What is Faith, Veeky Forums?

Fun.

that thing you need when you don't have enough data to make an informed decision you feel okay with.

This. It's like believing in causality.

...

Faith is believing in what you hope to be true, even in the face of contradictory evidence.

>that pic

Unjustified false belief that's held for emotional and social reasons.

But the thing I don't understand is the way the outcomes are interpreted. In my experience with any kind of tragedy, there are usually people who often say something the along the lines of "it's all part of Gods plan".

Isn't it obvious that they are just selectively choosing to view it as positive? If you are continuously thinking positively about a situation, it will ultimately result in a positive outcome.

and those reasons don't justify it why?

Faith is the human ability to believe what you have not seen.

Everyone has faith.

Everyone places their faith in something, every day.

Faith is not actually a religious term; all men have faith, and not all men are religious.

As an example, most Anons believe that electrons exist, and with good reason, but nobody has actually seen one. So the existence of electrons is made by faith. The very real electrons are very much known to exist by faith.

Faith is not weaker than sight; it's stronger.

Those are people who do not make a distinction between what is in God's express will, what God says He will do, and what happens in God's permissive will, i.e. the consequences of creating sovereign free will moral agents.

That God turns evil into good is just something God does in order to interact with His creation, as only He is good. If He restricted Himself to only dealing with the good, He would not have created the universe.

Ahem excuse me good fellow but I couldn't help but perceive some irregularities and inaccuracies in the forum post you've lately submitted. Electrons are science and therefore does not require faith to believe in. I must urge you to remember these basic facts so that you do not continue to not make such inane pronouncements in the future.

Because they don't constitute epistemic justification. Dumb question.

that rests on the assumption that the belief is false. care to prove this to be the case?

Wrong.

I. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls, is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts, and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the Word, by which also, and by the administration of the sacraments, and prayer, it is increased and strengthened.

II. By this faith, a Christian believes to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein; and acts differently upon that which each particular passage thereof contains; yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come. But the principal acts of saving faith are accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

III. This faith is different in degrees, weak or strong; may often and many ways assailed, and weakened, but gets the victory: growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance, through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

please explain.

Claiming that a belief is unjustified is not the same as claiming it's false

I've never really delved into the Humanities side of Veeky Forums, but I was raised Catholic, spent every level of my education at a Jesuit schools and had to take tons of theology courses, but obviously any knowledge I may have retained only really scratches the surface of the subject.

Has a Catholic (or just Christian) theologian ever given a well known response as to why someone like me lacks faith? Why I just cannot convince myself to take a leap of faith and believe in some sort of divine creator? I'm not looking to challenge anyone's beliefs, just genuine curiosity on the subject.

complete trust or confidence in someone or something

"I have faith that X caused Y"

despite your sarcasm this actually is the case, unless you want to reduce it to everyone's faith in some basic axioms. religious faith has much less of a logical foundation than the existence of electrons

>Epistemic justification (from episteme, the Greek word for knowledge) is the right standing of a person’s beliefs with respect to knowledge, though there is some disagreement about what that means precisely. Some argue that right standing refers to whether the beliefs are more likely to be true.

>whether the beliefs are more likely to be true.

iep.utm.edu/epi-just/

Do you think science will be able to solve some of mankind's problems in the future?

That is faith in science.

Do you believe that 10,000,000 years ago, evolutionary changes to a missing link gave rise to human beings?

That is a faith based belief.

If that's all you learn today, your day will have been well spent.

>linear causality

>likely

I take it's the first time you've heard of the concept of justification.

Most famously possibly Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" is what you're looking for.

It's good that you have no faith in the catholic church being able to resolve your spiritual problems. They have no answers for you.

And what if that leap of faith is towards polytheism?

the social and emotional reasons for faith make it more likely to be true

Be convinced in your heart what you believe is true, and leap with both feet.

What is true will reveal itself as truth; what is not true will reveal itself as not true.

Not a valid inference.

for (You)

No, not for me, for everyone. The conclusion doesn't follow.

>It's good that you have no faith in the catholic church being able to resolve your spiritual problems.
To be fair I doubt any faith could do so. The most that I think any religion could ever hope to convince me of is that there may be some sort of unknowable power out there that created the universe, essentially the "Clock-maker God". I don't think there's any argument or evidence in human existence that could convince me to believe that any supreme creator cares what we do on this tiny speck of dust floating in space.

Like I said though, I'm not here to debate faith or bash anyone for having it, just always wondered what experts in this field had to say on the subject.

If the information contained in the Bible is true then it would follow that there would be social and moral benefits to believing that information.

If there were no moral and social benefits from believing the Bible then we could confirm that the information it contains is false.

>If the information contained in the Bible is true then it would follow that there would be social and moral benefits to believing that information.

Still wouldn't follow. You have to consider other hypotheses. That's how verification works.

Direct faith in the risen Christ Jesus leads to a personal relationship with the living God.

This seems undeniable to me, that there are massive benefits to believing the bible is true, and massive curses to calling it false.

Again, if there were no moral and social benefits from believing that the Bible contains true information we could verify that the information Bible contains is false.

However, considering that these benefits do exist this therefore makes the belief that the Bible contains true information /more likely to be true/ which is justification.

I will keep you in my prayers. God bless.

You can say the same thing about the Quran

>Again, if there were no moral and social benefits from believing that the Bible contains true information we could verify that the information Bible contains is false.

Correct. This would constitute a falsification. Thus showing that Christian theism is false.

>However, considering that these benefits do exist this therefore makes the belief that the Bible contains true information /more likely to be true/ which is justification.

Incorrect. You are only considering a single hypothesis. That's not how verification works.

you could also say there are moral and social benefits to reading buddhist scriptures. doesn't prove that it is true. to determine if the bible is true we should use historical arguments, as it is a series of historical documents. this overwhelmingly shows the bible getting events wrong time and time, making several false prophecies and containing many documents that are known forgeries

The only thing that can ultimately save you.

>wake up
>decide being alive is still better than being dead
>why?
>404.jpg
>carry on living anyway

pretty much everything is faith desu

/thread

The conviction in something higher in the face of all that is contrary in the world

The opiate of the masses

baaby dont hurt me

Yes, but in the opposite.