Before I start, I would like to thank the Christians who visit the Filipino Freethinkers website and grace its pages with their…er…”reasonable” comments.
To make it more interesting, I would like to share a little of my mind…a personal analysis perhaps on Pastor Vince Orlaer’s comments on religion, faith, atheism and his defense on the Bible and Christianity.
Religion
Yes it NEVER requires religion; but that religious faith produces religion.
Religion is the way you practice your faith.
It’s like “You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.”
Therefore, “You can practice your religion without faith, but you cannot practice faith without practicing religion.”
Uh…I think religion is not only the way to practice your faith but religion is synonymous with faith. The word religion can be interchanged with faith. That’s why we call it Buddhist faith, Hindi faith, Jewish faith, Islamic faith and Christian faith.
Now, defining religion can really be nose-bleed since there are many ideas, interpretations and “what-nots” about it. But we can at least narrow it down to something coherent.
Christianity is not all about religion. Religion will in no way get you to heaven. It may be an instrument in understanding the underlying principles of true Christianity, but it’s not enough to get to heaven. Our relationship to Christ is what matters.
Narrowing what is common to all religions will displace the myth that Christianity is not one of them. Most books will agree with me that different faiths have the following concepts in common:
(1.) Belief in some kind of a supernatural being (sometimes called gods, devas, etc.)
(2.) Rituals
(3.) A moral code given by supernatural means (or a Supernatural being).
(4.) Prayers
(5.) A belief in a certain world view that gives an individual a so-called purpose or meaning.
Come on! All these concepts are present in Christianity, aren’t they? Fundamentalists/Evangelical Christians may deny it but it won’t make the facts go away – whether it’s true Christianity or not.
Belief and Faith
It seems Pastor Orlaer got a little confused between “belief” and “faith”. OK let’s clear the mess that he just made.
First, let’s do some defining:
A belief is how you accept something as true. Easy, huh? So based on this simple definition we can say that faith is also a kind of belief. But not all beliefs are the same as faith.
But hey! My pocket dictionary says that both faith and belief are synonymous with the word “trust”!
Hay my papaya! That’s the problem with pocket dictionaries.
As I have said, not all beliefs are categorized as faith. Why? Because not all beliefs are without, or against, reason.
Why? What is faith?
Faith believes without proof or evidence.
Now that we already know the difference between the two, we can now look at Pastor Orlaer’s statements.
Religious faith is just one form. But you yourself exercise faith like sitting on a chair. You sit on a chair because you believe that the chair can comfort you. You drive a car because you believe it can bring you somewhere.
Faith, Trust, Belief/Believe …. all these are synonymous terms, my friend. How can you say you trust yet you do not have faith that you can definitely sit down on the chair? Hope you are getting my point. You sit because you trust that the chair is stable. And because you trust, you have faith that it can carry you. Trust and Faith (the real meaning) cannot be separated from each other.
Sitting on a chair or driving a car doesn’t require faith. First, we all know that chairs and cars exist. Second, we also know what chairs and cars are for.
Trust is not blind belief. You trust something or someone because you see particular characteristics on that something that will win your confidence. That’s what advertisements are for.
Trust is something you come to after a long process of give-and-take. Trustworthiness is confirmed by observation. It’s a learned process while faith is something that doesn’t require knowledge. Faith is about something that has not yet come to pass and its actuality has no evidence. It depends on the unknowable, the incomprehensible and the claim that it is beyond reason and logic. Therefore, trust and faith can be separated.
Until next time…
[…] Just My Remarks on Pastor Orlaer’s Comments (Part 1) […]
[ tasyo says: “for me, reason alone is an incomplete mode of viewing reality.” ]
Faith is the believe into outrageous claims without any evidence or often totally contrary to mountains of contradicting evidence.
So you have faith and believe that green aswangs riding pink unicorns are existing – at least in the R of P, that thunder is created by Thor’s hammer, lightening by Zeus throwing bolts, Poseidon wrath creating the waves, Zeus had an affair and fathered many sons like Hercules of course virgin born, Asclepius is son of god (Apollo) who resurrected dead and was as punishment killed from god (Zeus), Shiva beheaded his own son Ganesha and after recognizing his mistake and cut of the head of the next animal passing by (an elephant) and planted the head on Ganesha ….etc…. Well just have faith not just reason alone !
Yahweh himself the son of the most high godfather Elyon, had an affair with Jewish virgin Mary who bore a son Jesus who is actually Yahweh himself, who sacrifice himself (as son) to impress himself (as father), to forgive the sin of Adam who eat an apple after a talking snake seduced his wife…. Etc… Well just have faith not just reason alone !
