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Of coures, an interesting point about God (I'm using the Christian deity, because he seems to be the most dominant at the moment) is that while he cannot be proved, he also cannot be disproved. (If I'm not mistaken, that was also something you brought up in your last post, Alezunde?)Perhaps as we gain knowlege we can prove that God did not sneeze and create the universe with the explosion, or willfully create earth, or any of a thousand other theories. But in the meantime, faith still seems almost plausible.

I recently read a book called Reconsidering Ayn Rand, mostly to humor my mother. I didn't like the author much; he was an Objectivist turned hard core Christian. But he had an interesting point on atheism. According to him, atheism is not a positive force. Not in the sense of good positive, but in the sense of having force in any direction. His argument was that atheism was based solely on the denial of God. Without the existence of god, atheism wouldn't exist. The author argued that atheism in not a plausible belief, because it does not give, but only takes from others ideas.

I don't neccesarily agree with his argument, but I find it interesting. (Although I suppose it's kind of off topic)

That's the one!

I don't think there are many studied atheists; too much effort is required. Seriously, though, you're right. Many things are nonfalsifiable, which doesn't make them true. But there's always that chance as long as something hasn't been proved beyond a doubt.

I wonder if God is appealing because he rather requires belief in order to make sense... like a horoscope. In order to have power, you have to believe sort of thing.

Factual answers and beliefs both seem to be an intertwining subject. Simply because you believe something is ture, doesn't nessessarily mean it is. The same aplie all the same with science: a fact is a fact only until it is disproven.

Ex.- For many years now, people have been led to thnk that the earth has a molten core of extremely hot metals that creates geothermal engery. There are now, however, many other theories being taught in school systems because our older thesis very well may be disproved soon. People who do choose logic over faith "know" that soon they will achieve renown for their discoveries that are true for however long they'll be embraced.

With a belief, it seems, the only turn-on would be the abilility to never TRUELY be proven wrong, only to be disagreed with. Ex.- We will never know, until we die of course (and maybe not even then,) whether or not there is a god. The good thing of this is people who are stron in the belief that there is a god assume that they will be rewarded for their faithfullness.

Case in point: Neither option is very satifying as neither option ever has a definite answer to almost anything. So I'll sit back and make predictions on how it will turn out, critisize both sides, and stay nuetral until the battle is almost won. xp

Faith versus logic as methods of gaining knowledge?

I'm sure there can be no possibility of the answer being a victory to logic. Faith does not gain knowledge as such, it is more a method for defending your previous/current knowledge from evidence to the contrary.

Logic is a bit specific, but reason is a process by which you can gain knowledge. Whereas faith is not.

I don't understand how anyone in this guild could possibly answer this question with faith.

The heritage and root of philosophy is in reason. Philosophy is impossible without reason. Philosophy, in fact, was born when people used reason and started to question the faith-based mythologies that were the only explanation available for natural occurances. Every single bit of human progress since has been somehow rooted in philosophy.

I'm not condemning spirituality here, or even religion(I do that in other debates). I am, however, saying that any self-respecting person claiming to have an interest in philosophy had better damned well answer this question with a word starting with 'r', or they're defeating their own purpose.