Why have faith at all?

[YHWH_Christ]

I agree with that. I’m not necessarily asking about the nature of faith, because in order to be an atheist you have to have faith in atheism. What I’m asking is how is it possible to know which faith is correct? There doesn’t seem to be any way to know, there’s too much hiddeness, too many contradictions, too much evidence against most of the world faiths including Christianity. Wouldn’t the most logical choice be agnosticism?

 

[Dan_Defender]

Check your history. He preached in Mecca and people did not believe him so they threw him out, that is hardly a severe persecution. So he preached in Medina and people believed in him, so he organized them into an army and led them to conquer Mecca. because that is what any prophet of God would do, right?
Anyway I am done with this thread.

 

[YHWH_Christ]

Yes, against all odds. My history is in perfect line with yours. Muhammad should not have succeeded, and indeed he lost many of the early battles. Yet against all odds it thrived. You’re missing the point though. What I am saying is that Muslims and most other religions use the same logic as Christianity in regards to proving their religion is true, they look to divine providence, which when you step back for a moment really just looks like cherry picking data to fit a worldview against data that does not support that worldview as I already noted. Why would God allow the rise of Islam in the first place if he was guiding Christianity, for example? Sure you can come up with a faith based explanation, but another explanation could just as easily be presented. It looks like cherry picking and selection bias.

 

[Tommy999]

What about in Hinduism in which there are various avatars, all of whom are considered to be God in physical form?

I’m not familiar with Hinduism except that it is a polytheistic religion that I’m not interested in.

I was just trying to answer your question related to “Why Have Faith at All” compared to not having any faith at all and did my best to do so. Take care and God bless.

 

[Pattylt]

Wouldn’t the most logical choice be agnosticism?

This is where I landed!

And I agree…even within all the various flavors of Christianity, any proclamation by one is contested by another…and this is within just one faith stream. Of course, my position is that they can’t all be right…but, they can all be wrong.

It seems that one faith seems to click with a person. Their leap of faith took them to that one faith. Perhaps God cares more that you choose something rather than rejecting them all! He’ll probably take it into consideration! :hugs:

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

(To your friend)

Then how come we have accounts of Jesus literally walking around preaching, teaching for 3 years (the gospels), and a group of men that after his crucifixion will not yield to the horrible threats of death and torture that are the consequence of carrying through with proclaiming their now dead (and since resurrected) friend has come back to life of His own volition?

On Santa:

Have you ever met anyone that has seen Santa? Like the real Santa, the one who lives at the north pole etc? with reindeer and a flying sleigh? yeah…me neither.

Your friend is acting like he doesn’t even believe that the PERSON of Jesus was alive on this earth. I would first start with providing evidence that Jesus actually existed and was literally walking around and talking and eating with people. Miracles and the claim of being God aside, this seems to me to be the first step in this argument.

Edit:

Maybe some advice, you need to be able to prove that the gospels are accurate accounts of what happened all those years ago in Israel. They are reliable and they were written earlier than most biased (anti-religious) historians will let on. These books were even written by some eye witnesses of these things (Mark, and John, and I believe Matthew. Luke came a little later I think though I believe he spoke with the Blessed Mother Mary in the flesh - Infancy narrative). Fellow Catholic Historians - feel free to clarify further, thanks.

Look up Dr. Brandt Pitre on the accuracy of the gospels…he probably has an answer to this on youtube, and he has an excellent book on it.

He works with a channel called Catholic Productions I believe

 

[SPBlitz]

There are thousands of religions out there, and the adherents of those religions believe in them just as strongly as other adherents in other religions. W

This seems to be asking a lot of you, since you’d have to provide a refutation of every religious belief. It’s sort of a shotgun approach, in that you have to refute every religion, every non-Christian miracle, every contradiction in scripture - that’s quite a lot for one person. Start smaller. Consider the philosophical claims of Christians about what God is - self existent, omnipotent, gives reality to all others and to the universe itself. The source of all good. Do we have good grounds to believe this type of God exists? And if so, do the other nonChristiam gods like Zeus or Shiva or Buddha fit this description?

