Science, Religion, and the Surrounding Confusion.

[DanaC]

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.

Well put.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Faith is believing something is true, because the chain of evidence follows a trajectory that can be reasonably extended to conclude that the thing is true, even when the chain of evidence isn't complete.

I thought that was induction?

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Flint

Doesn't the Bible define faith as belief despite a total lack of evidence?

Ummmm ... no. Unless I'm missing something, the biblical use of the word "faith" relies heavily on induction as the basis for belief. It repeatedly talks about the created world as an evidential basis for believing in both God and in a moral order. That appeal to reference the natural world would make no sense if the highest biblical value was to believe something was true in the total absence of evidence.

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.

This "new" rational faith is at least as old as Descartes (Aquinas, even?). I realize it's more fun to go bashing fundamentalists (I'll join in, if you'd like) for upholding faith as something opposed to reason, but you'll find very few people to have a "meaningful" conversation with in that camp.

Do you really think it's meaningless to explore the relationship between critical thinking, radical skepticism, and faith?

[Troubleshooter]

You can't have faith and apply skepticism to it.

Dogma, sure, but not faith.

Faith is operating without need for verification or validation.

You hear the voice you do the deed.

In contemporary society we have dogmatic filters to apply to what people call faith nowadays, but it all had to start with some guy taking the voices in his head at face value.

Patient X as it were.

[Flint]

...
Unless I'm missing something, the biblical use of the word "faith" relies heavily on induction as the basis for belief. It repeatedly talks about the created world as an evidential basis for believing in both God and in a moral order. That appeal to reference the natural world would make no sense if the highest biblical value was to believe something was true in the total absence of evidence.
...

So the fact that "the world exists" is the logical basis for having faith in...what?

[DanaC]

Patient X as it were.

I like that.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I thought that was induction?

Yep. I think that's the crux of my point. Faith adds action to conclusions arrived at by induction. It is acting as something is true, on the basis of incomplete (but reasonable) evidence for it being true.

On that definition, I think two things emerge:

1) We all engage in mundane acts of faith with regularity (sitting in a chair without checking the strength of the legs), and

2) Religious faith is not a different kind of faith than that which is engaged in by people at large, every day.

I think there are two aspects to religious faith that differentiate it from mundane acts of faith. First, religious people accept as evidence a wider range of data than religious skeptics. A religious person may accept their own internal state of spiritual awareness as confirming evidence, which is not a kind of evidence that a religious skeptic has access to, or has any good reason to allow into the conversation.

Second, the actions undertaken by religious people (acting as if their conclusions are true) are generally more sweeping, more radical, and more controversial than the mundane actions of faith undertaken by everyone. If I believe my chair can support my weight, and I sit down in my chair, my action is a very mundane act of faith, and nobody takes much notice of it. If I believe that God is real and that he/she hates materialism, and I sell everything I own to live a life of simplicity and service, that's a conspicuous act of faith.

It's completely irrational if I believe that my present life, and the pleasures I enjoy in it, are the sum total of my existence. It only becomes rational if I am acting in faith (based on a chain of inductively supported conclusions) that there is a greater purpose to life, and that my present state of pleasure is less meaningful than that greater purpose.

Long answer to a short statement, but yes, UT, I would say that faith and induction are very similar in how they process evidence and conclusions, with the difference being that faith is acting upon those conclusions as if they were true, rather than simply holding them in escrow until better evidence comes along.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Yep. I think that's the crux of my point. Faith adds action to conclusions arrived at by induction. It is acting as something is true, on the basis of incomplete (but reasonable) evidence for it being true.

On that definition, I think two things emerge:

1) We all engage in mundane acts of faith with regularity (sitting in a chair without checking the strength of the legs), and

2) Religious faith is not a different kind of faith than that which is engaged in by people at large, every day.

Your present example of faith is so semantically skewed that faith and probability and induction could all be the same word.

Your example of the chair isn't faith. A chair is designed to catch your ass and suspend it above the floor. It's not faith to sit in a chair without looking.

You see a chair, and if there are no obvious flaws in it, and you sit down expecting it to do its job based on your experience with past chairs and your understanding of the concept of a chair.

That's a probability assessment on your part.

While I don't disagree with you on your second part, that doesn't make those people's behavior rational or reasonable.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

I think there are two aspects to religious faith that differentiate it from mundane acts of faith. First, religious people accept as evidence a wider range of data than religious skeptics. A religious person may accept their own internal state of spiritual awareness as confirming evidence, which is not a kind of evidence that a religious skeptic has access to, or has any good reason to allow into the conversation.