Reason is telling us that these are all myths bare every reality , but to complete the “mode of viewing reality” then all these mentioned examples and the thousands of invented other myth are needed to fully comprehend reality !
But which myths to choose ? Following the Christian chief apologists like WLC or Alvin Platinga “the story is so odd so it must be true” and take the most outrageous myth as basis for faith ?!?
all Christian theology might perhaps be explained as useless metaphysical utterances, if so, deconstruction has killed the Christian religion.for me, reason alone is an incomplete mode of viewing reality – I believe that faith and reason are dialogically interdependent and could come to terms when applied into the context of human situations. 🙂
Like I said, it is impossible to defend christianity. One can have faith and belief without having to make or join a cult.
[Ben Vallejo says: “True logical positivism may be dead (killed by Popper perhaps) but it sure is reincarnated. The evidence is in this blog!”]
First the claim for the existence of a deity is made from theists, second the claim that this deity is the Judean fertility god YHWH is made from theist, third the claim of proper unchanged recording of the will/intention/teachings inside the Bible is made from theist, fourth the proper interpretation of this alleged recorded teaching from their specific religious sect alone is made from theist.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence – theist have not provided a single piece of evidence after thousands of years for any of the points made. So this is faith : believe despite not a single piece of evidence. But falsification of each claim was done – so following the scientific method the entire sequence of all four claims fail.
(1) About the claim for any existence of a deity : the predicates (omni- everything) attributed to the deity are logically impossible – see Michael Martin ‘The impossibility of God’, the world we are living in with all the suffering makes the existence of a deity with these predicates highly unlikely – see Michael Martin ‘The improbability of God’.
(2) About the claim that the creator of the universe is the Judean fertility god – the god of Abraham: Even the Bible is having 2 gods in the original Hebrew version, just obfuscated by translation of both deities to ‘The Lord, the Elohim the plural for the pantheon of northern tribes (Israelite) who created the universe in 6 days, and the Judean fertility god YHWH who created Adam and Eve. YHWH who as Ugaritic stone tablet shows is just one out of 70 sons of the most high godfather Elyon and who is responsible just for the land of Jacob (Judea) see DEUT 32:8. And as science falsified nearly all claims attributed to said 2 deities and the events as poor mythical fiction : 6 days creation, light before stars, animals before Eve, global flood, Exodus, conquest of Canaan … and so on and on…. (see ‘The Bible unearthed’ and David and Solomon’ from Finkelstein & Silberman ).
(3) The Bible is not the unchanged word of god as dictated from YHWH himself to Moses (as Jewish believe as Pentateuch), it is written from superstitious Bronze and Iron age goat herders, was massively tempered with, has several versions, more copy errors than words. The Bible is contradicting itself even in utmost important points like salvation (see earlier discussions here in FF), and several OT and NT stories are falsified by archeology, historians, scholars – and looks very much like a collection of earlier myth and deities floating around at the time of writing. There are loads of books available to evaluate this honest scientifically (not apologist spin & drivel) , Bart Ehrman wrote several books about the topic.
(4) Well and we are looking back at millennia of bloody history and fights about the proper interpretation of the Bible, and have reached 33000 different interpretations of the holy book – so not all sects can be right and most probable all are wrong about the ultimate truth they claim.
So to wrap it up: tons of falsifications, improbabilities, impossibilities for the existence, proper recording and proper interpretation of the will of a deity – and not a single spec of evidence or undisputed holy writings was brought forward from theists to proof their extraordinary claims (and this means faith alone).
What is left over as remote possibility of course not proofed (ala logical positivism) and not yet falsified or falsifiable is a hiding, immaterial, beyond space and time spiritual floating, not omni-something deity ala Karen Armstrong ‘god is no being’.
So the “evidence” of widespread logical positivism "I can’t see it, feel it, hear it – therefore it cannot exist" in the FF blog-posts here are not correct.
How do you see your own rejection of each of these claims :
– Elephant headed god Ganesha as son of god Shiva if you believe in him you are reborn as cow, if not as cockroach ,
– flying pink but invisible unicorns,
– invisible golden tablets and magic underpants,
– Scientologies space opera with intergalactic space travel of souls with DC-8 airplanes,
Is your non believe in all those then strict logical positivism ? or just the rejection of obvious myth, fairy tales and woowoo.
So Vince who was posing his “amazing wisdom” (e.g. primitive uneducated goat herder myth e.g. “wisdom” of the Bible) is a pastor. Well purposely misusing or misinterpreting the common understanding of a word seems to be widespread and a tool to muddy the waters as last defense!
