Welcome. Time for your hazing.

My definition of religious faith is belief without evidence. Although I've heard many protests against this definition, I've never heard a coherent alternative explanation. Apologists like Alister McGrath and William Lane Craig, have, from what I've seen, follow circular logic to defend the idea. That is, they defend faith by using the "evidence" of faith, or something as spurious. It's been a while since I've referred to their arguments, but I'll return to them, or others, if this conversation develops.

I think this statement comes down to equivocation. There is 'faith' that's gleaned from experience, even whatever mechanism of that experience isn't understood. But this isn't the definition generally acknowledged for religious faith; and as I've mentioned, I know of no coherent alternative definition for religious faith. Believing that one's car will start in the morning, or that one's spouse will forgive them, is based on experience with these things. Believing that the sky will continue to be blue most days doesn't require any understanding of it; just an intuitive grasp of probabilities. That's quite different from believing that some physics-defying and unprecedented event took place, and has deep and continued relevance, because it was written down by anonymous authors.

One definition of faith is confidence (though not love), but this isn't the definition of religious faith.

I want to mention briefly I've never heard anything like that example given for atheism.

You're still equivocating the different definitions of faith: faith in precedent, and faith in place of proof.

We don't have evidence for those things, and I'm not convinced those are even coherent concepts.

That's a lot of what faith is not, and nothing substantial about what faith is.

 I'll tell you this though...

 I love entertainment for the laughter it brings me.
I trust this thread will bring me entertainment and you will not enjoy it.
And I depend on entertainment to bring me laughter.

 Seriously though forks...

By saying that you are a christian believer you are saying that you love someone that you have no evidence existed, and for the benefit he has given you by his sacrifice that you have no evidence actually happened. You trust a being that you have no evidence for and you assume the being would not mislead you despite his inability to not mislead billions before you.  You depend on the guidance an inspiration of yet another being that you have no evidence for.

Your knowledge of all of these things is limited to a story book.  Your knowledge is limited to the scope you have allowed it and not allowed your knowledge to be expanded to other possibilities or even checked to see if your knowledge is correct. 

Trust, Love are terms that are not things you can substantiate.  They are just terms that we as humans use but they provide no proof, evidence, or knowledge.  You are not have reliance on anything you believe in.  Billions of humans before you have lived happy lives with other gods or without gods.  Even if you believed in a young earth people lived for 4000 years without Jesus Christ so they clearly had no reliance on him. 

This is not all that different from how people hallucinagens prior to creating art, music, wirting, or anything artistic.

This is also how a lot of cults / smaller religions are created.

Interestingly enough, what you are describing is why a lot of people call faith delusional.  The dangerous part about religious delusion is that it is then forced onto other people as truth.

If people claimed the same thing and it wasn't about religion they would be thrown in an insane asylum.

I'm not a fan of exclusion.  I say treat everyone equally. 

 Many religious faiths demand the expansion of the faith.

Many religous people in general do it anyways.

Many religous people feel it is their duty and they are doing "God's work".  Even if it is not your specific faith, the statement is still justified as it is other peoples religious faiths.

Many people pass on this 'faith' to thier children and teach them bad teachings and intollerance so this isn't just about passing it on to their neighbor or their politics. 

I am not saying all peoples faiths are thus, but it is the consequence of a lot of religious faiths and it was intended to be a generic statement. 

Are you suggesting that you would not teach your child your faith? Would you teach them that faith is a virtue? Or would you teach them about all possible religions equally while also showing them what science and history have shown against all those religions? 

please delete this psot, it was a double-click problem

 

 

 

Nope, I'm referring to the only definition I find remotely comprehensible, which yours was not. You constructed an ad hoc out of an equivocation of the word faith and stapled love to it.

One word: multiple meanings. It's not complicated.

Actually, no. I acknowledge you want redefine words.

Not really. I was comparing one use of the word faith to the explicitly religious use of the word. Nice trigger-happiness on the fallacies, though.

I'm aware of only one definition.

The thing with the love + whatever? Yes, absolutely.

You seem either to redefine the word faith via equivocation, or abuse the word evidence until it's meaningless, to make your case.

