What Faith Is

First we must understand what atheist thinking is.

Atheist doesnt believe in God because "there is no evidence for God".

Believer believes in God even when he/she cant show any evidence to others.

That is the simple difference. To a believer, God is truth which requires no evidence, because God itself is the eternal ultimate creator, and he cannot be created or understood, so asking for proof for God is irrational.

In other words, God doesnt require proof because God is the source of proof for a believer. Believer starts with God as a premise, where atheist demands God as conclusion. So the atheist has it backwards, because God is a premise of everything, not conclusion. God is not dependent on something, but everything is dependent on God and truly, every premise of existence of creation, random or pattern, leads to God as its source.

So to put it logically:

1. God is independent creator

2. Existence of independent creator is not dependent on anything

3. God is not dependent on anything

So asking evidence for God assumes that God's existence is dependent on evidence, which contradicts with definition of God as independent creator.

So obviously, independent creator would not be dependent on anything.

Is independent creator logically necessary?

Yes, creation requires creator which cannot himself depend on creation.

Creator would logically be either eternal either himself born out of randomness.

The main problem with atheist world view is in its limited options for explaining existence:

1. Existence requires creator

2. Existence doesnt require creator

If we assume 2, then we must logically assume that existence is not limited by anything, and then the 2 proves God as much as 1 does, because if things can and do exist as independent, what would prevent God from existing?

In this sense, truly, if atheist holds position that universe is eternal, he admits that things can exist as independent. And this means God can exist as independent. So atheist has no explanation why eternal universe would exist and eternal God wouldnt.

Atheism is a position which suffers from true uncertainty principle, where percentages of possibility are known.

1. Existence is created by creator God (God 100% exists in this option)

2. Existence is explained by non-God (God can still exist)

This true uncertainty principle puts the probability of God existing at above 50%, as in option 1, God exists 100% and in option 2, existence of God is above 0% in chance, placing average of all above 50%.

So to put it simply, atheism is a delusion which gets destroyed by anyone who understands uncertainty principle.

Good topic! If your question involves definition, my answer could be lengthy because I have written an entire 250-page book [still in editing at present] on the subject, by definition, and by practical application, but, as a summary, I key on Paul's 11th chapter of Hebrews, in which he offers definition, summarized by verse 1: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." [KJV] The key words are "substance" and "evidence;" both of which align nicely within a legal context of those terms. "Substance" is physical evidence, and, mostly, "evidence" takes a physical form.

Therefore, I remove from from belief as separate concepts altogether. Belief can center on things which are not true as easily as can be centered on truth. Belief stretches credibility and is still acceptable to some. Faith, however, by Paul's definition, requires more "substance" and "evidence" to be operable, and must lead to truth, or it is not faith; it is mere belief.

Therefore, I think faith as a substantive a sense as are our typical five" sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching; all physical senses on which science depends. I think faith is a sixth sense; an added sense such as some animals have, how mostly have our same five, but add sensitivity to magnetic north, or echo location. Also physical senses. Further, we are finding that some people do exhibit these other senses, so my adding faith to the list seems appropriate.

Atheists have a different explanation for creation like the Big Bang and don’t accept the God as described in religion as the creator.

I think faith is more related to what Jesus said about us being capable of moving mountains. It's linked to what some Eastern phylosophies teach about what our minds can do and our real potential as humans.

It's all mental power.

Well, when Jesus was on the cross, he is quoted as saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Atheist doesnt believe in God because "there is no evidence for God".

Atheist can also not believe in Macro-Evolution because "there is no evidence for Macro-Evolution." There is data that we all see, and interpretation of that data leads us to conclusions. Should we interpret the data based on the premise God exists or the premise God does not exist? Aren't both biased to some extent? If you say the latter premise is not biased, then based on what do you say the premise is objective? Is it objective based on your interpretation of the data? What led you to interpreting the data that way? A preconceived bias or opinion or thought on the matter, right?

This is why it doesn't really matter if the premise starts with "God exists" or "Common Ancestor and Macro-Evolution is true." People will always have biases that affect interpretation of the evidence which starts as objective data. Data becomes evidence when the data is asserted to support a conclusion.

That's why the real debate lies in "Is God more likely to exist than Him not existing?" For a Christian, explain why interpretation of the evidence to assert God's existence is more sensible than anything else.

No one can claim to have an upper-hand in a debate about God because their opinion is "unbiased." Everyone is biased in some way.

To a believer, God is truth which requires no evidence, because God itself is the eternal ultimate creator, and he cannot be created or understood, so asking for proof for God is irrational.

