Faith

I did not specify any degree of nastiness, so you had no point of comparison. I did not attempt to exculpate myself. You however, said that you only responded to jeering, etc. Not so.

Just looking forward to it, not in need of hurrying it along.

Sorry to disappoint.

Yup. I was wrong about that. I clearly entered the thread in your example to warn of jeers that I thought were sure to come. So in that way, I started it.

From reading back over some of these threads, it looks like you and I disagree over which side starts the pejoratives most often. I don't know about you, but I think some effort is lacking on both sides to keep the conversation out of the ditch.

You might be misunderstand the intent of suicide hot line. Never called them, but I'm pretty sure they're not dispensing DIY advice.

Oh, for a minute there I thought Edgar really cared.

I can agree with your last sentiment. We are the victims of search engines, too. If someone does a search for atheists, this place is gonna pop up. Similarly, if someone does a search for religious topics, this place pops up. So the loons just keep on coming. Statistically, the religious loons likely outnumber the aggressive atheists, so we're likely to see more of the former than the latter.

Okay, shake hands, and come out boxing.

Have you always been such a busybody, CI?

Always. What else has a senior to do?

On here most people don't understand even the historical definition and they use instead the utterly contrary idea known as FIDEISM.

Nor is theism at all related to Faith. It is the intellectual conviction that there is a God.

I will only say the most basic thing about Faith, that it is defined by its OBJECT (and certainly not by its Subect) so that if you have faith you have faith in something. There is no faith without a rational object of that faith.

You may be right about the technical definition of theism, but I refer to myself as a theist not because I reached some intellectual proof or reason to believe in God, but to escape the burdensome baggage of every religion I've ever been aware of. Even then it is almost impossible to escape the real and imagined ills people associate with religion.

Being just a man convinced that God exists is as close as I can come to accurately describing my faith in a general description.

Then you are not a theist. Would God have you in multiple religions anyway.
You should be in the best you can find right now. NO EXCUSE. Do you really think that in the 'perfect' religion you would already be an apt member?

you stay with Arithmetic because you can't pick between Calculus and Trig ?
Morally dumb.

If you were sick would you refuse to go to a doctor until you could go to the Mayo Clinic ?

I looked for a church/religion that would have me for a long time and for any number of reasons, none would. I don't condem them all, many of them do good work and spread a message that is needed in the world, but I am not suited for that fold. I am not happy nor proud of that, it just is.

That being the case, I take great comfort from these words of Jesus:

that is the one thing it can't be since for a zillion years we've had the word FIDEISM for just that distinction.

I am sure you don't know crap about science. You've dated her but not married her, as they say.

False on 3 counts.

In Christianity for 2000 years the existence of God is not a subject of Faith. That is from reason.

The Catholic holds that the articles of Faith (i.e. the Creed) are divinely revealed and only received by grace. However, there are certain premises that are known either in themselves or can be known by philosophic investigation. These premises can be known by the pagan. Saint Thomas Aquinas explains:
The existence of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by natural reason, are not articles of faith, but are preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prevent a man, who cannot grasp a proof, accepting, as a matter of faith, something which in itself is capable of being scientifically known and demonstrated.
Summa theologiae Ia, q. 2, a. 2, ad 1.

Now you will say, well I don't accept that. But wrong again. The point is that Judaism and Christianity had your criticism in mind for a few thousand years now.

You are not aware that as science, logic, and common sense show; Our deepest convictions must of necessity have NO BASIS WHATSOEVER. They are called first principles. Even your own statements can't be infinitely traced back, they stop somewhere with what you take as self-evident.

You can doubt but you can't doubt that you doubt. St Augustine (though many falsely say 'Descartes')

I am not satisfied that the brevity of this suffices to show that many views are wrong, but I also know most people don't care so might as well put it out there as they say

MAN'S RESPONSE TO GOD

142 By his Revelation, "the invisible God, from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends, and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into his own company."1 The adequate response to this invitation is faith.

143 By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God.2 With his whole being man gives his assent to God the revealer. Sacred Scripture calls this human response to God, the author of revelation, "the obedience of faith

This should be a clue, but you're interpreting this in a way that doesn't make any sense. This world is full of killing and violence. Where's the love? His so-called "love" is not working. Even natural disasters kill many innocents including babies. Where's his love?
In human terms, killing of babies is looked upon with disgust and horror. Are you human?