Here was my response to it
https://filipinofreethinkers.org/2010/06/16/losing…
[Vince says: “Furthermore, it’s not only religion that requires faith. There are many forms of faith. Religious faith is just one form. But you yourself exercises faith like sitting on a chair. You sit on a chair because you believe that the chair can comfort you. You drive a car because you believe it can bring you somewhere. “ ]
I am afraid you use a wrong meaning of the word ‘faith’ : the unwavering belief in something without a scrap of evidence and despite often mountains of contradictions and opposing facts and evidence.
Sitting in a chair does not mean faith but trust in the stability of the material, I can test the possible maximal load, I can sit on it so many times – so gain experience that it was holding my weight Yesterday, I can test for visual structural damage, and using scientific techniques even for internal non visible structure. This has nothing to do with faith !
[Vince says: “ For things that you do not see, you believe that there is a wind because you can feel it, but you do not see it. Now we can cite many more examples of faith. ]
I cannot see the wind ?? I can see it pushing the clouds, smoke, fog, I can verifiable measure the wind speed, I can calculate the flow of molecules, the force, with proper technique the wind power can be harnessed (sailing, windturbines), I can see and feel, estimate and verify the often destructive power of the flow of air molecules in storm damage. All this is verifiable evidence, predictable impacts and scientific measurable : e.g. this is not faith !
there are many things you cannot see but it does not mean they are not real. wind, for instance, is a force easily felt because the sense of touch can determine it, its force can be calculated by scientific formula, and its existence can be proven 'repeatedly'. However, GOD's mercy cannot be seen in the problems of evil; it's merely an assumption that he is there because the bible tells us so – with the consolation often given to us that we cannot understand HIS ways.
I find it hard to follow the discussions on this site but I just want to post this here.
In the philosophy of religion, Occam's razor is sometimes applied to the existence of God; if the concept of God does not help to explain the universe, it is argued, God is irrelevant and should be cut away (Schmitt 2005). It is argued to imply that, in the absence of compelling reasons to believe in God, disbelief should be preferred. Such arguments are based on the assertion that belief in God requires more complex assumptions to explain the universe than non-belief.
The history of theistic thought has produced many arguments attempting to show that this is not the case — that the difficulties encountered by a theory without God are equal to or greater than those encountered by a theory postulating one. The cosmological argument, for example, states that the universe must be the result of a "first cause" and that that first cause can be thought of as God. Similarly, the teleological argument credits the design and order in the universe to supernatural intelligence. Many people believe in miracles or have what they call religious experiences, and creationists consider divine design to be more believable than naturalistic explanations for the diversity and history of life on earth.
Many scientists generally do not accept these arguments, and prefer to rely on explanations that deal with the same phenomena within the confines of existing scientific models. Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, in the United States, 72.2% expressed disbelief and 93% expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in a survey conducted in 1998[25] (an ongoing survey being conducted by Elaine Ecklund of Rice University since 2004 indicates that this figure drops to as low as 38% when social scientists are included and the definition of "God" is expanded to allow a non-personal god as per Pantheism or Deism).[26] The typical scientific view challenges the validity of the teleological argument by the effects of emergence, leading to the creation-evolution controversy; likewise, religious experiences have naturalistic explanations in the psychology of religion. Other theistic arguments, such as the argument from miracles, are sometimes pejoratively said to be arguing for a mere God of the gaps; whether or not God actually works miracles, any explanation that "God did it" must fit the facts and make accurate predictions better than more parsimonious guesses like "something did it", or else Occam's razor still cuts God out.
Rather than argue for the necessity of God, some theists consider their belief to be based on grounds independent of, or prior to, reason, making Occam's razor irrelevant. This was the stance of Søren Kierkegaard, who viewed belief in God as a leap of faith which sometimes directly opposed reason (McDonald 2005); this is also the same basic view of Clarkian Presuppositional apologetics, with the exception that Clark never thought the leap of faith was contrary to reason. (See also: Fideism). In a different vein, Alvin Plantinga and others have argued for reformed epistemology, the view that God's existence can properly be assumed as part of a Christian's epistemological structure. (See also: Basic beliefs). Yet another school of thought, Van Tillian Presuppositional apologetics, claims that God's existence is the transcendentally necessary prior condition to the intelligibility of all human experience and thought. In other words, proponents of this view hold that there is no other viable option to ultimately explain any fact of human experience or knowledge, let alone a simpler one.