Don’t let yourself get caught up in the shotgun approach to debating, where the questioner tries to overwhelm you with the shear number of objections they have. Ask them to focus on a single question first before moving onto the next.

 

[neophyte]

I’m not necessarily asking about the nature of faith, because in order to be an atheist you have to have faith in atheism. What I’m asking is how is it possible to know which faith is correct? There doesn’t seem to be any way to know, there’s too much hiddeness, too many contradictions, too much evidence against most of the world faiths including Christianity. Wouldn’t the most logical choice be agnosticism?

Last question first: no, I don’t think agnosticism is a logical choice at all. First Cause argument and all (which has never been coherently rebutted). Logically, God must exist or else we couldn’t.

I returned to Christianity because the historical evident overwhelmingly shows that Jesus really existed, was crucified and rose again. I entered the Catholic Church because the evidence overwhelmingly shows that it is the same Church that Jesus established. I’m not aware of any evidence that, after careful investigation, serves to disprove either of those conclusions.

 

[ColoradoCatholic]

Except they contradict Jesus in terms of what his followers were saying 600 years before. The Muslims do not believe Jesus died, or was crucified, or claimed to be God. All things that contradict what Jesus says in the gospels…kinda a telling thing if your religion is essentially a Christian Heresy, and you still incorporate the main man Jesus into your religion, then claim what he said was false, then call him a prophet??? It never made sense to me.

Why would God allow the rise of Islam in the first place if he was guiding Christianity,

What about all the other religions? the fact that a false religion spreads has nothing to do with authenticity. What matters are the claims like I said before…Jesus claimed to be God and actually resurrected. Everything he said has come true including that little bit about the gates of hell not prevailing against his church. To this day, the Catholic Church is the oldest institution in the world.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

What I’m asking is how is it possible to know which faith is correct?

Technically…this is a flawed question. I don’t think Im knit picking either because I’m not even sure what you mean by faith. I’m assuming you mean religion - which religion is correct, and you are using the word “faith” colloquially.

Also in question is the scope of the word correct. The way you’ve used it is implying that there is one answer that is the same answer for everyone. I am not necessarily convinced of that. Also implied is that there are certain other implications from declaring one religion correct. What are those implications? For example, would it mean that other religions are diabolical? Or just misguided forms of worshiping the same God of the correct religion?

One religion may judge another religion by its own teachings. Is that objective or reasonable?

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

because everyone said you need to believe it,

Wait…who told you you needed to believe in Santa Claus? To what purpose?

 

[Vico]

Where’s the evidence for that? Why should we believe it over any other miracles claims? Other kinds of miracles have been witnessed as well, some of which contradict Christianity. Why should we believe in the claims of Christianity?

Evidence includes testimony. You used the word “should”, but there is no obligation to believe in the Resurrection over something else reported as miraculous. Faith is through the Holy Spirit – it is a gift.

 

[IWantGod]

What evidence is there for Christianity

It’s very existence is the strongest evidence because it shouldn’t exist. If Jesus didn’t do the things that the bible reports there would be no reason to think that Jesus was the messiah and thus no reason for any Jewish person to follow him much less make fantastical stories about him or create a religion.

Christianity is dependent on Jesus being the messiah. Without that there is no Christianity.

If Jesus didn’t perform miracles or rise from the dead then the most he could have been to the Jewish people of the time is a revolutionary or a heretic.

Why would Christianity exist if the gospel is not true.

 

[FiveLinden]

Sure maybe you can argue philosophically for the existence of God but, why believe that God is Yahweh of the Bible? There are thousands of religions out there, and the adherents of those religions believe in them just as strongly as other adherents in other religions. What evidence is there for Christianity over Judaism or Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or any other religion?

Atheist here. I don’t see these as strong arguments against Christianity, at least in the form of Catholicism. Catholics as I understand it say that it is philisophically possible to demonstrate that a god exists, but they do not argue that you can reason to the existence of the God in which they believe. This, they say, depends on faith and is informed by, but not caused by, scripture and tradition.

