Looking forward to a DNA Hard Drive

[kwikphilly]

Blessings Omegaman

    Loved your OP,,,,,,FANTASTIC!!!! Personally just another very rational deduction that supports & confirms the only conclusion anyone half way intelligent can come to ,,,,,,,,GOD!!!! For me ,science has been an integral part for my own personal ,inquisitive mind to reach a place of SATISFACTION,,,,,,,,,,,,

    All things in this Universe point directly to a Grand Designer,there is no getting around it unless you live on Fantasy Island! Confirmation,confirmation & more confirmation that there is an Almighty God! Halleluyah!

    It gives me great Joy to read things like that,,,,thanks for sharing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I hope it gives food for thought for the lost & confused,,,Praise the Lord!

                                                                                                                                    With love-in Christ,Kwik

[LuftWaffle]

2 hours ago, Bonky said:

Luftwaffle:

 

Ok so you're saying faith isn't a method of figuring out what is true, it's holding onto what you believe to be true.  This also sounds like something that isn't advisable.  This sounds a lot like "I trust that I can't ever be wrong about X".  Why is that a good thing?   I don't have faith that what I believe to be true is unshakable.  Anything should be up to scrutiny and review.

This is why we have people [and organizations] saying "No matter what you put in front of me, I'll never change my view".  What is the difference between faith as you've defined it and dogma?  Or am I misunderstanding?

I still find this idea of faith to be overall to be risky business.  

With regard to your questions, I'm an agnostic atheist, I don't think there's a way to figure out if there is a God or not.   I have bones to pick with theism for sure but the idea that our Universe may have been created, on purpose, by a sentient being is completely possible.  I'm afraid I don't know how to quantify what I would need in order to believe in a creator.   I can try to put it this way, it would need to be something that I could defend.

I'd like to wrap up by saying that I don't look down on Christians for believing in the gospel accounts.  I don't view them as crazy or stupid.  What I do have concern over is how the rest of the contents of the Bible can shape a persons mind.  The bible has wonderful things to say but it also contains very polarizing language that I feel gets in the way of our social discourse.   It's not good enough to just look at someone like me and say "Ok this guy isn't convinced".  I hear that I'm a liar, lost, blind, not REALLY trying to find truth etc etc.  What drives this?  Isn't it faith?

 

Hi Bonky,

I think you've misunderstood slightly. I'm definitely not defining faith holding onto what is true, but rather acting on what you believe is true. I don't equate faith with unshakability or dogmatism, in fact I don't get along with dogmatic people and I know theists as well as atheists who are dogmatic.

For example I might place my faith on a bridge, because perhaps based on my assessment it would look like it could carry my weight. But maybe tomorrow after a flash flood broke some support pillar, I might not be willing to place my faith on it. So faith isn't unchanging, if the evidence changes to the contrary then perhaps faith might become unwarranted. I believed the author of Hebrews' point was however, that just because the Jewish Christians were suffering tribulation, it didn't warrant forsaking belief in Christ because the Christian hope isn't for a cushy comfortable life in the here and now, but the hope is for the future which is yet unseen.

I hope that makes sense?

I'm glad that you don't think Christians are stupid or crazy. That is a refreshing change from most of what I encounter on the internet so I thank you for your charity and I urge you to tolerate uncharitable Christians who accuse you of things just as we have to tolerate atheists who accuse us of things. I believe that I've changed, because I used to be all fired up and smug and judgemental too, and oddly enough the more I've learnt the more I've become charitable. I still get annoyed at stupid arguments and sometimes I can be sarcastic, but I like to think that I've improved somewhat. Don't be too harsh on young Christians who get all fired up. They're just trying to help and they probably believe that you're worth annoying if you can come to know Christ. So please bear with all of us, we're all works in progress and at various stages of our pilgrimage toward becoming like Jesus.

 

 

[siegi91]

On 11 January 2016 at 7:13 AM, LuftWaffle said:

Hi Siegie,

It been a while since we spoke. How are you?
I like to respond to something you've said that ties in with the discussion I'm having with Bonky.

You said, "And my point being that there are no known water proof arguments to prove the existence of (any) God. And that is why faith is required. If there were proof, there would be no faith."

