Thoughts on faith

[woot]

I might as well add some definitions to the thread, so that I can just link to this post when further misunderstandings inevitably arise.

Gnostic theist: I know there is a god.
Agnostic theist: I don't know/it's impossible to know, but I believe in a god.
Gnostic atheist: I know there is no god.
Agnostic atheist: I don't know/it's impossible to know, but I don't believe in any gods.

These are the definitions in modern usage, at least that I've seen most often. By these definitions, theism and atheism represent a true dichotomy; agnosticism is not a point between them, but rather a point on one end of a completely independent spectrum.

While many theists will insist that these definitions aren't legit, these are the ones that most atheists are using. Therefore, when one considers the fact that the vast majority of atheists today (including Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) identify themselves as agnostic atheists, any talk about atheism being a faith-based position, or about agnosticism being somehow more rational than atheism, is simply nonsensical.

And knowing all this, it does seem to be true that whether one defines oneself as an atheist or agnostic is more about how one prefers to be perceived than about any meaningful distinction.

[ERCougar]

Right, but if you're going to start calling any sort of commentary "religion" the word has lost all meaning and the original point this thread started with is lost.

It's not "any sort of commentary". It's a commentary that prescribes actions based on a certain moral framework, one that is unprovable, untestable, and not necessarily adopted by all people (why should I necessarily care about the preservation of life beyond my own?). I don't think it's a stretch to refer to that as a sort of religion.

[woot]

It's not "any sort of commentary". It's a commentary that prescribes actions based on a certain moral framework, one that is unprovable, untestable, and not necessarily adopted by all people (why should I necessarily care about the preservation of life beyond my own?). I don't think it's a stretch to refer to that as a sort of religion.

But then it seems like you're saying that anything that isn't scientifically rigorous is "a sort of religion". Is that really what you want to say here? I could probably agree with "philosophy" but why religion? What's the difference between philosophy and religion if you remove the necessity of god or supernatural from your definition of religion?

Again, this all goes back to the original topic, wherein the author seems to ignore the possibility of someone like Sagan, who can find majesty and vibrance in existence without religion. I simply don't find it instructive to deny this gap in the author's logic by shoveling people like Sagan (and me, frankly) into the religion camp. Our very existence falsifies this guy's argument. This is an extremely common tactic. Why is accusing non-religious people of being religious such a go-to strategy? Why is it so hard to accept that secular philosophy is different from religion?

[SeattleUte]

Here are a couple of passages from one of my favorite books that I read last year:

I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: “White, white! L-L-Love! My God!” – and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try o explain the warm light bathing him by saying, “Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,” and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.

Thoughts?

ER, this passage from the linked Harold Bloom article made me think of this thread:

The central literary character in Genesis is Yahweh or the God. I mean this precisely in the sense that the richest literary character in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays is Sir John Falstaff, or is Prince Hamlet in his tragedy, or is the Knight of the Sad Countenance in Don Quixote. To assert that the worship of God by Muslims, Christians, and Jews is prayer and praise for a literary character is a reasonable observation but still not advisable in Muslim countries. Even in the United States there are many millions of people who are offended if told that they believe in a literary character, whether the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible or the Jesus of the gospels or both. Since I myself believe in Falstaff, Hamlet, and Don Quixote, I would be inconsistent not to believe in Yahweh and in Mark's Jesus, two astonishing literary characters.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23438

By the way, this is a nice summary of my own belief in Judeo-Christianity.

[wuapinmon]

I might as well add some definitions to the thread, so that I can just link to this post when further misunderstandings inevitably arise.

Gnostic theist: I know there is a god.
Agnostic theist: I don't know/it's impossible to know, but I believe in a god.
Gnostic atheist: I know there is no god.
Agnostic atheist: I don't know/it's impossible to know, but I don't believe in any gods.

These are the definitions in modern usage, at least that I've seen most often. By these definitions, theism and atheism represent a true dichotomy; agnosticism is not a point between them, but rather a point on one end of a completely independent spectrum.

While many theists will insist that these definitions aren't legit, these are the ones that most atheists are using. Therefore, when one considers the fact that the vast majority of atheists today (including Dawkins, Hitchens, et al.) identify themselves as agnostic atheists, any talk about atheism being a faith-based position, or about agnosticism being somehow more rational than atheism, is simply nonsensical.

And knowing all this, it does seem to be true that whether one defines oneself as an atheist or agnostic is more about how one prefers to be perceived than about any meaningful distinction.

Although this praise is a few years late, this is a solid post, especially due to the terminology shared. No matter how many times I reason out that there isn't a god from what I've observed in my life, I still come back to believing, or at least wanting to believe. I'm as agnostic a theist as you can get, but I still at least want it to all be true, hoping so. Pascal's Wager and all that is nice, but I don't really care about an eternal reward, I just want to believe that death is not the end, and I do, even though reason makes me think it is.

[scottie]

I saw this today on FB, Dehlin and Kate Kelly show up in it:

[Jeff Lebowski]

Uhh... That was weird.

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Uhh... That was weird.

Not enough Keanu Reeves in Mormon Media. I've been saying this for years.

[Northwestcoug]

I do like that song. I hadn't heard it before. Also I don't know when the last time was I thought about the 'Pleasantville' movie. Pretty 'meh'.

[Pelado]

Didn't check to see if this is already addressed somewhere, but saw today that somebody had posted this article:

Hugh B. Brown served as an apostle, and later, as a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Before that, he worked for a short time as a professor of religion at Brigham Young University. While there, he received a letter from a close friend who was experiencing what is now commonly called a “crisis of faith.” The advice he gave nearly seventy years ago has never been published, but is still pertinent to us today as we all struggle to “keep the faith.”

From the selfish standpoint of personal satisfaction then, I have chosen to swim in the clear, cool stream of faith rather than wallow in the turbid, enervating, stagnant swamp of doubt and cynicism. In other words, faith pays dividends of joy as we go along.

I like Fosdick’s definition of faith: “Faith is vision to believe what as yet one cannot demonstrate and valor to act on the basis of that insight.”

For the full letter:

http://ldsmag.com/never-before-seen-...-hugh-b-brown/