Txgangsta : There's no need for insult...
And I might be AI...I have been told I have a cold robotic way of speaking more than once.

It seems we are getting off topic here..
I can see where the confusion might be, because one of the dictionary definitions of faith is "firm belief in something for which there is no proof."
However, I think the word 'faith' in this context refers to "belief and trust in and loyalty to God."

NameEntry :
SoL@R :
This doesn't need to turn into a flame war. We are discussing the meaning of faith as it pertains to religion. Let's please keep the replies relevant to the topic.

Kryptic : actually, there is only 1 major religion that actually kills others in the name of their religion.

As for the comments about "why do people still believe in God" - the majority of the world still believes in a god or higher power of some sort. To say "it's 2015 get with the times" doesn't actually make any sense. The vast majority of the world is religious not the other way around.

Txgangsta : I meant that second part to you but forgot to use your username as preface.

Geogree: Please don't forget about that guy who shot people around a Planned Parenthood who is christian or that kid who shot up the black church who is christian. There are more and more christian terrorists out there that the public just does not recognize.

Vanelan :

Tristan didn't think it was disrespectful. And Tristan was legitimately confused about why people say "faith is blind". I just pointed out that it's not biblical, it's not rational, and it's untenable.

Kryptic :

What happens when intellectually embarrassing stories are held by intellectuals?

NameEntry :

Ah, ok. But you changed topics. The topic was your criticism that belief in the God of the bible solely comes from the bible. This is a reasonable objection because it would expose circular reasoning. However, I demonstrated that the bible itself says God is revealed in nature. Therefore, it is not biblical to believe that the God of the bible solely comes from the bible. Is my response adequate to your previous objection?

I've learned from multiple debates that if I allow you to change topics, the argument truly goes no where. I can't actually address your objection that "there is no evidence of a god" until you agree that circular belief is condemned by the bible (or change my mind).

Vanelan : Please just bare with me for a line or two.  Just for the record - I have absolutely,  positively no malicious intent with my questioning.  I am sorry if you saw it that way.  If people make  statements about God or things pertaining to Christianity which is questionable regardless of what the  topic of the thread is, it is my "duty" as Christian to give reasonable answers to the questions and to challenge these statements.  After all, 1 Peter 3:15 says, "...always being ready to make a defense  to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and  reverence."  Yes, I am going off-topic with this and for that I apologise, but a lot of the things  that I say will be linked to the original topic or I will at least try and bring it back to the main  discussion.


NameEntry : I'm not trying to undermine or prove anything.  You said, "We all ready have explanations  about nature and good ideas about how the world was created so there's no need to believe in a  god."  So I thought - what are these "explanations" and "ideas"?  Would you care sharing this?  Not  here of course.  A new thread perhaps?  I am not trying to be sarcastic about the whole deal -  I would  really like to know YOUR angle on this, not from Wikipedia or so-called "science" web sites.  What made  YOU believe with absolute certainty that there is no creator God?  Here's my take on this.  You either  believe in an almighty, everlasting, eternal God that created everything by simply speaking it  into existence, or you believe in man's idea/s of an explosion that happened billions of years ago and  the millions of pieces of debris, by some random chance event, came together in such a perfect, precise  way at exactly the right time to form the human eye with over 200 million working parts, around 107  million light sensitive cells and that's able to process 36 000 pieces of information in a single hour.   Think about it - What explosion creates order?  Does a terrorist bomb create harmony?  How could a Big  Bang create sunsets, lilies, high and low tides, seasons, Tibetan yaks, thousands of species of insects  each with their own mandibles/mouths, eyes, digestive system etc.  Even a child can see that there is  "grand design" in creation.  You were a child once, so what happened?

So back to the faith part of this thread.  The question has really already been answered and  Tristantehgamer seemed satisfied by it - or so I hope.  So I'll basically just echo what Triune and  some of the stuff that Txgangsta mentioned.  I also really, really don't want to start or get pulled  into another evolution vs. creation debate, but for some reason when people question the existence of  God, it kind of migrates in that direction naturally, so I'll just drop a few notes about that, using  it as an example and linking it to faith.  Some probably already heard the statement, especially from  Christians, "It takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation" and to the average creationist  or Christian this might seem plausible, but in reality biblical faith is based on the  faithfulness of someone or something.  tRIUNE has already touched on this by saying, "There is  substance to faith." and this "substance" is the Creator God and His Word - without that, all you have  is blind faith.

I'll end off with this as a side note.  We believe in many things we cannot see.  You cannot see the  wind.  Can you?  Have you ever seen history?  Have you ever seen your own brain?  You can feel and see  the effects of the wind, but it's invisible.  We have records of history, but it is by "faith"  that we believe certain historical events happened.  Television waves are invisible, but an antenna and  a receiver can detect their presence.  The unrepentant man who refuses to believe in the existence of God, has a "receiver".  However, the receiver (his spirit) is dead because of sin.  He needs to be plugged into the life of God then he will come alive and be aware of the invisible spiritual realm, but  the unbeliever does not want to be plugged in or admit that there is in fact a creator God, because the moment they do that, they have to be morally responsible to a God that will hold them accountable on judgement day for all the lies, blaspheming, stealing, bribing, fornicating, lusting, aka sin, that they have committed  in their lives.  They hate the thought of that and in turn hates God and thus lull their conscience by denying His existence...


Final side note - The "circular reasoning" argument is absurd. That’s like saying you can’t prove that  the President lives in the White House by looking into the White House. It is looking into the White  House that will provide the necessary proof. The fulfilled prophecies, the amazing consistency, and the many scientific statements of the Bible prove it to be the Word of God. They provide evidence that it is supernatural in origin.


Ultimate final side note - This was specially made for Txgangsta, our resident Robin Hood


Do you concede *ahem*, yield?

SoL@R :

I hate the lack of philosophy in your post, but I also like the fact that I'm Robin Hood. I'll let you slide. =)

SoL@R : I will be happy to move this to another post that you can start but the idea that I cannot provide links or evidence is very disturbing to me. I am not a scientist and the idea that I cannot provide any links or information from scientists make this idea very sketchy and troubling.

NameEntry : Sorry that I'm only replying now. Do not be troubled I don't expect you to do anything like that. It would of course be totally unfair of me to expect you not to use your resources. It would be the proverbial "knife to a gun fight". What I meant was that many people just go with stuff that they picked up from hearsay without checking it out themselves and they draw their skewed conclusions from it. By all means, if you "believe" something to be true and you're not certain how to bring the info across in for example a forum, use your links and info - I do it all the time. I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong idea.