What is faith ....

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The second quote reflects a belief that proof can exist even though there is no evidence to show that it can and where even logic stands against it. I would call that a faith in something and ultimately a faith in proof. If you disagree then show me how this seeming display of faith isn't faith.

Well, nothing can ever be proven at least that is what seems to be logically true, and well, proof outside of logic is hardly taken as proof.

It illustrates a faith in something which makes more sense to one person, than another faith, in that case christian faith, all human being have had faith in something or in someone at any point in our lives at least.

If you firmly believe that nothing can never be proven, then that would be some sort of faith or a belief system, wouldn't it?

Last edited by greenblue on 27 Nov 2007, 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

dude your giving me a headache. by some things i wasnt necissairly talking about faith, i was talking about things that can be proven. so dont put words into my mouth thanks

I said it was what seemed to be logically true. You are right, skepticism can include skepticism to itself, however, I did avoid the problem by hedging.

Well, I know all human beings have faith.


If you are talking about things that can be proven then you are dismissing my argument without refuting it. I argued that almost nothing can be proven from a logical standpoint, which means "things that can be proven" is a very small category that may well be nonexistent. I am not trying to put words in your mouth at all, I am trying to systematically examine your thoughts and see if weaknesses exist and I think that I did hit something where your philosophical basis is weak.

Yeah, the real nature of skepticism is suppose to be doubt, not negation.

Well, that is relatively true. Nihilism is to negate, however, one can doubt doubt. Nihilism is really the philosophy with the liar's paradox problem at certain extremes though.

maybe i should have made myself clear. i was not talking about a philosiphical point of view. more rather a scientific point of view since that can prove or disprove things

I agree that on some levels, we are operating on a type of faith. But there are different types of faiths.

An optimist is a person who has faith that the future will turn out well. Some experiments have shown that optimists systematically over-estimate their ability to succeed or influence a particular situation. On the other hand, a pessimist is less likely to even try to succeed, and thus often does not do as well as the optimist.

My lack of perfect knowledge in nutrition means that some decisions I make are based on general principles (or faith, if you will). But my nutritional 'faith' and reasoning is parallel to the observable, rational world, and is subject to change in light of changing information. It is a model of the world that may or may not be entirely accurate, but is generally useful because it is connected to objective reality.

Not all human actions are the result of logical decisions based on proven facts. In fact, humans tend to over-estimate their rationality when they want to feel special compared to other animals. People eat certain foods for aesthetic reasons (taste, texture), or because they are trendy, or whatever.

When it comes to religion (and isn't that the reason behind this thread?), a few comments. Religious faith is much more of a 'leap of faith' than my nutritional faith, and once that leap is made, a person finds themselves in a very abstract world. If one accepts a religious text on faith, then that becomes their 'truth' and their tool for understanding the world, they often often develop or buy into elaborate constructs that have absolutely no way of being tested. This is very different from environmentalism - either applying large amounts of fertilizers and insecticides to my lawn kills beneficial insects and leads to algal blooms in the nearby streams or it doesn't (and there is evidence that generally it can be expected to do so).

With religion, a system of circular logic is often established that can be very resistant to normal logic. Which isn't always a problem - it doesn't seem to matter if someone believes there are 7 levels of hell or 666 levels. If religious people are nice, then I have no objection.

On the other hand, religion often seeks to 'inform' normal reality to ill effect. Consider the persistent beliefs over the past millenia that people who are epileptic, schizophrenic or write with their left hand are under the control of the devil. And since the various scriptures describe demon possession and have rules for dealing with it, this leads to religion denying the rational and mucking up peoples lives.

Ok, maybe eventually the epileptics and lefties eventually become accepted. But even in these modern times, when a biological basis of homosexuality is accepted and the medical community no longer considers that to be a disease, people of faith still do consider it an abberation. How does one reconcile medical science with such faith? It doesn't matter how much evidence the biologists present that demonstrate that in-utero levels of hormones can lead to the development of homosexuality, and that this is a permanent change to the brain (with an obvious parallel to asperger's syndrome). People of strong faith are going to deal with such non-neurotypical people according to the vision set down by pre-scientific tribesmen thousands of years ago. Because their faith allows them to be hypnotized to see reality as it is not - whether they are ultrareligious Muslims, Jews, Christians or Hindus. If faith is not tempered by reality, it becomes a dangerous vice.

Last edited by monty on 27 Nov 2007, 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A scientific point of view? A belief in science as truth is a philosophy and thus bound by the philosophical problem mentioned, and as some posters have already mentioned, science doesn't prove things.

this argument seems familiar and is bs. science doesnt prove things? thats gotta be the dumbest thing ive ever heard. and wait before you get all deep on me and start pulling up wikipedia pages dont because i dont feel like arguing over the truth again

It seems familiar because other posters have validly made it to you. It sounds like the dumbest thing you have ever heard because you are very stubborn in your opinions but likely not very educated in them. Ultimately this reflects your tendencies to be a conventional thinker rather than a deep thinker, which means that you are really disadvantaged in these types of conversations.

yes.
im not in your league of thinking because i think science proves things. please give me my decoder ring so i dont feel like i am left out of your gang

I'm in that league also Richard. Are we the National League or the American League??

american! since the greatest baseball player in MLB the last 50 years playes in that league