Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

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msnobody
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by msnobody »

dastardly stem wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 1:59 am
What is a militant atheist household? I see believers attempt to marginalize nonbelievers by calling them militant. Why is not believing something militant but believing religion isn’t? Once you see someone claiming militancy for another because there’s disagreement you know they aren’t eager to converse in good faith.

Normally the most strident people for their positions or opinions are believers. When nonbelievers push back particularly when believers attempt to run over everyone else, believers cry something like militancy. Running over everyone else seems to be the most valiant way to religion these days. Speaking of…

Ah well…I’m also feeling nonplussed by philos use of the word faith. He also seems to think religion is just living, as it seems that’s what he’s offered in the other thread. To him believing is thinking there’s an undefined character bugging our insides, it seems, and religion is people living but not practicing religion. I’m guessing he’d be a fan of Jordan Peterson, or he at least is sounding more like Jordan everyday. The position that we ought not try and convince each other sounds terrible to me (and is probably not very j petersonesque). If we act the defeatist because it’s too hard I don’t see how we’re to get anywhere.

I suppose if we want to say religions good and god is there kinda, in a way, alright. Sounds a bit nutty and kinda unfalsifies everything, in a postmodernist way, but it also puts us right where religion would have us. We’d have less space to actually engage with each other attempting to work out a better world. But we also can’t convince people who adamantly reject reason in order to maintain their position. We can, though, keep trying rationality and hope it sinks in.
It [militant] may have to do with his parents being members of the American Communist Party. Not sure what that entails. But ya’ll already know I’m not an historian. :P seems there was a League of Militant Athiests around the same time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League ... t_Atheists
The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession... The LORD set his love on you and chose you... The LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery. Deut. 7
dastardly stem
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by dastardly stem »

msnobody wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:02 am

It [militant] may have to do with his parents being members of the American Communist Party. Not sure what that entails. But ya’ll already know I’m not an historian. :P seems there was a League of Militant Athiests around the same time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League ... t_Atheists
Yes, I suppose if atheists embrace “militant” as their group name there’s nothing to object to. Damned Soviet communists ruined it for us all.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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JohnW
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by JohnW »

Chap wrote:
Mon Nov 21, 2022 2:15 pm
I have however used science in theory and practice enough to have concluded that it does seem on the basis of my experience that the approach of trying to discover long-term regularities in the world and apply them to solving problems has so far worked pretty well, not just for me but also for a lot of other people. So, until things start turning out otherwise, I am proceeding on that basis. Of course I have no way of being sure that things will always be that way. But until it turns out otherwise, I shall carry on pursing what seems to be a winning strategy. That's a practical and common sense judgement - no 'faith' is involved.
I have however used religious faith in theory and practice enough to have concluded that it does seem on the basis of my experience that the approach of trying to discover eternal regularities in the world and apply them to solving spiritual problems has so far worked pretty well, not just for me but also for a lot of other people. So, until things start turning out otherwise, I am proceeding on that basis. Of course I have no way of being sure that things will always be that way. But until it turns out otherwise, I shall carry on pursing what seems to be a winning strategy. That's a practical and common sense judgement - only 'faith' is involved.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. I only had to change a couple words (in italics) to describe most people's lived experience of faith. For the living, breathing, everyday person, science and faith seem very similar. I think this is because for people who are not well versed in science, it takes just as much faith to trust scientists as it does to trust religious claims.
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JohnW
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

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Philo Sofee wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:24 pm
Come on, this isn't hard. The faith scientists have in the universe is that it is comprehensible, that it remains having the same effects with the same laws, otherwise there is no point in doing mathematics and science. You appear to me to be terrified of the word faith, when in fact, it is an everyday word we all use all the time. It is from the Latin word Fides which means trust. We all know what takes trust and that is evidence. Remember the banking crisis a few years back? We lost trust in them and it really effected our economy. Scientists trust that the laws of the universe are the same today as they were yesterday. There is a regularity, a comprehensible aspect to the universe that amazed Einstein and he said so. Yes there is a lot of hard work of men and women, and because there is hard work on the universe, shows they trust that it will continue being how they have found it with the laws of the universe. They trust it is still comprehensible today. You need to forget Dawkin's lunatic redefinition of faith and just see for what it is, a real force in us that encourages us to continue exploring our Cosmos. It is a very good thing!
And it's a dang good thing mathematics continues working the way it does, or we wouldn't use it. We all have faith it remains the same today as it did yesterday, since, after all, there is nothing saying it will remain so. EVERYTHING changes, yet we have faith in the intelligibility of our maths and sciences to give us accurate and real answers. Without that faith in the usefulness and continued validity of mathematics, we would not use them.
The way I like to describe it is that for the individual person (not talking cosmology or metaphysics) we have no choice but to trust. When I fly a plane across the country, I don't go down to the underbelly of the plane and check the fuel gauge and the oil pressure. I don't watch as the pilot goes through the checklist. I trust that this is all being done by others. In a similar way, I am a scientist, but I am no expert in all fields of science. I can't double check each experiment that has ever been done. I can't go through the math to check people's algebra. And don't even remind me about the many times over the centuries when science gets itself into this weird groupthink mode where errors are perpetuated throughout the whole system for decades. I trust science because I assume others do this work. This is trust on the individual level. This is why, regardless of whether science or religion is more correct, to an individual person it feels like we are using faith/trust all the time in both science and religion.
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JohnW
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