Ockham himself was a theist. He considered some Christian sources to be valid sources of factual data, equal to both logic and sense perception. He wrote, "No plurality should be assumed unless it can be proved (a) by reason, or (b) by experience, or (c) by some infallible authority"; referring in the last clause "to the Bible, the Saints and certain pronouncements of the Church" (Hoffmann 1997). In Ockham's view, an explanation which does not harmonize with reason, experience or the aforementioned sources cannot be considered valid.
Source: Wikipedia
[ Ben Vallejo says: “On the other hand it also condemns the position which many Freethinkers on this blog site appear to believe (and I use the word “believe” here in its most basic faith-based sense) that everything that is knowable requires empirical evidence aka logical positivism.]
Well logical positivism is dead since Karl Popper isn’t it ? How many times we confirm a theory, it is never true for sure – but a single falsification is terminating it and a new hypothesis needs to be found and tried to be verified or more exact not falsified.
And we can never proof a negative, but if there should be traces of evidence all around and we don’t find it despite extensive search – we can say in a lawyers term ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ we are sure (but not with mathematical certainty) that the claimed object does not exists.
In science a single falsification is terminating the theory, so a rabbit fossil in the pre-Cambrian would kill evolution or at least require a complete rework of the theory.
So putting the scientific method into use for religious claims of talking serpents, first humans in 4004 BC, humans living for 900 years or longer, a global flood with 8856m water level around 2300 BC with genetic track records of a single pair of each species pointing to this time, 2 million people roaming around in Sinai for 40 years around 1400BC with conquest of the promised land afterwards, , the appearance of gods own son to stop all suffering on the planet around 26 to 30 AD, the second coming of Christ predicted in the lifetime of the apostles ( latest 50 or 60 AD) …etc… each single failed claim is falsifying and killing the theory of Biblical reliability.
Before I forget. I will not defend dogma (e.g. Papal infallibility, Virgin Birth, the Bible as a sole rule of faith, ban on artificial contraception etc) here in Filipino Freethinkers. I hope you take this as a sort of "ecumenical courtesy". I won't try to convert anyone. Free Thinking Catholics are never good in doing that. I will leave that to the Opus Dei! 🙂 It is enough and honest for me to say to you that I believe them (I mean dogma), not that I, but that I believe them! ooops that's from Bolt's "Man for all Seasons"!
But you have to understand that I will coming from a Catholic understanding of issues. I will do so as I understand that you are coming from an Atheist, Agnostic, Deist etc understanding.
All in good faith!
And like Pope Benedict XVI, I believe in Darwin! (We mean Darwin's hypothesis) and Galileo (which I consider a saint), Newton… 🙂
True logical positivism may be dead (killed by Popper perhaps) but it sure is reincarnated. The evidence is in this blog!
We can't really say that it definitely doesn't exist but probably doesn't exist. To do so is to take things on faith and it is a blind kind of faith!
Do you believe in ETs? 🙂 We have searched but haven't found them. But DO THEY NOT EXIST?
They could and this is the reason why even the Vatican had to entertain the possibility in a conference that was lampooned so many times! But the Pope believes it is unlikely.
//And we can never proof a negative, but if there should be traces of evidence all around and we don’t find it despite extensive search – we can say in a lawyers term ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ we are sure (but not with mathematical certainty) that the claimed object does not exists//
A person can be convicted of a crime only if the judge is convinced "beyond reasonable doubt" of his or her guilt. this legal term is based on the evidences gathered in the court linking or connecting the crime to the suspect. if there is missing link, or reasonable doubt, between the crime committed and the person charged of it, the judge cannot convict him/her of such crime. Meaning, if all the evidences could not satisfy the "beyond reasonable doubt" requirement, the accused will be acquitted even if in reality he really committed the crime.
Hence, the term is used to prove something positive, and never to prove a negative.
Welcome back, John. It's been more than five months since your last post! Glad you're back. 🙂
I am reminded of what the deists have to say about 'faith':
Faith: This word has been so terribly abused by "revealed" religions that it has come to really mean the suspension of an individual’s God-given reason in order to accept, or at least to tolerate, an unreasonable claim made by a "revealed" religion. It is the only way "revealed" religions can get people to accept such insane and unreasonable claims and ideas as original sin, walking on water, healing the sick without medical care, splitting the Red Sea, etc. Deists prefer to use the word "trust" instead of faith due to the twisted meaning the word "faith" has acquired after centuries of abuse from the "revealed" religions.
The Catholic Church has always held the idea that you cannot reach faith without recourse to reason. However unpalatable this may sound to a Freethinker, this implies one cannot separate trust and faith without killing reason
Faith does not presume that something is unknowable. On the contrary it may be that it is knowable but we don't have the evidence for such as of yet. Christians like the Pastor you mentioned I assume know that the basis of their faith have evidence that they will only know when they get to heaven. For now they have the Bible to convince them.
