So, NiceGuyJack and I went ahead and turned Darqangelle’s innocent thread into an ugly debate between ourselves, so I figured I’d move it over here and get some other opinions on this.
Jack says that all faith is blind faith, which I take to mean that he feels if you believe in a god/deity, you’re ignoring the truth that things are just as science can prove them and that you’re taking an easy way out by saying that there’s something more, thus closing yourself off to the “truth.” What this truth is, I don’t know, so Jack, please, fill me in here.
I say that a lot of people who come to thier beliefs and faith in a god/diety/religion go through a lot of searching, explore the possibilities, don’t just take everything that’s given to them and accept it, and through their own interpretations and life experiences, make a decision as to what’s right and then choose to follow that. To me, that’s anything but blind. Closing yourself off to the presence of a higher being simply because science doesn’t have sufficient (or in this case, pretty much any) evidence is turning a blind eye to the fact that science can’t prove everything, especially something like the existance of a spiritual presence that exists outside of science.
A lot of this comes over the term “blind faith.” To Jack, it seems that means any faith in a higher being. To me, it means accepting what someone tells you as the end all be all without actually looking at what’s being said and searching for the truth yourself. For example, if someone were to tell a someone else that “God hates Jews,” and they went and lived a portion of their lives focussed around that belief solely from that statement without thinking simple thoughts like "Wait, aren’t the Jews God’s “Chosen People?” and “Wasn’t Jesus a Jew?” To me, that’s blind faith, and i’m sorry, but although a lot of people do practice that, it’s not the majority.
So, seeing as how I’ve gone on long enough, what’s your opinion? Is all faith “blind”? And this is open to people of all faiths, let’s not just get stuck on Christianity again.
nice one.
I suppose my faith could be described as blind regarding the absence of scientific proof of a deity, but how can you be blind to something that doesn’t exist?
But I’m not just believing something that I know isn’t true because I read it someplace and decided it was a nice comforting idea, no, it was based on substantial personal (subjective) experience, now i could blind myself to that and force myself to accept that there’s no tangible reason for my faith, but what would be the point of that?
Hmm, it might be fun to jump in here-- here’s my two cents.
Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. If I hold something behind my back, it doesn’t suddenly vanish into thin air–it’s still there, you just can’t see it. Did America not exist before Columbus, or the Vikings, or whoever found it?
Just because we cannot see God doesn’t mean He is not there. It just means we haven’t invented the scientific instrument that can detect Him yet. Believing in a higher power is not blind faith unless it closes your eyes (and mind) to rational consideration of the world around you. If you think that all the questions are already answered, then you have a problem. If you act as though you don’t have all the answers, but are willing to fly by what you already know and hope for more details later, that’s faith.
To me, anyway.
A newborn baby needs to learn the concept of “Object Permanance” - that an object that is out of sight continues to exist (which is why “Peek-a-boo” is such a fun game; you keep popping in and out of existence (from the baby’s perspective), which is really quite a neat trick) - which only develops around age 2 (IIRC).In the same way, as we grow and develop, out understanding and appreciation of the world around us, seen and unseen; and learn to appreciate that not everything can be see directly; some things need to be seen by the effects that they produce instead. (e.g. the wind, bubble chambers, etc) So it is with God - we cannot measure Him directly, so we must look for His effects in the world around us.
“Blind” faith is a faith that persists in spite of evidence to the contrary - but faith in a loving, personal God seldom exists without some form of evidence. The problem that non-theists have is that the evidence that is acceptable to me is subjective and not “scientific”. IMHO this does not make it any the less evidence. For me, the evidence that led me to faith was seeing the effects of God in the lives of my friends. They had a faith in God and it made their lives richer and fuller, and that led me to encounter God for myself, and that has made my life richer and fuller. I see the effects of God in the world each day, along with the effects of Mankind (unfortunately)…
I guess that a non-theist would say that they see no evidence for any god - to me, this is a reflection of their level of awareness at this point in their lives.
Gp
Thank you ** El Elvis Rojo** for relaying my position on this. I hope you will allow me to clarify.
First, all though I have personally rejected the possibility of a creator or some being who pull our strings, I am open to the possibility of some additional dimensions in the universe. I am also open to the possibility that the brain may have powers beyond what we know today. I’m open to all kinds of ideas.
However, I will only entertain these ideas as theories or science fiction until the evidence is there to support it. If I believed a theory to be fact without evidence, then I have accepted this “fact” blindly.
