Reply to Is the Charleston church shooting making anyone doubt their Faith?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It shouldn't matter matter if your mom is in MENSA or illiterate, if you're a national merit semifinalist (people really brag about that?) or didn't finish high school.  People can believe bad ideas for bad reasons.  Smarter people are better than average about trying to reconcile cognitive dissonance but that doesn't mean an idea is correct.  What matters is not who's saying it, or where they come from, but why.  [/quote]

In the end, being religious - believing in God and Jesus and the miracles -  requires faith.  I've never heard a believer say any differently including the NMSSF above and her Mensa mother.  Almost all believers go through a period of doubting about their religion.   Some go through multiple periods during their lives - and they will eventually come back because they have faith.  Some say doubt is necessary for a mature faith.  Faith is ultimately not affected  by evidence.  Faith is beyond evidence and reason.   It is a gift that not everyone seems to have, but believers think that if you try really hard and pray to god, faith will eventually come to you.  That's what happened to them, in many cases.

People with faith pity those who do not have it, because they don't experience the warmth of God and they will not live with him forever after death.   They realize that's their choice, however, thanks to the gift of free will that God gave everyone, so humans wouldn't be robots, with everyone going to heaven automatically, because he programmed the ability to believe in God to everyone he created.  He didn't do that because he didn't want to make a bunch of believing robots.

If this doesn't make sense to you, it's not related to your intelligence level.  Some very smart and some very intellectually challenged people have the same deep faith in God.  God doesn't favor one type of person over the other.  We all have free will.  
[/quote]

There's a lot to unpack and discuss in your post but my primary response is this: If you define faith as "belief without or in spite of evidence" (and I think you do based on what you wrote) then ANYTHING can be justified by faith.  Reread that again.  Don't believe Jesus rose from the dead?  Just gotta have faith.  Did Joseph Smith really find some magic plates from God in upstate NY?  Just gotta have faith.  Is Mohammed the one true profit?  Just gotta have faith.  Are there unicorns deep inside the planet of Saturn?  Just gotta have faith.  Is Superman really based on a real guy who the government cloned in a lab years ago?  Just gotta have faith.  You see my point.  Pick out an idea you think is absurd and I can justify it solely by faith according to your logic.  That's the problem.  [/quote]

Your point is obvious.  What is not mentioned is that some ideas merit faith and others don't.  Superman is obviously a story made up by someone trying to entertain people.  Religion comes from God.[/quote]

Two points: If you're defining "faith" as "something you believe without or in spite of evidence after you think it deserves believing in", how is that not circular? [b] Something you believe in cause you think it deserves belief?[/b]  Also, my original point still stands in that faith, even with your new definition, can be used to justify anything.  The certainty with which you feel about Jesus is the same certain that some feel about Joseph Smith, Mohammed, the story behind Scientology, or the cargo cults in the South Pacific. [/quote]

The point is that Christians do believe that their cause deserves belief; therefore they believe.  The people who believe in those other religions are wrong.   They may think they are right with the same fervor that Christians believe they are right.   But obviously, when people have different views, not  everyone can be right.   And in this case, Christians are right, which they feel sure of during their lives and which they feel sure will be proven after they die.

You may call it "circular."  Christians call it "faith."  Very intelligent people who understand the concept of circular reasoning in intellectual matters,  simply put that aside when it comes to religion.[/quote]

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