2 + 2 = 4 doesn't require faith, because there's nothing at stake. Faith is an act of trust in a certain proposition where there is something to lose.
When I jump out of a aeroplane I have faith in the guy who packed the parachute. It's not as if his experience as a packer and his qualifications as a packer makes me 90% confident and so faith makes up the 10% remainder. Rather I can trust based on the evidence that I should be safe, so faith is the act of trust demonstrated by me jumping out of the plane. If he was drunk and untidy, such evidence might convince me to not jump, and so I wont be placing my faith in him.

Faith is not an epistomology, it's simply acting on what I believe to be true.

The reason why jumping out of an aeroplane requires faith is because something's at stake. With 2 + 2 = 4 nothing's at stake.

On the other hand, if I put a gun to your head and had an illusionist place 2 rabbits in a black top hat, and then placed two more rabbits in the hat, and then asked you to guess how many rabbits he'll pull out with the warning that if you're wrong, you're dead, now the stakes would be different and guessing four would be an act of trust. I mean you saw 2 + 2 rabbit going into the hat, right?

I'm sure your retort will be that with the illusionist example uncertainty is introduced, to which I would respond that virtually nothing in life has the levels of certainty that mathematics provides. Life is full of uncertainty.

Faith is an act of trust upon what one believes, not an epistomological tool.

Oh, fine thank you. Moved back to Germany for my study. I just could not adapt in Israel. Too hot, lol.

i agree with your stance. I really have not a lot to debate, here. Only one thing, I am not sure we can really dissect the world in certainties and faith.

Knowledge, I think, is sandwiched between mathematical certainty and trust/faith. I think it would be silly from me to say that either i have faith that the speed of light in vacuum is constant or that I have certainty it to be the case. I know it is constant, I do not have faith it is, and neither certainty that it is. My professor would probably raise her eyebrowns if I claim either certainty or faith about the speed of light.

So, very informally, how far is your concept of faith/trust from knowledge? Is it closer or farther than the distance from knowledge to certainty? If this question makes sense, lol.

 siegi

 

 

 

[LuftWaffle]

Hi Siegi,

O, you were in Israel? I'd love to see Israel at some point. It's seems like a harsh place, but with a beauty of it's own. Maybe it's just the tourist brochures, though. Have you been to Petra and the Dead Sea?
My friends say that I'm so old that I was around when the Dead Sea was just slightly ill.

Onto your question, I wouldn't put faith on the scale of certainty and knowledge at all. Like I said, faith is not a way of knowing or a degree of knowing, it's what you do with the knowledge. So your question is a category error, like asking what the weight of fast is

Faith is an act of trust in a belief which one holds to be true. That belief could be anywhere on the certainty scale (assuming quantifiability for the sake of argument), but faith is an act and has no real impact on epistemology. The mental process of determining certainty preceeds what one does (an act of faith) with that certainty.

I think the fact that your professor would raise eyebrows at claiming either faith and certainty in the speed of light, shows that these aren't points on a continuum, but are unrelated. If, however you risked your life in a space craft that somehow relies on calculations of the speed of light, then of course it would make perfect sense to say that you have faith in the speed of light. 

 

 

[siegi91]

11 hours ago, LuftWaffle said:

Hi Siegi,

O, you were in Israel? I'd love to see Israel at some point. It's seems like a harsh place, but with a beauty of it's own. Maybe it's just the tourist brochures, though. Have you been to Petra and the Dead Sea?
My friends say that I'm so old that I was around when the Dead Sea was just slightly ill.

Onto your question, I wouldn't put faith on the scale of certainty and knowledge at all. Like I said, faith is not a way of knowing or a degree of knowing, it's what you do with the knowledge. So your question is a category error, like asking what the weight of fast is

Faith is an act of trust in a belief which one holds to be true. That belief could be anywhere on the certainty scale (assuming quantifiability for the sake of argument), but faith is an act and has no real impact on epistemology. The mental process of determining certainty preceeds what one does (an act of faith) with that certainty.

I think the fact that your professor would raise eyebrows at claiming either faith and certainty in the speed of light, shows that these aren't points on a continuum, but are unrelated. If, however you risked your life in a space craft that somehow relies on calculations of the speed of light, then of course it would make perfect sense to say that you have faith in the speed of light. 

 

 

Lol, you must very old then. Nice line. I intend to use it. Hope it  is not copyrighted.