There's no scientific basis to reject a concept built around a lack of substance, so there are any number of things that can't be disproved. A scientist could reject a specific god based on a specific property, because an alternative (actual) explanation is discovered or the idea is contradictory; but there's no specific basis to reject something without properties. It's simply safe to assume something without properties or evidence doesn't exist -- the alternative experience would be something like schizophrenia. That's why your anonymous straw-man scientist doesn't resonate with me.

Rejecting the existence of a god, unless it's in favor of a different god, or set of gods, would make one an atheist. A strong atheist, specifically. Not sure what your complaint it with that inference.

Without coherency, you don't communicate anything. You might as well beat the keyboard with your feet.

Your definition just looks like an ad hoc, so whatever follows depends on an undefined variable.

This is all ad hoc. Since none of this is substantiated, your speculation is meaningless.

You just complained that belief without evidence is a straw-man! All you've done is call the belief itself evidence!

It's absolutely irrational and circular.

 

 

 

1) I disagree. Here's some reading material for you from the forums:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/rook_hawkins/the_jesus_mythicist_campaign/2901

2) My goal is not to disprove Jesus.

My goal is to demonstrate that your faith is based on a lack of evidence.



Not my goal. Trying to demonstrate that there is no substantial reason believe in GOd.



Sorry, figured you'd understand my point.
If you are correct and he exists, he mislead billions before you so why would you believe that he would lead you correctly and not the majority of all humanity?




That is not evidence. Many people believe that they have self proofs for supernatural powers that they are unable to demonstrate.



I was not suggesting you made an appeal to authority, I was demonstrating that as far as things that you can provide evience for it was limited to a story book. As for that being a non-civil comment, why would it be anything but civil? A book of stories is a story book. It is a story book.




Correct, I made an assumption. How correct was I?

So what is the evidence to you that this really does involve something outside your own mind, ie, a real 'God', creator of the Universe, etc, and not something generated at a non-conscious level within your own mind? It has to be more than a conviction, a feeling of certainty, no matter how strong, to validly constitute actual evidence, because we know that intense and utterly convincing experiences can arise purely from mental processes, and I am not assuming actual brain dysfunction. 

People from many different religious backgrounds report this sort of experience, often with significantly different and contradictory 'truths' being conveyed,  so you need something more than this to justify the 'truth' of your particular 'revelation'. To count as a true 'revelation' in the religious sense, it has to be something more than an idea, an insight, that causes you to change your behaviour or outlook, since such things happen all the time, as the result of ideas coming together in a receptive mind, no religious context required.

You are describing an experience which is not uncommon, in the sequence of thoughts and responses, but you choose to attribute it to an interaction with the pre-conceived idea of 'God'. It is also well known that strong pre-conceptions very much tend to color, to distort, our perceptions, in such a way as to support the pre-conceptions - it is called 'confirmation bias'. We know this happens all the time in all sorts of circumstances, so yoy are on very shaky ground using this argument as justification for your belief.

There is plenty of evidence that roughly half the population is pre-disposed to experience certain forms of internal 'dialogue', where the mind tries to resolve conflicting ideas and/or feelings as if one 'side' is being communicated by some external entity, rather than another part of their own mind. (See Michael Shermer's 'How we Believe&#39.

I believe without evidence of even existance you can't know more than personal experience.  Without evidence to vaidate the stories you don't "know" they are accurate, you are taking a leap of faith to believe something without knowledge.

Your claim was that your faith was with knowledge, my argument is that without evidence of the stories, the claims, and the details that you do not have knowledge.  You have "faith" as per the real defintion of the word, not your own.

 

 

Let's just talk about "trust" here, first.

In your example about the scientist, I don't think it's enough to just say that our trust is only a result of "loving the benefits."  I'd say those would be clues that some of what science has done has been successful over time.  However, I don't think it's a whole reason to "trust" any of these people.  A better reason is that a great deal of it has reproducable and testable outcomes.  If you did not trust the scientist, you could develop the same experiment to verify something they have claimed.   Obviously the average person doesn't have access to giant radio telescopes, atom colliders or a lot of that other stuff... so it may not be practical, but it would certainly be possible to repeat the experiment and verify something yourself.