In a religious context for those individuals fortunate enough to be allowed to soul search, a conclusion is reached based on theories (presented as facts) by self appointed representatives of some religion or another as well as your own interpretation of said religious doctrine. All the evidence in question are theories. To accept these theories as fact requires faith. Ergo faith, in this context, must be blind.
None, I think the point of the OP is not to question your faith, but rather is faith by its very definition blind.
We can’t see air, but we know it’s there and consists of nitrogen and oxygen.
We know that when we inhale, our lungs absorb the oxygen and release carbon dioxide when we exhale. This is fact, no faith required. These facts were discovered by scientists thirsty for knowledge. Similarly, the Americas were discovered by explorers despite the church’s “fact” that the earth was flat. The explorers were testing faith as they new them in their time.
Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary defines “faith” as follows:
It is possible to have faith in your own abilities, after all, you know yourself best.
I think the OP is more directed towards definitions 2 and 3.
Allow me to reword your concluding statement as I think it should read.
If you know you don’t have the answer, and you are willing to test a theory even if the result may disappoint, that’s determination.
I’m reminded of an early Simpson’s episode where Bart and Lisa are sent to Sunday school.
After a barrage of questions from Bart and Lisa, the Sunday school teacher finally exclaimed: “Is it too much to ask for a little blind faith?”
Jack
But NiceGuyJack, isn’t it possible to be open to all ideas and yet still have a belief about them one way or another - pending scientific evidence, of course? It doesn’t seem likely that we will ever be able to scientifically prove the existence or absence of God, so to what are we blinding ourselves if we choose to have an opinion one way or another? I think most intelligent people who believe in God would admit that there is no scientific evidence to prove his existence and that they cannot know that his existence is a fact. Those who wouldn’t might be guilty of blind faith.
Also, to reach a conclusion based on theories does not necessarily entail acceptance of those theories as fact. Perhaps those particular theories just seem more reasonable or likely to you than the alternative theories.
What do you think?
One thing that has changed for me over the years is this. I used to be certain about everything and now I’m not so sure!
I do feel comfortable… very comfortable about my faith. I feel sure about many issues for which there is no scientific proof. As grimpixie put it… I was blind and now I see. (Good line for a song that. 
)
Experience tells me also, that even when there appears to be incontrovertible evidence for something… it might not be true! Something comes along later that adjusts the truth of it.
In that case, I’d say ‘blind faith’ is certainly blind (by definition), but ‘faith’ (not prefixed by ‘blind’) needn’t be.
Hmmm.
A hypothetical example for you:
Suppose we have a thoughtful poster, a college student, whose parents died when he was small, and who has been raised and put through college by his grandmother. Now, grandma is well-to-do, wise, and loving, and he is very close to her. But she is along in years, and somewhat set in her ways, and refuses to become part of the Internet.
This student trusts her more than any other human being. But he cannot prove her existence to us with whom he communicates via these boards and e-mail; we have only his statement about how wonderful she is.
Is he guilty of “blind faith” in our eyes?
This is precisely the stance I take with regard to God. Having had experience of Him that validates what has been historically said of Him, I have faith in Him.
It is no more blind than is that of the hypothetical student in his grandmother.
Can others share in my evidence? No, but they can find their own. Just as anyone questioning whether he is prejudiced as regards his valuation of his grandmother, or even if she exists, can research the matter out.
But you can’t find her online. And you can’t find Him by logic or the scientific method.
Polycarp, could you imagine having experiences which would invalidate what has been historically said of God? (I don’t mean necessarily realistic experiences, I’m including improbable and even physically impossible experiences.) Is your belief in God as firm as the student’s belief in his grandmother, and if so, has it always been that way or did your experiences strengthen your belief?
Yes, to all your questions.
In posting that, I was attempting to distinguish between a sense of trust in someone known to exist, my definition of faith, and the rather abstract sense of adhering to a set of beliefs for which one cannot provide objective proof, the apparent definition of faith when modified by “blind.”
Let me see.
We have a couple of people using the “God of the gaps” argument and a couple of others using some sort of religious experience as evidence.
First of all how can a person assume the existence of something for which there is no evidence? I can just easily assert the existence of Umguf the Purple with Pink Polka Dots Unicorn. Why is that people think I’m crazy if I assert that, but accepts the Abrahamic god when somebody else asserts that, while none can present any evidence?
Secondly, how can subjective experience be a substitution for objective evidence? How can a person verify whether this experience is of the outside world or it is simply a fragment of his own imagination?
