What is faith ....

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I think that the difference between the faiths is not that they are fundamentally different but rather that one type of faith operates on your premises and others don't. Truly, I would argue that most systems are really just circularly self-justifying on some level. Religions merely operate within a completely different epistemological framework than you do, but there is no true way to prove truth, so objective claims on this become impossible. The issue of irrationality in religion and vice ultimately come from the issue that their philosophy seems perverse to you as yours does to them. Most philosophies are really quite rational when analyzed because human beings cannot handle something completely outside of rationality. The issue of vice is just an assertion of moral truth and moral truth is perhaps even more difficult of a concept to prove than a deity.

HA HA! Well, I was a bit condescending there, but few people who really think on things end up sounding so dogmatic on any issue no matter how crazy.

I agree completely.

Wow.... actually I am sort of shocked. Are you joking with me? I usually don't get that response.

Lively discussion

I'm afraid I'm a wimpy moderate so that the purpose of my post was to produce a moderate position which would better allow people to understand one another. Not to say that my overblown view of myself as a calculating machine doesn't predispose me to hope that various logical arguements can lead to a final 'proof' (particularly when in conflict with my wife, kids or boss). In many ways, this was why I became a physicist.

I would just say that my experience in the realm of science has shown me that while indeed some things can be proven to a fair statistical certainty (leaving out "I think therefore I am possiblities"), a lot of the truths of science are based on the predisposition of scientists. I have seen science used as a tool both for individual gain as well as political and financial gain and so I am slow to accept something as truth, just because a scientific investigation has been performed and certain conclusions drawn, and perhaps even accepted by other scientists.

Since some posts have seemed to draw a distinction between science and religion, I would have to suggest that I have known individuals to whom science is a religion (as it can also be a politics, and so forth).

By the way, I really appreciate that others think differently on such a topic. In my world, God created individuals in a diverse manner. In the evolutionists world, I'm sure a similar result is expected

Thanks for the posts

I have faith that anyone who claims a Ph.D. in physics and is a true scientist in that he accepts the scientific method in demanding reasonable proof for his beliefs and is willing to discard his beliefs if proof indicates it is not worthy of belief is either a liar or has serious mental problems. This is merely a matter of faith as I have no proof.

I doubt myself to have any kind of faith, or very little of it, considering I devote almost my entire existence to logic and reason, and to have faith is the very antithesis of what I am and how I think. As for emotions getting in the way, I have very few of them, or feel very few of them, and does not disrupt the logical way I choose to live. For I think that faith is blind, and as you have described, to attribute trust in something that has no evidence or for which you have no way of confirming--something that by logical standards, is not worth believing in. Instead of relying on fatih, I rely on probability to predict the likelihood of something happening--at the very least, I am more realistic in knowing how some things might happen or might not happen, rather than to simply provide a black and white "yes" or "no" answer, or "it will happen" or "it won't happen". I do not have faith that any particular outcome would occur, only that it could go both ways, and if I had to be forced to choose one, I yield to the higher probability. But like science, this does not mean I have faith in the choise that has a higher probability. If I choose something that has the higher probability, I do not dismiss the fact that it may not happen; it's just not likely for it to not happen. If I had faith in the choice with the higher probability, I could not think this way.

As for the question of "having faith" in logic or reasoning, I choose not to call it such because choosing logic or reasoning is not done out of little or no evidence--afterall, logic and reason have proven themselves to work more often than not, and it is for this reason that I choose to follow logic and reasoning. Same goes with probability. Probability works more often than not, and by that vein of logic, it is worth relying on. Although you could say that probability is a subset of logic, so I follow it for the same reasoning I follow logic.

I do actually have the degree. Although actually I like to point out that it is not a 'science' degree (that was my BS, interesting that I think BS seems to stand for something else in cyber world), actually it is a 'philosophy' degree, whatever that is.

I am an experimental scientist and therefore I protect my seemingly unbelievable beliefs with the caveat that many of the 'scientific' proofs against them are not based on controlled laboratory experiments.

As far as that goes, I'm sure that I have serious mental problems and probably live in denial a lot.

I'll go along with the idea that until we get God into a laboratory with electric contacts sticking out of His head we can have no absolute proof that he doesn't exist.

What is faith? Faith is evil by design, for in order to have faith means that you follow someone or something blindly, with no evidence and often times even no common since to back it up, and then become emotionally attached to this concept. It is for this reason faith is the bane of all ignorance.
Faith is not JUST in religion, it can come in other forms as well. Faith in corrupt leaders, faith in flawed ideologies, faith in "social norms" (ie blind conformity, which all faith leads to anyways).
To have faith means to accept something as a fact with no evidence and sometimes no common since to validate it. It is a word that enslaves minds.

