If something is empirically confirmed, it no longer requires belief.
Because this is not people choosing God, this is God choosing people.
What about all of us who have maintained our resolve/faith/belief without any such confirmation?
Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world Godâs invisible qualitiesâhis eternal power and divine natureâhave been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
âpeople are without excuseâ. If people who believe are predisposed to believe, and people who are not predisposed to believe cannot, then that is an excuse. But here it says people are without excuse. If they donât believe it is their choice.
Thatâs irrelevant to my point. The point is that Paul had previously persecuted the Christians, and came to accept Jesus as Christ only because of the religious experience that he had. That was confirmation for him that the Christians were right. Had he not had that experience, he would have continued persecuting Christians. So his âfaithâ was not a naked personal choice; it was based on something objective; experience of Jesus Christ.
Surely by now you must have figured out that we are using âbeliefâ in two different senses. By âbeliefâ you mean âfaithâ â acceptance of the truth of a fact on trust, even without evidence. By âbeliefâ I mean âopinion about the way the world isâ, e.g., I believe that Venus is covered in clouds and that its surface temperature is very high (i.e., I am of the opinion that this is true, though Iâve never been there to confirm it); I believe that Mt. Everest is the highest point above sea level on the earth; I believe that John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln; I believe that all the verses in the Gospel of Mark after 16:8 are a later addition by a different author; I do not believe that Bacon wrote Shakespeare; I do not believe that the Golden Tablets of Mormonism ever existed; I do not believe that aliens built the Great Pyramid; I do not believe that purely stochastic processes can explain the origin of life. I believe all of these things, but it is not merely on âfaithâ that I believe them (though some amount of trust in the reports of competent experts is involved); I have numerous reasons for thinking they are correct. I donât âchooseâ to believe them as if some âleap of faith is involved.â I think they are rationally justifiable beliefs.
Faith is a different matter. Faith involves trusting that someone who has hitherto been reliable will continue to be so. I have âfaithâ when I go through a green light that the drivers with a red will obey the law and not crash into me (I put my life in their hands); I have âfaithâ in certain people who have up to a certain point never let me down (but they might). Israel had to have âfaithâ that God would come through for them in the wilderness, based on his past providential care; the experiment on Mt. Carmel was based on faith that God would show himself as he had in the past, etc.
Christianity in my view requires both faith in God and rationally justifiable belief about God.
The two are not at odds. Many of the greatest theologians (e.g., Aquinas, Calvin) have said that the existence of God can be proved rationally. However, that God cares for each of us individually can only be a matter of faith, since sometimes it seems he cares for us, and sometimes it seems he doesnât. Being Christian certainly requires âfaithâ on that point, and on other points, but that doesnât mean there arenât rational and evidential grounds for some Christian beliefs. I already mentioned arguments for the existence of God; then there are historical arguments regarding Biblical events (which vary in strength, but at least in principle there is some evidence); there is also the evidence of religious believersâ experience: miracles, prophecies, inexplicable coincidences that save lives, etc. There is the testimony of conscience. There are plenty of things which point to the truth of at least some parts of Christian religion. You seem to be suggesting that any discussion of rational or evidential grounds is improper, but the majority of historical Christians do not agree with you on that. Only radical fideists would agree with you on that, and radical fideism is much more characteristic of post-Enlightenment than pre-Enlightenment Christianity.
Iâm not of course saying that the entire Christian religion can be âprovedâ as a theorem in Euclid is proved, but itâs wrong to say there is no rational or evidential basis for anything in Christianity. Christianity is as much about âthe way the world isâ (the object of âbeliefâ in my usage) as it is about âwhether we can trust God to come through for usâ (the object of âfaithâ).