But we do that all the time anyway, don’t we? Frankly, if I saw what appeared to be a vision of God descending from the Heavens I would probably assume that I was going mad. But I often see bizarre or unusual sights and even have semi-psychic experiences from time to time which I do not attribute to madness or an overly-vivid imagination.
It isn’t really fair to say that there’s no evidence of the Abrahamic god, there’s just evidence of questionable reliability…
First off, I hope you’re not being sarcastic, I tried to get accross what you said as best I could, so I hope I did you justice. Thank you for coming back and clarrifying your views. I have a few more questions for you, and everyone to help get a bit more insight into your thoughts.
Here’s the big question: what defines “evidence”? Is this hard, physical evidence, or theoretical evidence? A lot of people say there is no hard, physical evidence to support a God, yet many believers claim that their holy books are evidence enough. Okay, it’s tough to argue for or against in either case, because one can say it’s literal, one can say it’s figurative, and niether will bend. But why can’t such texts be literal? I admit the Bible has a lot of parable stories in it (Two creation stories, WTF?), but there is also a lot of history in it (i.e. King David’s life. Much of his story is simply what he did, the wars he faught, and how he lived his life and how it effected the people of Israel. God has some mention in there, but overall, it’s history). What prevents this from holding some semblance of historical fact? Books and schools teach a lot of things about ancient civilizations and wars and presnt these things as “factual,” even though the writings and teachings are based very little on the hard evidence found and more on speculation and, if it exists, written documents that may or may not be factual.
One question presented in defense of things one can’t see but believe without physical evidence is the presence of love. “I know I love my mom, but I can’t prove it, I just feel it.” You can’t prove you love someone, much more, you can’t prove someone loves you. How do you know your parent(s)/SO love you? Is it through the things they do, the things they buy you, or what? How do you “prove” your mom loves you? You can’t, you just “know” she does.
Okay, so love’s a tricky one because it’s an emotion, and as far as I know, science has never bothered to try and proove love exists. What about “Dark matter,” you know, the stuff scientists claim is why space is black. Scientists can’t see it, they can’t prove it exists, but many of them belive it’s there. There are tons of equations and theories about how black holes work and effect light and time and matter, yet science, to my knowledge, has not found a single black hole. We’ve found places where light bends for some unexplained reason, and make assumptions that it’s due to a black hole, but so far, there is no “hard evidence” that such things exist. All the information science has on black holes is based off of theory, but many go ahead and call it fact. That’s the thing with science: theories cannot be proven, only disproven. How can you use something that can’t prove anything as a foundation of saying “It doesn’t prove Vishnu exists, thus Vishnu doesn’t exist”? Man that was a lot of words for such a simple question.
Jack, I look forward to a response, and if you know of anyone who agrees with your views, please draw them in here. We actaully seem to have a good number of believers, but we need more non-theists’ point of views for a good debate.
What about if that subjective experience of God is found to be as consistently reliable and useful (when applied personally, I mean) as objective evidence would be in support of something more mundane?
Do I have to reject subjective evidence just because it doesn’t fit into a scheme that I don’t expect it to fit into anyway? (I don’t expect science to discover God at any time in the future)
What about if the subjective evidence isn’t at conflict with any existing objective evidence? You’re not saying that you have objective evidence for the non-existence of God are you? (If you do have it, our friend **Çyrin ** would be grateful of your contribution in this thread: Can Someone prove to me that God doesn’t exist?)
There is quite literally a bookful of evidence of God’s existence.
The problem is that, taken outside the context of a faith tradition, it has strong resemblances to other cultures’ myths, legends, and legendary histories.
If you care to say, “you can’t prove it to my satisfaction,” that’s fine.
Saying there is no evidence is like saying that there is no evidence for U.F.O.'s. The Air Force and others have accumulated extensive reports of U.F.O. sightings, which are valid. That is, they recorded evidence of sightings of flying objects which were not at the time identified.
Does this prove that “flying saucers exist”? Hell, no. But until every single U.F.O. becomes an I.F.O., there remain sightings of U.F.O.'s.
Okay?
Subjective evidence is of course subject to the putative veracity or lack thereof of the person giving it. I would guess that this is a primary reason why hearsay evidence is rejected in most court proceedings.
How much credence you put on quasi-legendary historical evidence or subjective evidence depends more on your own mindset than on any objective validity it may have.
