“virtually all”, not all. By trying to be as precise as possible, you acknowledge that there could be some (tiny, tiny) fringe evidence that supports a 6,000 year old Earth.
“accepted scientific evidence” – you open the door to disputes about what is accepted and what is scientific, along with the question of why should science take precedence over all other forms of human ideas and knowledge.
“incredibly unrealistic” is not, itself, a scientific evaluation, but an epistemological one. Who’s to say what is “unrealistic”. Also, the root meaning of the word “incredibly” comes from belief, so of course it’s unbelievable, because you don’t believe.
Main point is that the faith-based belief, itself, is not falsfied, and cannot be falsified, as long as the evidence is interepreted within the context of that belief.
The links that I provided offer a detailed explanation of how science attempts to overcome the built-in biases of existing beliefs.
Not sure if this has moved the discussion much further than my previous post.
I think we’ve already gone over this is post 177. If your point is to be more precise by strict interpretation then just say that. It’s so much easier.
Your own link contains this,
Isn’t that an acknowledgment that the principle indicates beyond reasonable doubt but not completely undeniably false? Isn’t that what I said about hose two particular beliefs.
At some point we{society} need to have some common ground to communicate with each other. Standards of evidence and what is a reasonable conclusion will vary somewhat but when concerning objective objects it can’t be completely up for grabs.
FTR, If a sweet little ole lady who is kind to all was raised as a traditionalist and wants to believe the earth is 6000 years old and the Bible is the inerrant word of God I have no real issue with that. The problem is that belief systems do impact our society in various ways. People are trying to force their religious beliefs into our schools as fact. People are using their belief in a 2000 year old book to justify their bigotry. Challenging those beliefs is a moral obligation.
Perhaps the section I bolded contains what I seem to be missing.
IMO religious beliefs about our shared objective reality do not get a pass just because they are faith based. I suppose that’s why I can’t understand what you’re saying about them being unfalsifiable. That seems to open the possibility that anybody can believe anything about our shared objective reality and it’s untouchable if it’s a religious belief. I simply don’t agree.
Well, the possiblity already exists that anybody can believe anything about reality. Not sure what you mean by “shared”, although I realize that it’s related to this:
I said nothing about a religious belief being “untouchable”. It seems that your argument is socio-political whereas mine is epistemlogical.
I think that the issue is still with the word “falsifiable” – you are viewing it from the perspective of the person who is attempting to falsify the belief, whereas I’m talking about the person *who holds the belief * that is being questioned.
IOW, you (as the falsifier) think that you’ve falsfied my belief, whereas I say that you haven’t. And I can continue to say that, truthfully, because I don’t accept your intepretation of the evidence. In fact, I will never accept any intepretation of any evidence that violates my faith-based beliefs. It’s impossible. Can’t be done. Just go home because you’re wasting my time and your time. :dubious:
Scientists, on the other hand, are supposed to be open to having their hypotheses and theories falsified. In fact, according to various philosophers of science, a theory isn’t scientific unless it is, at least in principle, subject to being falsified. (In practice, though, scientists can be very resistant to accepting evidence that seems to falsify their theories.)
Religious beliefs, though, are not falsifiable, i.e. the person holding the belief will not, cannot accept even the possibility that there is evidence that contradicts that belief, and will reject all interpretations that “claim to falsify” it. But (in symmetry with scientists), various religious believers, have indeed accepted those interpretations and have, as a result, “lost their faith”. Sometimes, though, they have reinterpreted their faith to be consistent with new evidence, while still keeping various “core” beliefs.
Anyway, I think your analysis is excellent. I agree with your argument and I like your definition of faith, namely: “firm belief in something for which there is no compelling evidence.” In fact, I’ve often said that I don’t believe in god(s) because I have not seen any compelling evidence for the existence of god(s).
But, my point in this thread is that faith is still based on *some * evidence rather than on *no * evidence. Also, there’s a problem with introducing the word “compelling”.
