Faith !

Granted, however, this first appeared as part of a christian circular in an attempt to mock atheism and science. Science and rational thought by their nature encourage us to constantly question everything. This seems to simply encourage ignorance.

As a general rule, I do not support ignorance! Nor am I an advocate of mocking others beliefs.

I like the way LTK broke it down and rewrote it, I was just saying that I didn’t think the message Damion was trying to convey was the story itself.

It seems that quite often, in the forum debates, we get hung up on interesting aspects of the topic and end up dancing around what the OP was without actually addressing the original topic directly.

I’m not arguing the validity of either statement, where the story originally came from, what it was originally intended to do or any of that. And I am not disagreeing with what you said!

Who knows, Damion could come on line and say, “Wescli, you’re an idiot! Of course I was implying all that!” But it’s not what I got from it.

Hahahhahahha

Granted, though the context of a piece can often taint its point and make it difficult to separate. Like reading an impassioned speech about how much love someone has for his fellow man and then discovering it was written by Joseph Stalin. The point of his writing may be indeed the same but know he is the author colors it with what he did in the Soviet Union

Since its in the topic and all, can anyone tell me what good faith is?

If "faith" as such is something that is felt, extended, used &c -- I wouldn't know how to qualify it.

On the other hand, our word "faith", through various translations over the centuries, has come from the Hebrew words "aman" (firm/secure) and "emunah" (firmness). So as not to mis-translate, "emunah" is not quite "faith" as in believing in the existence of God as such, but more a firmness in action ... Doing something which the spirit moves one to do, so to speak.

One could not really say this is categorically "good" or "bad", for often people act out of faith the way no rational being would act, but this does retain something of the ancient Hebrew context.

I suppose what I hoped to establish is if anyone sees any sort of benefit to treating something as a fact that you haven't established as such.

I didn't write it (I linked to the original article where I pulled it from), but it pretty much governs my feelings on the topic and story in question.

And I've found myself using very similar arguments with ultra-fantatic religionists and family members.

Wescli Wardest wrote: I like the way LTK broke it down and rewrote it, I was just saying that I didn’t think the message Damion was trying to convey was the story itself.

I'm not sure what Master Damion was trying to convey either, but I agree with one of your earlier posts that we can't take everything at face-value and there is so much more to learn and understand.