Blind Faith - Page 2

See, you believe taht because I posed a question of faith that I personally attacked you, which is what all theists do. Meaning that you felt your under attack, meaning tha tyou began fighting. This is the anger I was talking about. Once again you admiitted something you previously denied.

I am not attacking you in any way. If you weren't attaching your self respect to your faith, you could have this conversation, but you wont do that, so you remain defensive. In other words, close minded.

Im not attacking you by asking you a question. I'm asking you a question. Not my fault your insecure about the answer, what ever the hell it is, because you refuse to answer it out loud to me.

quote:

---

Why not just discuss how you used faith to assume knowledge? You know that you did this becuase you wrote it down. First you said know, then you said believe. "Adress" that please.

---

Yeah, the same way you both know and believe the outcome of your "work out" scenario I know and believe people looked up in the sky and believed in God. By experience and research, just like working out will improve your physique in your scenario.

You refuse to accept logical conclusions of facts and then accuse me of angrily avoiding your assertion that we can't know what ancient people thought. Indeed I have demonstrated over and over we can. You simply just don't believe while only offering preconceptions of not being able to trust the written accounts. Even though I pointed out facts like original texts do survive and shown that your preconceptions are erroneous in a logical fashion.

You assume that because I didn't give in to your ultimatum that I need to believe that people looked up and believe in God to justify my faith. But the truth is (and this why I used the word "believe" at that point) I would be lying to you if I said I didn't know what they thought so that's why I wouldn't respect myself. You wanted me to say I didn't really believe that I knew the thoughts when I did. And ancient texts do reflect thoughts previous to the texts being recorded despite your blinding bias towards your false premise that no text can be trusted. Emotions have nothing to do with it really. Either concerning us now or them back then. Thoughts are what leads us to beliefs. You don't think the thoughts of the ancients can be known so you believe they aren't known.

And what does issuing an ultimatum say about your "open mind" anyway?

I think the problem here is you believe that man was around for something like 100,000 years or so before there were any texts. But to hold that position you must have blind faith and/or believe the texts of today. The very texts you've already stated are being written by people writing lies to promote agendas and can not be trusted. So it's easier for you to believe I'm just another angry, closed minded theist who won't admit you're "right."

As I said, this discussion can't continue unless you loosen up a bit. Stop assuming things you can't possibly know (like if I'm angry or not) and offer logical responses that will give me something to think about and possibly cause me to reevaluate my position.

Emotions have nothing to do with thougts huh...

You claimed I had assumed knowledge when I logically shown it wasn't assumed. Then you changed up and started saying I couldn't know their emotions. Well emotions had nothing to do with it but if you now want to claim I could not know their emotions... Then I can agree and acknowledge that. But that isn't what you started out saying. You said their thoughts couldn't be known.

Before writing, they cant.

Wanna talk about faith now? Like, your faith in texts allowing to feel assured about the spiritual understanding of people befor religous text? Or how you claimed knowledge of something soley because of a belief?

You are not fun to talk to. You have bickered about evasive nonsense this whole time. Attacking me for the sake of feeling accomplished by hurting an atheist.

Lets just try to stick to faith.

I have outlined why I believe it is blind. If you dont understand me, ask. You have expressed faith in this thread. I have expressed my belief in it being blind. Show me how it is not. Start by refuting my argument.

quote:

---

Before writing, they cant.

---

After writing they can.

quote:

---

Wanna talk about faith now? Like, your faith in texts allowing to feel assured about the spiritual understanding of people befor religous
text? Or how you claimed knowledge of something soley because of a belief?

---

They don't. I didn't.

quote:

---

You are not fun to talk to. You have bickered about evasive nonsense this whole time. Attacking me for the sake
of feeling accomplished by hurting an
atheist.

---

I have logically refuted your assertions. I can't help it if that made you angry.

quote:

---

Lets just try to stick to faith.

I have outlined why I believe it is blind. If you dont understand me, ask. You
have expressed faith in this thread. I have expressed my belief in it being
blind. Show me how it is not. Start by
refuting my argument.

---

I have no question for you. You said yourself you believe. That says it all. As far as refuting your argument...that's been done. And you haven't shown my faith to be blind. The fact that I took issue and provided information concerning the ancients shows I don't believe just for the sake of believing. Nor do I believe just because they or anyone else did.

