sure i have thought outside of my experiences. and yes faith is nothing but thought but all thought is not faith. faith is not required to win at chess, for instance, but requires considerable thought.

i am self centered, in that i also agree. the most simple explanation of einstein's theory of special relativity is that we each occupy our own universe. we each see our surrounding invironment differently unless we occupy the same space. someone standing in siberia would see the sun setting at the same time i see it rising, for instance. but that doesn't mean i or the rusky don't care for the world as a whole, does it?

i don't agree that faith has anything to do with my hopes, desires or wishes, nor do i think a dictionary would define the word to include such. i never said faith was secluded to being with god or anything else and yes, you are correct in assuming that i only live for today. the only way i can make tomorrow better than what it is today is by taking action today. i can never go into the future and take action any more than i can go back to the past and change action that i already took. hoping, dreaming, believing or having faith that tomorrow will be better than today does nothing to actually make tomorrow a better day. assuming, of course, that there even is a tomorrow for me, i can only make it better by my actions at this very moment. oops. now look what you done gone and made me do. i just lost that moment.

we'll get nowhere in discussing this so called 'kingdom of god.' i suppose we should leave it at this. if your all powerful god, that being you believe can do whatever he choses, would deny me and many other people of high moral character entry into his 'kingdom' and would instead let me burn in hell for eternity simply because you and i don't see things precisely the same then i want nothing to do with him even if i thought he actually existed. i would never, ever allow such harm to any being were i an 'all powerful supreme being' that created everything and could do anything.

Sure it's required. Why would one play chess if they had no faith they would win? Why would they even try if they automatically thought they were going to loose?



So you have no faith in yourself for finding a loved one? A beautiful woman to love and cherish for the rest of your life? You don't have faith you'll eat later? You don't have faith you'll live to see tomorrow? Or maybe even the rest of today? None of this can be known before it happens, it all relies on faith in it happening. Or hope it will happen and the desire for it to happen.

It would be that someone that denied Jesus, not Jesus denying him/her.

i'm beginning to wonder how often i must repeat myself for you to understand my opinion on faith. i have no faith whatsoever in myself finding a loved one, that i'll eat later or live out the rest of the day. I HAVE CONFIDENCE that these things will LIKELY happen. why am i simply confident and have no faith that it will happen? because precisely as you say yourself, 'none of this can be known before it happens.' that those things MAY end up actually happening will not mean it required faith to be confident those things would happen the way they did. confidence requires experience of something happening before or a study or analysis to reach a prediction of what MIGHT or LIKELY will happen. you came close to saying it yourself without realizing it. if i cannot know what will happen in the future, why would i have faith in anything happening in the future?

Look faith up my friend. Confidence in something happening is faith. That is exactly what faith is.

did what you suggested and looked up the word faith in the dictionary. found no reference to 'confidence in something happening.' i think i'll leave you to this argument as i'm afraid that anything further will just be repetitive. i understand your position on what is and is not faith and either you understand mine after these several posts or i've no confidence much less faith that you ever will. lol i'll catch you on another topic of interest to us both somewhere down the road. take care.

Cowboy has to distort the meaning of faith in order to pretend that having faith in his religion has just as much merit as having "faith" that the sun will come up in the morning.

Actually the only people who can have "faith" that the sun will rise in the morning are people who place their faith in science. Because it's only science that claims that the sun will most likely rise again in every morning for millions of years yet to come. Barring some catastrophic unforeseen accident.

Otherwise there is no reason to have faith that the sun rill rise in the morning.

Unlike religion most people believe that the sun will rise in every morning simply because this is what they have been experiencing all of their lives, and from what they hear it has also been doing this far back into history as far as anyone can tell. There are no reports of any days when the sun failed to rise.

This is extremely the opposite from having 'faith' in a religion that no one has ever experienced to be true.

People who have 'faith' in religion are actually placing their faith in the originators of the supernatural rumors. That's what it means to have 'faith' in a religion.