 

 The second claim is a bit fuzzier to dissect.   I suppose you could list your benefits, and say things like "because I believe X, I am happy."  Trusting "god" here though is not something I can go verify on my own, as we could with the science claim.  You might say something like "god heals."  And you could list some way you've witnessed this, and I could also try an experiment to see a similar outcome.   If you said "I called to god, and my headache disappeared."   I could test this, right?  Next 10 times I have a headache, I could call to god and see what happens. (possibly time how long each one lasts)   Then I could compare it to the next 10 times I have one and don't call to god.  

Then what?  Let's say it turns out on both sets of trials, the results were pretty much the same.   I might think "It doesn't seem like god heals headaches as you claim."   You might think "well god doesn't like to be tested"  or some other excuse.   In this case, I think what you're calling "trust" in god, is much closer to faith.  Your belief has little to do what the actual results of any such experiment might be.

A rather bizzarre answer I would say - you don't even show how I am equivocating?

Consequently, ad hominen argument from you - sorry

Ad hominem? Really?! Let's look at my reply to you.

 

Which word is the ad hominem?

Your argument repeated the equivocation of the previous poster, so I don't know what unique response you expect.

To Keystroke:

 

So you're not trying to make a case for faith, you're just trying to help me understand what the Christian/religious-thinker means when they talk about it.

Okay. Well, I don't buy into the spirituality business, and I don't believe in knowledge obtained by non-rational means, and I don't believe in actions being taken for non-rational reasons, etc etc.

Things like this:

Are meaningless to me because, in order to even begin making sense out of that, I'd have to make sense out of what you mean by such things as "spiritual truths" which implies that I should know what you mean by "spirit" and also "inner-self"

I'm sure I wouldn't go for any of it.

So with that said, there is really no reason for me to be reading this. I'm interested in empirical things and rational things. Period.

Whether or not I understand faith is irrelevant when it is of no concern to me anyway, since I can trash it from the get-go on the grounds that there is no empericism or rationality going on here.

To borrow from David Mills, if there are three witches and if my cabbage patch got cursed while witches 1 and 2 were out of town, it doesn't matter to me whether or not it makes sense that witch 3 must have cursed my cabbage patch. I stopped caring when you said "witches".

This topic was clearly not meant for me. Sorry for making the assumption. Peace.

magilum;

 

I think our problem, here, is a misperception of intent.  My intent is not to convince, but rather to inform.  In this thread, I am not "making a case".  I had hoped that the title of the OP would have conveyed that idea.

The problem I hoped to address is similar to the problem of the 'three witches' story.  When Christians use the word 'faith' the meaning we meant to convey seems to bounce off of the intended reciever if the intended reciever is not already experienced in Christian faith. 

So since my profession is one that often requires an analysis (a break-down) of the meaning of words I applied my discipline to the meaning of the word 'faith' and produced the result for consumption.

If you chose to reject my analysis then I havn't provided you with any benefit.  Perhaps others will find some benefit in my analysis.

It's almost heroic that you can defend the position that "Equivocation. Sorry." is an ad hominem. If I ever need to hire a cognitive gymnast, I'll be sure to confirm their love for the Jeebus. As for your original complaint, it was dealt with; and the original argument you felt was not addressed, was addressed in being fallacious for the same reason as the original post. You'll get no more from me on your trivial complaints.

You made a claim

Religious faith is meaningless. Provide a contingency.

Ipse Dixit

Your general appraisal of dictionary definitions is justifiable (and familiar, given all the controversy over the words "atheist" and "agnostic&quot, but I did ask for a coherent alternative definition that wasn't the standard definition of belief without evidence. The OP's premise depended on belief without evidence as a starting point, so whatever followed was meaningless having eliminated what Aiia referred to as contingencies.

 

The discussion went on long enough to draw out a few of the assumptions I was making that I had not included in the OP (hence the OP was updated with them).  It also went on long enough to draw out my intent for starting the thread.  It also drew out my method for producing the analysis of the meaning of the word 'faith'.

 

About the only thing that could have been done different was for me to avoid the 'trigger word' of 'definition' in the OP.  I didn't realize that using that word would constrain me to existing dictionary definitions.  What I provided was an analysis of the meaning of the word and I should have avoided calling that a 'definition'.

 

The conversation also went on long enough for individuals to either accept my analysis, or reject it, which I feel the participants have done.  With that being the case, I don't see the need to continue the discussion.

