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I upvoted your response to me though I have no response on that particular topic as I don’t have depth on Christianity. I do think religion encourages engageme

I upvoted your response to me though I have no response on that particular topic as I don’t have depth on Christianity. I do think religion encourages engagement and wrestling with faith as a matter of process so I agree with you there. But I don’t think the story of Thomas is taken to mean you don’t have faith in anything besides tangible proof.

cyberax 3y ago
The notion that religion must be taken on faith only, and that testing is antithetical to "the true belief" is fairly new. It was likely a reaction to rapidly shrinking gaps in our knowledge of the world, that mostly pushed religion out of the "material" world.
- jll29 3y ago
  I'd say "complementary" rather than "antithetical". Questions of faith are "interoperable" (to use geek language) or consistent with reason (what you call the material world), meaning that if there is a seeming contradiction, you may have misunderstood one or the other. The world of knowledge is logical-axiomatical when deduction is applied and empirical-scientific when induction is applied. Importantly, neither of the two methods can answer fundamental questions like "Why are we here?", "What are we supposed to do?", "What can we expect?" etc. which fall in the realm of faith. There are "interface" situations between the realm of faith and the realm of science such as events seen as miracles, which scientifically are just low likelihood events and that is all that can be said about them regarding science, whereas a subject may not be content with such an non-explanation e.g. "Why did I alone survive the plane crash? Why me?" Or take the historical Jesus: it is evident that a person by that name existed, because the Romans reported so (considering him their enemy makes them reliable sources): the Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to Jesus, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44. Now Tacitus did not confirm that Jesus was a "saviour", ascribing a religious role to a historic figure is an act of faith, perhaps based on his message of love of neighbor and forgiveness, which at the time was seen as contradicting Jewish commandments (and therefore, predictably, heresy, which calls for death) but was actually a clarification of these, spoken by someone who practiced what he preached.

cyberax 3y ago

The notion that religion must be taken on faith only, and that testing is antithetical to "the true belief" is fairly new. It was likely a reaction to rapidly shrinking gaps in our knowledge of the world, that mostly pushed religion out of the "material" world.

jll29 3y ago
I'd say "complementary" rather than "antithetical". Questions of faith are "interoperable" (to use geek language) or consistent with reason (what you call the material world), meaning that if there is a seeming contradiction, you may have misunderstood one or the other. The world of knowledge is logical-axiomatical when deduction is applied and empirical-scientific when induction is applied. Importantly, neither of the two methods can answer fundamental questions like "Why are we here?", "What are we supposed to do?", "What can we expect?" etc. which fall in the realm of faith. There are "interface" situations between the realm of faith and the realm of science such as events seen as miracles, which scientifically are just low likelihood events and that is all that can be said about them regarding science, whereas a subject may not be content with such an non-explanation e.g. "Why did I alone survive the plane crash? Why me?" Or take the historical Jesus: it is evident that a person by that name existed, because the Romans reported so (considering him their enemy makes them reliable sources): the Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to Jesus, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, Annals (written c. AD 116), book 15, chapter 44. Now Tacitus did not confirm that Jesus was a "saviour", ascribing a religious role to a historic figure is an act of faith, perhaps based on his message of love of neighbor and forgiveness, which at the time was seen as contradicting Jewish commandments (and therefore, predictably, heresy, which calls for death) but was actually a clarification of these, spoken by someone who practiced what he preached.