There is really no way into this argument since it postulates the existence of knowledge (faith) which is transmitted in a non-material way to an immeasurable but (they say) real spiritual aspect of each human being, i.e. a soul.

The arguments of other religions are similarly defensible and largely for the same reason. There are some religions that make claims that can be demonstrated to be false that are central to that system of belief, but not Catholicism. The things in Catholicism I see as being able to be demonstrated to be false (some approved miracles for example) are peripheral. Catholicism could get by perfectly well without them. The claims that are central to Catholicism are not testable (the resurrection, transubstantiation, forgiveness of sins, existence of heaven and hell and so on).

It would be possible I suppose to rank religions in terms of the likelihood or not of their central claims but I do not know on what basis this could be done that people would agree with. On average I would think that religions that make very few specific claims (like Unitarianism or Buddhism) would be likely to come out on top. But what would that prove?

Religious people have faith. Atheists and agnostics don’t. There is no point in an agnostic demanding a non-faith explanation for things believed on faith, or for a religious person demanding that an agnostic accept that the claims of faith are not that, but rather the result of observation and reason.

 

[Justin_Mary]

When I was a little kid I was told Santa Claus was real. I believed it. Why? Because everyone else told me it was true and because everyone said you need to believe it, even without actually seeing it. When I found out he wasn’t real and told some of the other kids at school, the other kids contradicted me saying that he is real and that you just need to have faith. But as we all know, Santa Claus is most certainly not real. It seems the same logic is being applied to religious faith.

Funny you should mention Santa Claus. I am 48 years old & believe in Santa Claus more now than I ever did as a kid. Even though it’s my hands that wraps the “gifts” puts them under the tree & it’s me that eat the cookies.

Santa Claus is very real.

 

[Justin_Mary]

It is the duty of Christians to convert the world.

It’s our duty to evangelize the world. If they accept our Gospel stay with them for a while. If they do not accept our Gospel, shake the dust off your Sandler’s & move on.

Many are called, few are chosen. We’re to do the calling. He will do the choosing.

 

[Mmarco]

Devil’s advocate here (currently debating an agnostic).

Sure maybe you can argue philosophically for the existence of God but, why believe that God is Yahweh of the Bible? There are thousands of religions out there, and the adherents of those religions believe in them just as strongly as other adherents in other religions. What evidence is there for Christianity over Judaism or Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism or any other religion?

I do not think that faith can be based on “evidence”, but rather on arguments and teachings we find convincing and we recognize as true.
The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God and it is certainly a truth. This concept is fully convincing for me, it proves itself by itself and makes superfluous any other arguments . I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and mercifull and that God is near to us so that we may totally trust Him and open our heart to Him, be in communion with Him and be saved.

There are other religions teaching that God is love, but the problem is to define what the word “love” means, because by itself it could be only a vague and generic concept.
The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divine love: in fact God’s love actualizes in the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ’s Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the concept of divine love which teaches us what is the true meaning of love.

 

[lelinator]

YHWH_Christ:

Wouldn’t the most logical choice be agnosticism?

This is where I landed!

And agnosticism followed to its logical conclusion is solipsism.

 

[meltzerboy2]

Let alone Judaism. By all odds, Judaism should be extinct by now but somehow it is still around and even thriving. The hand of Gd? Perhaps, who knows for sure? That is where faith comes in. Faith, even unshakeable faith, is not certainty. In some ways, however, it can be stronger than certainty. Think of all the things in science that we used to be certain of but have since been shown to be wrong. And science is always in flux so that the things that we are certain of now might very well be proven wrong in the future. But faith remains no matter what. You might argue that it is not true: people can lose faith. Correct, but they can also regain faith, which is not really the case in science: you don’t regain an old scientific theory intact that has been proven false. So which is the stronger? I would say faith. Then you might argue, but suppose your faith is false. Other things we are sure of can be false, but not faith. It is true to us so long as we cling to it.

 

[lelinator]

The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept.

So why take such a simple concept and load it down with all the dogmatic baggage that religion imposes upon the simple concept of loving the lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself?