Adelaide Chapter

“Is faith belief without evidence?” by Kevin Rogers

November 28, 2024

Date/Time
Date(s) - 28/11/2024
7:00 pm

Location
Online

Categories

• Biblical Issues
• Experience
• Regular Meeting

Our next Reasonable Faith Adelaide (RFA) meeting will be on “Is faith belief without evidence?” by Kevin Rogers.  This meeting will start at 7 pm, on Thursday, the 28^th November. You can participate in RFA meetings either live at Tabor College or remotely via ZOOM. Live meetings are held in the chapel (on the ground floor) of Tabor College at 181 Goodwood Road, Millswood. The car park entrance is from Mitchell Street.

If you prefer to join the meeting using ZOOM, then please click on the following link to join the meeting:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/78515108298?pwd=ma6A3gTzF6FbREsgtLSyojNgRedn5P.1

If prompted, the Meeting ID is 785 1510 8298 and the Passcode is 372621.

If you would like to attend live meetings, please subscribe to our meeting announcements at https://reasonablefaithadelaide.org.au/.

Here is a summary:

Sacrifice of Isaac-Caravaggio (c._1603)

It is a common perception that Christian faith is belief without evidence or reason. Knowledge is justified, true belief. If it is not justified, then how do we know it’s true? It is just a subjective choice, usually inherited from our parents (but not in my case). In fact, Richard Dawkins claims that this notion of faith is

• intellectually irresponsible,
• potentially dangerous,
• incompatible with science,
• encourages people to hold beliefs without critical examination,
• discourages evidence-based thinking, and
• is brain-damaging and harmful to children.

Wow! Perhaps this is true, but only if faith is belief without evidence? Is this the Biblical meaning of faith and are any of these objections valid? The memes that are circulated in society may represent peoples’ perceptions, but ultimately, they are irrelevant. What matters is what the Biblical authors meant when they mentioned faith. Nothing else matters. So, what is the true nature of faith and why do the Biblical authors deem it so fundamental and important?

Dr Kevin Rogers

Dr Kevin Rogers is the director of Reasonable Faith Adelaide. After a 40-year engineering career, he was a Research Fellow and lecturer with the University of South Australia but is now mainly retired.