Now can I lay out proof that the object of my faith is tangible? No, but then it wouldn't be faith. Evidence yeah, proof no. But that doesn't make it blind by any means.

You assume that when I press you on a point I am trying to belittle you, that's not the case. Simply want you to elaborate more on your assertions. Specifically, why you think theist have blind faith and you do not?

First of all, Im not upset with your argument, only that you appear to be ignoreing me.

And, I dont remeber a refutal. And the word logic doesnt really impress me. I havnt seen anything logical. You called things logical, which is what every one does with the whole "logic" thing, so Ima stick away from that, unless it upsets you and you feel like im ignoring you, in which case, can you make your "logic" a little more clear to me, as I seem to have missed it entirely.

I apreciate you finally choosing to discuss what you base your faith of off.

"Now can I lay out proof that the object of my faith is tangible?"

Like you said, no, you can't. Do you have evidence? Sure. Is it a reliable source of truth? No. Something youve agreed to. I think.

"You said yourself you believe. That says it all"

Youre right. That does say it all, and this is where you and I differ, when it comes to beliefs and faith.

Because you have evidence that your beliefs are correct, you put faith in them that they are correct, and choose to view them as truth, while not KNOWING for sure if they are. I, on the other hand, do not view any of my beliefs as truth, only possible truths, out of many possible truths. I do not view them as correct, I view them as my best guess. Even though I probably have just as much "reliable" or "unreliable" evidence to support my beliefs, I would never, ever, place the assumption on my beliefs that they are correct. Placing faith in them. When I say that I believe I have expressed myself, it is for the intention of you telling me if I am wrong or not. It is not with the intention of telling you that you are not listening.

So the difference lies here. What we choose to place faith in, and what we do with that faith. You choose to put faith in your beliefs, admiting that you have no tangible evidence, and take the leap that they are correct. This is faith. The leap from me saying that my beliefs can not be proven right, to you assuming that your beliefs are right.

As strongly as I believed that you were not going to have a conversation with me about faith, I could not pull myself away from the possibility that I may be wrong, and so, kept coming back to talk to you. Had I put faith in my belief that you are close minded and unwilling to discuss with me, I would have assumed my correctness and ceased communication. But I didnt do that. Because I would never asume correctness of a belief. When you put faith in something, essentially you are saying that even though you dont know for certain, you are going to act like you do.

Which is why I made the point much earlier in this conversation where you said that you knew something, and then later revised and said you believed in it. Your claimed knowledge is admitedly based off of something that is not tangible and not reliable, yet you choose to believe it is truth anyway. Rather than feeling, "I dont know, but Im leaning towards" You feel, as a faithful theist "I have no proof, yet believe its truth." Your lack of proof, as a theist, means that at some point, in some way, small as it may be, you have chosen to call something true you know you can not be certain of. Faith, in essence, is the acceptance of this unsureity, and twisting it into sureity. That is what makes you blind.

Yes, blind is a harsh word. But I feel that it holistically captures the essence of what you do when you claim a knowledge of truth that you can not possibly know.

As a true atheist (there arent many of us out there) I can never know if there is a creator or not. I claim no knowledge of its existence, or of its lack of existence. Further more, I understand that I can never KNOW anything that is not absolutely true, in its most pure sense.

That is why I am not blind and you are. I constantly seek new information, to bring my beliefs closer to a truth I can never fully understand, because of my limitations as a human. As to where you claim victory in the pursuit of truth, because you have put faith in a belief, and attached a feeling of truth to it.

I now feel that this conversation is going somewhere. I hope that continues.

I would also like to say that I am not expressing myself as accuratle as I would like to, and practicing that expressing with you is bringing me closer to my desired ability of expressing this idea I have. So please, refute, question, but listen to what I am trying to say to you. Stay on base with me so that we can both better understand ourselves.

I haven't ignored you and I don't understand why it appears I have to you.

Logic is a necessity when discussing differing views. Honestly, I find it odd you would make such remarks about it. Can you please elaborate and tell me what I said was logical that you saw no logic in?

quote:

---

Do you have evidence? Sure. Is it a reliable source of truth? No. Something youve agreed to. I think.