It seems to me that “compelling” is something that is determined only after the evidence is accepted. IOW, there is no evidence that is compelling a priori. The evidence can (and often is) interpreted in many different ways, and, at some point, there is a imperfect consensus. (Even Supreme Court justices disagree, right?)
In simple terms, what is compelling to you might not be compelling to me. I then think that you are basing your conclusion on faith, whereas you think that faith has nothing to do with it.
I know that you addressed the definition of “compelling evidence” in your post, but I think that it needs some fleshing out. Here’s an example: Is there compelling evidence that the Earth revolves around the Sun? It seems to me that, for the average person, the acceptance of heliocentrism involves some leaps of faith. (I had prepared an extended analogy, but I think I’ll save it for later, if needed.)
What if it’s a few million persons, or, even, almost everyone you know? And, do you rely exclusively on your own direct observations? Have you independently tested all scientific and historical claims? Unless you’ve directly observed something, are you not relying on the testimony of others? Often, are we not evaluating the credibility of the testimony rather than the physical evidence itself? (And we’re accepting drawings, photographs, video, and other recordings as reliable.) And, are we not interpreting the testimony within a broader context of our own knowledge, experiences and beliefs? How do we know that we are right? Or more precisely, how do I know that I am right when you say that I am wrong? (Maybe I’m alwrong … )
That does indeed help explain your position. I agree thats how things are. I think the shift that we are hoping for is that over time , perhaps generations, religious groups do not feel quite so free to reject common evidence and treat it like it doesn’t matter. Indeed we see that happening now as people shuffle semantics and try to rephrase creationism into intelligent design to make it widely acceptable. Bogus religious researchers use ridiculous or non existent studies to justify their bigotry.
I hope I’ve been clear as well. I have no interest in intervening to try and falsify someones beliefs just for the sake of being right. I honor and even revere each persons individual journey. It is only the actions born of those beliefs that makes challenging those beliefs not only justifiable but a moral obligation.
Whatever my beliefs or theirs if we are to share this society, this world then the we must answer for the beliefs we hold that affect the lives of others.
What does this mean exactly? It is true that a creationist, say, can "refute"all evidence by saying God made it that way. If by context of belief you mean that they don’t have to be self-consistent, then sure. But it’s been stated that faith does not involve going against existing evidence. Do you reject this, since with enough faith you can find an alternate explanation for any piece of evidence? Where would you draw the line between faith and dishonesty or ignorance?
You asked about the motivations of creationists. Some might be ignorant of the facts, and would rather believe what their church tells them. Some might be incapable of learning and understanding the facts. Some may be dishonest, making good money off of creationism . Some might think that the greater good of God justifies lying. It doesn’t matter, since by any stretch of the imagination Biblical creationism has been falsified - assuming a modicum of honesty or intelligence.
Not really. What is actually going on is a process by which bias and existing belief is accepted as inevitable and a part of the process, but which provides means to correct for them when the existing beliefs do not correspond to the facts. Peer review does not overcome existing biases, but actually welcomes them (through anonymity.) In the open, the editor can judge which biased reviewer makes his or her case more strongly. It is a very good idea to include someone against an approach as a reviewer, since he will work harder at finding weaknesses in a paper.
Trying to eliminate belief and bias is futile, and one of the strengths of science as it is actually practiced is that this is accepted, and the process works for real people, not an idealized version of how people should behave.
The only reason I can imagine that someone says “falsifiable does not mean false” is that their target audience is expected to have a shaky grasp of the concepts. Far from, any theory thought to be true, and a theory in the Popperian sense, is both falsifiable and not false - or, more properly, not yet determined to be false.
The problem actually is when can you say that a falsifiable proposition has been falsified. Consider the proposition “Sherlock Holmes actually lived.” Most people say this is falsifiable, and has been falsified, but we have a bunch of Sherlockians having a great time coming up with evidence and theories to show the proposition is true. Much evidence for or against more down to earth theories can be interpreted in multiple ways. It is rarely the case that a single piece is convincing. It has to be as way out there as relativity predicting the observed position of Mercury.
