What is faith ....

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Well if you go by it that way then nothing ever counts as evidence, therefore humans are f****d because we can't gain knowledge. I think there is a such thing as over-analyzing (mind you this is coming from me, a highly almost computerized analytical thinker). People over-analyze in order to defend their position in an argument in order to side-step the obvious, while under-analyzing anything too "out there" from what they consider "normal". Normal to most people is what they are indoctrinated to see as normal.
I'm a huge fan of Einstein, but I do not remember him ever saying common since was a collection of biases, what I do remember him saying was that the individual personality is a collection of biases and prejudices developed by the age of 18. I think he primarily had westerners in mind when he made this statement, as Einstein was always critical of the "we are shaved apes" crutch of western society.
Point blank evidence is evidence when you have to go the long way from the elbow to the as*hole to develope a theory to disprove it. The apple was red, visually you can see it is red, but if you unnecessarily over-analyze it I'm sure you could make a case to say it is blue. I do not care that red and blue are "human inventions", it does not change the fact that whatever language you wanna use to name the color, we still see it as a red apple, or the apple being the color we have designated as "red", or "rojo" or red in any other language.

Last edited by snake321 on 28 Nov 2007, 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for reading my post. I appreciate people giving what I write thought even if they disagree with me. I think I learn something by trying to understand other’s arguments.

As for your question, I was talking about motivation. I think people are motivated to believe in God because it gives them comfort. Why is this cynical?

I’m not saying this is a logical argument against God, for it is logically possible for that both “God exists” and “the belief in God gives people comfort” to be true. However, the fact that belief gives comfort does give it less credibility in my mind because it makes it more biased. That’s all.



Yes. But I notice that the major religions that survive to this day are quite static and resistant to re-evaluation or doubt. There’s a tendency for more moderate or “liberal” factions of religion to not take their beliefs as seriously. It seems like when there isn’t a major consequence for doubt, people tend to gradually hold less and less beliefs until they are practically agnostic. Take for example the Unitarian Church. It just seems like without the “hard core” conservative believers these more liberal groups wouldn’t exist and everyone would just be agnostic.

Faith

1. unquestioning belief, specifically in God, a religion, etc.
2. a particular religion
3. complete trust or confidence
4. loyalty

I've always had problems with this word since i was seven. It seemed like a fixed word. If you are a fan of fractals, you might know what i mean.

Faith isn't just a religious disease my friend, people put faith into their system and into their leaders too. Faith by definition is blind, so I see no point in having to say "blind faith".

Personally faith I think is a horrible vile, repuslive, evil, sickening thing. It leads people to do horrible things to one another, and often even to themselves.
There are many examples where people who pray to "god" for help could end up helping themselves much more efficiently and quickly, but because of their "faith" they do nothing but pray and low and behold nothing works out for them.

True.


"Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down by the mind before you reach eighteen."

* As quoted in Mathematics, Queen and Servant of the Sciences (1952) by Eric Temple Bell
* Unsourced variant : Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Found near the mid-bottom. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein#Sourced

Well, the only thing is that the apple is red mostly because you defined the apple as being red. I mean, if you are arguing if you can prove that the apple is primarily reflecting wavelengths in the red range out of all wavelengths reflected from the visible spectrum based upon its natural reflective tendencies in a relatively equal set of electromagnetic wavelengths(which could be defined better but oh well) then the case becomes harder to make as we would have to figure out if we are objectively sensing the redness of the apple or other factors of the environment, or even if our eyes or minds are processing the information correctly, or even if an apple exists in the first place.

I argue that we can't know "truth" in a logically deductive sense. That doesn't mean there is no truth.



This is getting frustrating. I am arguing from a practical standpoint. I already told you that it's impossible to "prove" the existance of something. I can't give you what you want and you know it. In essence you keep saying "prove it" over and over again ad nauseam to everything anyone else says. This is quite the annoying style of argument. Why don't you ever try to defend your own beliefs?


Where did I say I have "absolute assurence of constancy"? You're not making any sense.



I'm really confused by what you're saying here. Sorry.

Ok, and I would agree with that statement.


I don't argue my own beliefs though. If you'll note, I very rarely ever make a positive statement. My explicit position in this argument IS skepticism.


