s what the term means. To redfine it in any way, would cut the legs out from under your position:

Hebrews, Chapter 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

 

[Hannibal]

YinYangMom:

Sure they do.

No they do not. No one can choose an option that one does not believe exists.

Despite all the Christians on the planet spreading God’s Word revealing His existence and plan for us an athiest still refuses to believe - they even choose to dismiss it all together.

Just as you dismiss the message of Muhammad from Islam, or the message from the Jews, or the messages of buddhism, and so on and so on.

No one can “choose” an option that they do not believe exists. There can be no “free choice” to believe in something that you do not believe in! It’s blatantly illogical.

For there to be a free will choice, your “god” would have to make it so that I believed that all the options were real.

 

[Hannibal]

SteveG:

I made no judgementst about who is going to hell, including atheist. That is between they and God. What I did say is that whoever is not with God in eternity will be without his presence by their own choice. Very different than what you imply.

No, just semantics.

I never called Lewis a theologian, and I doubt he would have consider himself one either. He was an excellent apologist who wrote in a way that has helped many take the first steps towards faith.

Where do I say that you say he was a theologian? You seem defensive.

At any rate, you say apologist, i see amateur theologian. A difference in semantics, mainly.

I simply referenced a FICTIONAL work of his which is a good read and helps shed some light on the mind of the Christian concerning heaven and hell.

So? Why are you so defensive here?

I already read it, along with Mere Christianity. Again, he’s not very impressive, and his arguments are based on the reification fallacy.

I neither said nor implied more. I wish folks would actually read the posts instead of picking one of their pre-canned quotes to respond to something which was never said.

You are the one projecting all sorts of things onto my post. You seem awfully defensive. Perhaps you need to look into yourself here and quit projecting things into a post on a message board.

 

[squirt]

Hannibal:

"blind faith’ is redundant. The faith of theism is simply belief based on no reason. That is what faith means. The claim that one can hold to a belief without any epistemological justifications.

Hmmm … that kind of depends on (1) what you mean by ‘reason’, and (2) what you are willing to accept as epistemological justifications.

I think there are a lot of terms being used equivocally here. It’s like everybody has their own private definitions and nobody is spelling them out for anybody else.

That makes digesting what each other is saying a tad difficult.

 

[Hannibal]

SteveG:

Are you seriously going to make the ‘Jesus didn’t exist argument’? No secular scholar worth their salt even holds this view any longer. If you want to go there, that’s fine, but you are going WAY out on a limb.

You’ve got it backwards.
There is actually very little proof that someone named Jesus really existed at all, and there is little argument over this fact. The sole evidence we have of a "jesus"are the biblical accounts of him that were written anywhere from 50 to 100 years after he supposedly lived. And even in this case, the purported evidence is often nothing more than dreams or visions. (See Paul).

<>This is not a trivial point, and I don’t make it lightly. Christian historians have been bothered by the lack of historical evidence for jesus for centuries. John E. Remsburg, in his classic book The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidence of His Existence (The Truth Seeker Company, NY, no date, pp. 24-25), lists the following writers who lived during the time, or within a century after the time, that Jesus is supposed to have lived"
Caius Suetonius
Josephus
Philo-Judæus
Seneca
Pliny Elder
Arrian
Petronius
Dion Pruseus
Paterculus
Juvenal
Martial
Persius
Plutarch
Pliny Younger
Tacitus
Justus of Tiberius
Apollonius
Quintilian
Lucanus
Epictetus
Hermogones
Silius Italicus
Statius
Ptolemy
Appian
Phlegon
Phædrus
Valerius Maximus
Lucian
Pausanias
Florus Lucius
Quintius Curtius
Aulus Gellius
Dio Chrysostom
Columella
Valerius Flaccus
Damis
Favorinus
Lysias
Pomponius Mela
Appion of Alexandria
Theon of Smyrna
Justus of Tiberias

And, according to Remsburg, “(While) Enough of the writings of the authors named in the foregoing list remains to form a library, (no where)… in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged brief passages in the works of a Jewish author (Josephus), and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers, there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ.”

