Does Doubt Threaten Faith? | John Lennox at Cornell

[@eirrenia]

It’s fine if you want to question religions. But apply the same level of skepticism to atheism. And always keep your eye on the goal of finding truth. Question ALL the narratives, not just the ones it’s popular to diss on.

[@TracyMorton-i1e]

Yes I’ve done this and that’s why I do not believe in the bible if you ask questions and want evidence proper evidence faith is just believing what people say not enough for me sorry when you look at how old the world is it doesn’t match up with the bible when you look at what came first well none of the two have the answers but if it was a man in the sky well he would have to come from nothing then get all the stuff it can not be done that way it’s been a built up over billions of years then life it has to be that’s my thoughts the bible has to many things in it that are not possible and there is no proof the bible is man made written by man after Jesus died religion is man made

[@jtapia0]

If you are really interested in "truth," then you should know that faith is not the way to go; by faith you can believe anything as true because it has no way of being verified. Skepticism at least puts you in a position of questioning, so the "truth" must be validated, perhaps forever, but you will know with more certainty if you are pointing in the right direction, and if not, at least you will know that you are wrong and thus correct yourself. Evolve.

[@eirrenia]

@@jtapia0 And _that_ is one of the narratives that needs to be challenged. Skepticism is a valuable tool but should never become the overriding tool in the kit. At some point, if something has been reasonably tested, a measure of trust (aka: faith) must start to take its place or else the goal of skepticism’s use becomes lost, and you will blind yourself to truth simply because you refuse to trust its validity. For example: Do you insist on retesting every scientific discovery yourself, before you will trust the results? Or do you place your trust (faith) in those who have done that work before you? At what point do you trust that they aren’t mistaken in their conclusions or are lying to you for financial/political/career advantage. Because, historically, scientists _have_ been mistaken often, and some _have_ falsified studies and or skewed results in pursuit of funding, or ideological confirmation bias. Science could not advance without some degree of faith.

[@jtapia0]

@@eirrenia @eirrenia You are totally confused: 1) Faith (religious) has never been tested as correct. Or do you have verifiable evidence that a god exists? 2) The positive and reasonable expectation of a scientific hypothesis must always be tested. The "intuition" that an idea is correct to build a theory is only the motivation of the scientist, however it is useless if the evidence does not support the idea. This is regardless of how much the scientist "believes" that his original idea was correct. 3) The great thing about scientific discoveries and developments is that they can be shared and verified by anyone. They are not built on subjective personal experiences. Faith, on the other hand, has no verification mechanism. If someone verifies (in turn, with new evidence) that a scientific theory is wrong, guess what happens!? The theory must be perfected, or simply discarded for a better one. This is how knowledge advances, while faith remains stuck in time.

[@eirrenia]

@@jtapia0 Faith, aka trust, gets tested on an individual basis all the time. Not every form of testing happens in a lab. And yes, I know how scientific knowledge is built. 🙄 You are entirely missing the point. When you simply trust X study or textbook, you are exercising faith in the authorities giving you that information, all the way up the structural chain. Because you have good experiential reason for that trust. If people treated science with the same variety of skepticism often applied to religion we’d collapse back into the stone age. I am not advocating blind trust in religion. I am simply pointing out that skepticism, _like any other tool_ has its limits and pitfalls.

[@chrismachin2166]

…also John Lennon ,so I am aware,doesn’t believe in the imputation of the active obedience,by Faith Alone,in Christ Alone. He has a synergistic understanding of salvation.

[@chrismachin2166]

Maybe the true Christian doesn’t have any doubts because he lives by Faith Alone ,in Christ Alone. The true Christian doesn’t believe his justification before God is by Faith + obedience. The true “born again” Christian rests on the finished work of Christ on the Cross, not on his works,even though he tries to be obedient to the word of God in the Holy Scriptures. Having doubts suggests a Christian is trying to rely to some extent in his obedience on his justification before God.