Searching for GOD...

[ekim]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God. 

and by such attitudes you close your mind to the inconsistencies in your thinking, and why I say that faith is a bad thing.  It's a case of preferring selection bias over facing up to and actually dealing with pieces of your jigsaw that don't fit.

That is the nature of that kind of faith in a God that is good.  It can lead to a view that all that comes about is because of the Will of God and is therefore good, whatever the individual may think.  It makes prayer redundant as in the words of Jesus 'God knows your requirements before you ask'.  It can sometimes lead to a fatalistic approach to life of just drifting from one event to another and it can sometimes lead to a suicide bomber's charter e.g. if I aim to kill many people and it comes about then I am carrying out the will of God, otherwise it wouldn't happen.

[Alan Burns]

That is the nature of that kind of faith in a God that is good.  It can lead to a view that all that comes about is because of the Will of God and is therefore good, whatever the individual may think.  It makes prayer redundant as in the words of Jesus 'God knows your requirements before you ask'.  It can sometimes lead to a fatalistic approach to life of just drifting from one event to another and it can sometimes lead to a suicide bomber's charter e.g. if I aim to kill many people and it comes about then I am carrying out the will of God, otherwise it wouldn't happen.

But God did not say He knows our needs without asking.  Asking through prayer is a very effective way to allow God to work in your life.  And not all will is God's will.

[Alan Burns]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God. 

and by such attitudes you close your mind to the inconsistencies in your thinking, and why I say that faith is a bad thing.  It's a case of preferring selection bias over facing up to and actually dealing with pieces of your jigsaw that don't fit.

But if we allow human intellect to complete the jigsaw we will end up with as many different solutions as there are humans.

[torridon]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God. 

and by such attitudes you close your mind to the inconsistencies in your thinking, and why I say that faith is a bad thing.  It's a case of preferring selection bias over facing up to and actually dealing with pieces of your jigsaw that don't fit.

But if we allow human intellect to complete the jigsaw we will end up with as many different solutions as there are humans.

There is no intellect apart from the human one.

[Alien]

...

I have zero faith in anything.

Including your ability to put forward a logical argument?

I have zero faith in anything.

Is this hard to understand.

No one should ever have faith in anything.

Faith is gullibility.

Thank you for being so clear. You have no faith in yourself, in your ability to construct a logical argument, in your wife (if you have one), in Richard Dawkins to teach good biology, in the police, in the honesty of your local Tesco staff, etc.

Are you honestly saying you think here BR means faith as in trust/confidence/reasonable expectation?

I don't know. Best to ask BR what he means, perhaps.

[jakswan]

...

I have zero faith in anything.

Including your ability to put forward a logical argument?

I have zero faith in anything.

Is this hard to understand.

No one should ever have faith in anything.

Faith is gullibility.

Thank you for being so clear. You have no faith in yourself, in your ability to construct a logical argument, in your wife (if you have one), in Richard Dawkins to teach good biology, in the police, in the honesty of your local Tesco staff, etc.

Are you honestly saying you think here BR means faith as in trust/confidence/reasonable expectation?

I don't know. Best to ask BR what he means, perhaps.

Use a dictionary, this has been explained to you before.

Complete trust or confidence in someone or something
Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof:

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/faith

I have zero faith in anything.

[Andy]

...

I have zero faith in anything.

Including your ability to put forward a logical argument?

I have zero faith in anything.

Is this hard to understand.

No one should ever have faith in anything.

Faith is gullibility.

Thank you for being so clear. You have no faith in yourself, in your ability to construct a logical argument, in your wife (if you have one), in Richard Dawkins to teach good biology, in the police, in the honesty of your local Tesco staff, etc.

Are you honestly saying you think here BR means faith as in trust/confidence/reasonable expectation?

I don't know. Best to ask BR what he means, perhaps.

Yes, why don't you next time instead of presuming you do know and then jumping all over him?

[Alan Burns]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God. 

and by such attitudes you close your mind to the inconsistencies in your thinking, and why I say that faith is a bad thing.  It's a case of preferring selection bias over facing up to and actually dealing with pieces of your jigsaw that don't fit.

But if we allow human intellect to complete the jigsaw we will end up with as many different solutions as there are humans.

There is no intellect apart from the human one.

That is a very bold assertion.

[Nearly Sane]

You mean omniscient, Floo. Alan's god doesn't seem to be an omni one.

[torridon]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God. 

and by such attitudes you close your mind to the inconsistencies in your thinking, and why I say that faith is a bad thing.  It's a case of preferring selection bias over facing up to and actually dealing with pieces of your jigsaw that don't fit.

But if we allow human intellect to complete the jigsaw we will end up with as many different solutions as there are humans.

There is no intellect apart from the human one.

That is a very bold assertion.

OK, to the best of our knowledge, then.  Even the words in holy books were written by humans, ultimately.  Gods don't do publishing or grammar or regional dialects. Every word ever written was written by a man or a woman; some trying to articulate something numinous perhaps, but still human and therefore fallible.

[Nearly Sane]

Surely in the sense we use intellect, then any animal showing consciousness would be showing intellect?

[ippy]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God. 

and by such attitudes you close your mind to the inconsistencies in your thinking, and why I say that faith is a bad thing.  It's a case of preferring selection bias over facing up to and actually dealing with pieces of your jigsaw that don't fit.