Biblical creationism is a falsifiable hypothesis that has been falsified. The problem is that creationists keep adding epicycles to it to keep it on life support. It’s a great case if faith being used to reject evidence.
I already said that “against the odds” qualifies. Though, in further posts I have noticed and noted that there are cases where you do not have to believe that an effort is likely to succeed for the attempting of it to seem worthwhile; cases such as those would not be examples of faith. (This would surely include some of the survival and success stories out there; including, I would argue, the Wright brothers.) Nonetheless, cases where people attempt something due to an unsubstantiated belief in their assured success, and thereby are able to succeed (as opposed to the sure failure case of inaction) are indeed faith examples. We are not in disagreement there.
However, I still think that ‘against the odds’ faith events are a very uncommon example of faith, as faith examples go. Don’t misunderstand me as saying that I think all faith actions that have good outcomes are very uncommon; I haven’t said that. It is only those rare ‘against the odds’ cases that I disbelieve occur often enough to merit notice.
I think this has been part of the confusion here. I’m questioning why we should pay attention to this one specific rare case; it makes little sense to me to focus on it unless you want to claim that the merit of these few cases outwieghs all the harm done by faith combined (which I haven’t noticed you arguing).
And it certainly doesn’t exclude faith that ignores evidence. And certainly the common use of the word includes such cases. I really, really don’t believe that the specific subset of faith that only includes things about which no evidence is available is what this thread is about!
I’d say these are not examples of “against the odds” faith. I never said that general ‘good outcome’ faith events are vanishingly rare; a misunderstanding may have occurred.
I contend that believing in spite of evidence is definitely included in the definition of the word faith as it is commonly used in english, and by gum that’s what I’m debating. I’m not morally opposed to discussing “non-denial faith”, but I don’t think that’s what most people using the word mean, and I don’t thing that’s what’s under discussion here.
As much as you don’t like what the word has come to mean, surely you must agree that, regardless of original authorial intent (which I do not think is as clear as you think it is), continuing to use the term “faith” when you mean “non-denial faith” does nothing to further the discussion, and in fact is very likely so sow confusion and accusations that you’re redefining the term, moving the goalposts. Regardless of the way you think the term ought to be used, I really think you should use it the way it is used, at least for the duration of this discussion.
Actually one concludes that religion and/or faith is bad after making an assessment of the relative outcome of it’s effects. I’m not doing it the other way around.
I do not think that the small kindnesses in the world balance caused by faith balance the large atrocities that have been caused by it. What balances the inquisition? What balances terrorist suicide bombers? Even if faith is not the only motivating factor for these and like events, the events could not have occured in the absence of faith. I know of no good event which is similarly impossible without it, and certainly not any that is so great as to balance religious war.
That’s an interesting idea, which if you actually succeeded withi it (which I doubt is possible) would go some ways to eliminating the “crackpot fringe” of religion. However, regardless of how noble a goal that might be, I’m not thinking this is the forum to pursue this goal in - certainly not by cavalierly using the word in ways not expected by your audience with only occasional specification or clarification.
I am not defending creationists – I’m merely saying that any evidence can be interpreted in a way that is consistent with some religious beliefs. The existence of YEC Christians is evidence of my claim. As for faith and dishonesty, I don’t know where the line is, but I’m guessing that it depends on the specific situation.
Not clear what “imagination” has to do with it … but I’ll paraphrase my response to a similar comment by Cosmodan: You (the falsifier) think that you’ve falsfied my belief, whereas I say that you haven’t. And I can continue to say that, truthfully, because I don’t accept your intepretation of the evidence, nor do I accept your interpretation of my religious beliefs. I will never accept any intepretation of any evidence that violates my faith-based beliefs. And, I will always find an explanation that is satisfactory to me * and that allows me to maintain my faith. *
Do I think that’s silly? Of course I do. Is it dishonest? I’d say that, according to most academic institutions, the answer is yes. But it’s possible that the person genuinely believes what he’s saying.