Your arguments are an attempt to support religion, therefore the "faith" you are refering to is theological faith.Theological faith is an argument from ignorance.This is partially true in that in order to maintain theological faith one must shut off your brain and accept the absurd; however, it is also a denial of the most basic laws of physics.This is false. To belief in something that exhibits no evidence of existence a theist must block reason. You are committing an equivocation fallacy here.

In logic, equivocation is a fallacy caused by the double meaning of a word. You're conflating a colloquial usage of faith - contingent faith, for theistic faith, and non contingent faith.

Theological faith is based on wholly IMAGINARY concepts while normal contingent faith is based on past events, for example knowing the sun has risen everyday in the past one can rationally have CONTINGENT faith it will rise tomorrow morning.

Theological faith is an unjustifiable belief.

Romans 8:24-25 For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?

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

Correct, theological faith is evidenceless. Correct.Completely false. As I explained above, religious faith is based on nothing.The cause is ignorance.In other words you think faith is an emotion. I agree that scientists love science to the persuit of truth while theists love imaginary stories and fantasizing.

 

Ah! Yes! The Argument from Authority again raises its head.

Challenge to Atheists:

biblegateway.com/resources/audio/

Read the Good Book!

{MOD EDIT: Link fixed.}

 

 

If you break down the dictionary definition of 'faith' to it's core stripping away all the contextual qualifiers, it boils down simply to 'confident belief'. confidence is a relative quality and it can be argued that there is confidence of greater magnitude where the object of belief is better known, so if you know well or thoroughly what you are confident in, you have stronger faith, the less well you know it, the weaker your faith in the object.  In this way, one's faith in anything is contingent on the magnitude of your evidence whether you consciously take it to be or not. 

 Religious faith too is variegated on this scale of confidence, greater confidence, therefore certainty, is greater faith. Having faith without evidence is possible, but it cannot, rightly, be strong faith because faith is a function of confidence, confidence is built on knowledge, knowledge is understanding, understanding requires observation and observation yields evidence. 

 Thus it can be said that an atheist has greater faith than a theist. The foundation upon which the confident beliefs of an atheist are built is more examined and more well known by the individual, generally speaking. 

(For Christian theists who would question my position refer to John 4:22) 

 Knowledge, and therefore confident belief or faith is the lens through which any individual experiences the world, speaking in a strictly material sense now, information is received into a framework of previously organised information, this is plausibly how our perceptions work. That framework of organised information is at a basic level, synonymous with faith as confident belief, it tells us what we see and therefore structures the world we live in, in a way fundamental to our very experience. In this way the entire spectrum of claims regarding religious faith is most definitely covered by the definition 'confident belief', it can move mountains, if your confident belief is that mountains move, but this confidence exists in the presence of knowledge and your level of confidence is relative to your knowledge. You confidently believe mountains move when you know mountains move, if you know they don't then any belief that they do is tending towards pretense, and away from the definition of faith.

However, while it is true that your knowledge matrix filters all information and therefore your world is perceptually affected by the psychological framework which is your faith or confident belief, this is not even the half of a definition of faith and so could be misleading and I shouldn't leave it there.

As you guys know I am a pantheist, I have faith in the ultimate unity of the natural world, (yes it is a knowledge based confidence in case you were wondering. Non-locality is the most logical explanation of Quantum entanglement) this unity is my deity and through the implications of non-locality this is a personal, human-like god, humans are non-local entities too.

Now there are two material phenomena which we know that qualify everything I have said above about the definition of faith in an important way. The first is non-locality, the second is the speed limit of the material universe (c). 

Because the material universe is speed limited to (c) everything we percieve is, quite literally, history. We do not percieve the world instantaneously as it is, we cannot since information cannot travel any faster than the speed of light, we perceive it as it was some relative point beforehand. Additionally, because we are, at a fundamental but seeming invisible level, non-local, then our material state at any given moment must logically correspond (in a yet unknown way) to the whole system. So then if our present state is some analogue of the system we are in, and the information we recieve from the system in the present is an analogue of a state the system was in, our perceptions are quite literally (but mysteriously) a matter of us looking back at our previous state (through several unexamined filters). 

