Was reading the title of the thread too hard for you baby?

Things we CAN'T know are precisely are what we need to avoid making definite decisions about. Because we can't prove that "God is out there and that he doesn't WANT it to be easy to believe in him" is the reason we should avoid being so sure about it. It's a hypthesis that can't be disproven, and in every logical system that discounts it as a non-argument.

you cannot apply logical reasoning to the unknowable

As opposed to the things we CAN know... because historically, we've got such a good track record with all the things we thought we knew for sure, right? Making "definite decisions" should not be the immediate goal for either science or religion (though obviously not everyone agrees with me as many faiths are more obstinate and foolishly dogmatic in the face of evidence.) It's about striving to understand. Humans ultimately don't know shit, through science or faith. We do the best we can. A person who is completely unwilling to consider seemingly unlikely possibilities for the unknown (how's that quantum mechanics thing working out?) is no better than a fundamentalist who puts an ancient book on the same pedestal.

But what is there to consider when the subject is unknowable? What criteria do you use to choose among the countless premade possibilities and the uncountable ones yet to be made up?

Most people pick the one their parents picked, most of whom did the same, and so on. Some pick one that makes them feel good. Some, in response to guilt, pick one that makes them feel bad in the right way. Some pick one based on friends. Some pick one based on a charismatic spokesman. Some make up their own.

Before you can "consider seemingly unlikely possibilities for the unknown", you have to decide what criteria you have available that actually indicates truth. None of the above criteria are considered to be particularly accurate for anything but religion, and I see no need to consider them more accurate in another area, just because in that area they can't be proven wrong.

But why are you trying to apply them to another area? The whole point is that the areas don't have to interfere with one another. One can have philosophical thoughts about philosophical matters, and scientific thoughts about empirical matters.

I am personally very much of the "sure, but does it put food on the table?" school of thought. I find all forms of philosophy to be incredibly boring, at best. But I don't begrudge other people their desire to think about things, and to imagine things that seem likely or interesting to them. Everyone's criteria is going to be different, as you said, but I don't have a problem with that. That's why people can talk about things as well as think about them. But Queequeger's original statement was

His definition of "faith" is completely inaccurate for many people. Faith can be applied to plenty of philosophical matters without ever contradicting empirical evidence.

The "another area" I was referring to was religion. I was saying that they are no more applicable to religious thought than any other type of thought.

Faith is more than
Imagining and thinking about stuff is fine. Faith is deciding that they are true, based on criteria that one would not consider trustworthy in any other context.

Ignoring the reliability of your selection criteria isn't much better than ignoring more direct evidence.

HM - you seem to have such a negative opinion of the word. It surprises me.

Here, from wiki:
"Believing a certain variable will act or has the potential to act a specific way despite the potential influence and probability of known or unknown change.

* To have faith that one's spouse will keep a promise or commitment.
* To have faith that the world will someday be peaceful.
* To have faith that a person will pay you back.
* To have faith that you will be okay despite adversity.
* To have faith in one's full dependence on the will of supernatural forces or deities."

Within certain contexts faith is a great thing - applied or used inappropriately it can be potentially very bad.

It's not the word 'faith', but the concept of certainty without regard for evidence that is most problematic. The less certainty and the more subject to evidence, the better.

Usually faith in one's spouse means that you don't get unduly jealous. That is a good thing. But if you have complete faith that your spouse is faithful, they could cheat on you without worry. You would feel great, but it wouldn't be true.

Usually faith that the world will find peace is more of a hope than faith. If you have absolute faith that it will happen, what is the impetus to make it happen?

If you have absolute faith that someone will pay you back, it will never be the time to collect.

So I'd agree with:
But I'd add that the context is that the faithier the faith, the more inappropriate it is. The stronger the "Believing" and the more drastic the "despite" as per the wiki definition, the more dangerous the faith.

Yes you can, we do it all the time. That's what philosophy majors DO when they're not acting smarmy.