It seems that you’ve interpreted “attempt to overcome the built-in biases of existing beliefs” to mean “eliminate belief and bias”, which is not what I meant. Overall, though, I think that your description of peer-review is consistent with what I said, and what I meant.
I agree that caution should be used. In researching the experiences there were many dead ends and fabrications. But after many years of studying I can usually separate the truth out.
I think two things drew the attention of the scientists now involved in researching NDEs. The first was the knowledge experiencers gained while clinically dead. The fact they could tell what was said and done in their room as well as in other rooms close to the experiencer during the time they were clinically dead. The second was the dramatic change in the perspective and life style of the experiencer. If we could somehow duplicate this change, we could make this world a utopia in one generation.
It looks like there was some confusion. I was linking the type of faith described in the against all odds example to other more common events that I think use a similar type of faith. I agree that the against all odds kind of event is rare by comparison. If you equate that type of faith with the much more common “believing in yourself” for so many events that occur it’s seems fairly common.
Taken entirely out of context you’re right it doesn’t. No denying that has become par tof it’s accepted definition. I was reacting to the way that seemed to be presented as the only one.
In that case I would be satisfied with some qualifier that recognizes that faith that denies evidence is the subject of discussion rather than an inference that thats what faith is period.
I merely wanted to clarify exactly what we’re talking about. When someone claims that faith is somehow detrimental to the pursuit of truth I take umbrage unless the statement is qualified. Thats what I’ve been trying to do. Evidently the concept of faith that doesn’t deny the available evidence is somewhat foreign to a few posters. It’s a good thing to recognize.
Are there only small kindnesses in the world? What about those that have laid down their lives for others? What about those that have made sacrifices to help others. Again, it would be a huge undertaking to try and make some kind of realistic comparison like that. What seems obvious to me is that since an overwhelming majority of humans throughout history have been believers then isn’t it reasonable to say most of the good done has been done by believers? It may also be reasonable to say most of the evil done was also done by believers and in that case, how are we left to weigh the two?
My only goal is to present the concept as a viable definition of faith. It’s obviously not the only one. It was not my intention to be cavalier. In fact I’m fairly serious about my purpose. I’m not saying that belief denying evidence is not an accepted definition. It obviously is, even though I don’t like it. My goal was to show that Heb 11:1 did not necessarily mean that kind of faith. We can still be sure of things hoped for and certain of things unseen while processing and considering all available evidence and using all available new evidence as it comes along. It’s great ain’t it?
I think that a lot of people who believe in themselves do so for non-faith reasons. (ie: possible there’s some evidence that they have value or ability, or possibly they don’t leap to the conclusion and instead inch toward it by small steps of increasing belief, none of which has the certainty of faith and each of which is self-justified before moving on. Among other options.) Even so, it’s still a larger subset than people who wrestle bears or invent airplanes. But I’m beginning to think that focusing on subsets is something of a digression anyway, unless that subset represents an outcome of significant value, (like the sacrificing-their-lives types you reference below). I’m going to stop worrying about it, unless you want to revisit the airplane scenario for some specific reason.
I will note that I consider faith-in-denial and faith-not-in-denial both to be proper subsets of faith, and I include both of them when I discuss the value of faith. I don’t labor under the misconception that faith must be contrary to evidence; otherwise I would have denied that “against the odds” events were faith events. (Any ones that succeeded, anyway.) On the other hand, I don’t entertain the notion that when someone asks to talk about the value of “faith”, they’re excluding faith-in-denial from the discussion. (shrug.)
Out of curiosity, how do you think limiting yourself to the subset of faith beliefs that do not conflict with available evidence will improve your position? Belief that your god wants you to kill infidels and/or foreigners is unfalsifiable. Belief that your god wants you to bomb abortion clinics is unfalsifiable. Belief that your god wants you to hate homosexuals is unfalsifiable. And (the foundation of all of the above) belief that the desires of God are more important and outweigh “earthly” laws and standards…is unfalsifiable.
I think if you make even a cursory count of the numbers, more lives have been taken in the name of God than saved in his name. The thing here is that, all desire to act aside, you can only sacrifice your life for somebody if there’s somebody in peril around to save. You can always find somebody to kill or oppress if you’re so inclined.