Mangetout covered very well, IMHO, the grounds for accepting or rejecting one’s subjective impressions.
To answer this I may have to provide an opinion, which may not be agreeable to everyone.
When I look at religion, I look at it from the outside. I look at it historically and I look at it critically. I have found it near impossible to argue a position with some one who has faith as I am going up against someone who has arguments presented as facts without any evidence. These kinds of debates are impossible. If I present something like historical evidence, it is summarily rejected as something from the past and not applicable for today. If the acceptable norms of the day change, so does religion to fit those norms. The lack of facts is very convenient to shrug the responsibilities of the past. Religion, especially Christian and Muslim religions, has effectively been used as a tool to control the population. It also allowed for justifiable killing. It kept people ignorant and therefore poor. Faith was a powerful thing and leaders from the past and present know how to tap into this and use it to their advantage.
I agree with you here. As long as you accept a conclusion as based on a theory, you can entertain such ideas as theories until proven right or wrong.
Polycarp, humans have been around for roughly 100,000 years (based on carbon date testing of oldest human remains discovered), in the entire human history we know that every single human being had at least one grandmother and more likely two.
We know grandmothers exist. That is a fact. So when college student describes his grandmother over the Internet, there is no reason to doubt him. We trust him to tell the truth. If we find out later that he is a chronic liar, we would probably be more skeptical of the guyfs stories.
Now lets take your stance on God and lets compare it to grandmothers. Grandmothers have been around since the dawn of mankind at least for 100,000 years. I think we can firmly conclude as fact that grandmothers exist. God in the Christian form has been around for 2,000 years or roughly 2% of the time since man started walking on earth.
Okay you may argue that the Old Testament goes back further. So for the sake of argument there is currently no modern religion practiced today which is older than 5000 years. Thatfs 5% of manfs time on earth. Thatfs an awful short time. Youfd think hefd made himself known a lot earlier wouldnft you? Youfd have to have blind faith to believe.
I agree that history is very often written as fact even though they are very often based on journals and writings of humans of the past. Too often these stories only show a one sided story of events. Ifm sure everyone has heard the saying history is written by the victorious. I think most historians accept that they might not be able to obtain complete facts, but archeology has been able to support and some times confirm an event that took place in the past.
I think I have already mentioned the human brain. Scientists are still puzzled by this organ. However, there is a lot of research going on to figure out how it works. Perhaps one day, this research will provide an answer to what makes people love.
The black hole theory is just that, a theory. Until it has been proven or disproven, it will only be a theory. If a theory is plausible, it is often accepted as convincing theory and scientist may work on such assumptions, yet however plausible a theory is, it will still only remain a theory until the evidence is provided.
I have based my conclusion on historical accounts of religion, not to mention the diversity of it. There is a great similarity between folklore and religion, the difference is that people in power as a tool to control their subjects have manipulated religion.
Churches, mosques and temples were built to honor these supreme beings, in reality these houses of worship were a source of income and a way to effectively indoctrinate the population. Why should I believe in Vishnu when he has provided no evidence of existence. Knowing also that the story of Vishnu originated from one imaginative mind makes it additionally more difficult to take as fact. Therefore, I would absolutely require blind faith to take Vishnufs existence as fact.
Jack
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by NiceGuyJack *
**
I understand what you mean about arguments with people of faith. But as far as arguments about the existence or non-existence of God are concerned, their futility is not due to the refusal of the faithful to accept contrary evidence. There is no scientific, objective, definitive evidence proving that God either does or does not exist. So it is not surprising that such debates are impossible. It does seem, however, that some religious people are unwilling to reasonably discuss controversial aspects of their religious teachings. In such cases I feel that these people may be guilty of blind devotion to their religion.
I agree with you about the use of religion as a tool to manipulate people, particularly the uneducated lower classes, and to keep them ignorant. But most religions originally gained popularity among the impoverished classes as they emphasised the worth of a person beyond the value of his material possessions. Religions have been abused by political and military leaders, but they are not necessarily responsible for the success of those leaders. While Islam may be the motivation Usama bin Laden uses to get his suicide bombers going, the Japanese kamikazi fighter pilots in World War II were prompted by nationalist, rather than religious, propaganda.
I certainly think that most religious people are guilty of blind faith. Most people tend to follow the same faith that their parents followed. This seems to me to indicate that most people do not question their faith very much, and also, that faith is in many cases simply part of cultural tradition. However, I think that religious faith, or faith in the existence of God, is not by definition blind.