---

That appears presumptuous. How can you have an opinion about that which you haven't examined?

quote:

---

Because you have evidence that your beliefs are correct, you put faith in them that they are correct, and choose to view them as truth, while not KNOWING for sure if they are. I, on the other hand, do not view any of my beliefs as truth, only possible truths, out of many possible truths. I do not view them as correct, I view them as my best guess. Even though I probably have just as much "reliable" or "unreliable" evidence to support my beliefs, I would never, ever, place the assumption on my beliefs that they are correct. Placing faith in them. When I say that I believe I have expressed myself, it is for the intention of you telling me if I am wrong or not. It is not with the intention of telling you that you are not listening.

---

Not sure what your point is here? Can you please clarify?

quote:

---

You choose to put faith in your beliefs, admiting that you have no tangible evidence, and take the leap that they are correct. This is faith.

---

I made no such admission. Faith is having evidence that is seen to be evident of that what is not seen. The leap is from concluding rationally and logically from the objective interpretation of evidence.

Your point about finding out your faith isn't correct in the end is understood. I am open to that possibility just as you are. Though I do place more value in my faith then you do yours, it doesn't mean it's blind at all.

quote:

---

Which is why I made the point much earlier in this conversation where you said that you knew something, and then later revised and said you believed in it. Your claimed knowledge is admitedly based off of something that is not tangible and not reliable, yet you choose to believe it is truth anyway.

---

First off I didn't revise my position. I know what the ancients thought because their writings reflect what they first thought, and then they recorded them. I said "I believed" as a reference to the process of gathering said knowledge as being reliable and trustworthy. This is the second time you said I admitted something I did not, why?

Why have you set yourself up as knowing what is possible and not possible for someone else to know? How do you know I'm not 100% sure? If I told you God revealed himself to me personally you in all likelihood would doubt me. Does that mean you know he didn't? What if God rewarded faith with confirmation? Would you still see it as blind? You not having experienced it would never know would you? Lack of proof means I can't prove it to you but it in no way means I'm not sure, rationally, not twisted as you suggest.

Your position as you describe seems more of an agnostic nature.

Have you sought spiritual information? If not your faith (or belief, I don't make the distinction you do.) is blind and confined to only what you are able to rationalize. If so, why haven't you brought it up and explained why you have discounted it?

In closing I'm not sure what you mean by "stay on base" because if I feel something is relevant to the topic on hand I will bring it up. That is what conversing is about in my opinion.

Also how is believing in the inability to ever know the truth not blind faith in perpetual ignorance? Just a question to think about, no belittlement intended.

Logic is most absolutely neccecary, but I find that many people attach the word logic to their idea in order to justify it. Which is what I thought you were doing.

This is what you said. "The truth is
from before the time of religion primitive man has looked into the sky and concluded upon observing nature that it must be the wondorous works of a supreme being, a creator."

My whole argument against you, and my claim of your personal blind faith all lies with in this one statement. You said before religion, meaning at lease 4 or 5 thousand B.C. You said "concluded" meaning that you believe they made some sort of study, in 5 thousand B.C., that you found to be a reliable scource of godly evidence. You then used the phrase "it must be", which in of itself litterally means, I do not know so I am assuming. Then you said that they determined that a creator designed these things, because they had no fucking idea how they got their, in 5 thousand B.C. Because when they looked at the clouds, they had no idea that they were just water vapor. When they looked at the night time sky, that had no idea that it was the atmosphere distorting the color. They thought it was magic. They litterally did. They believed in magic. They had no idea that the plants aren't just growing out of thin air with out anything to eat but dirt. They didn't know that they used the sun as their main scource of nutrition. When they looked at massive canyons and rivers in the land that they were create by, yes, hundreds of thousands of years of the earth slowing moving deep beneath the surface cause cracks in the land. They thought a really big "thing" put it there.

So, based off of this "conclusion" they made, you can see that they had no clue what was going on. And their assumption, cause thats what it was, not a conclusion, was soley based off of their inability to SEE what was actually happening in the world.

Then you go and claim their assumption as a valid, insightful, reason to put faith in god. Can't you see they were blind as hell? Can't you see that taking a blind mans word for it is becoming blind yourself?

I see that one of the difficulties in understanding one another is in what we personaly define as knoweledge of truth.

I don't call something true unless its one hundred percent.

Let me ask you this, have you ever ego tripped before? Look it up. Its one of the craziest expereinces some one can ever have. I'm not sure which one, I've forgotten, but either the id or the ego in your mind all but dies. The types of halucinations that happen in this state of mind would blow you the fuck away. When ego tripping, reality ceases to be the reality you have lived in your whole life. Pigs fucking fly. When the part of your mind that tethers your to reality dies, your subconscious takes complete control. Which is something that was a sort of a write of passge for primitive people. Go out in the wilderness, don't eat and dont sleep untill you start seeing shit was a natural occerence. Which, btw, those studies those primitives guys made, this is how they did. By halucinating their balls off and calling what they saw divine internevtion.