Also a lot of self-sacrifice in the name of faith is for nobody’s benefit but God’s, and if they were wrong about God, then nothing much of value was accomplished. I don’t think this null-effect scenario happens so much with people looking to do harm due to faith.
I don’t think it’s impossible to notice that, as nice as religious people are when dealing with themselves and their close associates (who presumably they would be nice to anyway) they have a decidedly mixed score when dealing with persons outside their social circle. I think the wars and prejudices outweigh the occasional charitable donation, if by frequency alone. (Especially since many of the people who donate to charity also vote to marginalize gays, while I doubt many suicide bombers go around saving lives on the weekends. The weekends prior, that is.)
Suffice to say, I disagree that value assessments are impossible here. Even if precise value assessments are, that only matters if it’s otherwise too close to call.
(I’m not going to bother with the bit about population percentages. It’s useless to start with, unless you have data on which section of the populace did more good per capita; and it’s even more useless when you realize that not all actions done by “religious people” have faith-based causes. And no, bringing up something useless and uninformative does not demonstrate that there is no useful information, that you cannot “weigh between the two”.) Alwrong, I’ll see about answering you later. You’re asking for a pretty detailed examination of how belief works, after all; I want a little extra time to formulate that reply. (And to have dinner.)
This whole megillah came from this statement of your’s:
It appears the issue here is “knowingly.” Creationism (and I use this as an excellent example, not because I think you’re defending it) has been falsified. Falsification does not imply that the very last holdout has given up or died. Steady state was falsified before Hoyle took his final breath.
Are creationists living a lie? In a loose sense of living, yes - I doubt even Hovind lives and breathes it. Knowingly? Now, there’s the interesting part. I have no doubt that your analysis is correct for at least some creationists. Some are clearly lying, even though they think they are doing it for a greater good. But is someone who refuses to look at evidence, or who blocks it out knowingly living a lie? Perhaps faith here is acting as a buffer between the truth and cultural cohesion or a desire for immortality.
But I don’t think most of these people are interpreting evidence in a sophisticated way. They more ignore it or isolate themselves from it, or use logic of the type:
If evolution were true, we’d be nothing but animals.
We are greater than animals.
Therefore evolution is not true.
I don’t think it is possible to say that anyone believing in this is knowingly living a lie or not.
The problem, as I see it, is that you are placing creationism on par with scientific cosmological theories. Creationism is a religious belief and not a scientific theory. What’s the scientific test for the existence of god? If, instead, creationism is a scientific theory that has been falsified, then it should be taught in school as a part of the history of science, just as Boyle’s theory is still taught. I’m sure that’s not what you’re suggesting. (Also, when you say “creationism”, are you referring to both YEC and OEC, or just YEC?)
It’s hard to accepty your criticism, founded as it seems to be on selective perception. You ignored Apos’ rather insulting response to my innocuous post. When your criticism is applied with an even hand I’ll consider it’s value.
“I don’t want to die!” Isn’t a rational conclusion. It’s an exclamation of emotion.
I did not mention what was “average,” I mentioned what was “rational.”
I made no statements regarding atheists, so I don’t know where you get this from. As I stated, I beleive that faith is something that is hardwired into us from an evolutionary standpoint, and in my post I was careful to avoid the whole God conundrum on which people get very sensitive.
If you were to ask me, I would imagine that being an atheist does not automatically make one a rational being, and I would be surprised to find an atheist who’s worldview did not contain elements of faith, nonreligious though they may be.
This is why I looked up even the obvious things.
You missed my point, and that’s my fault for not explaining it clearly. These things that you know you can’t do fall into two categories. The first is simply the extremely difficult or unlikely (like the example I gave with the bear.) You seem to accept this one easily enough. The second category is simply those things that you know you cannot do. Here is where you seem to have the problem, pointing out, that if you can do them after all, then you were simply wrong and no big deal, right?
