Is faith the answer to cognitive dissonance?

There is the rub (sorry, could not resist). It is possible that the works attributed to the people we associate with them are incorredctly associated.Shakespear most likely did write his plays but we have to be open to the outside chance that old Bill was some chancer who appropriated the associations we have with the plays.As this is the case we cannot say for 100% that the biblegod is true.Having no doubt (i.e faith) in spite of the (potentially small) chance that biblegod is not really real must lead to dissonance unless one is (as mentioned above) one who thinks all contra indications to biblegod's veracity are irrelevant.

I like the sound of rational irrationality!BTW: what's up with your member rating? I've noticed someone's been 1ing lots of your messages...got a stalker?

Maybe it is deserved. Petrophysics seems to consider it his main mission in life to select specific debates and 1 anyone he disagrees with and 5 anyone he does agree with. I am not alone, but I do seem to be the focus for much of his ire.It might be considered something of a compliment by anyone who has ever read any of his actual posts...... I have no real issue with personal faith of this kind. Where I disagree is when those of "faith" start saying that they are actually following evidence and insisting that I should be something other than skeptical.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Well that's just it, isn't it? If you have faith you can go tell all the contra indicative evidence to bugger off: cognitive dissonance need not apply (as I beleive Peg would have us beleive).But when one starts appologetics eventually one must hit the brick wall of dissonance in some form or another (as I beleive is the case with Peg).Edited by Larni, : Silly spellink errors.

Yes. Simply stating one has faith whilst trenchently advocating that the evidence spports that faith is where I see the difference.There are those "rational irrationals" who don't go round expecting anyone else to rationally accept their faith or give it any evidential credence at all. Fine by me. Live and let live. I have no problem with this kind of personal faith at all.Then there are those who insist that I acknowledge some sort of evidence for their beliefs and who find any rejection of their beliefs as a rejection of such "evidence". These people are the ones I keep ending up in massive disagreements with.

The belief that these are facts and actual historical occurences is where blind faith comes in. For historical figures such as Jefferson and Shakespeare we have accounts from disinterested sources, and even the enemies of these figures. Not so with Jesus. The only accounts we have were written by followers several decades after the fact. Not only that, but these accounts contradict each other in ways that can not be ignored. You would think that dead people walking the streets after Jesus' resurrection would have made the local papers, or something. Jesus is also said to have appeared to hundreds, if not thousands, of people before the ascension. Not one of those supposed disinterested witnesses reported anything. Actually, it is very possible that Shakespeare stole some of his material from other playwrights (e.g. Christopher Marlowe). I have no dogmatic belief that Shakespeare did write Romeo and Juliet, although that is the best possibility as of right now. Absolutely not. He had a lot of help writing it. Also, the complaints listed in the DoI can be verified from several disinterested sources.

Cog diss essentially comes down to denial of evidence yes? What is the evidence that Shakespeare wrote R&J? What is the evidence that somebody else did?What is the evidence that god actually exists? What is the evidence that god is a man-made construct?These are the questions we should ask to answer the questions ultimately posed. Yes?

We know that parts of the bible are not factual. We know this from what it says. It does not matter who wrote it. The play is good. It does not matter who wrote it. I value the declaration for what it says. It does not matter who wrote it.

Yeah but that wasn't the question. Yeah but that wasn't the question.Who do you believe wrote these texts and on what basis are you making that conclusion? Is it just as valid to say that God wrote Romeo and Juliet and the Declaration of Independence? If living our lives as if the bible were true enhanced the lives of all would you advocate that we follow it regardless of any veracity?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I was making the point that the question being asked was not one for which we needed the answer. Peg was implicitly asserting that the value of "Romeo and Juliet" comes from the authority of its author. I am pointing out that the value comes from its content, not from authority of authorship. The same pragmatic principle applies. One should value it as a guide to life based on the usefulness of its content for that purpose. Whether or not it is factually accurate about historical questions is an entirely irrelevant issue when making that decision.

You can have evidence of something even though you didn't see it. Unless you interpret 'seeing' in this passage some sort of metaphor for 'having no evidence'.I consider that it really simply means seeing, in that everybody that came after the first generation of christians have not seen. I haven't seen Jesus, you haven't seen Jesus. Yet I believe and you don't (so I could probably say I am more blessed then you )

I'll reply to this post, but PaulK essentially made the same thing afterwards.Of course, it's an analogy. Analogies are never perfect, and there there is a difference between Dawkins wife and God. (Although one could argue that there is little difference between his wife's love and God) I find it somewhat fallacious to focus on the differences on the analogy and therefore conclude it irrelevant, when in fact an analogy usually just focuses on one particular similarity. In this case you are just focusing on the level of evidence for each (placing Dawkins personnal-visual evidence as better), and not the fact that both rest on evidence.