And probably you are right that I am committing a category error. However, fast has a weight, in a sense. Going faster increases (kinetic) energy, and therefore mass, if m = E is true

So, if I understand you correctly, there is always either certainty (mathematical tautologies, basically) or faith. If my knowledge of the speed of light translates into faith in the speed of light (assuming no human calculation error), then this is the only conclusion I can draw.

But how is it possible if faith is characterized by not being the result of epistemology, whereas the value of the speed of light is? Surely there must be a difference between faith in God and "faith" in the speed of light.

The conclusion is that, at least, some epistemologies are faiths. Which would, prima facie, undermine the definition of faith as being epistemology free.

 siegi

 

 

 

 

[LuftWaffle]

HI Siegi,

I'm not actually that old, but most of my friends are younger than me, which is why they tease me about being old.

You said, "So, if I understand you correctly, there is always either certainty (mathematical tautologies, basically) or faith."

No, that's actually the opposite of what I said. You have various degrees of certainty, ranging from uncertain all the way through to a mathematical certainty. This degree depends on interpreted evidence and the evidence can be empirical, historical, deductive, properly basic etc.

So in short you have reality, and you have beliefs about reality that are formed hopefully upon evidence. This is where epistemology ends.

Then when one actively trusts in one of those beliefs and acts accordingly, then one can be said to have faith in the object of the belief. So faith acts upon a belief, but it says nothing about the certainty of the belief. It's not an epistemological certain maker such that the evidence may provide 80% certainty and faith picks up the balance and makes it 100%.

You said, "If my knowledge of the speed of light translates into faith in the speed of light"

My point is, that knowledge doesn't translate into faith. Knowledge doesn't care whether you trust in it or not and knowledge certainly doesn't necessitate or cause faith. Faith is a separate act from the knowledge enterprise.

You said, "Surely there must be a difference between faith in God and 'faith' in the speed of light."

Why? Because you need there to be a difference? The entire apologetics enterprise, where Christianity is concerned, is an exercise in providing reasons to trust in Him, not so? While you may not believe it, the Christian claim is that Jesus rose bodily and appeared to many witnesses so that those may know that He is the Son of God. Jesus even let the unbelieving Thomas touch the spear hole in His side. Does that strike you as a religion that advocates the idea that faith is contrary to evidence?

But this notion is very much a matter of atheist lore. The idea that science is real knowledge and faith is "belief without evidence" and doesn't belong in science is very popular nowadays, but it's completely wrong headed and actually is a belief that itself isn't supported by evidence. I heard Neil DeGrasse-Tyson recently claiming that very same thing, quite matter-of-factly, without actually realising that how silly that claim is. But it has become so common and repeated so often that people take it for granted and accept it unquestioningly.
So I guess I don't blame you for insisting the same, but it's not accurate at all. Evidence doesn't speak for itself, it is interpreted based on certain assumptions, theories and givens....this is Philosophy of Science 101 and is true for every field of study, be it history, science, psychology, literary analysis, theology, ethics, aesthetics, politics, economics, etc.

Does that help at all?

 

[Omegaman 3.0]

On 1/11/2016 at 11:14 AM, kwikphilly said:

Blessings Omegaman

    Loved your OP,,,,,,FANTASTIC!!!!

Thank you so much for that kwik, you have been a faithful encourager over the years, and I really appreciate that!

[Bonky]

Luftwaffle you said 

Quote

Why? Because you need there to be a difference? The entire apologetics enterprise, where Christianity is concerned, is an exercise in providing reasons to trust in Him, not so? While you may not believe it, the Christian claim is that Jesus rose bodily and appeared to many witnesses so that those may know that He is the Son of God. Jesus even let the unbelieving Thomas touch the spear hole in His side. Does that strike you as a religion that advocates the idea that faith is contrary to evidence?

Wouldn't a scientific response to this be something akin to:

-  How do we know rising from the dead proves or demonstrates that one is trustworthy, divine, etc?

-  If we assume the item above is a given, Thomas touching the spear hole in Christ is evidence for Thomas...how is it evidence for us?  

 

[LuftWaffle]

HI Bonky,

I was responding to the specific claim that faith is an epistemology and a poor one at that. My point was that faith isn't an epistemology at all much less somehow contrary to evidence. It seems you're on board with that because it looks like you're saying that Thomas' faith was grounded in evidence.