Internal revelatory events aren't testable. They can't even be compared against those of another person. While that may be acceptable as evidence for personal use it has no merit outside of that person's skin.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Second, the actions undertaken by religious people (acting as if their conclusions are true) are generally more sweeping, more radical, and more controversial than the mundane actions of faith undertaken by everyone. If I believe my chair can support my weight, and I sit down in my chair, my action is a very mundane act of faith, and nobody takes much notice of it. If I believe that God is real and that he/she hates materialism, and I sell everything I own to live a life of simplicity and service, that's a conspicuous act of faith.

As a personal issue, I don't give a tinker's damn what people do in regards to the voices that drive their lives so long as they only blow themselves up. That's why I have such a problem with the weight given to religion when people use it to judge other or act against others. You, generally speaking, don't get to use the rules of your invisible sky daddy to act against me, judge all you want, but act against me and it will be bad.

And you keep going back to the chair/faith issue. Again, that's not faith, that's probability, it's the same model as expecting the sun to rise tomorrow. It's a probabilistic model. The sun has risen reliably since recorded time, a proper chair has caught people's asses since chairs were properly made.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

It's completely irrational if I believe that my present life, and the pleasures I enjoy in it, are the sum total of my existence.

No, it's not.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

It only becomes rational if I am acting in faith (based on a chain of inductively supported conclusions) that there is a greater purpose to life, and that my present state of pleasure is less meaningful than that greater purpose.

That's just silly. The only reason you believe anything religious is because you were taught so or really want to.

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Long answer to a short statement, but yes, UT, I would say that faith and induction are very similar in how they process evidence and conclusions, with the difference being that faith is acting upon those conclusions as if they were true, rather than simply holding them in escrow until better evidence comes along.

Don't confuse the mechanism of induction as it is used internally in respect with a religion as opposed with induction in relation to the evidence for the existence of deity.

[skysidhe]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Exactly, everything is the way God made it, often through his helper, Mother Nature.
Humans are slowly unraveling the mysteries of how it all works. But the fact remains, it worked the same before, and after, we figured it out.
Darwin's theory of evolution, always a bone of contention, simply means Darwin is generally credited with being the first, (he wasn't) to figure out how it works. He didn't cause it folks, just figured out how it works, that's all.
I don't see any conflict, except with the Jewish mythology of the old testament.

Can I be annoying and just say, "ME TOO"

Why should there be any separaton of science and faith. I always thought it should be so anyway.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Do you really think it's meaningless to explore the relationship between critical thinking, radical skepticism, and faith?

No, I think it's meaningless to conflate faith and critical thinking to the point that they are interchangable. Doesn't it cheapen both concepts to water them down to the point that they lose their defining characteristics?

When people refer to religious faith, I am certain that the intended meaing is NOT "using the scientific method of investigation in order to determine the most verifiable statistical probability."

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

Your present example of faith is so semantically skewed that faith and probability and induction could all be the same word.

They are aspects of the same mental transaction.

Your example of the chair isn't faith. A chair is designed to catch your ass and suspend it above the floor. It's not faith to sit in a chair without looking.

You see a chair, and if there are no obvious flaws in it, and you sit down expecting it to do its job based on your experience with past chairs and your understanding of the concept of a chair.

That's a probability assessment on your part.

And acting on that probability without having access (or choosing to investigate) to the data needed to make it certain. That's the definition of faith that I'm trying to give here. My whole point is that it's a very standard mental transaction, and that the variables are the kind of data accepted into the transaction, and the extent action taken when the conclusion is assumed.

Internal revelatory events aren't testable. They can't even be compared against those of another person. While that may be acceptable as evidence for personal use it has no merit outside of that person's skin.

If you read back, I said the same thing. Nobody has any external access to that data in a meaningful way, so it doesn't carry any weight in dialog. My point was that a religious person still has access, and may accept as data, something which is only available for internal investigation.

I think there was some confusion in how you read the last part of my post. The fifth paragraph ("It's completely irrational if I believe that my present life ... blah blah blah") is all referring to the action of selling everything. I'm not saying that it's irrational to be a religious skeptic, to believe that there is only the material life. I'm saying that the act of selling everything and living an ascetic life devoid of pleasure is irrational. It was speaking to my point of the radical nature of actions undertaken by people who are religious.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

They are aspects of the same mental transaction.

It seems more to me like an effort to redefine faith as induction so that faith pics up the intellectual credibility of reason when it should rightfully be viewed as just doing what the voices tell you.

[regular.joe]

I get the feeling that when you say "what the voices tell you" you believe that someone with a spiritual experience is crazy.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

... it should rightfully be viewed as just doing what the voices tell you.

I realize that's an easier definition of faith to belittle, but I, and may other people who adhere to religious faiths, find that an inadequate definition. I'm trying to offer one that is more in line with how many people understand their spiritual lives. You seem more interested in limiting the conversation to fundamentalists, in which case, you'll have to go round some up.

[Flint]

When what you are doing stops being faith, please stop calling it faith. Using the wrong words for things is an ill-fated way to initiate a discussion.