 

[Hannibal]

None of the gospels are contemporary accounts, they all were written by the end of the first century, and into the second.
They are all also anonymous.
So we have no first hand accounts.
And all that we do have (outside of paul’s writings) is anonymous.
The book of “Mark”, the first gospel, makes no mention of Jesus after his supposed death.
No one alive when Jesus supposedly lived ever mentions seeing Jesus or hearing Jesus – or even hearing about Jesus!
They don’t mention the star that heralded his birth.
They don’t mention Herod’s slaughter of boy babies.
They don’t mention crowds gathered to hear him preach.
They don’t mention his trial.
They don’t mention his crucifixion.
They don’t mention his resurrection.
They never mention anything he said, or anywhere he went, or anything he thought, or anything he did.
No one alive when Jesus lived ever mentions him at all.

No one alive when Jesus supposedly lived ever mentions him at all. There is NO information for later historians to draw upon. Nothing. Not a word. All that has evolved, all that could have evolved, comes from legends.

You’d be hard pressed to find any legitimate secular scholars who would attest to there being ANY contemporary historical accounts of your jesus.

 

[Hannibal]

squirt:

Hmmm … that kind of depends on (1) what you mean by ‘reason’, and (2) what you are willing to accept as epistemological justifications.

I think there are a lot of terms being used equivocally here. It’s like everybody has their own private definitions and nobody is spelling them out for anybody else.

That makes digesting what each other is saying a tad difficult.

It does not depend on any of these things.

Faith is belief based on desire without any justification. Faith is the claim that one can hold to a desired belief without any epistemological justification in the first place!

Hebrews, Chapter 11:1

 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If you want to turn faith into ‘probability’ or something else, you change the nature of the concept.

 

[squirt]

Hannibal:

It does not depend on any of these things.

Faith is belief based on desire without any justification. Faith is the claim that one can hold to a desired belief without any epistemological justification in the first place!

Hebrews, Chapter 11:1

 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If you want to turn faith into ‘probability’ or something else, you change the nature of the concept.

hmmmm … it doesn’t seem to be the only possible defintion according to what I see in my Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. But I guess an insistent stranger on an internet forum is a more reliable source. Sorry, my mistake.

 

[Hannibal]

squirt:

hmmmm … it doesn’t seem to be the only possible defintion according to what I see in my Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. But I guess an insistent stranger on an internet forum is a more reliable source. Sorry, my mistake.

Gee, that would seem to invalidate your own response to me, wouldn’t it?

I did more than insist, I also provided a quote from a book that I would imagine you are familiar with. Here it is again:

Hebrews, Chapter 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In addtion, the theist REQUIRES a definition of faith such as I have provided. If you have evidence for an assertion, you make a scientific statement. If you have reasons for a belief, you put forth logical arguments. The theist can make use of neither method when discussing his god belief.

If you have neither, but still believe without proof, then you have need of faith. The theist is the one who maintains such a need in the first place, so I find it odd that a theist would argue against this fact.

So, not only does faith mean precisely what I have stated here, you have NEED of such a definition, for theism is impossible without it.

PS I have no doubt that dictionaries include other definitions. This does not mean that they are adequate for the subject matter at hand, and the context under discussion. Additionally, even atheists use the term "faith’ colloquially.

But none of these other definitions fit the needs of theism: i.e. a means for holding belief without evidence or reason.

again, your bible nails it for you:

Hebrews, Chapter 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

 

[squirt]

Hannibal:

Gee, that would seem to invalidate your own response to me, wouldn’t it?

.
.
.
Hebrews, Chapter 11:1

 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

And, golly, I was looking at the philsophy of religion part of the dictionary. What was I thinking!!!

re: Hebrews 11:1

Are you claiming that is a DEFINITION of faith? Hebrews is not a dictionary, it is a letter. And one sentence taken out of a letter does not a definition make.

There are things hoped for. Faith provides the substance for those hopes. That does not precude a rational basis for having faith in the first place.

I’m sure that in the sense of Hebrews, you have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is something hoped for. You haven’t seen tomorrow, so you don’t have anything but a probabilistic basis for believing that tomorrow will even occur.