Without Faith I Am Nothing

[Mariolee]

I've had a few atheists recite this classic quote from Douglas to me in an effort to show how illogical God is:

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.
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Now, I used to interpret this as Douglas saying that Man applies logic and uses it complacently, and eventually it defeats him in the end or something. But most people had been focusing on the middle part. Now, the quote sounds familiar: "without faith I am nothing". Could someone tell me where it is in the Bible, and most importantly the context of it.

Because I've always thought that God HAS proven he exists. I mean, wasn't that part of the whole reason He sent Jesus to earth in the first place. Secondly, part of the reason He doesn't just come out and reveal Himself to everyone that He is God and you must fear Him is because basically, everyone would fear Him. There would be no way to figure out who is actually being sincere about their love of God and who simply just doesn't want to go to Hell and thinks God is stupid or something.

I don't know, I'd love to have more discussion on this.

[jlay]

It's a straw man.

The bible never says, 'without faith I am nothing.'
Nor does the bible say that faith is without proof. In fact, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Heb 11:1

It's easy to disprove a god you founded on your own desire to prove it doesn't exist.

[MarcusOfLycia]

The root of "faith" never meant "blind faith" as people today think it does. It shares its linguistic decent with "faithful". Knowing that, I think you might gain some insight out of reading Scripture where it refers to faith (I know I did).

[Seraph]

Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

What is this, I don't even...what?

I don't think "come let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18) implies "without faith I am nothing" (NotintheBible 0:00). Like jlay said, it's a spectacularly stupid straw man.

[Mariolee]

The root of "faith" never meant "blind faith" as people today think it does. It shares its linguistic decent with "faithful". Knowing that, I think you might gain some insight out of reading Scripture where it refers to faith (I know I did).

Hmm, any specific verses or books?

Also, I KNEW it wasn't in the Bible. It just seemed unlike something you would find in the Bible, and I guess I've heard the straw man so much that I've just registered in my mind that it must have some base in the Bible.

I'm a bit disappointed too, as Douglas Adams is one of my favorite authors, and he has frequently expressed interest in religion, but seems to not truly understand it. I feel as if every single person who says they are open-minded are actually close-minded, and are so much so that they fool themselves into thinking they're not.