Agnostic.com

13 2

How can I debate anyone regarding god when they always fall back to you must have faith?

I try to point out that one should be able to verify the existence of a god by some means. Their reply is look around yourself someone had to create everything and that was god.If I quote the big bang they state that was god's way of creation.When I point out the bible was written over 100's of years and by many authors they refuse to acknowledge this fact. They also refuse to believe that many bible books were discarded and some of these were written by women.

Marine 8 Nov 2
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

13 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

Once upon a time someone i thought i loved, or at least lusted after, told me, " But, you have to like Neil Diiamond." No, i don't, buddy, and you are suddenly far less attractive as well.
Same principle.

1

Why debate it? I see religion as man made phenomena to assuage our fears in a confusing world. I am ok with accepting the universe as a mysterious place and mankind as being less than omniscient. I don't think there is an answer to a lot of these questions and feel no urgency to prove anything. I agree with your points though

2

Without religion, Sapiens wouldn't exist. Let people have their religions. They need them. Don't take away a survival tool. We need all we've got. Don't debate them. They need it. Look at the evolution of Sapiens. Every culture needed two things to survive, no matter where they were on earth. They needed hope and answers. They didn't have science to give them answers, so they invented religion and Sapiens became the top of the food chain. Don't debate them. Religion is the Sapien's answer, just because we can prove them wrong doesn't mean we should.

The problem is that they are using their power base at this time to impose their belief system upon everyone. Devos and her policies in education are damaging and are not supported by the Constitution. in fact they are opposed by the separation of church and state. The evangelicals are working to ban contraceptives, abortion plus they are trying to put religious studies into school cirriculums again violating church /state . If they did not follow the premise that they are required to convert everyone to their way of thinking there would be no problem.I am not against individuals finding comfort by whatever means however I will not let them force their believe system upon me.

2

Religious people use the word 'faith' to describe some vague and wonderful attribute which you must develop if you want to go to heaven, but in reality it just means "stop asking questions and believe whatever we tell you". The quickest way to get kicked out of a church is to ask questions, because a good question might actually cause them to 'think' for once, and maybe question their own faith..

Your statements are so true. They fear death as this is all there is. They use faith as a means to extend life. They do not realize how religion has become another business ie the mega churches where the preacher has earned millions of dollars to afford planes and plush homes all in the name of god.

2

Seems like a no-win situation for you so better prepare to leave. Ask them one last question: where did all those people in the village of Nod came from?

If they can't make up a satisfactory answer, excuse yourself and politely walk away. If they ask you why you're leaving early, tell them you still have to do the dishes and laundry. Should you get heckles and catcalls just raise your hands and laugh with them walking away.

2

Explain to them that "Faith" does not require any proof and can not be proven 🙂 I would rather Know something is true thru the scientific process that can be repeated over and over again and will always result in the same conclusions 🙂

2

Tell them that you have faith too ... faith that life began on earth as a result of some simple chemical processes, even though you can't prove it 🙂

But there are other things that can be proved. If they believe everything in the bible, then they would say that the earth is 6,000 years old and not 4.6 billion years old. The latter is based on scientific evidence. Why would they choose to ignore this?

They ignore logic,and science.

2

Can you argue against faith? To me faith implies you are going to accept something without any evidence if necessary. How can you argue (apply logic) to that? Argument implies logic applied to demonstrable fact - you can't argue with these people

SO TRUE

2

I ask them, “Why is faith a good thing?” The first time I ever asked this it went well. The man I was talking to admitted that he only values faith because people tell him to. Most people say because the bible says so. I press the point that faith is bad epistemology. You can justify any belief through faith, and there is no way to determine fact from fiction because it lacks a corrective mechanism. Most people’s eyes kind of glaze over at “epistemology” but if you have enough time you can back them into a corner that they simply cannot escape. They will be forced to admit the absurdity of faith or knowingly bury their head in the sand.

Thank you this seems to be a very good method of starting the conversation.

3

There is no way to debate faith. Faith is the ultimate reason stopper.

My Motto: Never confuse an issue with logic

3

Faith is not something that can be debated; you can debate facts, not irrational beliefs. The only way I've found to make people question their belief is to find contradictions in their own beliefs, within its own inner coherence; anything form outside of the faith, like science and logic, will be ignored. As a side note, Catholics would probably be harder to convince since the Vatican says all of the Old Testament, which has the weirdest stuff, is only to be taken metaphorically, so it can't really be used against itself.

MarcO Level 5 Nov 2, 2017

I was catholic and was placed in the coat room for asking questions the priest could not answer. The frist 8 years of school were trying at best.

@BobHKniola - you are not alone

Well, here Catholicism is quite tame, we had religion classes in school (they removed those the year after mine and replaced them with classes about religious diversity throughout the world), but no one took them seriously, not even the teachers. The Catholic church used to be quite dominating here, but in the 60s it was kicked out of anything and everything government-related; churches have been pretty much empty since then and the clergy has gone from a punitive version of the religion to one more axed on forgiveness and community to try and get back some believers.

3

At that point, you're never going to get any rational thought through to them so cut your losses and walk away.

Usually just what happens.

Walk away politely, please. he-he!

4

You can't debate with them. You can argue only with a person who will agree to use reason. In falling back to blind faith, they are denouncing the use of reason, logic, and science.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:2718
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.