 How this ties into faith is that confident belief at any given moment is a configuration of our non-local state-analogue mind. So quite simply, at some unbeknownst level (which I am not claiming to fully understand here) any present confident belief which we have is a material analogue of our perceptible future. 

 So what this all boils down to is that religious faith need not be described in the negative, or in contrast to any ordinary definition of faith, a general definition such as confident belief completely satisfies all theological implications.

Ah, this old error.

Time for this essay. Again:

 

Doesn't everyone take things on faith?

Submitted by todangst on January 6, 2007 - 2:56pm.

You hear it from theists all the time: "Maybe I do take my beliefs on faith, but so do you!"

Leaving aside the theist's admission of what he really thinks of faith (not much, apparently!), is it true that everyone must take some beliefs on faith?

 

Well, here's the problem with that question: It contains a fallacy of equivocation.

A fallacy of equivocation occurs when an argument uses a word in two distinct senses. And the word "faith" has at least two very distinct meanings. One has a theological sense, and the other, a colloquial sense.

And we can best understand these two general meanings by using the terms Contingent and Non Contingent faith.

 

Trust is experiential - theistic faith is not.

Contingent faith - is trust. It originates as an instinctual connection to our mothers in infancy, and develops as the basic blueprint for how we interpret new situations. It is wholly experiential and open to revision.

So this sort of 'faith' is is based on some experience, an instinct, and then, a memory, an expectation. It is also open to falsification. If events occur that lead me to doubt the 'faith', I will discard my faith. If the stranger I have trusted harms me, then my willingness to trust the stranger (and perhaps other strangers) decreases.

So this is Contingent faith. Now, what is Non Contingent faith?

Non contingent faith is the classic Kierkegaardian 'leap of faith', where a belief is held despite its irrational nature. Some even go as far as to employ quia quid absurdum: I believe because it is absurd. This is theistic faith. Non contingent faith. The faith of theism.

Theistic, or non contingent faith, therefore, is the claim that one does not need any rational justification to hold a belief. It is not an epistemological position, it is a rejection of epistemology itself. Therefore theistic faith cannot stand in as a premise in a logical argument.

Here's the bible itself, to affirm these points on theistic faith:

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Bible: New Testament. Hebrews 11:1.

 

i.e., it is belief without justification.

Furthermore:

Romans 8:24-25: “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” (NKJV)

Here Paul makes it clear that one cannot have non contingent faith is one has facts! If one has a reason to believe, he cannot have theistic faith by definition!

This will become important as we continue.

Theistic faith is belief without justification. That's it. And theistic faith must be belief without justification, as there is no way to justify a belief in the supernatural. Both deduction and induction are natural processes - and nothing natural can point to its own antithesis, the supernatural. This is precisely why theologians are diverse as Martin Luther and Soren Kierkegaard agree that a theist must begin with a leap of faith. Humans, as limited, natural beings cannot grasp the supernatural - a 'realm' defined only negatively, without any universe of discourse, ergo without any identity.

The fallacy of equivocation made clear.

 

Because it is hopelessly forlorn dream to grant any legitimacy to non contingent faith, people must instead seek to rip down reason by equating the foundation of reaon with theistic faith through the use of semantic fallacies.

This attempt to bring down reason to the level of theistic faith is just appalling.

So let's put this nonsense into the trashcan

1) Theistic faith is as Paul defines, above.

2) Colloquial usages of faith - i.e., are matters of generalizing basic trust experiences in infanthood, that in turn are born of instinctual, not 'faith based' processes.

These processes are not equitable with non contingent faith. They are the precise opposite of such a faith. They begin in instinct, which is not even cognitive, and they continue through experience, which, is obviously cognitive.

Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by the senses. Faith is the acceptance of ideas or allegations without sensory evidence or rational demonstration. "Faith in reason" is a contradiction in terms. "Faith" is a concept that possesses meaning only in contradistinction to reason. The concept of "faith" cannot antecede reason, it cannot provide the grounds for the acceptance of reason—it is the revolt against reason. - N Branden

Now it should be a simple matter to expose the fallacy of equivocation that takes place when the theist cries "But you have faith too!" There is a clear difference between experiential matters like trust, and Paul's conceptualization of faith, which is merely hope. Hence the theist is knowingly or unwittingly equivocating his non contingent belief with a colloquial usage of the word 'faith' that really means trust. He's taking advantage of the fact that two different concepts are expressed by using the same word.

