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**saopinax** · 12-11-2006, 08:04 PM

Originally posted by lord of the mark
That would seem to make me "not religious" by the definition of the christian fundies, a definition you apparently share. I never said that having faith/doubt was an either-or proposition -- the religionistas have faith, but that doesn't mean they can't have doubt as well. Come to that, the religionistas who don't have any doubt tend to scare the hell out of me.

I guess if I were asked to pin down the difference between an atheist and a religionist (without resorting to meaningless statements like "a religionist has a faith/doubt ratio in excess of 3/5"), I'd say that the religionist has sufficient faith that he has or will arrive at some metaphysical truth (be it G-d, Nirvana, etc.) that he seeks out that truth, whereas the atheist has sufficient doubt that he cannot find such a metaphysical truth (either because it is beyond his grasp or because it doesn't exist) that he doesn't attempt to seek it out.

Originally posted by DaShi
I'm not asking anyone to prove that God does/doesn't exist. The problem is that you're equating faith with doubt, i.e., doubting a statement is the same as having faith in the opposite, which is crap. If I say "I doubt that it will rain tomorrow" then that's hardly the same thing as saying "I have absolute faith that it will not rain tomorrow." If I say "I doubt that God exists" then that's hardly the same thing as saying "I have absolute faith that God does not exist." Even if you take out the "absolute" qualifier the statements are still quite different. Plus, when you consider LOTM's post above, equating faith with doubt would mean that LOTM has faith that G-d exists and also has faith that G-d doesn't exist, which is silly.

12-11-2006, 08:04 PM	#18
saopinax Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 468 Senior Member	Originally posted by lord of the mark That would seem to make me "not religious" by the definition of the christian fundies, a definition you apparently share. I never said that having faith/doubt was an either-or proposition -- the religionistas have faith, but that doesn't mean they can't have doubt as well. Come to that, the religionistas who don't have any doubt tend to scare the hell out of me. I guess if I were asked to pin down the difference between an atheist and a religionist (without resorting to meaningless statements like "a religionist has a faith/doubt ratio in excess of 3/5"), I'd say that the religionist has sufficient faith that he has or will arrive at some metaphysical truth (be it G-d, Nirvana, etc.) that he seeks out that truth, whereas the atheist has sufficient doubt that he cannot find such a metaphysical truth (either because it is beyond his grasp or because it doesn't exist) that he doesn't attempt to seek it out. Originally posted by DaShi I'm not asking anyone to prove that God does/doesn't exist. The problem is that you're equating faith with doubt, i.e., doubting a statement is the same as having faith in the opposite, which is crap. If I say "I doubt that it will rain tomorrow" then that's hardly the same thing as saying "I have absolute faith that it will not rain tomorrow." If I say "I doubt that God exists" then that's hardly the same thing as saying "I have absolute faith that God does not exist." Even if you take out the "absolute" qualifier the statements are still quite different. Plus, when you consider LOTM's post above, equating faith with doubt would mean that LOTM has faith that G-d exists and also has faith that G-d doesn't exist, which is silly.
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