I don't get it, are you saying that we shouldn't try to be sure because we've been wrong? If that IS what you're saying it's a pretty ridiculous argument. People used to think the earth was flat, blah blah blah. No one can say they know FOR SURE they're not a figment of a giant space beetle's dream... that doesn't mean they should spend their whole lives pondering the question. Do you know for sure the next time you sleep something won't kill you? No, not 100%, but are you going to try and stay awake until you ARE sure? You find the most likely solution to a question and move on until there is new information.

My main point is, that we've learned a lot of new information and it means that the most likely solution is no longer the magic man in the sky. We're figuring out how things work, and all of our logic tells us that God was a crutch used by our forbears to explain what they couldn't figure out at the time.

Now we're arguing semantics. My version of a "definite decision" is one that we are sure enough about to work into our world view. Gravity, evolution, magnetism, etc. The reason we assume these things is that up until now (and using the scientific method, not uncontrolled observation) all of our evidence points to the proper formation of these theories. They COULD have been disproven, but they haven't been(As opposed to god, who can't be disproven because of the "he's testing us" argument). And it's not to say they won't be reversed or altered, but for now our best bet is moving forward with these things as a base for reasoning.

Your version of "definite decision" (or perhaps what you assumed my version was) is something we can know 100% for sure. No one above a middle school level of education would argue this exists (except maybe your very enthusiastic religiouso).

So in conclusion, while I don't know for sure that there isn't a magical man in the sky who created everything "just because," and that in order to test our resolve he has placed mountains of evidence contradicting his descriptions, I can assume well enough to bet my "eternal soul."

Also, on a loosely connected note: If you haven't seen the movie "Man From Earth," don't read anything about it, or even the back cover, rent it and watch it. The surprise is what makes it such a great movie. It's basically a look into some possible reactions of intellectuals to information that severely challenges their world views with an unlikely possibilities.

Absolutely, and there are faiths that are capable of doing that.

Let me say it as clearly as I can: Faith DOES NOT EQUAL a magic man in the sky. It certainly can and does for some people, but for many others, it doesn't. You have taken a single, oversimplified, particularly dogmatic and particularly rare interpretation of Christianity, and defined it as all "faith." It is not.

What happens when you die? We don't know, and can't know. I choose to have an opinion on the subject, based on my experience of the world and science and my moral sensibilities of how the universe ought to work. Those criteria don't have to be reliable for you; they are reliable enough for me. I often make guesses about everyday occurrences that are nothing more than my best guess given the information I have to work with. I could certainly be wrong, but I have to have a certain amount of faith that my opinion is true, or everything would be at a standstill. Whenever evidence comes along to refute it, I revise my opinion. Just because I have faith in the conclusions I have drawn does not mean I am unwilling to reconsider.

A faith that refuses to acknowledge evidence is foolish. But refusing to make any choices because of a lack of certain evidence can just as easily be taken to unhealthy extremes as well. The husband who has complete and unwavering faith that his wife will not cheat is foolish, but so is the husband who refuses to have any amount of faith that she will not.

Agreed...
We don't know, and can't know. World experience and science say nothing about the subject.
And this criteria would not be considered reliable for anything else. Anything on which the reliablility could be checked.
What you're describing is an educated guess. An educated guess is based on past experience. There is no past experience on which to base a belief about what happens when we die.

If your wife has been true in the past, just like a ball falls to the ground gives you president for "faith" that gravity will be there when you need it, is evidence that your belief that she may continue that behavior is not unfounded. Not faith in the true sense. Also, if you ask most rational people they will tell you it is not a pure, knowable, issue. They know their spouse could cheat, but is more likely not to if they both work toward the best marriage... not faith.

I don't know anyone that thinks the world will be completely peaceful. Nor do I know two people that can agree on the same definition on peaceful. Yeah, faith and illogical to buy.

If they have paid you back in the past, not faith, if you have any evidence of their character, not faith.

Ok despite adversity... I don't even know what this means.

The last one is faith and there is no rational reason to buy anything supernatural, to date. Having faith in them is neither good or bad, it does nothing because there is nothing there to answer your faith that we know of and no evidence that it does anything at all. No one has been healed or helped in any way. Waste of energy.