To help remove the equivocation, you need to call these two distinct processes by different names. I suggest contingent vs non contingent faith.

Review:

1) The claim that 'everyone takes things on faith" equivocates between theistic faith with contingent faith. Once this error is uncovered, the claim fails.

2) The fact that inductive claims are uncertian does not mean that 'faith' is required to shore up induction.... we merely need to hold to inductive claims probabilistically

 

Responses:

"Since every one has faith, singling theism out as irrational is unfair"

While it may be true that no person on earth avoids being irrational at some time, we are not arguing whether or not people are irrational, we are arguing whether theism is necessarily irrational. And theism is irrational as it rests upon non contingent faith. Furthermore, theists require that it rely on non contingent faith, seeing as their can be no rational grounds for a supernatural claim. Some theists have no problem conceding this (i.e. the apophatic tradition/Negative Theology), and your fallacy of equivocation does their honesty a disservice.

"Faith is a form of reason!"

No. Logic denies this. The bible denies this. Theologians as famed as Martin Luther deny this. Faith is belief unjustified by any natural process:

"The anabaptists pretend that children, not as yet having reason, ought not to receive baptism. I answer: That reason in no way contributes to faith. Nay, in that children are destitute of reason, they are all the more fit and proper recipients of baptism. For reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but - more frequently than not - struggles against the Divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. If God can communicate the Holy Ghost to grown persons, he can, a fortiori, communicate it to young children. Faith comes of the Word of God, when this is heard; little children hear that Word when they receive baptism, and therewith they receive also faith. - Martin Luther , Table Talk CCCLIII [1569] .

"There is on earth among all dangers no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason...Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason, sense, and understanding, and whatever it sees must be put out of sight and ... know nothing but the word of God." -- -Martin Luther (Works Vol. 12)" The first two sentences are found quoted by Walter Kaufmann, _The Faith of a Heretic_, (Garden city, NY, doubleday, 1963), p. 75

Here Luther tells us that reason cannot take us to 'god', so we must rely on faith:

This is the highest degree of faith - to believe that He is merciful, who saves so few and damns so many (Belief contra logic) ; to believe Him just, who according to His own will, makes us necessarily damnable, that He may seem, as Erasmus says, 'to delight in the torments of the miserable, and to be an object of hatred rather than of love.' If, therefore, I could by any means comprehend how that same God can be merciful and just, who carries the appearance of so much wrath and iniquity, there would be no need of faith. But now, since that cannot be comprehended, there is room for exercising faith, while such things are preached and openly proclaimed: in the same manner as, while God kills, the faith of life is exercised in death. Suffice it to have said thus much upon your PREFACE.

Original quote: 'Hic est fidei summus gradus, credere illum esse clementem qui tam paucos salvat tam multos damnat; credere justum qui sua voluntate nos necessario damnabiles facit; ut videatur, referente Erasmo, delectari cruciatibus miserorum, et odio potius quam amore dignus. Si igitur possem ulla ratione comprehendere quomodo is Deus misericors et justus, qui tantum iram et iniquitatem ostendit, non esset opus fide.' " -- -Martin Luther (Works Vol. 12)"

“Whoever wishes to be a Christian, let him pluck out the eyes of his reason.”
-- -Martin Luther (Works Vol. 12)"

In the paragraph from which this quote is drawn, Luther cites 1 Corinthians 2:9: “Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him,’ these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

Here Luther openly states that reason led people to heresy (bold part 1), because god knowledge is secret and hidden and only open through revelation to those who love him (bold parts 2 and 3). The citations prove that the quote listed above them is clearly in context with the rest of the passage. In fact, the quote practically reads as the conclusion to a syllogism.

Next:

The full sentence of the “pluck out your eye” quote contains a citation to Matthew 5:29:

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell”

Why cite this? Because there is a similar concept being explicated upon here. In the Matthew citation, it is held that it is better to pluck out your eye if seeing leads you to sin and then hell. The same goes for the eye of reason: better to pluck it out if reasoning leads you to heresy and then hell.