The reason that the people who deny Godâs existence are âwithout excuseâ is not the fact that they reject the conclusion, but because they willfully shut their eyes to the evidence which God has made available. This is what I was talking about when I characterized the militant atheists. Yes, they make a choice, a choice not to listen to evidence and argument. Itâs the unwillingness to listen that makes them blameworthy, not their conclusion. And the context in Romans seems to link that unwillingness with depravity, which ties in with willfulness. Thatâs fine, but there are many Buddhists (Iâm tempted to say most) who donât accept arguments from nature to the existence of a God, but they are not motivated by a desire to practice depravity. They are a very austere bunch. Their analysis just does not see any need for the hypothesis âGod.â Itâs not as if they willfully âchoose not to believeâ in God; itâs that they see no need for invoking him to explain the existence or order of nature. If you told a Buddhist that he was using his free will to âchoose not to believeâ the Buddhist would say that you didnât understand Buddhist teaching at all. Not believing in something can be a conclusion of theory, rather than anything willed or âchosen.â
But very few Christians known to me offer no grounds for rationally warranted belief. They may never have experienced God directly, as in the case of Paul or the prophets, but they usually accept various things such the evidence of miracles they have seen, or have read about in Christian history, or arguments for God from nature (natural theology), or the existence of conscience, or the rough confirmation of Scriptural history by archaeology, etc. Itâs not as if their âchoiceâ to believe is in a complete vacuum, a blind leap of faith into the dark. They have some support in nature, human nature, history, and so on.
I canât remember now how we got onto this. Originally we were discussing the Genesis 4 and Cain, and then we got into the question of the general coherence of the Biblical stories, and then somehow onto this. But however we got here, the result is bizarre. You started out expressing doubt that large parts of the Bible were divinely inspired, and now you are arguing vehemently that Christians should not require reasons for belief, but should just accept things on faith. If that is your position, then why canât you accept on faith (as did all pre-modern Christians and Jews) that the Bible is a coherent book, instead of âtrusting in your own understandingâ (remember, it was you who quoted Proverbs 3:5 at me!), i.e., the historical-critical understanding of worldly academics who dismember the Bible? Do you think the author of Proverbs would approve of the historical-critical approach on which your objections to the sister/wife narratives rest? You show the most incongruous amalgam of Protestant fideist piety and worldly higher-critical skepticism. I feel as if Iâm simultaneously arguing against Pascal and Wellhausen!
And the jailer will reply: âIt has nothing to do with âchoice,â which is a function of the will, but is a conclusion of reason, which has nothing in it of the will.â
And there the jailer will leave Paul with his tray of food, and move on to the next cell, hoping to find a conversation partner there who uses words more accurately and understands epistemology more deeply. 
Just for clarification: are you claiming that atheists are depraved and refuse to accept God because they are motivated by a desire to practice depravity?
No, Iâm suggesting that the author of Romans 1 seems to have some such association in mind. Jeremy was talking about Romans 1, so I was discussing what that text seems to say or imply.
As Iâve already indicated in my discussion above, I think there are atheists who donât believe in God because they genuinely donât see any evidence for his existence. Jeremy is making it seem as if all atheists make a willful âchoiceâ not to believe in God. I think that some atheists are animated by a desire that God should not exist (Thomas Nagel is frank enough to admit that he has that motive), but I donât think that is always the case. In a sense, Iâm trying to stick up for atheists â or at least, for those atheists who arenât filled with âattitudeâ (Coyne, Myers, etc.). I even know one ID proponent who calls himself an atheist. (Hard to imagine, I know, but itâs true.) And I know many who have nothing against God or religion, but just arenât moved by the available evidence to endorse those things. I donât see them as making a âchoiceâ, but merely as refusing to draw a conclusion on what they regard as inconclusive evidence. And I would never want to force their judgment, with âYouâre either with us or aginâ us, so DECIDE!â sort of talk â which is the kind of talk Jeremy seems to endorse.
I resent it when some people here demand that I DECIDE regarding the percentage of global warming causes by CO2, or that I DECIDE whether unguided mechanisms are adequate to produce all evolutionary change. I would like intellectual breathing room to withhold consent without denying anything. Iâm trying in this discussion to give the same breathing room to thoughtful, non-militant atheists who havenât ruled out God or religion, but just donât, at the moment, find the evidence convincing. I think pushing them hard is intellectually unfair, and is likely to have the opposite of the intended effect. As Charlton Heston said to his rival in Ben Hur, when pushed to adopt one of two polarized positions, âIf that is the choice, then I am against you.â I see no need to drive calm and open-minded atheists to become aggressive and closed-minded atheists, merely because some types of Protestant evangelical canât see that deep intellectual questions canât be settled by acts of will.
It appears that by ânon-militant atheistâ you mean âagnosticâ: someone who takes no position because of insufficient evidence either way. Anyone who is fairly convinced that God doesnât exist (me, for example) is a militant atheist and therefore acting from depraved motives. If you mean something else, you need to think more carefully about what you say.
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This belief stems from your faith in science and itâs practices and processes. This faith is assured by things that can be seen/confirmed/duplicated/demonstrated.