The reasoning is false though. The thing is that logic and reason cannot be judged outside of logic and reason, therefore, your argument is that your system proves itself. I mean, can you alogically judge logic and judge reason irrespective of reason. By that same vein of experience, don't most theists argue that they follow their faith because of what it has done? Their personal revelation? I mean, I know Ragtime has said he has experienced a connection with God. Because of that, can't we ultimately argue against knowledge if we logically examine the illogic of reality? It all ends up falling down to evidence and evidence is different from objective proof. I mean, epistemologically can we ever know despite how much we *must* act like we know.


I still side with Einstein that common sense is merely a collection of biases. Do we really have evidence otherwise? Not only that, but what constitutes evidence? Do we have evidence that our criterion for evidence qualifies as proper evidence or are we going to justify logic with empiricism and empiricism with logic thus creating a wonderful circular argument that we do not examine logically? Faith does enslave minds, but can we escape faith or are we its terminal slaves? Nothing can truly be known, but we arrogantly always act as if we have knowledge and that is the human condition.

Okay, its time for me to revise my premise again to see if there are more useful definitions of faith. Initially, the responses seemed to want to bring a varying level to faith and in so doing put those who believe in certain ideas (for example but not limited to God) as having made a 'leap' of faith. I would have to admit in my observation of the world, all people make such leaps (in business, politics and even as I have suggested in science). So my second post was made to try and eliminate the gray areas of faith. That gave the

Now I can see that such a statement has led to a concept of faith that indicates that it is blind and irrational and supported by no evidence, and therefore to be avoided. I agree that blind and unconsidered faith is a bad thing and that some amount of 'rational' thinking is warranted. I could also state that my own faith is not without evidence. I have personal experience that has led me to my conclusions and others have had similar, but not the same, experiences.

Well, I see this working its way down to the baser elements (YEAH!, I'LL GET TO APPLY QUANTUM 3, BOOH, KNOWING HOW TO CALCULATE CROSS SECTIONS FOR PARTICLE INTERACTIONS USING FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS DOESN"T HELP ME FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE MY WIFE HAPPY TONIGHT) of natural laws, free will and determinism (and so forth).

BY GENERALIZING FAITH TO ALL INDIVIDUALS
- I had not hoped to belittle those who find a rational world view as being free of faith
- I had not been planning to convert anyone to a particular religion or denomination
- I had hoped to actually construct a sort of 'logic' that would help individuals better understand others who believe differently, no matter what that belief was

all of your base are belong to us

...believing something without any credible reason or proof that it is true/exists.

Even though nobody can ever truly accept pure rationalism because the brain is not and was not designed to be purely rational.

Everyone has premises, some are fulfilled differently than others. What logic is necessary more so than methodological individualism in the analysis of human action combined with subjective assessments of value?


Actually that really gets me thinking on the philosophies represented here. I think my opponents are at their core logical positivists and I am arguing that the verifiability criterion of truth is itself not verifiable and that this reveals a logical inconsistency. I mean, how can we establish credibility or proof without infinite regress? What makes the credible reasons or proofs credible? The regression *must* end up being infinite if one takes a consistently logical position from my view at least.

i totally get the diet faith experience. I have it, that faith. But it is still connected to reality.
I like the way you say, Monty, that believing in , having faith in, god/religious principles is stepping into a very diffferent abstract world. Perhaps that is the charm, of not having to be responsible about what believe in. Of not having any way to measure the "rightness" of ones faith. But as you say the problem is when the concepts involve quite clearly oppressive ideas. Then there's a problem, cos having faith in the rightness of something which justifies oppressing others in what is now considered natural human behaviour is deeply dodgy. Then there has to be an overhaul. Like in 35 AD. Like in 600 AD the Muslims might therefore argue, and do, saying their version is more recent and therefore more correct. And so on with Mormons etc. And the hundreds of prophets who have been and gone in the last 100 years to supposedly start new church.
Till fall into crumbs of updates, like a work manual , which has to be thrown out and redone completely.

In meantime faith like you say can't afford to be blind cos might end up supporting truly unacceptable attitudes and actions.
Faith is maybe just what you stick bits of knowledge together with when the knowledge is missing. And that's all, nothing more.
But maybe humans aren't "happy" when SEEM to have almost all "the knowledge", like travellers who say there is nowhere new to go anymore. No more great open spaces of unknown. Even space has been colonised by scientists.
WHAT is the main realm in which use lots of faith to stick together knowledge now? I'm curious.

Last edited by ouinon on 28 Nov 2007, 5:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.