I don’t know if they are knowable, but if they aren’t, I have no quarrel with the person who admits they don’t know. If somebody picks or devises a theology, it seems like they are claiming that it is true.
This is where we differ, I think. I think that most faithful persons start believing due to having been told these things by people they trust, but I think that over time they switch their reason for believing over to faith - basically believing for the sake of belief - and gradually forget why they originally believed. In this way, as they discover that “because my mommy told me so” isn’t really a good reason to believe in metaphysical concepts, they have already ‘unplugged’ their beliefs from the ‘mommy told me’ reason, and plugged them into the ‘faith’ reason, which is immune to the harsh truths of reality that have eroded their belief in filial infallibility.
So, in most cases you’ll gain little from attacking the credibility of parents, preachers, and society. That’s not why they believe anymore.
I’d have to be able to falsify their hypothesis. Barring any ability to do that, arguing is futile. If there was a corrolation there was a corrolation.
And to me, if somebody picks or devises a theology, it seems like they are searching for answers that reason can’t provide.
Apparently we do differ here. I can’t say I have much experience putting this into practice, so I can’t report any practical results in winning atheist converts. The idea that there would be a misleading cultural concept such as faith seems pretty natural to me, while the idea that there would be an actual mental mechanism seems improbable. The arguments atheists normally use in debates rarely have any success, but since they rarely emphasize the influence of authority, it seems plausible that that approach might be better. Even so, I would hardly expect it to be easy.
I see. You are using faith as a synonym for religion, not the constituent beliefs. I don’t think you’ll get much traction using reason against such a collection as a whole. The best you should hope for is to reach agreement on which individual beliefs are reasoned and which are held as faith.
I see faith coming out of desire. We want there to be something greater than ourselves,we want our spouses to be faithful,we want our lives to be better. We tend to cling to what will make us feel safer, loved etc. Tradition and life experiences are used to enhance our thinking and beliefs
Monavis
Some may define faith in that manner, but that’s not how the term is used Biblically. At no point do the Biblical writers say that one should believe without any evidence whatsoever.
Quite the contrary; Paul urged Timothy to “always be ready to give a **reason ** for the hope that is withing you” (2 Peter 3:15). Acts 17:2 says that “As his custom was, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he **reasoned ** with them from the Scriptures.” Likewise, Matthew continually appealed to Old Testament prophecies to contend that Jesus was the Messiah. (Some would retort – misguidedly, IMO – that Jesus never fulfilled any prophecies. Even if we grant that claim though, the point remains that Matthew did not expect his readers to simply believe without evidence. Rather, he strove to provide them with reasons for believing that Jesus was the Messiah.)
So yes, it’s certainly common for people to claim that faith means “believing with no evidence whatsoever,” but that’s not an accurate representation of what Christianity teaches.
No, I’m not talking about it as a synonym for religion in this case. I’m talking about the situation where people use “faith” as if it was their reason for believing certain things. They may feel they have some inner power that enables them to recognize the truth of certain claims or deep truths. They call this power “faith”. I am suggesting that the real reason they believe these claims is a combination of confidence in friends and authorities and believing what they wish were true.
To the extent that Christianity teaches that we ought to base beliefs on good evidence, I approve. As you say, it’s common for people to act as if faith works without evidence, and that’s what I’m concerned about.
I agree. The classic faith of Hebrews 11:1 does not have to mean acceptance without thinking, questioning, or considering available evidence. The unfortunate truth is that many believers, mainly Christians in this country, honor traditional beliefs above reason. When the evidence indicates a traditional belief may be incorrect they disregard the evidence and cry “faith” Read some books where they torture the scriptures, available evidence and logic to make it fit their belief. That is a stellar example of rationalization. It’s no surprise that “faith” has taken on such a rep.
it’s up to those that are willing to reason, and consider the evidence and actually promote truth over tradition to help redefine faith.
Then I’d suggest that you are confronting a very loose (or careless) usage of the word faith and are having the same problem as I am here. Perhaps it would help if you could point to an example of the usage you are describing.
Isn’t that essentially how it works for everybody? I understand the concern about groups gathering to feel they have some special access to divine power, but when you get right down to how humans function, isn’t it the same for nationalism, or any we vs. them mentality.
What’s “good” evidence? Much of religion and the spiritual journey is within and subjective. Certainly objective evidence should be factored in and sometimes isn’t, but some of it is just personal and can’t be demonstrated or justified externally.
Does it, or is that simply how you imagine or interpret it happening? Because while it bares a passing resemblance to actual conversations on the matter, it’s also more than a little canned to prove your point. I’m not sure what your point really is though: yes, skeptics can be sloppy and believers unclear about what they are talking about. I’m not sure what’s to debate about there. The question is not about the off cases, but the on cases.
Cite?
While true, consider the possibility that you could be at fault: you fail to define things, are extremely vague, and then seem to shift definitions mid argument and have it both ways left and right. Isn’t that a possibility as well for where the confusion comes from?