You said that you can't see your perspective changing without reality changing. That seems an "assurance of constancy" so to speak because otherwise we could say that variable X could theoretically change something. The closest thing you got to the mysterious variable X was divine intervention, something you don't believe in, so that seemed like you meant that you were certain in your ideas.


I think I understand you now. You claim that human beings are built in with biases towards certain solutions, and that these biases mean that the selection of these beliefs will be disproportionate. I still don't see this argument of bias as philosophically meaningful though.

Okay. But what is your purpose of argument? What are you trying to achieve?


I think you’re taking what I said too literally. I was criticizing the idea of being able to “choose” a religion as being akin to thinking you can “choose” reality.


Well I guess you have to define what you think is philosophically meaningful. I don’t think it’s philosophically meaningful to argue the way you do. You can refute any claim by saying “prove it” until there’s nothing more to say.

I can say that Copernicus theory of heliocentricism is false and any reason you give I can refute. I can just ask you to prove it. You can give me evidence, but I will reject it as non-evidence as you can’t prove that it is valid. In the end it doesn’t matter what you say. There is no way you can logically disprove geocentricism. If you can reject anything and everything then there is no knowledge and philosophy is totally useless. There’s no point in even arguing anything. I just don’t see what you’re trying to get at. That belief is necessary to form knowledge? I already agree. What is your argument?

Skepticism? I don't like the absolute assertions people make over the world, especially if they make them in the authoritative authoritarian sense. This also leads me to protect ideas that I consider to be the underdog at times.


Ah, ok. I am very literalist.

Yes, you can unless both sides agree to a set of premises to stand by. But this very thread is about the issues with premises and how faith is needed to resolve the issue. I think my method is very philosophically meaningful in a group full of people who think that they know they are right. It is less meaningful in a group that is explicitly working within a set framework or in an argument where personal opinion really does matter such as in politics or commentary on a thought/theory or something of that nature.

You can argue that, I don't have a problem with that, I would just ask you to prove that there is matter for the universe to revolve around or that physical reality exists. My argument has no validity if you already accept it, I am mostly trying to bash the nonskeptics into compliance. Our arguing past your acceptance if you'll note has mostly been a matter of wiggling details, not of problems of a positive plan. I don't see why this frustrates you so much, my argument is almost what this very thread began with. The notion that belief is necessary.

well, as long as the conditions are favorable and the person does not suffer of color blindness and is not under the influence of any drug or something that is affecting neural transmisions, etc. and how many other people can confirm that, then I would surely can say that the apple is indeed red. Although, it depends in wehter you want to argue it is naturally red or artificially.

You are going with this stuff to people here, with these words that sound good and interesting, which it would either annoy people here or something to admire, and I find this interesting actually, in a philosophical way, although I don't see it applicable in real life at all, nothing more than a philosophical contemplation. However I am skeptical of your arguments as well

Maybe you could make a good lawyer with this stuff

Nope, not really that applicable once one already knows what one believes. I do find it useful as philosophical contemplation, especially given that I get in a lot of weird arguments. It really is quite useful in politics whenever somebody invokes an argument of rights or something like that, and in this manner can argue against the right, left, authoritarian, libertarian or any group really.

I am less good under pressure.

AG:

I read what you said but I’m not responding point by point this time. Philosophy isn’t based on logic, so there is never going to be a purely logical argument for anything. I think we agree on this. However, I still think there are merits to arguing outside the strict framework of logical deduction.

That said, I don’t understand why you completely dismissed what I said regarding motivation for belief. Can you agree that the motivation for religious belief is different from the motivation for scientific investigation? Do you or do you not think a difference in motivation is important? If not then why?

phi-los-o-phy (fi-los-fe)n.pl. phi-los-o-phies. Abbr. phil., philos.
2. Inquiry into the nature of things based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods

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Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I don't see where we can start epistemology outside of logical deduction.

Sure, I can accept that there is a difference in psychology. What does this difference have to do with the philosophical nature of the premises? All it refers to is the psychological nature of the premises and if truth is independent or has an unknown relationship to man then this fact means very little in terms of what we know on the truth value of any religion or of science or of any system that man accepts of any form.

Why is it useful?

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)