> Abraham is in that list, Yes, and one of the things Abraham did was take his kid out for a human sacrifice--because he saw god in a dream. Its one thing if

> Abraham is in that list, Yes, and one of the things Abraham did was take his kid out for a human sacrifice--because he saw god in a dream. Its one thing if you and I were talking with God, while a bunch of guys in lab coats were doing experiments trying to verify whether it was God or just some kind of magic trick. But there's no sense of the word "evidence" in which a dream is evidence that God wants you to kill your kids. > things unseen i.e. things we do not gain knowledge about through our sensory organs, i.e. not empirical evidence. Hebrews is rather poetic, at least in my favorite English translations, but I don't think it could be any clearer that faith doesn't come from sensory experience in the way empirical evidence does. > but that's not the faith being promoted in Hebrews. People wonder why I care so much about what Hebrews says about faith, given that I'm an atheist. The reason is this: if you think faith is the same thing as evidence, then sooner or later, when you really need a good reason to ignore all the evidence which makes you feel like you are doomed, you will need the kind of faith which gives you things to hope for, even though the answers are as yet unseen. When (not if, this eventually happens to everybody) that happens, I hope you find you have the right kind of faith too see you through.