I know. It's unreliable. And yet I'm egotistical enough to believe it anyway. That's why it gets its own word, "faith," instead of being just like everything else. Feel free to substitute "ego" for "faith" in this whole conversation, it won't bother me--I think ego can be a good thing too. And I maintain that in the forms I have been describing, faith does not hurt anyone else, would not affect my policy decisions if I were an elected official, and is not, as queequeger initially asserted, a "bad thing."

the difference between faith and science is one of understanding.

if you drop a ball a thousand times and, every time you drop it, it falls to the floor, as a result of gravity...
then faith would be the assumption that the ball always falls
wheras science says, the ball will always move towards the most massive object whose field of gravity reaches the ball.


this example doesn't work in every case, but in the real world, faith can often be explained just a lack of understanding.
However, theists have an entirely different kind of faith. Faith in a deity is a different kind of faith, to this, entirely. It is baseless and illogical - and still can't be absolutely said to be wrong by anyone who isn't a dick.

You are being very closed minded rk - all these examples came from wiki just to refute one very limiting definition of faith. Thats all nothing more.

Would it not affect your policy decisions because you realize that the way you picked a framework is too arbitrary to apply to anything outside your own opinion, or because the framework you picked is in itself too limited to apply to any policy decision you might need to make?

If it is the former, then the form of faith you describe would score low on my "faithiness" scale at the end of #129.

If it is the latter, then someone else could have exacly the same level and style of faith, but pick a more harmful framework, which requires that policy decisions be made in its model. The decision process leaves you opens to harm.

Faith is a decision process. It is only not a "bad thing" when certainty is more important than correctness. Unfortunately, when certainty is important, it is usually equally important to be correct, as the alternative is just another way to say "lying to yourself". While there are situations where that could be justified, a better solution is usually to remove the need for certainty. Some questions just don't need an answer.

Ibram's answer is very interesting. It leads me to ponder what is the definition of faith. Does it include assumptions based on previous factual evidence or would that fall under a different word?

Edit- This is rabbit trail post (is that what you call it when you just trail off to nowhere) so bare with me.

Since we assume physics is deterministic and the universal laws do not change, we can say that if I drop a ball of a third story we window, it will not only land, but land in one specific spot. We would say we have faith in universal laws but we have faith in them because every past experience says we have universal laws.

When it comes to faith in a god, we are saying that a god exists without that previous evidence. I won't go into much further.


I think the biggest difference is the first one is basically stereotyping and the other is true faith. If I walk down the street, why do I assume I will not be robbed? I don't because I have walked down that exact street, passed the same people, and have never been robbed so I can stereotype the area as a place I won't get robbed and the people as people I won't get robbed by. This goes with new experiences as well. If I see a person I have never seen before, why do I have faith that they will not rob me even though I have no previous information on that person. I have faith hat he will not rob me because I have walked passed people that resemble him in culture, race, hair color, species, etc, that have not robbed me so I stereotype that he will not rob me. It works the opposite way too. If I have previous experience of being robbed by people that wear red jumpsuits, I will be much more cautious around people with red jumpsuits in the future.

Now, if something I have no previous information about or nothing to relate it too, then we would get into real faith. If a misty 3-dimensional blob randomly appeared in my bedroom, having no previous information to relate it to, any prediction or assumption I make would be based on true faith.

I know that isn't the actual definition, but that is the way I see it. If we deal with that, true faith would inheritly irrational because we have nothing rational to compare it too. Basically a shot in the dark, but I don't know how bad I would consider true faith.

But saying that, I don't know if I would consider believing in a supernatural power true faith since we come to the conclusion of a supernatural being from evidence on Earth. So I guess believing in a supernatural power wouldn't necessarily be irrational since we are basing that off "evidence", but that is only if one accepts the equal possibility of every other scenarios that has the same amount of evidence.

Then we have irrationality of stereotyping. This one is really hard to say, probably depends on how far you stray from the stereotype and how much the new event matches the stereotype. It is of course rational to assume that if you jump up, gravity will pull you back down. But I would call it irrational if you once got robbed by a man that wore a hat and now you assume every man that wears a hat is going to rob you so avoid everyone that wears hats.

blah, this probably makes no sense.

Interesting post Pierce. I don't have anything to add, but I think you've done well...and just wanted to tell you.