In truth it's impossible for anyone to place their faith in Jesus directly since nothing exists from Jesus to place faith in. All that exists concerning Jesus is admitted hearsay rumors. So at best all that people can place their "faith" in are those rumors.

Cowboy himself has confessed many times that he cannot know whether Jesus will 'save' him or not. So he actually has no faith at all in Jesus to 'save' him.

He seems to be lacking the most important type of faith that the religion is actually claiming to offer.

He claims to have faith in the bible, and faith in the idea that Jesus actually lived and said all of the things in the New Testament hearsay rumors. But when it comes right down to the wire, he has no faith that Jesus will actually save him. He says that he can't "know".

And thus he has no 'faith'.

So evidently Cowboy is confusing "faith" with an some strange notion of actually believing that he can "know" something. And if he can't convince himself that he can "know" it, then he has no faith in it. He has no 'faith' that Jesus will save him because he claims that he can't know what Jesus will decide.

So right there it shows that Cowboy is confusing the concept of "faith" with a concept of actually having reasons to believe that something might be true.

Confidence is based on repetitive results or reasonable deduction based on similar experiences. You can be CONFIDENT that the Earth will rotate again so the sun appears in view to us on the morrow because at least 10,000 consecutive occurrences tells you its a likelihood. By that same merit, I can be confident in my ability to drive because I've done so for fifteen years and I'm still alive. I am not, however, confident that I will never die in a car accident just because I have not died yet. That would require:

Faith, which requires no repetitive results or deduction of any kind. Example: How many times have you witnessed God flooding the Earth? Answer: None, but you have faith because you read it in A book (or THE Book, as you say). There is also no record or evidence whatsoever of a flood of global proportions within the last 12,000 years that Christians claim as the total history of the earth, yet their 'faith' is maintained.

There's a HUGE difference.

By the way, there's no need to put Atheist in quotations. Its not a nickname or alias, "Cowboy". You don't see we atheists doing it with Christian or God or Muslim. Yes, it is used to define a broad range of beliefs, but so is Christian or God or Muslim.

Ah now were getting some where,Andromeda contains dark matter,why follow that.

So glad Jesus has sent his wonderful light on this thread,darkness shall not pravail.never has done,the devil is a thief a lier and a murderer,Jesus came that you might have life and that in abundance John 10:10 Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

What exactly are you applauding?

He mis-represented the Bible and Christians...



We Christians don't do that regarding the "Atheists" beliefs...

What the hell are you talking about lady?
Mind your own business.

LOL!, where's the "love" Jeannibean?
I knew I distorted your perception, please forgive me.

The entire universe is mostly dark matter.

Dark matter is said to be God's Mother.

Seriously, there's actually a creation story based on the Big Bang that has God being light and atomic matter. The dark matter and dark energy is the Mother of light and atomic matter.

And Jesus is just the baby of the Mother of Dark Matter and Dark Energy that was sent to "save us" from the Sun God named Satan. The God of Abraham, the God of the Christians.

This is why if you read the New Testament carefully you'll notice Jesus renouncing all the evil ways of that selfish egotistical God who rebelled against his own Mother.

We should all be worshiping Dark Matter and Dark Energy because She is our real Mother. The God of the Hebrews is Satan, the God of the Ego.

1. How did he mis-represent the Bible and Christians?

He was explaining the difference between confidence and faith.

"You Christians?" Do you speak for all Christians then?

And what do you know about any given atheist's beliefs?

Donthatoneguy didn't misrepresent anything Peter. He hit the nail right on the head when he said that atheism represents a broad range of beliefs just like Christianity does.

So who are you referring to when you say, "We Christians"?

Very seldom can you find two people who call themselves "Christians" who will agree on much of anything.

I finally renounced "Christianity" when I realized that it doesn't even truly exist, because no two people can even agree on what it means.

It's meaningless.

I don't abide insane zealots with their ridiculous silly superstitious ideas about a picture of a galaxy. I'm so tired of this insanity.