Wouldn't it be considered narrow minded of someone to assume that just because THEY haven't experienced faith?

It's short-sighted and limiting, that's for sure. Many don't want to admit that there is more to life than the physical, and God is spirit. Faith is a spiritual gift and blessing from God.

Ok I give you some credit, All my life since a young age I just "went along" with my church and did what tthey told and pretended to pray and feel the spirit and I even came up on stage once at the end of a sermon to pray with everyone. But way down the road I realized I wasn't feeling anything from God and after getting baptized I felt even less. So I did try for a while until I realized I couldnt feel anything from faith. Faith seemed kind of like a luxury, as Louie said, "some people are born and then they just go hungry and die and that's all they ever do"

Well, first of all, most atheists were religious before they became atheist. So... I spent 30 years being 'faithful'. Don't tell me I haven't tried it, because I have. And the idea that I don't believe in god is because I've been told I'll be punished is really, well, it's almost like you haven't even listened to any reasons as to why someone doesn't believe in god.

If someone believes in god because they have faith, I'm fine with that. However, too many people realize that there's a major disconnect between what we observe in this universe and what the Bible (or Quran, or other holy texts) tells us about the world. So, they end up trying to find ways that they can twist science into supporting religion (and sometimes the reverse). That's just intellectually dishonest, and I would say lying.

So.. tl;dr, I've tried faith, even if you think I haven't. And people too often don't rely on their faith, and try and support religion using science (which it doesn't).

Faith is a term that means taking something without evidence. If I don't look at the weather forecast yet assume it'll be sunny in a week's time, I'm taking that on faith.

This is why faith doesn't work in terms of truth. Someone says "I haven't experienced any evidence, but why not just take it on faith?"

If you think having faith is a good way to discover the truth, have faith that a brick is made of jelly and try to eat it. That's a good way to learn the problem of trusting faith as a measure of truth.

I suggest getting more specific about what you mean by "faith." Using the term as a buzzword as you have doesn't benefit discussion. What does "faith working in your life" actually mean? If it implies the actions of the Biblical Yahweh character, then there is plenty of evidence that supports that said assertion of causation is "wrong."

As far as characters like Yahweh of the Abrahamic faiths, one need not go beyond the relational and secondary attributes that he's described with to realize that he can't even exist as described. Like how "omniscience" is a state of a mind that is self-contradictory. Because it implies the ability to claim knowing all. But if another greater being created Yahweh and kept him entirely in the dark about it, Yahweh would still only know things within what he is aware of. Disallowing him from being able to justifiably claim, under any circumstance, to know everything.

But you don't even have to get into that to see evidence against Yahweh's existence. Just the term "god" implies a claim of agency. And based on ALL evidence we do have, agency is an emergent property of a brain organ, which has developed in an organism over millions of iterations in a particular stable environment. Most god claims assert agency without a developmental phase, in fact the claims themselves rule out that phase which all evidence shows is a requirement for the structure(brain) that allows for agency. That's evidence against all such god claims, including Yahweh.

Take into consideration the people who often give the faith in question a bad name. I'm from Japan, when i moved to the United States, western belief was a new experience, needless to say, my first experience wasn't positive. The negative people tend to speak louder than the positive.

There are various things that could attribute to disliking a particular belief. Though usually the case is a negative first experience that creates a lifelong stereotypical view.

It would be considered narrow-minded if someone ignored all evidence that goes against what they have been brainwashed into thinking is true.

It's important to keep an open mind, and with a truly open mind it is hard to get past the default position which is to not believe the bible to be the words of a god.

Any ideas presented without facts to back them up should be taken with a grain of salt, it is silly to believe things without evidence. The person telling you a story may be lying or simply misguided so you need to be able to analyse the information yourself.

JUST because of that, would be narrow minded, but when there are many different faiths, which contradict each other, then it is clear that faith is not a reliable way to determine the truth. Your argument seems to be that people have not experienced faith themselves, so they should have faith in your faith, but I see no reason why we should.

Yes, it would. For instance, those caught up in religious cults often claim they "tried a Christian denomination" and it failed, so they tried cult "X", and lo and behold!... They now know God "favors" their special new cult alone! Oh, wonders of wonders!

Oye. <rolls eyes>

Yet millions upon millions have found salvation through Jesus Christ in Christian denominational churches, and moved on in their spiritual walk to glorify God. All because it "didn't work for them"----Christian denominations are not worthy of "their" special religious cult. (That's what they must have to tell themselves, apparently.) Some cults even go so far to say that "they alone" have "all" the truth of God. And these former seekers believe them.

Personally, I'd like to know where their cult houses all the "truth" of God they claim to own? LOL!! And I'll bet that observation went right over their little heads.

However, there are those like the above who have deliberately chosen to believe lies, and there are those who somehow fear taking that first step toward trusting God. Regardless, believers must continue to hold both up to God in their prayers. We were once them. And most of all, God loves the fearful, arrogant, and rebellious exactly the same amount as He does the most humble believer in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Doesn't He?

I have faith in human ingenuity. So don't tell me I haven't experienced faith just cause I don't have a pretend friend in the sky. Humans have done great things and the have done bad, but we still exist because we progress.