Now, I wouldn't call what I saw while ego tripping true, even though I saw it, because I know that what I saw as not reality. But if you ego tripped, you would probably believe everything you saw as god message to you, unaware that halucinations happen all the time, and that they aren't divine interventions, jus tthe working of your mind.

Also, I believe you're bluffing your knowledge of the ancients. I took a western civ. class and I know that we don't know shit about ancient people. They were primitive. They didn't write, they barely had sticks. What time period are you referencing? What people's writing are you referencing? Have you taken a western civ. class? Where are you getting your information from?

Because much like you used the keen observations skills of cave men to further your point, I bet your not being quite honest about how reliable your other scources are.

And my point in that passge you qouted was that I don't assume my beliefs are correct, and you do. You are unwilling to admit that you make any assumptions at all, so, im just gonna drop that one too, and move on.

Ya know what, I got a better angle.

What about children in church. Your telling me tha tthey don't have blind faith? You're telling me that the church doesn't tell them to have blind faith. That if they don't have blind faith that the members of their congregation don't chastize them and treat them like garbage?

A child goes to church, is told what they should believe, and if they don't abide to the beliefs they are demeaned and made to feel low. In fact, if a child does question what they are told in church, the church, and many times the parents, make the child feel like they are a bad person for not just accepting what they are told. Theists around the world behave this way.

Are you going to tell me that those behaviors are not practices of blind faith? If children do not practice those behaviors, they are un-loved. Happens all the time. If you question, you are a bad christian, you are a bad person. Countless people have expressed this feeling to me.

Now, maybe you have chosen to educate yourself, which your education seems a little oblivious to obvious things like, cave men didn't write, primitive people didn't have written language, thats what makes them primitive, but there are countless theists world wide who do not educate themselves, who do not question, and blindly believe what they are told in church. That most certianly does happen.

quote:

---

You also made an outraegous claim of assumed knowledge, something many theists do.

Unless you admit to me that you do not know what ancient people thought before text, I will lose respect for you.

---

quote:

---

They would go out in the wild, get fucked up, hallucinate, turn the holucination into a spiritual expereince, and often times express that experience through art, crude art.

---

Unless you're going to parse words again, you need to make up your mind. Given your estimation of the onset of religion...

quote:

---

You said before religion, meaning at lease 4 or 5 thousand B.C.

---

And the fact that cave paintings date 3 to 7 thousand years before, which is it? Can we know what they thought before text or not? Or is it only you can know because you had a class and heard a lecture? Will you now claim you know their spiritual experiences had nothing to do with God?

I'll say this for you, you stand by your faith no matter what! You believe you're correct, admit it. Stop with the nonsense that you don't believe you're correct so therefore you aren't a person of faith and I am.

This is not about who is a person of faith. This is not about you being a bad person because of faith. This is not about me saying that theists aren't good people and atheists are. This is about discussing what faith is, something you have yet to acknowledge.

You are ridiculously defensive to the point where you can't even tell what a conversation is about. You always think its about how I am attacking your ego because I am question the validity of faith, faith as a whole.

Awakenedwraith, from reading I've concluded that you are the agressor in this. You've:

1. Pegged Manbible as being angry.
2. Pegged him as being weary in faith.
3. Pegged him as a profiler.
4. Gave him an if/then scenario in which you said you wouldn't learn from him if he didn't change his stance.
5. Condescended to give some spoonfed definition of faith to him.
6. Pegged HIM as the aggressor, while YOU were, in fact, the one with aggression.
7. Pigeonholed him into the "all theists" category.
8. Gave him another, even bigger, if then scenario.
9. Threatened him by the idea of taking your respect for him away.
10. Mocked his beliefs.

ALL in your first response to his post.

Perhaps it's validation that his beliefs are invalid. You need to fill your emptiness with that. For every theist crushed, it keeps your faith in the immeasurable/unknowable strong.

Believe me, I know this feeling. I attend an Adventist university in Southern CA. And in this environment, many of the followers have some of the most bass ackwards ass thinking you can imagine. Notice I typed "many", not all.