Everything fails from time to time. That’s where practicality comes in, and the fact that the stats are against the driver being drunk or whatever. That doesn’t take “faith in the system”; that takes the knowledge that as a rule the system has worked.
Faith is not trust. Trust is provisional; break it, and it’s gone, and if there’s no reason for it, you won’t have it ( do you trust random strangers with your purse/wallet ? The way you trust a bank with your money ? ) . Faith is not provisional; it is not based on evidence, and is highly resistant or immune to violation. Someone who has faith can be manipulated or exploited or lied to, again and again without losing faith - that blindness to reality is what makes it faith. Mere trust is much more fragile.
I still maintain that defining the OP in terms of “trust”, especially when s/he specifically mentioned the Protestant idea of it, is not really what we’re talking about. I still, as in my original reply state: NOBODY will argue the idea of trust as important to life.
BUT, the OP seems to indicate the type of “I believe, therefore I am saved” sort of faith, which I’ve already broken down twice in this thread as 3 possible outcomes. Arguing a more-or-less universally agreed on definition to win points as “correct” in the thread isn’t going to get the real debate anywhere
ok, then. If the question is about the value of religious faith, disregarding the particular faith, then things get a little bit dicier.
The easy way out is to assume that a person of faith, no matter what faith, is somehow more principled and thus, more reliable. Is that necessarily true? I don’t know. I am not even sure that is a disprovable hypothesis at all.
Perhaps a bit of clarification from the OP would help.
Every study I’ve every heard of says the opposite; that religious conviction tend to make people less honest, less trustworthy, less charitable, and so on. That’s probably why you very seldom see such studies.
Gotta ask for some cites on that one. Although I see that once again you make a statement thats off the wall, and couch it in a way that gives you an out.
In any case… The value of faith is that it has no set value. It’s not like its backed by the full faith and credit of the government! Faith has a different value for everyone.
For people with faith in the “goodness” of humaity it can help them carry on and do good works when nobody seems to care.
for people with faith in the “humans are evil, self centered” it can lead them down a path of destruction and vengence.
A better question for the OP might be, “What does your faith lead you to do?”
Trust and Faith are used interchangeable in the english language. My dictionary says trust is a synonym of faith. You can lose faith as well as you can lose trust in someone or something. Faith is not blindness to reality any more than trust is, each is based on reason of some kind.
No one can be manipulated with lies if they know they are being told lies. Your argument is simple trying to make religious faith look bad which is only your opinion. I have a hard time understanding why it is necessary to down others beliefs in order to elevate those beliefs felt to be true. Seems to me there is a lot of self-doubt in the process.
No, although Der Trihs has a much more combative and forceful tone, I agree with him. Religious Faith usually IS blind, and that is precisely the problem. That people are raised to have a blind faith in an unprovable, strict, and burdening moral system that makes them fear and mistrust rational responses and anyone who doesn’t share their belief system.
But again, that said, people who DO focus on the positive tenets of religion do good works, but it doesn’t require a blind faith in a mostly outdated moral system based on self-denial and guilt trips. Or worse, almost, a moral system that proscribe a series of rules and then allows an escape clause that if you have “faith”, it won’t matter, which merely encourages the ignorance of all the moral rules, since, after all, you have faith.
I have to agree with what you say, but it doesn’t go far enough. If you only have faith in the Christian doctrine it would be mostly blind. But some people go farther than just doctrine, they actually practice the spiritual teachings of Jesus. In this case, those people do experience events (healings, miracles, visions, etc.) that changes blind faith into knowledge.
Knowledge? No, as far as I know, no healing, miracle, or vision has ever been shown to be anything but subjective interpretation. If you can cite one that’s been proven real, by all means go for it. Oh, and ‘no one has ever explained it’ doesn’t automatically mean that someone’s subjective interpretation is true.
Faith is the opposite of knowledge. You have faith because you don’t know. If you knew there was a god, you would have no reason to have faith in it. Incidents like the ones you mention only serve to bolster faith because of how they’re interpreted. When you have specific expectations, especially ones based on something as strong as religion can be, then you can make anything fit those expectations, even completely negative results.
You are right. Faith is no longer needed after you have obtained knowledge.
