What Has Faith Ever Given Us.

[nailit]

'Matereialistic' science has given us better health care...vaccines, eradication of certain diseases, anasthetics, anibiotics, pharmaceuticals, etc. Its given us instant communication with others via the internet, mobile phone, text, email and telecommunications and GPS systems. Its science that has enabled us to have food all year round and safe clean drinking water. Its science that allows us to predict the weather in advance and prepare for the worst of it. Its science that has utilised electricity so you can switch your light on and use your computer. Its science that has allowed us to board a jumbo jet and be on the other side of the globe in less than a day.

What has 'faith' in an unprovable deity ever given us?

[Old_Geezer]

Surely it need not. It must be all down to discussion. Does it not have the potential to drag religious fractions that fail to change with new understanding forward to the level more enlightened ones have reached ? Or is fragmentation a good thing ?

[1ozzy]

Faith once gave me a very enjoyable moment.

Not going into detail here.

[poorclare]

Peace of mind

[bainbrig]

Quite serious Lydia (bainbrig are you serious? Really interested if you have turned to Buddhism as I'm very interested in an intellectual way in this religion.)

If you seek out the Buddha’s reported words rather than the millions of interpretations of his words(!), there are all sorts of surprises - in another short sermon, he says that reincarnation might or might not happen, but the important thing was how you behaved in THIS life.

India was almost 100% Hindu in his time, and there was an inevitable attempt to gather in all his brilliant existential teachings and ‘Hindu-ise’ them.

BillB

[spathiphyllum]

"Spath, ur a bit like Theland, ignoring questions put to you... "

I replied to your jumped up response to my opinion quite well. Seems it's you who ignores things, or maybe it's that you can't understand my point.

[spathiphyllum]

"faith
feɪθ/Submit
noun
1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something."


In other words... Science?

"Anyway....back to the question.
What has FAITH ever given us?"

Capitalising the word only makes me see it even more for face value. If you can't see how some people see science as a faith then that's probably why we can't discuss or understand further.

[nailit]

//If you can't see how some people see science as a faith then that's probably why we can't discuss or understand further//

Calling science a faith is like calling celibacy a sex position.

[Mamyalynne]

You are both using different definitions of the word 'Faith'.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/faith

[Theland]

Nailit, you ask, "What has faith ever given us?"
Faith has given you nothing, because you have no faith.

[Mamyalynne]

Precisely what I said at the beginning of the thread.

[Theland]

Well said Mamya. The circle is complete.
Time to move on to another thread.
This one has more holes than my socks.

[maggiebee]

Faith hasn't given "us" anything nailit.
It obviously has given you nothing as, as Theland has said, you don't have it. However, many who do have it, have gained much.

[nailit]

//Faith has given you nothing, because you have no faith//
With all respect, I once DID have a faith when I was a young Christian. As I grew older I realised how misguided that faith was.

[Tilly2]

Late on parade here but has anyone said...Hope and Charity?

[nailit]

Ive got no faith, always have hope and work for a charity :-)

[Tilly2]

There you go then! Sorted.

[spathiphyllum]

"Calling science a faith is like calling celibacy a sex position."

I've never called science a faith. I've said some people have faith in science. This faith gives people a sense of reality and potential understanding.

If people didn't have a faith in science then we wouldn't have got where we are today regarding light bulbs or all year round food and the weather. Back in the day science was frowned upon by the religious but people had faith it was the right path to take, and as you're admitting, they're right.

[RobNorth]

Ironically, faith has directly given us a lot of science.
In Bill Bryson's Home he claims that the British clergy were responsible for more inventions than any other group, by a large margin. He put this down to good education, good housing with servants, usually private income and plenty of spare time to take a fashionable interest in "philosophy".

[jim360]

These days, faith and science are largely (but not entirely) decoupled, but it's work conceding that 'twas not always thus: for a very long time, scientific endeavour was linked to an attempt to understand better the works of God.

As Robnorth already noted, then, faith has indeed given us a great deal of science.

[mibn2cweus]

Credit where credit is due, but I wouldn't equate the expectation that a method that has yielded positive results in the past might well be worth pursuing further, with faith, especially when the results of such pursuits invariably make the existence of a divine overseer ever more unlikely.