To a believer, God is self-evident. I think one of the observations for God being self-evident comes from everybody having the law written on the hearts. Meaning everyone knows what is right and wrong. Some people either pretend they don't know the difference or that there is no such thing.

Funny that people try to disprove what is self-evident, and people can have no problem with that. But if someone tries to argue against him or her that is trying to disprove self-evidence, thereby supporting self-evidence, they're called out for being irrational.

Isn't it just as irrational to try to disprove something self-evident? Therefore, it is irrational to try to disprove God.

That's why the debate has to go backwards even further to "Why is it logical to assert God is self-evident?" Either it is irrational to disprove God, or it is actually rational to answer the question posed in this paragraph. You tell me @SatanLucy.

Romans 2:15 HCSB - "They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts. Their consciences confirm this. Their competing thoughts will either accuse or excuse them."

I feel like these semantic arguments all suffer from the definition fallacy -- that because a word means one thing, it cannot mean another.

There is faith in the sense of believing in something despite lack of evidence.

There is faith in the sense of a broad religious movement.

There is faith as in simple confidence or trust in something or someone.

Many believers use "faith" to describe something more like a personal light inside each of us that we draw strength and hope from. This is my favorite definition.

As for your main points, Christianity is a religion, and there is obviously tons of evidence for the existence of that religion. What there is insufficient evidence for is the objective existence of God, the historical fact of the resurrection, the virgin birth, and other biblical miracles.

Re: faith as evidence -- it's evidence to the believer. It is not an evidence that you can present to others as proof of the broad authority of your religion. Faith of something does not denote that thing exists, unless you want to admit that Freya, Vishnu, Allah, and thetans all exist too.

Atheists have a different explanation for creation like the Big Bang and don’t accept the God as described in religion as the creator.

The problem with such explanation is that big bang isnt mutually exclusive with God.

Why is it logical to assert God is self-evident

If atheists can assert laws of logic as self-evident, their senses as self-evident, their reasoning as self-evident, their definitions as self-evident, their starting premises as self-evident, then surely me accepting God as not only self-evident but also an explanation for logic, reasoning, senses, definitions and starting premises, surely I am the only one with an explanation then, while atheists work with no explanation for their core beliefs. In the same way when I say there is a creator of logic and atheist says there isnt, atheist is merely conceding to having no explanation. All definitions are either circular or undefined, and this is true in atheist world where atheist has no starting point of his reasoning, because his reasoning lacks the creator as starting point. This isnt any complicated philosophy. I simply know where is beginning, and atheist doesnt.

It is a scientific theory about creation.

What there is insufficient evidence for is the objective existence of God, the historical fact of the resurrection, the virgin birth, and other biblical miracles.

There's plenty of data for it. You say 'insufficient evidence' because of your interpretation of the data.

I'll add I am saying 'there's plenty of data' because of my interpretation of the data too. So, for the conversation to progress we have to make sense of our interpretations to see if they are more likely than the alternative

Faith of something does not denote that thing exists, unless you want to admit that Freya, Vishnu, Allah, and thetans all exist too.

Yeah it does. Those examples you gave do exist at least in concept. Faith of something denotes that thing is at least an idea from a person or group.

Take unicorns. Unicorns don't have to be real for the concept of unicorns to be real.

Re: faith as evidence -- it's evidence to the believer. It is not an evidence that you can present to others as proof of the broad authority of your religion.

That doesn't mean faith cannot necessarily be used as evidence. Faith is based in evidence, not in feeling. Those who say otherwise don't understand what faith is.

Record of acts of faith can kickstart a trail of evidence. Many people died having faith in Jesus. Why would people be willing to die for their religion? Because it was important to them. Why was it important to them? Knowing the teachings of the Bible (or at least what was available at the time) fulfilled their life and gave them purpose. Why would the Bible give a person purpose? Because the Bible provides an explanation for the complete human experience as well as our origins and the future. The Bible gives a lot of answers that humans care about, and Christians find them satisfactory, at least they should. There is data lodged in faith that represents evidence for why the Bible is a truthful explanation for the world.

There is evidence based in faith; if you disagree, what data are you looking at that you interpret as evidence for an alternative?

That's interesting to view faith as a sixth sense. It's hard to picture at first. Maybe that's like the Holy Spirit being a sixth sense? But I think that reasoning hands over too much control of the Holy Spirit to a person, like the Holy Spirit is an extension of that person rather than the person being a vessel for the Holy Spirit.

I'm wondering how to conceptualize faith as a sense. It works as a 'sense' in that it stimulates and affects how we perceive the world, how we interact with the world--like a spiritual sense. That's interesting because all other senses deal with the physical, but faith is like a guide that transcends the physical and directly influences are spiritual perceptions.

