What is Faith?

If you are not referring to some kind of knowledge or mind that makes everything known to exist and occur, then just what is it that you are denoting; if it doesn't depend on a believing mind in order to make it known? Please explain.



What "states of affairs" do you know of that don't have anything "to do with minds"?
The earth orbits the sun.
 
Beisdes being intuitively true
Which is not evidence, in the slightest...
I think many women would disagree with you.
El Cid said:
there is also evidence that we have free will. There is strong evidence that our minds are not tied to cause and effect determinism, ie the physical or naturalism. Therefore, we have free will.
And what is this evidence?
NDEs, transgenderism (if it is real), personal identity thru time and the ability to reason to name a few pieces of evidence.
 
Uh no, sounds ARE physical, they are waves moving thru air molecules.
The waves aren't the sound we experience. The sounds we experience are produced by the waves hitting our ear drums and then through electrical activity the brain gives us the experience of sound. The sound we experience doesn't exist in itself.

If the brain can produce this experience of sound through electrical activity, why not thought?
 
The nature of reality and the universe fits the Christian God the best.
Which may mean nothing more than that the god of the Bible was constructed to explain the universe, as they understood it at the time.
No, there are things that point to characteristics of reality and the universe that they could not have known and were only discovered thousands of years later.
 
No, there are things that point to characteristics of reality and the universe that they could not have known and were only discovered thousands of years later.
No, there aren't. I've seen you produce some of these things and not one of them holds up to rational scrutiny, any more than Muslims' similar claims about the Koran do.
 
That's what Muslims say about Islam. They sound just like you, and you like them.

But both Christianity and Islam don't explain the universe anything like science does. Christianity gets the origin of the universe and the Earth utterly wrong.
That is what they may say but Islam cannot explain the existence of language, love, and the unity and diversity of the universe, among many other things. Only the Christian Bible teaches that the universe had a definite beginning from nothing detectable, is expanding, operates primarily by natural law, and is winding down energetically. All of which has been confirmed by science.
 
That is what they may say but Islam cannot explain the existence of language, love, and the unity and diversity of the universe, among many other things. Only the Christian Bible teaches that the universe had a definite beginning from nothing detectable, is expanding, operates primarily by natural law, and is winding down energetically. All of which has been confirmed by science.
Muslims will say the same sorts of things as you are saying here. You sound just like them, and they like you.

Here is a verse from the Quran about the expanding universe … "The heavens, We have built them with power. And verily, We are expanding it" (51:47)
 
El Cid: The nature of reality and the universe fits the Christian God the best.
Tiburon: In what way?

Only the Christian God provides a rational basis for an objective reality, language, love, and the structure of the universe, ie diversity within a unity, among other things.
 
Tiburon: In what way?

Only the Christian God provides a rational basis for an objective reality, language, love, and the structure of the universe, ie diversity within a unity, among other things.
So Vishnu or Allah don't do that?
Your God has been fitted to reality.
 
But if nonphysical things dont exist, then they dont exist whatever they are. That is one of the problems with naturalism.
I don't see why abstract concepts are a defeater of naturalism. Brains capable of abstract thought can be explained somewhat by naturalism, and the laws of logic are necessary abstract concepts that will occur to such minds that think of such things
Not if the mind is entirely dependent on the physical brain, because physical entities only operate according to the laws of physics (in this case chemistry) not logic. The laws of Chemistry are not the same as the asbstract laws of logic.
 
Not if the mind is entirely dependent on the physical brain, because physical entities only operate according to the laws of physics (in this case chemistry) not logic. The laws of Chemistry are not the same as the asbstract laws of logic.
Of course the laws of chemistry are not the same as the abstract laws of logic, nobody would say they were. Thing is, there is far more evidence that the physical brain gives rise to consciousness capable of abstract thought than something else giving rise to consciousness. In fact there is no evidence that something else gives rise to consciousness. One evidence that the physical brain gives rise to consciousness is, that if you damage the physical brain, you damage the corresponding aspect of consciousness. Dementia is a case in point, where the physical brain stops working properly because of plaques that form in the brain. When this happens a person ceases to be who they were, including the ability of abstract thought about concepts such as logic.
 
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Of course that claim is true; it is tautologically true. It says nothing more than "if a cause produces an effect, the cause must be able to produce that effect." But like most tautologies, it doesn't get us anywhere. It doesn't, for example, show that physical activities cannot cause mental activities.

But this wasn't even part of the argument I was asking you to respond to. Again, again, you are offering an argument that naturalism is false, but the claim I am responding to isn't "naturalism is false," it's "if naturalism is true, then rational thought is impossible." And the argument I offered against that claim was:

P1. [If naturalism is true, then] chemical actions (which are in themselves non-rational) cause mental states in people such as considering, judging and concluding.
P2. A person who is in the mental state of considering, judging and concluding is capable of doing those things well: that is, rationally.
C. Therefore, if naturalism is true, then non-rational chemical actions are capable of producing rational thoughts.

Do you dispute either premise? Do you claim that the conclusion does not follow, if the premises are true?
I dispute P1, P1 has not been demonstrated to be true. So if P1 has not been demonstrated to be true, then the whole argument fails.
 
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