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My Conclusion:
[INDENT]One cannot "choose" to believe in something. Either the need/desire to believe exists or it does not. To try and consciously buy-in to a theological belief is to deceive oneself; it is disingenuous and self-deluding.
... but to say that belief lacks any knowledge is invalid, ...
However, to say that belief has no claim to knowledge implies blind faith...
xris,
Nothing can stop free speculation, there is no demand that it be grounded in reality. Personally I believe in Bertrand Russell's orbiting tea pot. In the presence of knowledge, faith is redundant.
Faith should never be held up as being based anywhere in fact.
Any time a belief is founded upon an object it cannot identify in the real world, but only in its imagination, it is lacking knowledge in a very real sense, perhaps it has knowledge of its imagination, but that would be to create an entirely new defination, one not applicable to the physcial world.
I should think this to be self-evident.
Well it certainly does not seem so to believers, and you seem to indicate that there is a foundation for their belief, that they can be in possession of knowledge that would justify such beliefs---no?
Quite the contrary, faith in the absence of any verifiable evidence is blind. Of course nobody can prove God's existence. But that is not to say that there is no basis for reason or evidence within faith. As for your take on the historical validity of the Bible, I see your point. However, when biblical accounts that point toward a metaphysical being (God) have evidence for their validity (archeological, historical, etc) then one has good reason to consider them as logical reasons for belief. It is a fact that a real man named Jesus lived and did great things. Was he the son of God? Well, there is a gap between the evidence and the metaphysical (that is the whole point behind metaphysics and is where faith plays a serious role). However, it does provide some basis of evidence for belief in God.
To the original poster, I guess we don't disagree so much, if you're saying blind belief and knowledge are a continuum. I misunderstood :shocked:and thought you were saying that belief had no claim to knowledge.
xris,
Nothing can stop free speculation, there is no demand that it be grounded in reality. Personally I believe in Bertrand Russell's orbiting tea pot. In the presence of knowledge, faith is redundant.
... but it is impossible by definition to choose one's beliefs.