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dastardly stem wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:39 pm
Doctor Cam and Chap have made the point well, I think. You can use the word faith anyway you like. no one will stop you. But to think what science does is the same as what religion does in their quests for truth is completely wrong, no matter from which angle we look at it. Not in the same ballpark at all.
Agreed, science and religion approach the world in completely different ways, but on the individual level, we as individuals approach science and religion in very similar ways. We are only familiar with the tiniest fraction of what both have to offer. With no hope of exhaustively understanding everything there is to know, we have no choice but to trust. This feels a whole lot like faith to the person doing the trusting.
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by Chap »

JohnW wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:28 pm
For the living, breathing, everyday person, science and faith seem very similar. I think this is because for people who are not well versed in science, it takes just as much faith to trust scientists as it does to trust religious claims.
I have a scientific training, have practised scientifically, and have also been a devout, literate and, I have to say, theologically well informed believer in one of the mainstream varieties of historic western Christianity. Perhaps if I had been someone who was "not well versed in science", I might have suffered from the misunderstanding that you refer to. But I was not, and did not.

By the way, I was and still am a "living, breathing, everyday person". I'm not sure what that purely rhetorical flourish was meant to convey to your readers. It does nothing to establish your point.
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dastardly stem
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:37 pm
dastardly stem wrote:
Tue Nov 22, 2022 3:39 pm
Doctor Cam and Chap have made the point well, I think. You can use the word faith anyway you like. no one will stop you. But to think what science does is the same as what religion does in their quests for truth is completely wrong, no matter from which angle we look at it. Not in the same ballpark at all.
Agreed, science and religion approach the world in completely different ways, but on the individual level, we as individuals approach science and religion in very similar ways. We are only familiar with the tiniest fraction of what both have to offer. With no hope of exhaustively understanding everything there is to know, we have no choice but to trust. This feels a whole lot like faith to the person doing the trusting.
We know what science offers. What positive does religion offer that is exclusive to religion? I just don’t think you are correct that we approach science and religion in similar ways. Religion offers bad ideas to fill in the areas we don’t know.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
dastardly stem
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:28 pm

I have however used religious faith in theory and practice enough to have concluded that it does seem on the basis of my experience that the approach of trying to discover eternal regularities in the world and apply them to solving spiritual problems has so far worked pretty well, not just for me but also for a lot of other people.
Do you have an example to illustrate what you mean?
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
msnobody
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by msnobody »

dastardly stem wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:15 pm
msnobody wrote:
Thu Nov 24, 2022 3:02 am

It [militant] may have to do with his parents being members of the American Communist Party. Not sure what that entails. But ya’ll already know I’m not an historian. :P seems there was a League of Militant Athiests around the same time.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League ... t_Atheists
Yes, I suppose if atheists embrace “militant” as their group name there’s nothing to object to. Damned Soviet communists ruined it for us all.
They weren’t the nice Christ-like atheists we have on the discussion board. Amazing people try to discredit Garte because in his bio the word “militant” is in front of atheist. :roll:
The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession... The LORD set his love on you and chose you... The LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery. Deut. 7
KevinSim
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Re: Question for KevinSim- biblical gospel articulation request

Post by KevinSim »

huckelberry wrote:
Fri Nov 11, 2022 9:32 pm
He hopes we are to be saved from our inclination to evil, our guilt and resulting hostility with God, the condemnation of the law, spiritual and physical death.
So, Huckleberry, is it possible that what Paul meant was that we are saved from our inclination to evil by grace through faith, and not by our works? I could get behind that.
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