And if you are making the argument that the TRUTH all depends on how things are defined (and people just use irreconcilable definitions with no solution for it) then you are clearly wrong. Definitions are mere tools for communication. The truth of a matter NEVER rests on how something is defined: if someone feels that it does, then that is a pretty glaring warning sign that they might be equivocating somehow in their arguments (i.e. it relies not on rational premises, but rather causing a confusion in language)
The question though, is what the alternatives are, given what THEY say the revelation consisted of. I think most skeptics are demonstrably willing to at least work on the premise that the person is not insane or lying. But those don’t exhaust the possibilities of what’s going on aside from their interpretation being true. There is a HUGE realm of mistake, error, and misinterpretation still to deal with, and by and large, a LOT of human thinking (not just from believers, but from anyone living day to day who examines their own thinking and discovers that its often irrational and uninformed if care is not taken) falls into it.
I consider the usage loose, in fact I’m saying it’s based on a misconception. But I do think people use the word this way. It would be hard to find unambiguous examples, but definition 2 here is pretty much what I’m talking about: http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/f/f0018400.html .
Now I am talking about the reason the person thinks the belief is valid despite lack of evidence rather than the belief itself.
That’s true, it’s just that in the other cases the word “faith” isn’t usually invoked. My concern is that people sometimes use the word faith to avoid confronting the real reasons they believe what they do.
Normally good evidence is evidence that proves itself in practice. If we’re talking about internal/subjective issues, it’s hard to tell what’s good since we can’t independently test the conclusions. However we ought to be concerned if different people arrive at a variety of incompatible claims, as is often the case with subjective evidence.
truthpizza either you profoundly misunderstand the difference between feelings and thoughts, or you are deliberately trying to hold feelings to the same standards as thoughts in order to make yourself appear superior.
Either way, the discussion is at a dead end until you acknowledge that people don’t think their faith, they feel it. This doesn’t make them bad or unenlightened. It makes them human.
Of course, faith is a bad basis for public policy but that’s a whole other discussion.
Ambiguity is certainly the problem. Is belief used here as an expression of an individual, identifiable concept or is it a collective noun covering a cloud of hard to pin down ideas?
I was hoping you might point to an actual example of the sort of thing you would like to counter. I don’t think you’re defining your opposition well enough to either refute it or give compelling arguments for its existence.
Here’s a stab at what may be bothering you… Some people are comfortable in the realization that some of the ideas in their head, despite lack of evidence, hold inexplicable value for them. They will readily admit those ideas are unreasoned but hold them anyway. Believing is not a matter of choice, they just accept that they do. Guess what? We all do this at some level.
OK, lets consider that faith is about feelings. Perhaps someone feels that Allah wants him to kill American infidels. We might object and say he has no evidence that Allah actually wants him to do that. So he says he knows Allah wants that because of faith, and that faith is based on feelings. No doubt he does have strong feelings about the matter. Does that mean he didn’t get his belief from what he was told by other people? If he came to realize those other people didn’t know what they were talking about, might he not have less confidence in his belief? If we would like to get at the truth of the matter, wouldn’t it be helpful to recognize that his faith and feelings are not arbitrary but based on what others have told him?
I’m thinking of specific things like Jesus died for our sins or Allah wants me to kill infidels.
Your stab is pretty much on target. My hypothesis is, however, that though we might think there is no reason, there actually is one and they (or, to the extent that we’re all guilty, we) just don’t realize what it is.
Not necessarily so; quickly generating a strong yet unproven belief that that rustling in the grass ahead is actually a dangerous animal is an excellent survival mechanism.
A group may also improve its chances of survival if it can generate and sustain a subset of members who act on beliefs that are against their own self-interest, ones which in humans would be considered irrational. The example usually cited is the notion of a “sentry” member, one who prefers to live outside of but in the proximity of the herd. These sentries are more likely to be prey for predators, but their ability to alert the rest of the group to the presence and location of a predatory may give the rest of the group an evolutionary advantage (the alternative is the predatory is able to get close enough to a group without sentries to pick off 3 or 4 at a time). Religious belief may function in the same way; belief in religion itself may do the believer little or no good–and in fact may be detrimental to survival–but the fact that some members of the tribe are religious might impute indirect survival benefits on the group as a whole. Though clearly this is only theoretical, it does constitute an evolutionary rationale for the development of religion.
How do you intend to convince him that he hasn’t personally sensed the will of god, telling him through his feelings that the things he was taught are true? I know many theists who believe this has happened to them. I think most do.
I’ll leave this alone except to say I think somehow we’ve done a 180 on your definition of faith.
I’m sure we will better understand human cognition over time. I doubt there will be a single explanation for how various unsupported but valued beliefs are acquired. Your hypothesis may well be one answer. What we seem to know now is that our brains aren’t at all monolithic. Some parts of our brain process more analytically than others. I don’t think we should discount selected parts or, worse, sacrifice them on an altar to our own intellect.
Looking ahead though, I’ve got to wonder what your agenda is. The study of cognition certainly has great value and potential in its own right. But understanding causes because one wishes to eliminate the effects seems in this case, well, dangerous. Should we eliminate all unsupported beliefs? Where do we draw that line?