Faith in God is different.
Here, faith is defined in HebrewsâŚ
Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:3 - By faith we understand that the universe was formed at Godâs command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
Hebrews 11:6 - And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
You choose to believe in spite of the lack of confirmation through the physical senses. This is a different kind of faith/belief. This is a choice. You donât have the empirical confirmation of scientific inquiry, yet you choose to believe anyway.
This, in my understanding at least, is the difference between atheist and agnostic. An agnostic genuinely doesnât see any evidence for Godâs existence and isnât convinced, where an atheist is taking the stance that there is no God.
No, I donât. I define an atheist as one who does not believe in the existence of God. That is compatible with a whole range of attitudes, of which I will give just three examples:
1- âGod doesnât exist, and I can prove it, and religion is the worst thing in the world, and the sooner it ceases to exist, the better off the world will be.â
2- âGod doesnât exist, and I have some good arguments which I think prove that, or very nearly prove it, at least as far as I am concerned, but I have nothing against religion or religious people as long as they donât interfere with others, and I donât believe in antagonizing religious people and I donât try to persuade others that God does not exist and I donât campaign against religious belief as such.â
3- âI donât see enough evidence to convince me that God exists. I have no strong refutation of his existence either. Iâm not unwilling to look at new evidence or arguments for Godâs existence. But, because at the moment I donât think God exists, I am correctly described as an atheist.â
By ânon-militant atheistâ I am thinking of types such as 2 and 3 above.
Does that make my vocabulary clearer?
I never said or implied that. But see my clarification above.
I already explained above that I was trying to describe what Romans 1 seemed to be saying, not making a statement of my own. So why do you return to a point I have already dealt with?
I do think carefully about what I say. I probably spend more time rewriting these posts than any other poster here, trying to find the best words possible. I try to qualify things carefully, e.g., by saying that âsome atheistsâ are like this whereas âother atheistsâ are like that, i.e., I try not to broad-brush unfairly. If, despite such efforts, I fail to communicate sometimes (as everyone here does, from time to time), people are free to ask me questions of clarification, as you have done. I try to answer those honestly, fully, and quickly. I have just done so. I hope you now better understand what I meant.
Actually, I would have thought that you would be pleased to see my resisting some of the conclusions of another Christian, and defending the motives and intellectual habits of at least some atheists. But this is a hard crowd to please. 
Not so. An agnostic can see evidence both for and against God, but doesnât see enough of a preponderance of evidence to settle the question. So he remains neutral and awaits further developments.
Yes, but by âtaking the stanceâ you make it sound more willful than it often is. See my Type 3 atheist in the answer to Harshman above. There is a difference between not believing in God while not wanting God to exist, and not believing in God without any strong emotional reaction to Godâs possible existence one way or the other. The âchoiceâ you keep talking about not to believe in God would be pertinent to the first type of atheist, but not the second. And my observation of recent years suggests to me that the number of atheists of the second type has been rapidly increasing, and that the number of atheists of the first type (despite celebrated public figures like Dawkins etc.) are now probably in the minority.
Iâm not sure why you are quoting Hebrews at me. Youâve already said that the Bible is a clumsily edited book with lots of internal contradictions, so why should you think Hebrews is any more âinspiredâ than the sister-wife narratives in Genesis? Why donât you think that the author of Hebrews is just another guy with an opinion, like you and me, rather than the voice of God? Why donât you think he could be dead wrong about the meaning of âfaithâ? Or are you backtracking now, and saying that all Scripture is inspired and all its statements should be taken as correct?
That, in my understanding, is the definition of agnostic. Maybe Iâm wrong, though Iâve been told by many atheists that they âlack the belief in Godâ, that in actuality, most atheists will say God does not exist.
Paul was a contemporary of Jesus. He had first-person access. Genesis is an ancient text thatâs been redacted and pieced together and rewritten, etc.
I donât mean to make it sound as if I reject large sections of the bible. I just acknowledge it has flaws and probably shouldnât just be taken as if itâs right from Godâs mouth to our ears.
Not much. I see all three of those as caricatures that nobody actually fits. #1 is a nonexistent monster (neither Dawkins nor Coyne, certainly), and 2 and 3 are a bit wimpy. I, as an example of a real position, think there is good evidence against any god that anyone would care about, am opposed to religion (though not to religious people), thinking it generally pernicious, and am willing to try to persuade others of all that. I would consider myself a fairly militant atheist, and yet I am not unwilling to listen to evidence or argument, and I see no link at all to depravity as in Romans 1 (which I will note you said was âfineâ). Your mention of Buddhists as not being motivated by depravity seems to me to be saying that in this they are distinguished from militant atheists. If you intended none of that, I urge you to redouble your efforts at clarity.
