Simple question?

Quote: FrGamble

No, what I am saying is that our natural station as human beings is to be awesome!

Without any gods. Agreed.

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Do you think any of the amazing men you list would or desired to test and verify everything in their lives?

I don't know,.

I do know Marie Curie wasn't a man.

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They stood on the shoulders of giants and built higher and stronger foundations partly because they had trust and faith in the brilliant men and women who went before them.

Quite the contrary. Science is based on skepticism.

One could deduce the speed of light using Maxwell's equations. But only if the light source were immobile. Naturally this ruled out any Earth sources, as we know the Earth rotates on its axis and orbits the Sun, and the Sun orbits the Galaxy, and the Galaxy likely moves as well. So an experiment was set up to measure Earth's movement relative to light.

All of this was completely right. Except the experiment, widely known as the Michealson-Morely experiment, stated that the Earth does not move. The experiment was refined and made more accurate, and still reported back "Go home, Galileo! The Earth is rock-steady and immovable!"

We all know the answer to this conundrum. But Einstein didn't find it by trusting that Maxwell was right, or that the MM experiment was right. He knew one of them, at least, had to be wrong.

Quote: Dalex64

The problem is you are claiming there is only one kind of faith, one type of faith, or one definition of faith that applies to all uses of faith.

I am continuing to state that there are at least two: faith in things that you could verify for yourself if you chose to do so, and faith in things which are impossible to verify.

All of those "cute quotes" are talking about faith in the unverifiable.

I think that these distinctions between verifiable or not are good distinctions but do not change the nature of faith. The process of gathering evidence and making a reasonable decision about what to have faith in is the same if it involved a potentially verifiable thing like has the plane been properly maintained and an unverifiable belief in Jesus Christ as true God and true man. You also have to recognize that a potential verifiable belief is practically an unverifiable belief. Your distinction because word play and a valuable distinction but does nothing to change the nature of faith itself.

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What people choose to have faith in and why is what I call "stupid" as it were, not faith itself or the decision to take something on faith.

There is another term we can add to the mix, "blind faith". What does that mean, and what does it apply to?

"Blind faith" doesn't deserve the word faith. It is not faith to just blindly believe something. That is what I would also call just stupid.

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I find your lack of faith in humans to do the right thing without promise of supernatural reward and punishment to be disappointing.

I DON'T BELIEVE THIS. In fact I believe the opposite. I have faith that the all human beings would do the right thing if there weren't social pressures, bad formation and upbringing, and other factors. A human being is hardwired by God to do the right thing regardless of the supernatural or eternal ideas of punishment and reward. To do good just because you will be rewarded is exactly what Jesus railed against in the Gospel we all just read for Ash Wednesday. Check out Matthew 6:1-6; 16-18.

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Do you count the Hindus and Buddhists among the atheists, since they do not believe in your god? Or is belief in false gods and the guidance people receive from him (which really must be from each-other since they aren't worshiping a real god) better than not believing in any gods at all?

I believe as does Vatican II documents that there are sparks of truth in all religions who honestly seek after the truth and knowledge of God.

Quote: Evenbob

I have a
good friend who is an ex priest and he
says it was brainwashing for sure, and he
wasn't even aware of it till years later
when he'd been away from the Church
for a good while. That you don't see it
isn't surprising.

Please don't compare the faulty and poor formation your friend Ed received to the formation I received. It is completely different. I don't expect Ed to believe or understand this but we are constantly trained to be open and critically examine everything including Church teaching. The fact is that if you are honestly pursing truth you have nothing to fear from good questions and honest examination and openness. In fact this is essential if you are going to avoid being brainwashed and if you really want to discover truth.

Quote: Nareed

People and institutions can be different and equal. They cannot be separate and equal.

See, if they could be, we'd still have as many pagans as Christians in Europe, or at least a substantial pagan population. Constantine I issued the Edict of Milan, formally establishing legal toleration of all religions within the Roman Empire. But once he made Christianity the state religion, all the others became, at best "separate but equal" under the law.

Okay I am 100% in agreement with making civil unions different but equal from heterosexual marriage.

Quote: FrGamble

Okay I am 100% in agreement with making civil unions different but equal from heterosexual marriage.

It can't be done.

Different but equal means that, for example, a movie theater and an airline are different businesses, but equal before the law.

Separate but equal means a full-service airline and a low-cost airline are classified differently under law. They may be treated equally at first, if at all, but in time one will, in Orwell's ironical phrase, be considered more equal than the other.

Quote: Nareed

It can't be done.

Different but equal means that, for example, a movie theater and an airline are different businesses, but equal before the law.

Separate but equal means a full-service airline and a low-cost airline are classified differently under law. They may be treated equally at first, if at all, but in time one will, in Orwell's ironical phrase, be considered more equal than the other.

That is pretty pessimistic but granted it is based in history. How about different but equal in the way an airline and a train company are different business with similar goals but obviously still different and equal before the law.

Quote: FrGamble

we are constantly trained to be open and critically examine everything including Church teaching. .

Will you be starting that here soon? So far
all you do is toe the Church line on everything.
All history is wrong, except the rewritten history
the Church spews out. You see evidence for a
god where there is none. You think atheism is
responsible for all the wars of the 20th century.
You think Gays and women don't deserve the same
rights as everybody else in marriage and holding
high offices in the Church. You think a wafer and some
wine turns into actual flesh and blood.Your non critical
thinking knows no end.

Quote: FrGamble

That is pretty pessimistic but granted it is based in history. How about different but equal in the way an airline and a train company are different business with similar goals but obviously still different and equal before the law.

As witness the thriving passenger rail industry, plying the intercontinental routes of America in record time?

Quote: Bertrand Russel

Christians hold that their faith does good, but other faiths do harm. At any rate, they hold this about the communist faith. What I wish to maintain is that all faiths do harm. We may define “faith” as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of “faith.” We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions. Christians have faith in the Resurrection; communists have faith in Marx’s Theory of Value. Neither faith can be defended rationally, and each therefore is defended by propaganda and, if necessary, by war.

Bertrand Russel, "Will Religious Faith Cure Our Troubles?"

A much less flippant quote.

I would substitute the "no evidence" part of "a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence" with something about evidence which lacks veracity, or independent verification, or singular attribution, or what ever other reasons you might list for why something might be considered 'good, solid' evidence to one person and 'bad, irrelevant' evidence to someone else.

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We may define “faith” as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of “faith.”

This is what I've been saying since we
started this discussion in Nov of 2014.
You can't have faith and evidence at
the same time, as FrG thinks you can.
It's either one or the other.

FrG is confused about what faith means.
Saying I have faith that my car will start
is not the same as having a religious faith.
Just like saying I love pizza is not the same
love that I have for my mother.