Anyone who has scanned atheist blogs for, oh, a day has heard the charge,
“Christianity is based on blind faith,” And
“Faith is a belief based on zero evidence.”
Atheists pound and pound and pound away at this for all they’re worth. Why? Well, contrary to all available evidence, atheists believe that living by faith is the one thing that separates their beliefs from religious beliefs. Atheists, don't you know, order their lives totally and completely by empirical evidence. Pfft!
Well it’s true I guess that faith is part of Christianity but it certainly isn’t the sum total of Christianity. More importantly though is the fact that faith, as it’s spoken of and used in the Bible is far from ignoring evidence.
Take for example Hebrews 11:1 which says, “Now faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for and the EVIDENCE of things not yet seen.” Substance and evidence require something and not nothing. In fact our faith in Jesus is based on a historically verifiable person who has four early and reliable biographies that were based on multiple trustworthy witnesses PLUS over two dozen extra Biblical references to Him. As I've said before and will mention again below both atheists and Christians go part way on deductive reasoning and we both go the rest of the way via inductive reasoning or faith as it's understood in the Bible.
In 1st Peter 3:15 we are commanded to be able to give a REASONABLE EXPLANATION for why we believe what we do. If all we had to offer is, “Well, I have faith,” that would be a very strange command. The explanation for why we believe does and must entail collating and presenting evidence. How could it be otherwise?
In 2nd Corinthian 10:5 we are told the same thing. We’re to “Demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the KNOWLEDGE of God, and we take captive every THOUGHT to make it obedient to Christ.” Knowledge, and thoughts entail the use of evidence.
Of course most bloggers are familiar with Matthew 22:37 where we are told to love God with, among other things “all your MIND.” Again, faith, as it’s understood in the Biblical context requires well thought out arguments, sound logic and reasoned use of evidence.
This of course is not good enough for atheists. But, since atheism is a CHOICE,
. That intolerantly excludes all other belief systems that challenge it, and
. That is NOT based on evidence (there were atheists long before anything that modern atheists call evidence),
because of that no evidence that opposes their world-view is good enough for atheists. Atheists have chosen to ignore current evidence. In fact atheists repress a whole category of observable evidence that is available. As it relates to origins, atheists are even willing to ignore the findings of science in order to maintain a belligerent denial that Creator God exists.
Of course atheists will fight tooth and nail to disregard this understanding of faith. They'll go back to the second or third definition of Faith in the dictionary and demand that everyone in the world adhere to that description. In reality, we don't have to do anything that atheists demand of us. The Truth of Faith as it is used within the Christian context is described in detail in God's Word and well, atheists can take their inadequate and false belief system and sh - Oh look! A Squirrel!
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4 comments:
First of all, quoting the bible at an atheist would be like me quoting video game dialogue at you- not very useful at all. I would find it terribly amusing, but it wouldn't really be a conversation.
Secondly, I find your definition of faith in terms of religion a little odd. I actually looked up faith at dictionary.com and this is what I got:
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
Realistically, when discussing religious faith, one would have to use the third dictionary definition, as that is the one that refers to religion.
It is nothing more than sophistry to insist that one must use the first dictionary definition of a word when later ones are more applicable.
Ah solipsismX out “kicking some theist ass,” I see. I’m not quoting the Bible AT you. I’m simply showing the context within which faith is used in the Bible. That’s because atheists have this silly trait of telling Christians what they aught to be thinking regarding a Book they hold dear.
After all, it would be pretty hard to defend a certain idea of Richard Dawkins that had been quoted out of context by a Christian (not that we would ever do that) without quoting other parts of his work to place the disputed quote in context. That’s all that I was doing.
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"It is nothing more than sophistry . . ."
I think puerile would be a better description than sophistry but whatever. That was an inside jab at a different atheist who I thought might have dropped by for tea. He becomes positively incensed if someone doesn’t use exactly the correct dictionary defintion. I thought it might be "terribly amusing."
Makarios, what conceivable observation about the universe could convince you that God does not exist?
I think a more relevant question would be, in the face of overwhelming evidence for the existence of Creator God (see today’s post) what conceivable observation of the universe would convince YOU of God’s existence?
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