# Triskadecamus got me to thinking about faith **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2007, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383 "2007-05-09T13:45:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/41 "2007-05-10T09:49:58Z")
[QUOTE=hotflungwok] How do you know that god is supernatural? [/QUOTE] Well, I already answered that. I know that a bachelor is unmarried because of how bachelor is defined. Maybe you could clear up why you think God would be a part of nature, and for that matter, whether you mean something different from “God” when you say “god”. > [@MEBuckner](#): > > Liberal, please keep this sort of rhetoric out of Great Debates. I had thought that a gentle metaphor might be better than using the term “thread-shitting”. I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/42 "2007-05-10T09:55:02Z")
[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I] But a miracle ceases to be a miracle the moment the mechanism behind it can be understood. Therefore, there are no miracles. [/QUOTE] I’m not so sure about that. Even the most ardent materialist would likely characterize the ad hoc changing of water into wine as a miracle, knowing the quantum odds of it happening, and even knowing that Jesus did it by forcing the collapse of amazing numbers of amazingly improbable variables. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/43 "2007-05-10T11:45:53Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I’m not so sure about that. Even the most ardent materialist would likely characterize the ad hoc changing of water into wine as a miracle, knowing the quantum odds of it happening, and even knowing that Jesus did it by forcing the collapse of amazing numbers of amazingly improbable variables. [/QUOTE] Ardent materialist here. Claiming he pulled off the water to wine thing by forcing those collapses only moves the problem back a step. I’d then want to know how the collapse forcing was accomplished. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/44 "2007-05-10T11:57:14Z")
Forgot to add… I think this is a step in the very direction your OP meant to avoid, **Liberal**. Introducing a little bit a reason only invites expectations for more. It’s the camel’s nose under the tent. Best to keep miracles completely miraculous. Best to keep logic out of faith. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/45 "2007-05-10T12:15:36Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] Conveyed? Really? Doesn’t that confine it? Someone (here, I think) posted a wonderful post about how words are utterly inadequate to describe so many things…do you really feel that everything can be conveyed? [/quote] Not with perfect fidelity, but pretty much, yeah. You should be able to give me some sense of what you’re talking about, or there is no way of knowing that we are talking about the same thing. Perhaps you are calling “being moved by the spirit of God” what I call “dyspepsia.” If you tell me that it is _not_ dyspepsia, you’ve conveyed information that helps to define it. Pretending that you cannot describe it whatsoever to anyone else is a dodge. > [@Zoe](#): > > Remember Maslow’s characteristics of “peak experiences”? Not really. I suppose they haven’t had much utility over the last few decades. > [@Zoe](#): > > One of them was that a peak experience has the quality of ineffiability – It would be difficult or impossible to describe adequately in words. …and perhaps that is why. > [@](#): > > Here’s a more common parallel: Can you imagine being able to convey conversationally with any success the sensations and feelings that are experienced during an orgasm? If you are talking with a totally inexperienced person, there is just no way to describe what it is like. My son, who is in 6th grade, had his first detailed sex education class last fall. He told me that they described what he referred to as “the procedure” as “generally pleasurable” or something to that effect. Does he have a perfect description of an orgasm? No. But he already has information about what it is and is not like. A few more simple bits of information will expand that understanding markedly. A counter-example: I could never know what another person’s depression is exactly like. But we’ve been able to describe a useful construct of Depression that has been fairly well studied for many years. It seems like some have interpreted what I said to mean that we can convey to others a perfect representation of what we can conceive. I don’t think this is ever true of anything. The point was whether we can convey _anything_, or enough to be the subject of discussion or debate. I think, for example, that I could discuss and debate whether “orgasms” have the quality of being “generally pleasurable.” ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/46 "2007-05-10T12:28:17Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Would it change your approach here to learn that I am an atheist? I’m not talking about external meanings and, as I read it, neither is **Liberal** ’s OP. The OP is talking about talking about external meanings. (Or, from your perspective and mine, the lack thereof.) [/QUOTE] No, it wouldn’t. We aren’t talking about atheism, but about how processing of emotions and cognitions occurs. Why we are doing so remains unclear to me. I would point out that there is a great deal more evidence than one Greene study that has been available for years that emotional processing involves primarily different parts of the brain than cognitions. On the other hand, I’ve tried to point out that the brain is massively interconnected, and that our perceptions and experiences that arise from the distributed tasks of the brain are much more cohesive and whole than the discrete elements of the brain that go into making them up. For example, the frontal lobes are much more involved in “cognitive” activities, such as problem-solving, planning, place-keeping, organizing… Yet damage to them can have significant effects on one’s experiences, see Phineas Gage or orbital undercutting for example. I think we agree that some topics or content areas involve more or less emotional content than others. My point remains that this does not mean anything in terms of discussing or debating these issues. ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/47 "2007-05-10T12:34:53Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] I think, for example, that I could discuss and debate whether “orgasms” have the quality of being “generally pleasurable.” [/QUOTE] But how could you even come close? What ‘generally pleasurable’ means for you could be vastly different from what it means for me. I truly don’t think it’s even possible to come up with enough words to convey even a vague approximation of some experiences. > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by Zoe > One of them was that a peak experience has the quality of ineffiability – It would be difficult or impossible to describe adequately in words. I love the word ‘ineffable’. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/48 "2007-05-10T12:54:09Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] I think we agree that some topics or content areas involve more or less emotional content than others. My point remains that this does not mean anything in terms of discussing or debating these issues. [/QUOTE] Yes, you seem quite adamant that discussing and debating are essentially the same thing. I disagree. However, I am pleased to hear that you do not see this hijack being about theism vs. atheism. I thought we might be straying from the OP’s position that debating faith is contrary to faith where discussing (conveying) it is not. If, as it seems, you hold that there isn’t “some meaningful distinction” between communications aimed at cognitive versus emotional reception, then perhaps a new thread would be in order. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/49 "2007-05-10T13:02:22Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Yes, you seem quite adamant that discussing and debating are essentially the same thing. [/quote] I’m quite sure I haven’t said any such thing. I do believe that if something can be discussed, there is no reason it couldn’t be debated. > [@](#): > > If, as it seems, you hold that there isn’t “some meaningful distinction” between communications aimed at cognitive versus emotional reception, then perhaps a new thread would be in order. I’m not interested enough in the topic to start a thread about it. It seems important to you, though, so go for it! ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/50 "2007-05-10T13:15:27Z")
[QUOTE=Hentor the Barbarian] [QUOTE=the PC apeman] Yes, you seem quite adamant that discussing and debating are essentially the same thing. [/quote] I’m quite sure I haven’t said any such thing. I do believe that if something can be discussed, there is no reason it couldn’t be debated. > [@](#): > > If, as it seems, you hold that there isn’t “some meaningful distinction” between communications aimed at cognitive versus emotional reception, then perhaps a new thread would be in order. I’m not interested enough in the topic to start a thread about it. It seems important to you, though, so go for it! [/QUOTE] Then perhaps we’ve had a simple misunderstanding and have been chasing shadows, starting here… **PC:** No debate, I think, is Liberal’s point. But discussion is easy. Think poetry, not math. **HtB:** This idea that there is some meaningful distinction between anything that involves communication between people is a false one. **PC:** I disagree. Human neurology isn’t so monolithic. … ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/51 "2007-05-10T13:52:02Z")
Look, I came here for a discussion, not a debate. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/52 "2007-05-10T13:53:25Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] Look, I came here for a discussion, not a debate. [/QUOTE] No you didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/53 "2007-05-10T14:47:41Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Ardent materialist here. Claiming he pulled off the water to wine thing by forcing those collapses only moves the problem back a step. I’d then want to know how the collapse forcing was accomplished. [/QUOTE] Me, too. But in all likelihood, His answer would be that He did it with faith, and that we could do [even more than He](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=50&chapter=14&verse=12&version=31&context=verse). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/54 "2007-05-10T14:57:26Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] I think this is a step in the very direction your OP meant to avoid, **Liberal**. Introducing a little bit a reason only invites expectations for more. It’s the camel’s nose under the tent. Best to keep miracles completely miraculous. Best to keep logic out of faith. [/QUOTE] I do understand what you’re saying. But I don’t think Tris meant — and I would certainly not consider — abandoning all reason even in matters of faith. It’s only with respect to God’s reality in my life that reason fails, and that’s simply because God is real. For me, after long meditation on Tris’s post, it breaks down this way: empiricism is for examining what is physical; logic is for examining what is imaginable; and life itself is for examining what is real, i.e., God. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/55 "2007-05-10T15:42:48Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] I do understand what you’re saying. But I don’t think Tris meant — and I would certainly not consider — abandoning all reason even in matters of faith. It’s only with respect to God’s reality in my life that reason fails, and that’s simply because God is real. For me, after long meditation on Tris’s post, it breaks down this way: empiricism is for examining what is physical; logic is for examining what is imaginable; and life itself is for examining what is real, i.e., God. [/QUOTE] I agree. (Except for that last little bit.😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/56 "2007-05-10T16:01:36Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] Well, I already answered that. I know that a bachelor is unmarried because of how bachelor is defined. Maybe you could clear up why you think God would be a part of nature, and for that matter, whether you mean something different from “God” when you say “god”. [/QUOTE] If by ‘part of nature’ you mean part of the natural world and therefore measurable, then I think that God would have to be. If God interacts with this world, changes things in it, affects it somehow, then it can measured. The effect can be shown to be because of god and not some other thing. Prayer, miracles, signs, spiritual experiences, etc are all supposedly god interacting with this world. If you can show that a miracle was god’s doing, and not something else, then it can be measured. Basically, if God is going to affect this world, then he has to be part of it and not purely supernatural. If he can’t affect this world, then he can’t do miracles, can’t answer prayers, and really isn’t ‘God’. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/57 "2007-05-10T16:20:59Z")
