In my line of work, having faith in god is not always a derisive and dangerous thing. I work with people who have disabilities. Faith in god gives some them purpose and meaning to their lives. It can answer the question of “why me?”
My professor told me a story the other day about how she was seeing a client in a hospital who had suffered a stroke. This client, and older woman, had been unable to walk for weeks. The woman had this to say as my professor sat down with her:
Oh, I am so happy today! The minister came to see me and we prayed for an hour. Oh lordy lordy lordy, The lord says I will walk today!
My professor understands that faith and religion can have both a positive and a negative influence on people, and is more than willing to use it if she thinks something can be achieved through it. So she went along and told her if the lord was willing, she’d be willing to let her try.
The woman stood up from her chair.
Before then, this woman had been totally unmotivated to stand and walk. Her faith and belief gave her the motivation to do so. Faith can inspire people do to great things for themselves and others.
Of course, I’d like to point out that all of these inspirational and great things can be accomplished through an ojective and evidence-based worldview- though obviously that won’t work for everyone. Lots of things can motivate people to do great things. So if you think faith is a good thing – why?
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Hmm, a bit hard to answer that question in this forum, being who I am. But since I like you, I will try. :o) I think that faith is a good thing because it’s truth.I’m every bit as convinced of the truth of my faith as you are in the truth of atheism. In fact, I would argue that since there is no conclusive scientific proof that there is no god (science not being able to prove it one way or the other), your belief is as much based on faith as mine is. So perhaps you could answer your own question. And I have had experiences that cannot be explained by science which prove to me the existence of God. One was, for example, a spontaneous healing of a burn wound. My faith is founded on personal evidence. Everyone’s faith is. We all have personal reasons for believing and very often those reasons aren’t something that an unbeliever will accept at face value (unless they were actually there, and even then!).I could go on and on about miracles I’m aware of and the comfort of knowing that there is a purpose that is more important than myself (and that may be more to the point of the question, but ultimately would explain little), but when it comes down to it, my faith is based on the belief that this universe could not have sprung into being from nothing. Big Bang, evolution, all that…FINE, that sounds very reasonable, but what caused that? Interestingly, my own faith teaches that faith can never contradict reason or science. And so I believe very, very much in science, in evolution, and in what we are learning about the world every day. I just believe that it’s unreasonable to think that it could have all suddenly sprung for no reason from sheer nothingness. That, to me, sounds more like magical thinking than the idea of a creator.
@ Claire – You’re so smart and thoughtful and rational most of the time, so I am quite surprised your response is so canned. If god is real, then god has an observable affect on the world. If an entity has an observable affect on the world, then we can test that empirically. It seems that empirically, god fails every test we can come up with. Therefore it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that god probably does not exist. It’s the same thing with any other entity that is supposed to have an observable affect. If we have, say, a new type of topical medication designed to heal cuts, and we cut 1,000 mice and give half the mice the topical medication and the other half no medication, and then observe that both sets of mice heal at the same rates, we can conclude that there is no evidence that the medication works. This is not an act of faith, this is an act of observation. Observation/science/empirical testing can’t prove any negative – that X Y or Z does not exist. As such, it is meaningless to assert that you can’t prove god does not exist, because you can’t prove that anything does not exist.
Who created us? For What? Find Who Created us. So many believers in world which one the true.
Ziztur and Christopher,Apologies for the unbelievable lapse of time between your responses and mine. A few things happened…some involving life getting in the way of spending much time composing a response, a deep depression that saps me of energy to write anything requiring mental energy, and the fact that this discussion caused me to have to step back and reflect for quite some time before I was able to address it. I hope you’ll forgive me. I have *never* forgotten this and it’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit. For all that time for reflection, don’t expect anything earth-shattering. What I’ve concluded is quite simple and you’ll probably find it disappoining again, but for what it’s worth, I’ll share. Also, it’s simply that I *like* you Ziztur and I wouldn’t want you to think that I had just vanished in a huff. At first I was taken aback and hurt that Ziztur called my response “canned”. But then I realized that of COURSE it sounds canned. I have never made a thorough study of this particular question and so my first responses were undoubtedly those which most people first offer when asked such questions. If I parroted someone in particular I’m not aware of it. I also have no interest in (or am simply not able to) devoting the time and mental energy to studying this question in such depth. That, I would leave up to some gifted theologian, which I am not, nor do I aspire to be. I’m just trying to raise several kids and get by the best I can. I admire you guys for your dedication to your cause. I don’t have such dedication to anything at all, not even my belief in God! What I realized in reading your responses was that it didn’t matter what you could possibly say along those lines, it would not deter my belief in God. It made me aware of a major mental block in that area. Then I had to study why that would be, because as Ziztur kindly stated, I do try to be thoughtful and rational (not saying that I have any particular talent in this area…just that I *try*). So…why would I utterly reject out of hand such logical proofs as you provide? Why can I *not* accept the idea of no God?One reason your arguments have so little effect on me is simply that because my belief is in a God that exists outside of the boundaries of the known universe, I would not expect him to behave according to the laws of said universe. In fact, I expect him not to. He is the one thing in the universe that is eternal and unchanging (and without cause). So why do I have a belief in logical and rational thought, and in scienctific discoveries, and yet have no problem believing that there is in all of the universe ONE entity that isn’t subject to its laws? This is tougher to answer and really impossible to answer logically, but in the end I’m forced to acknowledge that I believe simply because I choose to. To me, a life with no God in it is devoid of any meaning. We are here for a brief instant in the vastness of time and then we’re gone. If there is no God, then what is the point to anything at all? I don’t know how I would function without the comfort of my beliefs. I have tried to “go it on my own” before and I am really a basket case, I just fall apart. When I concentrate on my belief in God, that He loves me, that He has a plan for me, that I should follow his precepts for a good life as well as I can…somehow then, things seem to come together for me. I experience emotional healing and other messes in my life slowly get cleaned up…until the next time I start ignoring God and then it all falls apart again. Although sometimes my belief causes me some distress, in general, faith *works* for me because it provides me a solid foundation and a framework around which to build my life. This could all very well be psychological. In fact I’m sure some of it is psychological. And I’m aware that there might *not* be a God, and I won’t really know until I die if there is one, or if I’ve believed the right things about him/her/it. (Of course if ther