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Youâre simply dead wrong about Dawkins and Coyne. They are #1, all the way, especially Dawkins. Coyneâs pretense of being âopenâ to religion is just that â a pretense. The things that he says would convince him there is a God are super-spectacular miracles which neither he nor any believer ever thinks are likely to happen. He isnât really open at all. And he frequently shows contempt for religious beliefs and religious people.
And I know lots of atheists who fit #2 and #3. Among others, most of my lifelong friends, whose minds I think I know better than you do, are cases of #3. Apparently you donât have as wide a circle of atheist acquaintances as I do.
Youâre reading my remarks as out of context absolute statements, rather than as part of a conversation with Jeremy. Iâm trying to contextualize my remarks to him in terms of his vocabulary and concerns. He keeps talking about âchoosingâ oneâs beliefs, and he invoked Romans 1 to that end, and thatâs what led to the point about depravity and my comment about Buddhists.
If you would listen sympathetically instead of with a hostile attitude, you would see that Iâm saying something you should like â that there are atheists who are atheists purely because that is where reason, in their view, leads, not because they have made some willful choice to deny God. Jeremy denies this, implicitly if not explicitly. The point about the existence of some atheists who really do willfully oppose the idea of God, and the possibility that some of those want to deny God for the sake of sexual libertinism or the like, was a side-point. The main point was that there exist atheists whose unbelief in God comes from reasoning from the facts of nature, not from some hostile will on their part.
Based on your past statements, you should like that conclusion, and should be pleasantly surprised that a Christian would voice it. But instead, you spoil for a fight, employing a scrappy tone and granting no value to anything I said. Youâre not a constructive dialogue partner. But that pretty well describes every atheist on this site, except for T. aquaticus, so thatâs nothing new.
Youâre assuming the very thing that some scholars contest, and that all pre-modern Christians and Jews rejected.
You quoted Hebrews, not Paul. Almost no scholar today thinks that Paul wrote Hebrews, and you seem to follow what scholars say about authorship.
How do you determine which sections are reliable as the word of God, and which sections are flawed?
You complain about multiple contradictory accounts in the sister/wife narratives. Why not extend that to complain about multiple contradictory accounts of Jesus in the Gospels? If the Abraham story isnât the word of God because obviously human authorship is involved in the pieces, why doesnât it follow that the Gospels canât be the word of God because of contradictions of detail, obvious textual borrowings of one Gospel from another (but with sequence mangled), etc.?
Most atheists are agnostic as well.
Being agnostic is knowledge based. Being atheist is opinion based.
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As usual, you pick and choose the scholars you prefer, depending on whether or not they are amenable to your personal beliefs. You do this with science as well.
I donât see any of it as the âword of Godâ. Itâs man made, and with the exception of Jesus, no man since pre-Adam has ever been an accurate âimage of Godâ.
I see it as textual accounts from a time in human history when the God of this universe directly interacted with and influenced our human trajectory.
This is, admittedly, my more cynical side, but I have a healthy distrust toward organized religion. In my mind throughout the centuries the church had to establish the bible an unquestionable product of Godâs words because much of their power derived from what that text said. Heresy was a seriously punished offense because the churchâs interpretation of it was the only right way to read it. (/cynical)
Itâs really more my overall distrust of humanity in general, if Iâm being honest. The church, the bible, a lot of human hands involved in both. Too much to be ignored.
Okay, you seem to think I have a very out of date view of Genesis. Admittedly, Iâm not very âread upâ on it. Considering this is a conversation about the theological view of Genesis is, itâs on point to talk about. I donât want to start a big long debate over it, but I would like to get a better understanding.
It seems pretty reasonable to me to recognize the pieces that refer to God by different titles are pretty clear evidence of this text being edited together from at least 2 different sources. Has this view changed?
Rubbish. I couldnât care less whether or not Paul wrote Hebrews. Itâs a non-issue for me. But Jeremy seems to feel bound to follow the consensus of Biblical scholarship. Well, the overwhelming majority of the worldâs New Testament scholars deny that Paul wrote Hebrews, so if he is going to bow to the majority view, he will have to accept that majority view as well.