When one has a spiritual experience, their faith turns to knowledge as mine did. Yes, it is a personal experience, it could not have been anything else. I can’t share my experience except in words, but because it is personal doesn’t make it false or illusionary. Millions have told or wrote about their spiritual experiences, so others have experienced it also.
I know science doctrine says personal experiences are unreliable, but I don’t buy that doctrine. Everything we see, touch, smell, taste, or hear is personal experience that can’t be shared except in words with others. I am sure scientists rely on their personal experiences every day just like the rest of us.
Did you ever stop to think why science disallows subjective personal experiences as evidence? And did you ever wonder why people think it’s ok for religious experiences to be solely subjective and have no other evidence whatsoever? And more, why those experiences should be seen as some kind of knowledge, when they wouldn’t hold up to the most basic realistic examination? For what reason should religion be allowed to use subjective experience for evidence, when no one else is?
When you say you don’t buy the reasons science gives for excluding subjective experience, you’re doing exactly what I said in post. You’re fitting the events to your expectations and interpretations. And that’s one of the reasons faith can be bad.
I think there is a sense of the word faith that is actually fairly close to “rational inference” or “trust in a person that has come to earn that trust.”
I think the sense in which anyone could say faith is bad, however, is the concept of believing in the truth of some claim even when there is no good supporting evidence or even lots of evidence against. This sort of faith deserves no respect.
Often however, I think the two are mixed together. For instance, saying you have faith in God can mean BOTH sorts of faith, melded together, in a sort of paradox of equivocation.
I haven’t found a useful link yet; I’ll keep looking. Although I fail to see why it’s “off the wall”.
:dubious: I never said that. Sometimes we don’t know. Sometimes we have to wait for more data, or make a guess and hope we are right. That’s not faith.
Let’s see; one study I recall was from back when they asked your religion before entering college. One of the things they did was stage accidents and see who stopped to help; the only group that was more likely to help than average was the atheists/agnostics.
That’s not quite true. Science can study optical illusions, and it can study the subjective impact of stimulating parts of the brain. lekatt is correct when he says that everyone’s impressions are subjective to a certain extent - what he doesn’t get is that no one trusts them unless they are repeatable and shared by many observers. It’s true that your reading of an instrument is subjective, but it is a lot more objective when you can record the measurement and look at it again.
The canals of Mars are an example of the trouble you can get into by believing your senses.
Sure you can have spiritual experiences, but you can also have LSD trips. They are equally real and trustworthy.
I would like to see the studies you’ve read if you do not mind. I get a lot of this ‘Christians are more charitable’ stuff at another message board and would love to lob a few studies to the contrary their direction.
Social Cohesion, no matter how you slice it depends heavily on faith. It depends that past performance is an indicator of future behavior, which is often not the case. We have faith in ‘civilization’, those of us who participate in it anyway.
I apologize, then. I honestly thought that Der Trihs had identified himself as a nihilist and denied that humans (including himself) have inherent value. You’re right, Tom, that I should have found explicit quotes if I wanted to make such claims about someone. Rather, I humbly withdraw my characterization of him. DT, if you want to more explicitly deny my claims about you, go ahead: I won’t follow up on it, and you deserve to have the last word. I am curious how you characterize your beliefs, if not as nihilism.
DT, you said that “faith” and “trust” do not mean the same thing. I think that is a valid point that ties in with the argument I was trying to make. Although “faith” can be a synonym for “trust,” people who use it that way often conflate trust with belief. The OP mentions both Protestant Christianity and a general sense in society that faith is good, regardless of religious content. I think many of those who espouse that faith is good intend “faith” to refer to a general trust in the value of life and humanity, but the choice of the word “faith” reflects an assumption that such trust always involves some religious belief.
I think this is what we’ve narrowed the debate down to, more or less.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that faith produces values via miracles if you follow the spiritual teachings of Jesus. However, I will once again agree that for some people faith can be a powerful instrument in keeping people happy, and leading them in the right moral direction. But it can, and sadly it seems in almost the majority of cases, has no or even negative effects on people.
I get tired of the falso shows of church going during election years.
To find a person’s real inclinations, check them from six months after an election for a year.
Most are spending their Sundays on junkets.