Meeting with Bishop: Faith is a Choice

[_Buffalo]

Faith is a choice, it is an attitude and a predisposition towards reality revealing itself to us. It is oriented commitment towards reality.

Faith is, by definition, belief without evidence.

[_Buffalo]

- resulting in real knowledge..

WHich is meaningless.

You have no reason to believe that the conclusions you've drawn from experimentation, logic, reason, and any other device you choose, actually represents "real knowledge".

And, for what it's worth, i reject your representation of faith. You say this a lot, are corrected, and yet you still cling to it. Point being, you're world view requires the very same kind of faith you so blithely reject.

Empiricism is the only world view that has ever worked in the real world. Try inventing a laptop based on faith.

[_Hoops]

Empiricism

Which itself can not be verified.

is the only world view that has ever worked

Worked for what?

in the real world.

What is the real world?

Try inventing a laptop based on faith.

Is inventing a laptops the point?

[_Buffalo]

Empiricism

Which itself can not be verified.

is the only world view that has ever worked

Worked for what?

in the real world.

What is the real world?

Try inventing a laptop based on faith.

Is inventing a laptops the point?

Solipsism? Really? You're pulling a Simon Belmont in defense of your faith?

[_Darth J]

So, Why Me.......as someone who chooses to have faith, do you feel that your faith that cleansing procedures by your friendly neighborhood Scientologists have effectively removed the thetans that cause all of your problems?

I certainly hope you feel that the answer is yes. Choose to have faith, Why Me!

I have no faith in scientology but some do. And that is their choice to have faith. But faith comes and goes because it is based not on evidence but on belief. And beliefs can change.

And with that in mind, why don't you have faith in Scientology?

But now I have a larger question: Did the witnesses to the Book of Mormon once they saw the plates continue to need faith or did they need something else to keep them going? I think that it is obvious that they many continued to have trust in Mormonism because of their experience but they lost faith in Joseph Smith. And this is why some floated around with Strang and other related Mormon offshoots.

That isn't a larger question; it's a narrower one. You are going from vague, generalized platitudes about the virtue of gullibility (which you label "faith," to the chagrin of people who have the kind of faith that Mikwut is talking about) to the specific testimonials of Joseph Smith's relatives and financial backers.

I notice that you did not frame the issue in terms of whether the people who saw Our Lady of Lourdes or Our Lady of Fatima continued to need faith once they saw the Virgin Mary. Why don't you have faith that this was a sign that we need to venerate Her? Faith is a choice, Why Me! A choice that is independent of evidence! So why not believe it?

The Eight Witnesses would have had to take it on faith that the object they were shown was what Joseph Smith purported it to be. They had no qualifications whatsoever, nor any claimed supernatural experience, to tell them otherwise.

You are also begging numerous questions. I did not have the experience that the Three Witnesses said they had, so I have to decide (because faith is a choice!) whether I find the story credible. However, since you have announced that evidence is irrelevant to the decision about what to have faith in, you are leaving things at choosing to believe in something based on completely arbitrary criteria. Since you volunteered the witnesses to the Golden Plates as an example in the same post where you said that faith "is based not on evidence," maybe you would like to explain why Joseph Smith promulgated testimonials by witnesses.

Did Martin Harris continue to need faith once he determined that he had as much or more reason to believe in the Shakers as he ever had to believe in Mormonism?

Did David Whitmer continue to need faith once God told him that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet?

Did Oliver Cowdery continue to need faith after he received revelations through his divining rod? Did he continue to need faith after allegedly being personally present when Elijah restored the keys to the sealing power, yet denounced Joseph Smith's affair with Fanny Alger, suggesting that the retroactive history of "Joseph must have been sealed to her" wasn't really what was going on?

Do you continue to need faith when you pick only the faith-promoting statements of each of the Three Witnesses?

Do you continue to need faith when you rely on the bandwagon fallacy to assume that the LDS branch of Mormonism is the true one, and all the other Mormon denominations are just "offshoots"?

[_Hoops]

Solipsism? Really? You're pulling a Simon Belmont in defense of your faith?

I don't appeal to solipsism to defend my faith. I offer it as a possibility that is contrary to your faith.

[_Buffalo]

Solipsism? Really? You're pulling a Simon Belmont in defense of your faith?

I don't appeal to solipsism to defend my faith. I offer it as a possibility that is contrary to your faith.

I don't believe in anything without good evidence, ergo have I have no faith of the sort you exercise. But solipsism is basically admitting that you have to deny objective reality itself in order to make room for your viewpoint. It's an admission of defeat on your part.

[_mikwut]

Buffalo stated,

Faith is, by definition, belief without evidence.

I am without sufficient evidence to accept that.

mikwut

[_Buffalo]

Buffalo stated,

Faith is, by definition, belief without evidence.

I am without sufficient evidence to accept that.

mikwut

Definition of FAITH
1
a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2
a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3
: something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs <the Protestant faith>

Now, I get that you're emphasizing the trust/loyalty part of the word. But loyalty to what? To a being whose existence you have no evidence for.

[_Hoops]

I don't believe in anything without good evidence, ergo have I have no faith of the sort you exercise. But solipsism is basically admitting that you have to deny objective reality itself in order to make room for your viewpoint. It's an admission of defeat on your part.

Nonetheless, how do you know that your perception of reality corresponds to actual reality?