But if we allow human intellect to complete the jigsaw we will end up with as many different solutions as there are humans.

There is no intellect apart from the human one.

That is a very bold assertion.

Yes Alan, but at least it makes a lot more sense than repeatedly specifying erroneous assertions that completely fail to demonstrate any well reasoned process.

ippy

[torridon]

Surely in the sense we use intellect, then any animal showing consciousness would be showing intellect?

I would place 'intellect' along with 'reasoning ability', well above the cognitive level of all creatures bar human.

[Nearly Sane]

Why? What about those using tools?

[Alien]

...

I have zero faith in anything.

Including your ability to put forward a logical argument?

I have zero faith in anything.

Is this hard to understand.

No one should ever have faith in anything.

Faith is gullibility.

Thank you for being so clear. You have no faith in yourself, in your ability to construct a logical argument, in your wife (if you have one), in Richard Dawkins to teach good biology, in the police, in the honesty of your local Tesco staff, etc.

Are you honestly saying you think here BR means faith as in trust/confidence/reasonable expectation?

I don't know. Best to ask BR what he means, perhaps.

Use a dictionary, this has been explained to you before.

Complete trust or confidence in someone or something
Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof:

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/faith

I have zero faith in anything.

Oh dear. You don't have faith in your wife.

http://www.relate.org.uk/

[Alien]

...

I have zero faith in anything.

Including your ability to put forward a logical argument?

I have zero faith in anything.

Is this hard to understand.

No one should ever have faith in anything.

Faith is gullibility.

Thank you for being so clear. You have no faith in yourself, in your ability to construct a logical argument, in your wife (if you have one), in Richard Dawkins to teach good biology, in the police, in the honesty of your local Tesco staff, etc.

Are you honestly saying you think here BR means faith as in trust/confidence/reasonable expectation?

I don't know. Best to ask BR what he means, perhaps.

Yes, why don't you next time instead of presuming you do know and then jumping all over him?

Because BR asks lots of questions but doesn't answer them very often?

I'm not sure that I was exactly "jumping all over him", are you?

[torridon]

Why? What about those using tools?

OK, I get that, altho I don't see that corvids or chimps would be able to contribute anything to this debate

[Nearly Sane]

But surely that is just the same as Alan's position that because they couldn't read a book they do not have consciousness? The use of tools shows reasoning and an ability to look at the world as it appears to be. Surely that is intellect?

[torridon]

I humbly admit that my own idea of what the best thing to do is probably wrong, so I hold on to the bible claim that everything will happen for the good if we put our faith in God.

That's what muslims do too. What method do you use to differentiate between Koranic revelation and Biblical revelation if we abandon 'human intellect' ?

[Andy]

I don't know. Best to ask BR what he means, perhaps.

Yes, why don't you next time instead of presuming you do know and then jumping all over him?

Because BR asks lots of questions but doesn't answer them very often?

Finding it hard to get an answer out of someone? I feel your pain...

I'm not sure that I was exactly "jumping all over him", are you?

Exaggerating to make a point.

[Rhiannon]

Why? What about those using tools?

OK, I get that, altho I don't see that corvids or chimps would be able to contribute anything to this debate

Isn't there a difference between intellect and intelligence?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Alien,

Oh dear. You don't have faith in your wife.

You've tried and failed with that schtick before - conflating the ambiguities in the term "faith" and then pointing to the presence of one as if it were inconsistent with denial of the other.

The prosaic meaning of "faith" is a reasonable confidence of a future event or behaviour based on the evidence of historic data. I have "faith" that my car will start for example the next time that I want it to - it's a good car, it's well maintained, it's aways started in the past etc. 

The religious meaning though is very different - it's the bridge you need to build from assertion to belief precisely when you don't have evidence to support you but want to maintain the belief nonetheless.

Most of us have "faith" (first meaning), only some have "faith" (second meaning) and treating them as if they were the same is just cheating.

Again.

[ekim]

That is the nature of that kind of faith in a God that is good.  It can lead to a view that all that comes about is because of the Will of God and is therefore good, whatever the individual may think.  It makes prayer redundant as in the words of Jesus 'God knows your requirements before you ask'.  It can sometimes lead to a fatalistic approach to life of just drifting from one event to another and it can sometimes lead to a suicide bomber's charter e.g. if I aim to kill many people and it comes about then I am carrying out the will of God, otherwise it wouldn't happen.

But God did not say He knows our needs without asking.  Asking through prayer is a very effective way to allow God to work in your life.  And not all will is God's will.

God didn't say anything, those were the words of Jesus and as others have said, an omniscient God would know, surely?  There is self will and God's Will and the chances are that personal requests result from what the individual wants.  The prayer that Jesus made when he realised that his death might be imminent shows the difference .... 'O God, if it is possible,  let this impending destiny be averted, but only if it conforms to your will.    If the only way for this fateful event to pass by is for me to experience it then let it be so.'

[Sebastian Toe]

Why? What about those using tools?

OK, I get that, altho I don't see that corvids or chimps would be able to contribute anything to this debate

Has Vlad posted on this topic yet? 

[torridon]

Why? What about those using tools?

OK, I get that, altho I don't see that corvids or chimps would be able to contribute anything to this debate

Has Vlad posted on this topic yet? 

I don't think Vlad has ever been observed to use tools