Thank you Aliantha, I thought about this some more so here we go again, same warnings apply.

Now the rationality or irrationality of believing in a god. Well, the belief of a god is just a conclusion. We have certain amount of evidence and therefore we say a god must or may exist. Basically, we say that the supernatural takes over when we cannot explain the natural world, universal laws, creation of energy, etc.

Now, how to relate this to fate. After thinking about this, I would say that belief in a god is just stereotyping the unknown, but in a different form than in my previous post. Lets say we have an infinite amount of possibilities for the answers of the universe, the evidence we have about the world limits down the possibilities, then we are dealing with scenarios, creation of energy for example, that we have no evidence to support and therefore, have to assume that every possibility has the same probability of happening. I wouldn't call this true faith though since we can still stereotype.

Now since we have come to edge of previous evidence, we have a number of possibilities that have equal probability. As I said earlier, saying one is more likely than the other should be considered irrational. So technically saying there must be a god or that god is more likely than a scientific explanation is irrational.

But, even though we have come to the edge of knowledge we can still stereotype, which the rationality is debatable.


For an easier example to imagine, lets say you are walking down a street by yourself and you feel a sharp pain in the back of your head that feels like a punch. You did not see what caused the pain.

You turn around and see a single person in view, who is walking in punching distance behind you. With our current information, we can not say with certain what happened. Our first assumption is that the person punched you, but there technically equal possibility that I magically teleported behind you, hit you, and teleport back without you seeing me, that a supernatural power hit you, or that your nerves randomly went off. But even though each possibility has the same probability of happening, we assume that the person hit you because we have never experienced teleporting, a supernatural power, or random nerve spasms, but we have experienced physical punching, so we assume the person punched you.

Even though this is different than the stereotyping I mentioned in my previous post, I think these are very similar because they are both stereotyping that is based on previous experiences, just one is a prediction and one is a conclusion.


The belief in a god is the same way and therefore would have the same rationality/irrationality factor as before. But the problem is that we can assign a universal rational or irrational factor because we each have different experiences.

Personally, being a non-hard atheist, I have concluded that I do not have a belief in god because every bit of evidence I have seen in this world points to natural solutions, therefore, the questions we can not answer will most likely have a natural solution as opposed to a supernatural solution. I do not see any irrationality in this.

But other people may have other experiences. Lets say that person 1 told person 2 that a god exists. In person 2's perspective, person 1 has always been right so person 2 will naturally assume that person 1 is right again and will believe in a god. I really do not see much irrationality in this except my negative experiences of having blind trust in someone, but that, once again, is personal.

I do not want to go much farther than this because individual experiences have such different effects on people I know I will be completely wrong by making an assumption.

Heh, coincidentally, a post on this topic just showed up on Pharyngula.

That's such a cop out. You say it's "not that simple," but what is it then? Having "faith" that your wife won't cheat is unrelated to a faith in god, because it's still based on available information. If you mean to imply there are religions without a god, this is true of some religions, but it's still irrationality; these religions still believe in a force or balance that is unexplainable and simply "there." And what's worse is they presume to know what the force wants or does. A faceless form that created everything is just as ridiculous as a magic man. And for the record, cf, what version of Christianity (or Islam or Judaism) DOESN'T say that god created the universe? It's not a "particularly dogmatic version of christianity," it is every mainstream version of religion.

Belief that there is ANYTHING we won't eventually understand (barring destruction of mankind), meaning paranormal or supernatural, is irrational. We've repeatedly explained the unexplainable, and we'll do it again.

So if I missed some description of the word "faith" that does not include "believing in something without enough evidence," let me know. Also, fill me in on my presumptions that people of faith believe that god created the universe.

Are you coming on to me, rkz? :blush:

"God created the universe" is a far cry from this:

Vast numbers of Christians and Jews do not take the story of creation literally. And of the ones who do, very few believe God deliberately placed contradictory evidence for us to find, they instead believe humans have failed to correctly interpret the evidence. Meanwhile, I'm not sure there are any believers at all who would say the motivation for anything their god does would be "just because."

No, now you have the correct definition. It's quite different than the stereotyped, mocking contempt seen in the previous quote.