Uhh I cannot resist responding neither!

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the evident demonstrations are based on facts. An example that you may understand might be when a marriage proposal takes place. If that proposal is backed up with an engagement ring, then an 'evident deomonstration' has taken place. Though the marriage has not taken place yet, each are assured of the 'future reality' that they will be married.
when it comes to religion, the bible provides the 'evident demonstration' thru its record of historical events linked with Gods people. These are too numerous to mention individually but they include things like prophecies and the arrival of the Messiah. The people who wrote these historical facts were eyewitnesses to them and this is why christians today can put faith in their words.

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It does not makes a lot of sense to compare a future event with a past event and especially not when they differs in content — you are taking it out of context a creationist would probably say if it was two different bible passages!
Furthermore, you assume what the authors wrote is correct — the marriage we will eventually see if it is correct or not. Whether or not prophecies were indeed godly inspired prophecies are questioned even among scholars, but that is a whole other topic.
To state the point again: You are unreasonably when you try to compare faith in bible with faith in marriage after a proposal and a ring. They are completely different matters and I also think you misuse the word faith. A more proper word for the faith in marriage would probably be confidence or expectation.

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And if you want to argue that we today cannot know if the bible is factual, let me ask you this...
Do you believe that a man named Shakespear wrote Romeo and Juliet? If you do, how do you know that he did write it?

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Actually, among the people who study English literature there is a debate whether or not Shakespeare wrote his own play or if he just copied other plays :-) Just because we credit Shakespeare for the play it does not conclusive means he is accepted as the real author among academics. The same goes for Bohr’s theory of atoms (ref. google it, you could find something interesting).
Just as another said; it is not that important who wrote these thing as what these things content. The bible contains many contradictions; Noah’s flood, demons, splitting the sea, walking on water, turning water into wine, virgin birth (have only happen among non-human animals), living in a fish, stating rabbit is a rodent and bat is a bird etc.. You might think these are not contradiction but that is because of the defence mechanism cognitive dissonance. Now you probably want to rationalize to me or maybe to yourself why these things make sense but as long as we look at the evidence, real scientists, consensus, common sense etc. they are contradictions and that is indeed embarrassing when the bible is such a fundamental part of your life. Of course you do not agree with me, because you see the evidence in another way — because of the mechanism cognitive dissonance! E.g. ;oh no, the flood was real, just look at the evidence.. Okay, you might say that, but 99.99% of all scientists who works in fields such as geology disagree with you (I am quite impressed if you can find a well educated geologist who believes the great flood did happen in the past). It does not make sense to disagree with them, unless you have absolute faith in the bible must be true and BAM; cognitive dissonance!That was a long rambling.Cheers Peg. (No hard feelings if I sound disrespectful in any way, since that is not my intention. I apologize to you if that is the case.)
PS: I was not sure whether you believe in the flood or not so I just assumed it based on what I have seen you been writing on this forum. I could definitely find something else equal to this you might believe is true in the bible though.

I don't want to make bold assertions that would derail this thread, since I could just turn to any particular field of evidence and say: I think geological evidence is consistent with a worldwide flood.So I'll just give a brief answer to your question: I believe in an afterlife because I see that the Bible's claim about earthly things is accurate (either it be history, or even human psychology, the Bible is usually spot on).I therefore have confidence that when it talks about heavenly things, it is also accurate.In terms of extra-biblical evidence, I find some stories of ''afterlife experience'' to be quite interesting, although I have never really studied the subject (can't look into everything) so I'm not going to be very affirmative with this.The whole point is, faith never was supposed to mean ''believing in 6 impossible things before breakfast''. Although as many here have highlighted many christians seem to live it this way.

You don't think it matters whether or not the bible is ultimately the word of god? But the authority of the bible does come from who ultimately authored it (in Peq's eyes and those of other believers). So by not answering the question she asked you are failing to address the point being made. Well it is all very well you declaring that but that misses the entire point of this thread. If those who believe that the bible is the word of god follow it because they believe in god and believe that the "facts" in the bible are evidence of the existence of this god then you telling them to be "pragmatic" is rather silly.What do your comments have to do with the nature of faith?