This is not necessarily the case. Of course, you might simply be wrong about what you can do. Other things are simply impossible without the tool of faith goading you into making irrational decisions.
There are lots of things that you can’t do if you are a rational person. The smarter you are, the fewer choices you actually have, because rationality will limit you from what are bad choices.
For example, if you are a rational person you will never win the lottery (barring trying to put a syndicate together and buying out.) Your chances are simply too small to justify the purchase of a ticket, if you are intelligent and thinking it through.
Lots of risks are unjustifiable from an individual rational standpoint. From a species standpoint however, it is necessary that some people behave nonrationally and take extreme risks on long shots because some of them will pay off and benefit others.
Stupidity works for this, and in many cases it still works. But not in all. Intelligence would stop us from doing some things. So we need “faith” to override intelligence and make us take innapropriate risks for the greater good.
Observe teenagers. Many teenagers are smart enough to know that they are mortal. Not all of them beleive it. Many demonstrate by their actions that they really don’t beleive in their mortality, and they take stupid risks, because they have faith that they will be ok
I am quite certain I understand the term, and I looked it and posted a link to support my usage.
I’m not talking about a situation where survival is simply not certain. I’m talking about lottery ticket type long odds where the price of the ticket is tremendous pain, hardship and suffering with only a million to one chance of success. If you’re being rational in such a situation you would chose to use what time you had left on a much more constructive and pleasant pasttime then torturing yourself to almost surely no avail.
Let’s go back to my plane example. Let’s say you figure your chances of being rescued before you die if you stay with the plane are 1 in 20 million. In the plane you have some comforts. It will almost surely be found eventually and if your body is still in it your loved ones will know what happened. You can stay there in relative comfort and safety, maybe even write some notes to people you care about and put your affairs in order.
On the other hand, if you try to kill the bear and walk out you maybe have a one in five million chance of surving, but the price of trying to take that chance is very high. The bear will most likely kill you immediately in a really painful way, or maul you and give you lingering injuries worse than what you have now, and between now and the time you ultimately fail you will undergo incredible suffering and pain. You won’t have the time to write notes or enjoy your last few days or hours, or make yourself comfortable, and your loved ones will never likely find your body since it will just be so much bear shit.
Staying in the plane is the rational choice.
You underestimate the power of adjectives. Any adjective and any noun can go together. At any rate I accept your challenge. “obese” and “air,” huh? ok here goes:
“After three years in the rarefied cold thin air of a mountaintop in Nepal meditating on the meaning of life, I decided to come down from the mountain and share my wisdom with the people. I chose New Orleans, the city of sin as my destination, but I was shocked by the environmental change. The air of the city felt obese with heat, moisture, the funk of the swam and the sin of the populace.”
How’s that?
No. For example, let’s say 20 years ago I fell in love with a prostitute in New Orleans, and think about her everyday. I am filled with the burning desire to see her again. I deeply value the time we had together. I hope for nothing more than to find her and start all over though I have no idea where she may be or what may have become of her and I have no reason to think she would wish to see me.
According to you, as a rational being I leave my fine family, good job, and children and relatively happy life and go seek my desire.
This is not a rational choice. I suppose though that there is 1 in a million shot it could work out for me. The price is simply to high.
Being rational I realize that she is probably old and haggard and used hard, probably never cared about me, wouldn’t want to see me, we’ve changed so much that I wouldn’t like her if I did see her, and that I’d be throwing away a very good life and running from responsibilities and commitments.
Being rational I decide that it is probably best not to act on this desire. As burning as it may be it is, for all intents and purposes, futile and foolhardy.
You see?
I’m pretty sure I understand the meaning of the term. Do you?
If they precede the logic than the desire isn’t rational. You just want them, right? What if you are 400 pounds, have a heart condition, and diabetes? As you figure out how to sneak some cookies, are you being rational?
Don’t get ahead of yourself. You need to master your definitions and the parts of speech before we can move onto advanced concepts like hyperbole and anthropomorphizing.
Until then you are not ready to take a bite out of a rational cookie.
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