Posted by Bob on November 14, 1999, at 19:59:22
In reply to Re: Depression, Evolution (CC), posted by CC on November 14, 1999, at 19:06:37
> faith does not have to be in any "mystical" thing, you could have faith in science or humanism, that is you believe in them or their validity or have confidence in them. The analogy is about reinforced belief. Scientific rules or not, I am talking about reinforcement of experiencial observations. If you want to deify science thats your perogative.
I was arguing quite the opposite -- the last thing science needs is to be deified. The same goes for Faith with a capital F. If Faith in god isn't mystical or spiritual, then I say it is not Faith but faith in the teachings of an authority, such as a clergy. Empiricizing Faith is as undermining as deifying Science.
> You can read anything into anything. This has nothing to do with the validity of the text. The idea that God exists in or influences everybody is not, as far as I know, inconsistent with Christian belief.
So if the God of Christ lives within us, why would we need to rely on the words of men to teach us Truth? If you are in touch with your Faith, then IT validates what you read from others, not the other way around. Faith comes from First-Hand "experience" if it comes from within, second-hand at best if from without.
> Well maybe it seems farfetched, but no more so than a time machine. And the idea that it is antiquated nonsense is your opinion. I think you have way too much "faith" in science.
You're reading too much into the text. For now, prophecy is as mysterious as why life exists on Earth and not Mars or Venus, as Earth's environment was once as hostile as either. There is no explanation that can explain prophecy through some other means, so there's no basis for calling it antiquated nonsense.
And as a scientist, I have no faith in science. I may trust well-documented and replicated explanations and I may have hope in the trajectories of understanding what we know today suggest, but Science is far too narrow a means of knowing the world to put any faith in.
And again, to keep the apples and the oranges separate, I find no Faith in Science, nor do I look to Science to prove my Faith. They exist in difference spaces of knowing.
> Well faith tends to need periodic reinforcement.
And I still say that looking outside of yourself to reinforce your Faith means you're looking in the wrong place.
> Well it is my opinion that we are where we are because of a lot of mostly bad choices made by exercising our free will.
And each bad choice of Man compounds the bad choice of God that allows such to happen in the first place, does it not?
oops ... the X-Files is on ... gotta get my priorities straight. Nice chatting with you, CC
Bob
poster:Bob
thread:14368
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991108/msgs/15211.html