If atheists can assert laws of logic as self-evident, their senses as self-evident, their reasoning as self-evident, their definitions as self-evident, their starting premises as self-evident, then surely me accepting God as not only self-evident but also an explanation for logic, reasoning, senses, definitions and starting premises, surely I am the only one with an explanation then, while atheists work with no explanation for their core beliefs.

Yeah, that's why the argument can't be backed by saying "how obvious" or self-evident it is for premise X, no matter your position. I can say God is self-evident which I do believe, but for me to include that in an argument I do need to have supplemental evidence for it because no one I argue with would believe that unless they put bias before logic.

Saying something is self-evident doesn't work as evidence on its own because people need more support; it's more like expressing the concept's state-of-being.

In the same way when I say there is a creator of logic and atheist says there isnt, atheist is merely conceding to having no explanation.

That makes me think there is no substance to atheism then. All they do is shift burden of proof onto the alternative explanation and provide no explanation of their own besides "I don't know." Is that accurate?

Atheists and believers alike try to reduce religion to a sort of argumentative and speculative science, as if God ought to be another fact that we can record and document. I find it ironic that so many atheists, who claim they just have no belief whatsoever, believe so strongly that God, if there is a God, must be the sort of being the sciences could describe, making differences in the world that we can test and verify. Most internet atheists at least, insist that God must be a cause whose effects we can discover by experiment and observation. Many of the most devout atheists who hold this completely faith-based belief about God, are actively proselytizing their faith on the internet, which strikes me as a strange activity for a group that insists, they simply have no beliefs about God. I will add that the result of this belief, perhaps even the motivation for it, is to declare themselves more logical, intelligent, and scientific than the believers they see as holding competing beliefs.

The simple and undeniable fact is the Theistic conclusion in not logically coercive, the human experience of reality is theistically ambiguous, which is to say that the human experience can be interpreted religiously or naturalistically with equal rational justification. That is why it has always been referred to as a matter of faith, but for those who choose it, it does provide a rationally satisfying way of making sense of the broadest possible band of human experience, of uniting in a single account, the rich and many layered encounter that we have with a reality that is experienced as full of value, meaning, and purpose.

The basis of faith is not inferential reason, it is personal encounter with a personal, moral, liberating, and transcendent power and presence. And because our state of conscious awareness is a feature that trumps all others in the matter of epistemic authority, for the believer, there is no validity to arguments that try to deny this encounter.

If true intelligence involves the ability to view and understanding widely different things from multiple different perspectives, an aptitude for grasping a wide range of truths, relationships, and meanings, and the capacity for abstract and symbolic thought, then it follows logically that the contention that one can reduce reality to only one of its modes, to know it in only one of its forms, is an unintelligent claim.

Science does not contend that reality can be reduced to a single ontological level, on the contrary, science asserts that reality is in fact, multileveled, it asserts that the four dimensions of existence that we call reality, are contingent and relative to a greater reality of more dimensions, there is a transcendent reality of which we cannot have certain knowledge, and which can only be expressed metaphorically. Consequently, the belief that the believer is in some way being “unscientific” is unfounded.

Saying something is self-evident doesn't work as evidence

People dont think based on evidence. If they did, thinking would be impossible.

That makes me think there is no substance to atheism then. All they do is shift burden of proof onto the alternative explanation and provide no explanation of their own besides "I don't know." Is that accurate?

Yes, the common answer I get from atheists is that they dont know. When I ask them about the conditions for existence, they cant seem to come up with a rational response as to what is a condition for something to exist in general. The first thing which ever existed can logically only have existence which is not conditional on any other thing. And the thing which is not conditional on any other thing is God. So in this sense, if things not conditional on any other thing can exist, then God can exist. And there is no explanation why first unconditional thing would exist and God (also unconditional thing) wouldnt. Further, when we define God as creator of logic who is himself above logic, we see that by mere definition, nothing could stop such God from creating himself out of nothing, as he is above logic and he can do that.

Atheism has no explanation of existence which excludes God, and that is a crucial point. If all explanations we can think of can logically include God, then in all of them, God is very possible. This is also true for random creation, which could logically create God out of nothing at random in the same way it created our universe out of nothing at random. This is true for eternal universe which does not rule out eternal God, but in fact says unconditional existence is possible, and as such, unconditional existence of God is possible.

So if atheist were to say that God doesnt exist, he would need to explain which condition prevents God from existing while at the same time enabling whole universe to exist.

And more importantly, what put such condition in place?

Atheism can only rule out God from existence if it assumes that there is a specific condition which prevents God from existing.

