Religious faith is a concept that has been defined in various ways, from trust to the biblical definition found in Hebrews:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

The elusive nature of its definition makes it unclear as to what religious faith truly is. Can anyone shed some light on its true nature? Furthermore, according to the bible, why should it be considered better evidence than things that can be seen?

  • Philo@lemmy.caOPM
    0·
    8 months ago

    All that word salad to say there are no examples of any tests of intangibles. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just say that?

    I disagree. If we don’t have much evidence and need to come up with an explanation, we guess. And if our guesses are proven consistent as new evidence becomes available, our confidence in that guess grows.

    You can disagree all you like but believing in anything without evidence is nothing short of gullibility. And before you pull out the oft-touted baloney that belief is a choice, go submerge yourself in a bathtub and try to breathe because you choose to believe that you can, then tell me that.

    Once more, the study was a double-blind study on the effects of intercessory prayer and the result was that there was no effect found more than chance. SPEAKING AS A MOD, ONE MORE ATTEMPT TO CLAIM THIS WAS A TEST OF GOD WILL RESULT IN A TEMPORARY BAN.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      8 months ago

      there are no examples of any tests of intangibles

      You seem to be looking for scientific tests, when something like faith is explicitly outside the realm of science. We’ve established that, and I agree.

      You can disagree all you like but believing in anything without evidence is nothing short of gullibility.

      Again, that’s an opinion coming from the assumption that God doesn’t exist (or at least that God existing has no impact on individuals). And that’s fine to make for yourself.

      That said, I think it’s reasonable to come to a different conclusion. I don’t think it’s reasonable to discard science in favor of faith, but I do think it’s reasonable to attribute the unknowable to the divine, and I think it’s reasonable to follow that logic to a natural conclusion (i.e. how a god would communicate to people and why).

      the study was a double-blind study on the effects of intercessory prayer and the result was that there was no effect found more than chance

      Yes, and that’s precisely what I said. My point was that the choice to have people actually pray makes this study easy to misinterpret as being a test of God. I’m not saying it is, just that it’sa problematic part of the design of the study. It fortunately didn’t impact the results.

      The study should have limited itself to just a study on whether being told someone is praying for you impacts recovery time or whatever and not included any kind of actual prayer.

      Edit: removed unnecessary part mentioning the ban.