[QUOTE=Liberal] For me, after long meditation on Tris’s post, it breaks down this way: empiricism is for examining what is physical; logic is for examining what is imaginable; and life itself is for examining what is real, i.e., God. [/QUOTE] Is there any empirical way to examine hallucinations? ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/58 "2007-05-10T19:05:09Z")
I suppose, since my name is in the thread title, I should post at least a brief clarification of my position on debate and faith. I certainly don’t feel that faith prohibits debate, although it surely limits its significance. Illogical assertions about the intent or opinion of Christ, or God, or theologians are certainly reasonably refuted by logic, and even the dreaded rhetoric. I simply don’t feel that one can substitute belief, or knowledge freely in such a discussion with the concept of faith. My statement from which the OP proceeded was not that proof by rational and logical argument that God exists was impossible, or even unreasonable. I simply fear that it is undesirable for entirely . . . well, ethical reasons. Faith does not preclude reason, but the pragmatic reality is that faith can be lost to intellectual argument. Whether such a thing is desirable is an ethical judgment I do not wish to make on behalf of another person. (This is what argument is, fundamentally. I find my opinion more desirable than yours, so I try to show you that my opinion is superior.) In objectivist philosophy, facts are the ultimate authority. I don’t have much argument with objectivism in the physical universe. I simply don’t believe that it encompasses all reality. I see it as harming you, if I try to replace your faith in the Lord, with some sort of intellectual proof, or logical refutation. I know, and experience the blessing of faith. Faith itself has meaning, and it is one that I cannot give to you. All that I can do is to live according to that faith, according to my desire to be what the Lord wants me to be, and I don’t believe that He wants me to be a religious leader. If you have no faith in God, then I cannot offer you proof in its place. That would be dishonest. Worse, I think it would be evil. If the proof satisfies you, you might not seek faith, and it is by your faith that God will work. I also think I should acknowledge that I am aware of the intellectual ethereality of my “argument.” In fact, that is the reason I generally don’t get into debates about faith. My comments are generally limited to . . . well, butterflies. It would be dishonest to pretend that I am not trying to present my faith in a public forum in hopes that doing so will bring someone a glimpse of something that is the greatest aspect of my life. But I am not trying to convince anyone that I am right, or good, or . . . well really much of anything but one more foolish man, contemplating the infinite. Someone in one of the old, and very good discussion about faith was very frustrated when I admitted that my faith, from my own perspective doesn’t really need to be correct. I don’t mind being the fool. Intellectually, I have examined what I perceive to be God, and found that if there is no God, then what I thought God was is so great, so good, and so glorious a thing, that I could never break faith with Him simply because he didn’t exist. Since I have no intellectual understanding of oblivion or paradise, it has no argumentative importance either. Living a life that reflects my faith seems to me to be the best choice, even if it means I will try to be as God wants me to be simply because I am deluded, or stupid. Or both. ## Tris “We have met the enemy and it is us.” ~ Walt Kelly, **Pogo** ~ ---
**Author:** ![Stalky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b782af/32.png) [@Stalky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stalky)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/59 "2007-05-10T20:23:49Z")
As far as I can tell the word “Faith” represents a concept that is so close to meaningless as makes no difference. The only thing that even lends credence to the concept of “Faith” is an appeal to popularity. Most of the world’s human population uses “belief without rationale” to cover some area of their overall belief, either some area that they have been inoculated (by religious institution, ect.) not to inspect with reason, or some area that they have not applied the time to truly inspect. It seems that as a placeholder for future study and knowledge “Faith” may have some redeeming qualities but where the value of faith is to make certain concepts immune to conversational and empirical pressure it is a disgraceful and abused tool. For example, as a child of 8 if I take my parents religious beliefs on faith for the time being and act as if they are true because I lack the necessary tools to dissect those beliefs at that time, that faith can be beneficial. It prevents me from entering into a debate that I am not equipped for that would be unlikely to have any useful result. If I use the same strategy as a fully intellectually equipped adult, however, it points to an extreme lack of motivation to understand the world around me and points to intellectual dishonesty on a very basic level. Why you would place high value and heap praises on such a concept eludes me. The discussion of how it transcends knowledge, and how it has a value that applied reason and knowledge somehow diminishes, is entirely rediculous. Since faith in this sense can be seen as opposing reason it’s reasonable to assume that the word, as you are using it, is at least partially synonymous with ignorance. I would hardly trumpet that to the mountaintops as a lauded virtue or value. I’d be interested to get maybe a more condensed and focused explaination of why “Faith” has some sort of innate value and is not synonymous with ignorance… ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383/60 "2007-05-10T23:01:35Z")
**Stalky** , Here is the basic difference between our philosophies. > [@Stalky](#): > > Since faith in this sense can be seen as opposing reason it’s reasonable to assume that the word, as you are using it, is at least partially synonymous with ignorance. I would hardly trumpet that to the mountaintops as a lauded virtue or value. [QUOTE=Me] . . . the pragmatic reality is that faith can be lost to intellectual argument. Whether such a thing is desirable is an ethical judgment I do not wish to make on behalf of another person. [/quote] Tris [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/triskadecamus-got-me-to-thinking-about-faith/403383.md?page=4)