"Reasoned Faith"???

Question

I have seen a couple of mentions of "reasoned faith" (contrasted usually with "blind faith") here on Yahoo Answers. It seems to me that "reasoned faith" is just another way of saying that you have reasons for believing something, and if your reasons are logical then your beliefs are based on evidence not faith.

Are people just playing fast and free with semantics here in an attempt to make it seem that people who use their brains and base their decisions on evidence are just as irrational as people who believe in god?

no, redtoes, I won't see "Him" because "He" has almost zero probability of existing. And it certainly doesn't matter what a non-existent entity thinks. When we die, that's the end of us. We don't get to go to heaven and see our dead friends and relatives and eat cake and ice cream.

I exist, so that's evidence that I have a mother and a father, but not evidence for a god.

Meng-Tzu:

Einstein and Stephen Hawking did/do not believe in a personal God. Rational people only believe in god because they compartmentalize.

I have studied microbiology. I hold degrees in Physiology and chemistry, and what you have done is set up a false dichotomy. "Thunderstorm/primordial-soup/pyroclastic flow" and God are not the only two explanations for how life was started.

Answer 1

It's largely semantics-- much as "intelligent design" means just about exactly the same thing as "creationism", but the former FEELS like a more scientific stance. "Blind faith" implies unthinking belief, "reasoned faith" belief after deliberate consideration... but both eventually conflict with, and must refute, observable evidence.

Answer 2

I don't know how to answer your question to where you could understand the way I do, but your last assumption that because people believe in God they are irrational thinkers is incorrect. There are a lot of rational thinkers who believe in God. Engineers, technicians, scientists. Those are the most anal rational thinkers there are.

Einstein believed in God. I think even Steven Hawking.

In fact if you study Microbiology enough you will come to the conclusion that there is no possible way we could have been created by chance in a thunderstorm passing over a primordial soup next to a pyrocastic flow. It would take trillions upon trillions of years of evolution statistically speaking. And over a billion years the rock that's hot inside the Earth would have equalized temperature by now and the surface would be unlivable.

There are reasons for rational people to not buy into the whole big bang, acretion disk, accidental soup thing.

I have faith not because of debatable evidence though. At certain points of my life things have happened. I have done things sometimes at the direction of God. You may think I'm nuts. Hearing voices in my that aren't there. I cannot explain it to you. I have let go of the fact my mind is telling me coincidence and "that didn't really happen" while my soul has listened and feels still. It allows me some peace. I don't have to worry about atheists debating with people of faith. I already know the answer.

I put this to you, the more fervently a Christian debates you the less faith they have. I'm telling you this because one day you may come to the realization on your own. It's a great feeling and it gives you shivers down your spine. It scares the sh*t out of you. To know that the world, the universe even, is more than what you can see and touch and hear.

Here are a couple thoughts: Why do we cry? Really.

I know you can probably explain the chemical reactions letting out built up chemicals that relieve stress, but there's a real other reason.

You cannot see the wind, but you know it's there.

You can't see a neutron, but you believe it exists. I've even seen equations that these whacked out engineers and scientists have come up with to show what will happen with these neutrons in a reactor. I had to push the "I believe button" to just accept that so I could get passed this in order to run these things. You know what, I've seen reactors produce heat like magic. Those equations work.

God doesn't need your belief for him to be real, but he'd really like you to remember him.

Evil Atheist: You missed the point.

Answer 3

Unfortunately, the word faith has been hijacked from its biblical roots and given an unfair meaning by the secular world. Faith in the biblical sense means utter certainty. In the secular sense, it means to simply believe it. The Bible gives us more than enough information to believe in God. Since you already don't believe and are not inclined to consider the Christian viewpoint, I'll just leave one tidbit for you.

The Christian God was very careful to prove Himself when He had the Bible written. He wanted to make sure you would recognize him as a God when he acted. What he did is predict the future. No person on earth, no medium or psychic, can claim the one hundred percent prediction rate of God. God gave names, dates, and places so we can check out history and verify his work. He even gave us the very words someone would say centuries before the fact!

By taking this route, God would not have to appear and prove himself over and over again to new groups of people.

Now if you wanted everyone to know that you, as God, were going to come as a human being, you would explain what you were like so you would be recognized. You would put in the city of your birth, where you grew up, what kinds of deeds you would do, your temperament, your purpose, even how you would die.

God did all that in the Old Testament. It was all in written form four hundred years before Jesus came. The New Testament gospels follow Jesus and point out some of the places where He fulfilled the prophecies.

Let me give you an amazing example of prophecy.

“Daniel 11, written in the 6th century B.C., gives an amazingly thorough account of Alexander’s Grecian kingdom, divided first into four competing factions after his death. It predicts details of the struggle between the Ptolemy and Seleucid empires for a period of 160 years, right down to the advent of the Roman Empire. That is why the skeptics used to claim that the book of Daniel could not have been written before 164 B.C., but now we have proof of a much earlier writing text.

“The prophet Isaiah (44:28) gave the name of a king not yet born and of a kingdom not yet instituted and of an event that would not take place for another 150 years. He predicted that a king named Cyrus would commission the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Cyrus did come to the throne in Persia, and in the first year of his reign in 538, he issued a decree that the temple in Jerusalem should be rebuilt. (See 2 Chronicles 36:22-Ezra 1:1-3. This prophecy described in the Bible is confirmed by the discovery of a Babylonian inscription.)

“Daniel actually gave the time when Christ would come into the world and die. Daniel (9:24) predicted that Messiah would be cut off (die) 483 Hebrew years after the issuing of the Persian decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Artaxerxes Longimanus issued that decree on March 5, 444 B.C. (Neh. 2:1-8), granting the Jews permission to rebuild Jerusalem’s city walls. This, too, is confirmed by archeological discoveries. Four hundred eighty-three prophetic years (360 days to a year) and seven days later, Jesus was crucified as predicted. How could a prophet accurately predict the date of Messiah’s death hundreds of years before it took place, unless he was the ‘voice’ of God as he claimed?”

Thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran, we know with certainty the above prophecies date before the occurrence of actual prophesied events regarding Jesus.

This is more than enough proof to base my faith on. He has proven His existence perfectly and wonderfully. The Christian God is the true God.

Answer 4

Philosophy recognizes faith as reasonable and is justified in Religion--God recognizes Faith--who or what are you to say there is no faith--I have never experienced weightlessness--yet I recognize the reality of weightlessness. Everyone has faith--in what and who is the question.

Answer 5

You exist, so why don't see that as a scientific evidence of a creator.

Answer 6

People who rely on "faith" are just fooling themselves.

Answer 7

It would appear so. I use my brain, and I am a Christian. Maybe this seems a paradox to some, but it isn't.

Answer 8

I don't know. But you should accept Jesus Evil Atheist.

Answer 9

So sorry for you,Jesus is the way.