However, no such condition exists as theory. The idea that things can unconditionally exist enables God directly, and the idea that things cant unconditionally exist would make our own existence impossible, as our existence depends on something which governs existence, and something which governs existence cannot itself be dependent on existence of other things, as it governs them.

So we begin from a true dichotomy:

P1. Some things either can exist unconditionally or things cant exist unconditionally

P2. It is impossible to defend that things cant exist unconditionally

C. Some things can exist unconditionally

P1 is a true tautology, no 3rd option exists.

P2 is true because if all things were conditional, there would be no unconditional thing to enable all of them, and existence itself would be impossible with no possible starting point.

C. From P1 and P2, conclusion follows that some things indeed can exist unconditionally.

This unconditional existence cannot possibly exclude God, as excluding God would make it be conditional.

In this sense, any theory of existence includes God at starting point, because it is impossible to exclude God at starting point.

Also, it is not logically possible to explain why God wouldnt exist at starting point and something else would, as no conditions exist to create such difference.

Because of this, starting point must indeed include God.

What there is insufficient evidence for is the objective existence of God, the historical fact of the resurrection, the virgin birth, and other biblical miracles.

There's plenty of data for it. You say 'insufficient evidence' because of your interpretation of the data.

Correct.

Faith of something does not denote that thing exists, unless you want to admit that Freya, Vishnu, Allah, and thetans all exist too.

Yeah it does. Those examples you gave do exist at least in concept. Faith of something denotes that thing is at least an idea from a person or group.

Sure, but everyone agrees that deities exist as an idea/concept.

Re: faith as evidence -- it's evidence to the believer. It is not an evidence that you can present to others as proof of the broad authority of your religion.

That doesn't mean faith cannot necessarily be used as evidence. Faith is based in evidence, not in feeling. Those who say otherwise don't understand what faith is.

We're back to the definition fallacy.

Belief despite lack of evidence is one definition of faith. Just because you have a different definition doesn't mean others "don't understand what faith is." They are simply acquainted with other definitions than the one you're trying to strongarm over and against the others.

Record of acts of faith can kickstart a trail of evidence. Many people died having faith in Jesus. Why would people be willing to die for their religion? Because it was important to them. Why was it important to them? Knowing the teachings of the Bible (or at least what was available at the time) fulfilled their life and gave them purpose. Why would the Bible give a person purpose? Because the Bible provides an explanation for the complete human experience as well as our origins and the future. The Bible gives a lot of answers that humans care about, and Christians find them satisfactory, at least they should. There is data lodged in faith that represents evidence for why the Bible is a truthful explanation for the world.

I don't understand why Christians use this argument. Do you know how many people from various religions have died for their faith? Do you know how many people have felt fulfilled by their religion, have considered their religion to be a complete explanation of the human experience?

Sometimes I think Christianity is such a cultural titan in the West that Christians have a real problem placing their religion in a broader context, in understanding that other faiths can be just as powerful, fulfilling, and moving to their adherents.

There is evidence based in faith; if you disagree, what data are you looking at that you interpret as evidence for an alternative?

There is a kind of faith that can be based in evidence. I don't disagree with that.

Do you have faith in Burger Jesus?

I think people see faith all wrong. People think of faith as trust in something outside us. Faith is a trust and belief in ourselves. I have faith on my experiences. Not in others.

I like that definition. Most people find it much harder to place faith in themselves, though. The Bible even discourages you from placing faith in yourself, so people influenced by it are going to have their self-doubts reinforced.

Faith is broadly defined as trust, confidence, or belief in a person, thing, or concept, particularly in a religious context as belief in God or religious doctrines, or a firm belief in the absence of concrete proof. It can also refer to loyalty, sincerity, and the keeping of promises. The specific understanding of faith varies across different religions, encompassing beliefs in deities, scriptures, prophets, or the teachings of enlightened beings.

The simple and undeniable fact is the Theistic conclusion in not logically coercive, the human experience of reality is theistically ambiguous, which is to say that the human experience can be interpreted religiously or naturalistically with equal rational justification.

What do you mean “theistically ambiguous”?

Finally got back to Debatecraft and read this. Man, I’ve missed the things you say because when you are not trolling, your statements are completely logical and they help me understand difficult concepts more easily under premise-conclusion structure. Thanks

We're back to the definition fallacy. 

Belief despite lack of evidence is one definition of faith. Just because you have a different definition doesn't mean others "don't understand what faith is." They are simply acquainted with other definitions than the one you're trying to strongarm over and against the others.

I did realize as I thought about this over the weeks. I was using a definition of faith that not everyone else was using, and I should’ve or we all should’ve agreed to a definition first