So Luther is doing anything other than giving a rational argument. He's beginning with a special plead fallacy. He arguing that there is 'god knowledge' but that it is secret and hidden and not open to reason. Classic special plead fallacy. He then begs the question that our inability to make any sense of 'God claims' must mean that the problem is reason itself. Classic circular logic. Reason would actually dictate that the problem lies in the "God claim" and not with reason itself. Luther's conclusion that one must pluck out they eye of reason is therefore bankrupt nonsense.

Calvinist's are not in any better position:

"We are not our own; therefore neither our reason nor our will should predominate in our deliberations and actions. We are not our own; therefore, lets us not propose it as our end, to seek what may be expedient for us according to the flesh(mind). We are not our own; therefore, let us, as far as possible, forget ourselves and all things that are ours. On the contrary, we are God's, to him, therefore let us live and die. For, as it is the most devastating pestilence which ruins people if they obey themselves, it is the only haven of salvation not to know or to want anything oneself but to be guided by God who walks before us." (book 3 of the ICR, chapter 7, 1)

"Wouldn't the pragmatic value of my religion be a rational justification?"

Whatever pragmatic rationality you come up with can have no bearing on the validity of the belief in the supernatural. They are side issues dealing with the benefits of holding to the belief.

 

We know, a priori, that these 'pragmatisms' can have no role in affirming the veracity of the belief, if the belief involves the supernatural. And again, we have the 'god inspired' words of Paul to affirm this.

"Doesn't an infant start from a position of faith?"

"Basic trust" - the stance of infanthood is instinctual, not a 'non contingent faith'. Kick a baby, and she'll cry, not coo. In general, it is more correct to say that we begin through instinct, which is non-cognitive altogether, than in a 'faith' position of any kind.

"Don't people have faith in science?"

If they do, it's only in the contingent sense of the word, and then only after experiencing multiple success stories. People trust science when they see tangible results, they mistrust science when it does things that frighten or endanger lives. This clearly has nothing to do with an unjustified belief.

Note: Robert Todd Carroll of the Skeptics Dictionary makes the same basic points vis a vis the equivocation of non contingent faith for contingent faith in theistic arguments:

http://www.skepdic.com/faith.html

His entry is a very good read.

 

 

Theistic faith can't be anything other than ignorance. It is unjustified belief in something absurd and contradictory by definition.

Theists have no choice but to lie to themselves and conflate their non contingent faith with contingently held assumptions (colloquial usages of the word 'faith&#39 because the alternative is to concede the obvious: that there can be no grounds for believing in something that is defined incoherently, like the supernatural or 'god'.

 

 

The problem with this, and most theists simply don't accept it, is that you have Trust, Love and Reliance in the Thing you have Faith in. It's circular logic.

 

If you are to equate science, then equate science with its proper analogy. Science is a process, like prayer.  If you can show that prayer is reliable like science, then you may be able to develop a trust in it.

Whether you love it or not is immaterial.  I don't love bullets, but they will kill me, whether I like it or not. That is, reality has very little to do with whether you love something.

An reliance has to do with a repeatability of experience. Prayer has simply not shown to be reliable.

 

So, you may define Faith as you have, but you have determined your Faith in God first and THEN defined your feelings about it.

 

WHY do you have trust in God? WHY do you have FAITH in God? You can't answer one question without presupposing the affirmative  of the other question.

 

Whereas, we have trust in science because we know it exists (it is a human construct of discovery), and has shown to be more reliable than any other method of discovery.

 

Faith is simply circular reasoning and vaccuous. 

Exactly.  To equate it with science is disengenuous, at best, since only a fool would seriously suggest that its existence is questioned.

 

I thought about this more.

 

Basically the OP argument goes:

"I have Faith in God because I Trust, Love and Rely on God. I Trust , Love and Rely on God  because I have Faith in him."

 

Whereas the Scientist (if he were to accept the language of the  Religionist) would say:

"I have Faith in Science because I Trust, Love and Rely on Science. I Trust, Love and Rely on Science because it has proven itself to be an effect tool for discovery, brings me closer to the truth of our universe and has been reliable by the very nature of its methodology."

The common misconception is to equate Science with God.  Science is a process. The closest analogy would be "Science is like Prayer" (both are methods and practices that claim to reveal Truths). However, we all know that Science is a much more reliable method. 

 

Anyhow, perhaps the OP can explain why his argument (or definition) isn't circular.