Now, in terms of what evidence there is for the Christian religion today, that's a completely separate question than the one I was addressing. For that, you might want to try William Lane Craig's book reasonable faith. For something a little more philosophically rigorous you can try Alvin Plantinga's Two Dozen (or so) theistic arguments.

I can highly recommend J Warner Wallace's Cold Case Christianity and his latest book God's Crime scene. I haven't read them myself, but I'm hoping to buy God's Crime scene soon, not so much for the apologetics stuff (I'm pretty familiar with that) but for the criminal law and crimes solving stuff. I like that sort of thing.

In terms of the OP I think a pretty interesting inductive argument can be made that for DNA intelligently designed. Perry Marshall has a website called Cosmic Fingerprints where he deals with this. So there is certainly evidence for God and the sheer bulk of it, I think, makes it more plausible than not, that God exists. Now of course if you require a stronger standard than "more plausible than not", if you instead require certainty, then I can't help you. I'm not even certain that you're not a figment of my imagination  
 

[siegi91]

12 hours ago, LuftWaffle said:

HI Siegi,

I'm not actually that old, but most of my friends are younger than me, which is why they tease me about being old.

You said, "So, if I understand you correctly, there is always either certainty (mathematical tautologies, basically) or faith."

No, that's actually the opposite of what I said. You have various degrees of certainty, ranging from uncertain all the way through to a mathematical certainty. This degree depends on interpreted evidence and the evidence can be empirical, historical, deductive, properly basic etc.

So in short you have reality, and you have beliefs about reality that are formed hopefully upon evidence. This is where epistemology ends.

Then when one actively trusts in one of those beliefs and acts accordingly, then one can be said to have faith in the object of the belief. So faith acts upon a belief, but it says nothing about the certainty of the belief. It's not an epistemological certain maker such that the evidence may provide 80% certainty and faith picks up the balance and makes it 100%.

You said, "If my knowledge of the speed of light translates into faith in the speed of light"

My point is, that knowledge doesn't translate into faith. Knowledge doesn't care whether you trust in it or not and knowledge certainly doesn't necessitate or cause faith. Faith is a separate act from the knowledge enterprise.

You said, "Surely there must be a difference between faith in God and 'faith' in the speed of light."

Why? Because you need there to be a difference? The entire apologetics enterprise, where Christianity is concerned, is an exercise in providing reasons to trust in Him, not so? While you may not believe it, the Christian claim is that Jesus rose bodily and appeared to many witnesses so that those may know that He is the Son of God. Jesus even let the unbelieving Thomas touch the spear hole in His side. Does that strike you as a religion that advocates the idea that faith is contrary to evidence?

But this notion is very much a matter of atheist lore. The idea that science is real knowledge and faith is "belief without evidence" and doesn't belong in science is very popular nowadays, but it's completely wrong headed and actually is a belief that itself isn't supported by evidence. I heard Neil DeGrasse-Tyson recently claiming that very same thing, quite matter-of-factly, without actually realising that how silly that claim is. But it has become so common and repeated so often that people take it for granted and accept it unquestioningly.
So I guess I don't blame you for insisting the same, but it's not accurate at all. Evidence doesn't speak for itself, it is interpreted based on certain assumptions, theories and givens....this is Philosophy of Science 101 and is true for every field of study, be it history, science, psychology, literary analysis, theology, ethics, aesthetics, politics, economics, etc.

Does that help at all?

 

Probably, the source of my confusion is that i consider the evaluation of evidence, in order to justify a certain belief, a sort of epistemology. I believe in X because I have objective evidence that X might be true, and my way of justifying the truth of X was based on method Y: evaluation of evidence, or logic, or repetetive results from experiments, or whatever else.

Therefore, I am not sure how faith can be detached from epistemology, if yourself claim that the ontology it is trying to justify, or defend, is based on some sort of way, or algorithm. Call it common sense, inductivity, experience, logic, etc. 

i am sure Thomas himself needed a basic epistemology to realize that Jesus had risen again. Namely: I assume I am not dreaming. This is the reality. I assume I am am not a brain in a vet and I am really touching the wounds of this man , whose image on my retinas is very close to the image of the master, and the fact that I saw him on the cross, is cumulative objective evidence for me that what he says is true. I might be wrong on my premises, but my way of assessing the truth of things makes me conclude that he is really the master risen.

How is that not an epistemology?

 sieglinde