Is "the gift of faith" equivalent to "the suspension of a search for a rational explanation"? Why or why not?

Question

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Does leaning on faith consist of ceasing to ask pertinent, possibly faith-disproving questions?

Can a person who depends on faith endure looking more closely at the source of that faith without cultivating stronger & stronger doubts in that faith?

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DESLOK: For something to be evidence, then it is necessary that we understand it. I know I don't fully understand the big bang, but based on your discourse, I think I understand it better than you do.

Answer 1

In my experience, my faith was completely extinguished by searching for a rational explanation. However, I cannot expect this to be true for everyone who thinks rationally, I suppose. My faith was never that strong to begin with.

Answer 2

In my experience faith is more of a decision than a gift (whether conscientious or not). Blind faith is certainly synonymous with not questioning and questioning will shake ones faith, as it should. No one grows without change.

As I question and learn about other things my beliefs adjust to my new understanding and experience. What some will see as me wandering away from the "Truth" and others claim to be a desperate attempt to hold on to a belief in god, I see as experiencing life.

Answer 3

Ok, little child--I say that because that is what you seem to be, a child who thinks he or she knows it all. Plato's Aristotle states: ".Follow the evidence where ever it leads". Herbert Spencer said, "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Try to listen the the latter if you can--I doubt it though. As a Christian and an engineer I use logic to write complex algorithms in languages like JAVA, XML, .NET, EIFFEL, AND PYTHON. DNA has its own encoded language--its own set of complex instructions. DNA contains information. Information must be designed therefore it must have a designer. This is one of the many questions that unbelievers cannot answer adequately. Want more? Here you go:

What happened before the Big Bang? What caused singularity of the Big Bang to occur? If you say two parallel universes collided to cause singularity (neglecting proof of the parallel universe theory of course). You are defying mathematical axioms. By Definition: Two parallel lines or planes have no intersection points.

Where has macroevolution ever been observed? What’s the mechanism for getting new complexity, such as new vital organs? If any of the thousands of vital organs evolved, how could the organism live before getting the vital organ? (Without a vital organ, the organism is dead—by definition.) If a reptile’s leg evolved into a bird’s wing, wouldn’t it become a bad leg long before it became a good wing? How could metamorphosis evolve? (a catepillar becomming a butterfly)

How could organs as complex as the eye, ear, or brain of even a tiny bird ever come about by chance or natural processes? How could a bacterial motor evolve? How could such motors work until all components evolved completely and were precisely in place?

How could the first living cell begin? That’s a greater miracle than for bacteria to evolve into man. How could that first cell reproduce? Just before life appeared, did the atmosphere have oxygen or did it not have oxygen? Whichever choice you make creates a terrible problem for evolution. Both must come into existence at about the same time.

Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA, which can only be produced by DNA?

Did you know that the Big Bang theory violates two of the three Laws of Thermodynamics, and the Law of Cause and Effect? Furthermore, as retrograde motion is observed throughout the universe, even within our own solar system, the Big Bang violates the Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum! Beyond these violations of natural law, the Big Bang is unable to explain uneven "voids" and "clumps" throughout the universe. Atheism, Naturalism, Materialism, and Evolution cannot answer these questions.
The most laughable thing is that many Evolutionary courses teach Random Mutation and Natural Selection as viable explanations of life's origins. While Natural selection has yet to be disproven, Random Mutation has been disproven via the Fruit fly experiment and the Random Mutation Game--the latter a computer simulation (I wrote this app as a project when I was in college). And Yet MOST high school and some college courses still teach Random Mutation even though it has been disproven!!! The desparate attempt of some to explain away the existence of a benevolent Creator using any means (even outright falsehoods) is utterly ridiculous and sad. Stop following blindly and research it for yourself. "Follow the evidence, where-ever it leads."

Answer 4

Not all people of faith insist that it trumps science and rational thought.

In fact I think when people fight science because it doesn't agree with religious answers in scientific areas, that's not even faith, that's politics. This happens when religious leaders are fighting not for Biblical doctrine but for their own power. In our time, you'll notice, it happens when religious leaders sell out to politics, conflating a political message with their religious message, for purposes of their own self-aggrandizement. When they go out looking to pick a fight with evolution or stem-cell research, they are doing so for political purposes.

The Christian/GOP fight against abortion is a good example! For a long time there was a disagreement, an uncertainty as to exactly when life begins. Some time between Roe v. Wade and the 1980 presidential election, it became 'official' Christian doctrine that life begins when the sperm hits the egg. This decision became a stake driven into the ground for Christians to rally around, it allowed them to all join together to support Reagan. But the decision that life begins at fertilization is not Biblical, and it is not medical, it is a purely POLITICAL decision, made at some point by some political decision-maker expressly for the purpose of creating a 'wedge issue' for the Republicans. In recent years this same thing has been done with homosexuality, evolution, even things like the age of the earth.

Answer 5

They seem effectively the same to me. I'm not sure I'd call it a gift, however.