But to determine which is unknowable and knowable requires reason more than faith. The Roman Church has condemned so many times the idea that all truth stems from understanding things by faith (Fideism) alone for it insults our faculties of reason. On the other hand it also condemns the position which many Freethinkers on this blog site appear to believe (and I use the word "believe" here in its most basic faith-based sense) that everything that is knowable requires empirical evidence aka logical positivism. Clearly both fideism and logical positivism lack consistency and can only have so if one accepts them purely on faith which means accepting some axiomatic positions.
Now we freethinkers and Free thinking Catholics or people who hold faith/religion have one thing in common. We both extol reason but for different ends. We have to agree on this.
//Christians like the Pastor you mentioned I assume know that the basis of their faith have evidence that they will only know when they get to heaven.//
You are claiming that evidence will be made available once a person reaches a place (heaven) whose existence is yet to be proved. May I ask what is the evidence of the existence of heaven in the first place?
//Now we freethinkers and Free thinking Catholics or people who hold faith/religion have one thing in common. We both extol reason but for different ends.//
Yes, we both extol reason for different ends. Freethinkers extol reason for the sake of rationality; "freethinking Catholics", on the other hand, extol reason for the sake 'rationalization', which is defined as "the process of constructing a logical justification for a belief, decision, action or lack thereof that was originally arrived at through a different mental process." I think the 'mental process' through which you first developed your beliefs is called religious indoctrination. Now you are trying to use reason to rationalize these beliefs.
Because you are a logical positivist, you fail to realize that there are other possible ways of finding evidence. Now you fail to even discern the diff between Freethinking and Free thinking!
Look at how I use the word "possible" here. The fact that possibles and probables can exist exposes the inconsistencies of logical positivism. See Popper's critiques.
Like you I was a Freethinker before but once I saw the logical inconsistencies of the positivist position I became Free Thinking. We Free Thinking Catholics extol reason since without it we will be just ideologues. Now Free Thinking puts a premise on being "Free" and the "thinking" naturally follows.
Anyone can rationalize and is not particular to "indoctrinated" Catholics. Atheists seem to be better than the Pope in doing so leading us to possibly conclude atheists are indoctrinated. And indeed they are! The Pastor that is referred too in the earlier post is small fry and his Protestant Sola Scriptura position is really logically untenable and can end in a tautology. But I can go to great extents to expose the logical inconsistencies of Dawkins and Hitchens but there are better writers that have done so.
BTW anyone who has a brain and knows how to use it would know that Dawkins is a idiot in "God Delusion"!
Also I can posit the argument that religious belief is biologically inherent to our species. It may be due to natural selection that selected religious behaviour to improve fitness but this is not perfect, for Dawkins critique of the evils of religion (swallowed hook, line and sinker by Hitchens) fails to convince unless the Freethinker is ideologically conditioned . Dawkins et al failed to put forward a testable hypothesis why this is so and the neo-Darwinian paradigm is starting to look insufficient to explain the genesis of religious belief. Even his Memetics is empirically untestable. We have to accept Dawkins memes on the basis of Faith!
BTW, no Catholic is indoctrinated. If so why do the majority of them do not accept the teachings of Humanae vitae? It's either they think or don't know the facts. In both senses they are not indoctrinated. But knowing a lot of them, they think.
//Because you are a logical positivist, you fail to realize that there are other possible ways of finding evidence.//
Actually I consider myself a skeptic, but would you care to name the other possible ways of finding evidence?
//Now you fail to even discern the diff between Freethinking and Free thinking!//
Care to define and differentiate the two? I googled "free thinking" (not "freethinking") and it brought me to the Wikipedia page on "freethought" and the freedictionary page on "free-thinking" which happens to have the same definition as "freethinking".
//BTW, no Catholic is indoctrinated.//
Religious indoctrination refers to "customary rites of passage for the indoctrination of persons into a particular religion and its extended community." So you mean that Catholics never went through baptism and confirmation, and never attended masses to celebrate the Eucharist, take communion, and listen to the homilies?
//If so why do the majority of them do not accept the teachings of Humanae vitae? It’s either they think or don’t know the facts. In both senses they are not indoctrinated.//
Or they are not 'true' Catholics in the strict sense of the word because they sift through the doctrine and choose which ones to follow and which ones to discard. They might as well start another denomination instead of calling themselves "Roman Catholics" while ignoring some teachings of Humanae Vitae.