Science, Religion, and the Surrounding Confusion.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Troubleshooter

Your present example of faith is so semantically skewed that faith and probability and induction could all be the same word.

They are aspects of the same mental transaction.

Your example of the chair isn't faith. A chair is designed to catch your ass and suspend it above the floor. It's not faith to sit in a chair without looking.

You see a chair, and if there are no obvious flaws in it, and you sit down expecting it to do its job based on your experience with past chairs and your understanding of the concept of a chair.

That's a probability assessment on your part.

And acting on that probability without having access (or choosing to investigate) to the data needed to make it certain. That's the definition of faith that I'm trying to give here. My whole point is that it's a very standard mental transaction, and that the variables are the kind of data accepted into the transaction, and the extent action taken when the conclusion is assumed.

Internal revelatory events aren't testable. They can't even be compared against those of another person. While that may be acceptable as evidence for personal use it has no merit outside of that person's skin.

If you read back, I said the same thing. Nobody has any external access to that data in a meaningful way, so it doesn't carry any weight in dialog. My point was that a religious person still has access, and may accept as data, something which is only available for internal investigation.

I think there was some confusion in how you read the last part of my post. The fifth paragraph ("It's completely irrational if I believe that my present life ... blah blah blah") is all referring to the action of selling everything. I'm not saying that it's irrational to be a religious skeptic, to believe that there is only the material life. I'm saying that the act of selling everything and living an ascetic life devoid of pleasure is irrational. It was speaking to my point of the radical nature of actions undertaken by people who are religious.

[Flint]

re: "science is based on faith"

Funny how your cellphone magically allows you to converse over vast distances, the life-saving medicine that didn't exist 10 years ago cures a formerly deadly disease in your son or daughter or father or mother, and the processors in your vehicles computerized brake system prevent you from plunging off an overpass to your certain doom.

But, of course, the scientists who invented these things were probably "flying by the seat of their pants" right? I mean, after all, there's nothing concrete in science, just a bunch of hooey that the eggheads have us bamboozled into believing. The reason your satellite TV, self-cleaning oven, and ultrasonic toothbrush work is just dumb luck.

In fact, the only way that messages are being transmitted on this website is because invisible Jesus is zooming around re-typing everything on each of our computers.

[Flint]

Doesn't the Bible define faith as belief despite a total lack of evidence?

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Flint

Doesn't the Bible define faith as belief despite a total lack of evidence?

Ummmm ... no. Unless I'm missing something, the biblical use of the word "faith" relies heavily on induction as the basis for belief. It repeatedly talks about the created world as an evidential basis for believing in both God and in a moral order. That appeal to reference the natural world would make no sense if the highest biblical value was to believe something was true in the total absence of evidence.

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.

This "new" rational faith is at least as old as Descartes (Aquinas, even?). I realize it's more fun to go bashing fundamentalists (I'll join in, if you'd like) for upholding faith as something opposed to reason, but you'll find very few people to have a "meaningful" conversation with in that camp.

Do you really think it's meaningless to explore the relationship between critical thinking, radical skepticism, and faith?

[Troubleshooter]

You can't have faith and apply skepticism to it.

Dogma, sure, but not faith.

Faith is operating without need for verification or validation.

You hear the voice you do the deed.

In contemporary society we have dogmatic filters to apply to what people call faith nowadays, but it all had to start with some guy taking the voices in his head at face value.

Patient X as it were.

[Flint]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Do you really think it's meaningless to explore the relationship between critical thinking, radical skepticism, and faith?

No, I think it's meaningless to conflate faith and critical thinking to the point that they are interchangable. Doesn't it cheapen both concepts to water them down to the point that they lose their defining characteristics?

When people refer to religious faith, I am certain that the intended meaing is NOT "using the scientific method of investigation in order to determine the most verifiable statistical probability."

[smoothmoniker]

Originally Posted by Flint

Doesn't the Bible define faith as belief despite a total lack of evidence?

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.

I took that as implying that the "why" of faith was incompatible with reason.

[DanaC]

This new "rational faith" is so watered down it renders the conversation meaningless.

Well put.

[Flint]

...
Unless I'm missing something, the biblical use of the word "faith" relies heavily on induction as the basis for belief. It repeatedly talks about the created world as an evidential basis for believing in both God and in a moral order. That appeal to reference the natural world would make no sense if the highest biblical value was to believe something was true in the total absence of evidence.
...

So the fact that "the world exists" is the logical basis for having faith in...what?

[DanaC]

Patient X as it were.

I like that.

[regular.joe]

I get the feeling that when you say "what the voices tell you" you believe that someone with a spiritual experience is crazy.

[Troubleshooter]

Originally Posted by regular.joe

I get the feeling that when you say "what the voices tell you" you believe that someone with a spiritual experience is crazy.

Well, we only medicate or incarcerate the people who do bad things when the voices tell them to do so.

I'm not saying everyone hears an overt voice, although plenty do.

In general terms we're hardwired for any sort of gregarious behavior, which can only stand to reinforce the communal religious experience. We get a dopamine dump every time we stand around telling each other how wonderful the invisible guy in the sky is. As well as group athletic events and so on.

[regular.joe]

Flint, what do you mean?

[Flint]

If you have intellectually outgrown the concept of operating on faith in invisible supernatural powers, then instead of spinning your wheels writing a definition of faith that includes the level of scientific rigor that you deem appropriate, maybe it's time to say "Hey, this faith stuff isn't for me anymore. I've outgrown it. Time to move on."

Now, to be clear, I don't care what you do or what you believe. But if you're going to tell me faith means something damn near the opposite of what the dictionary says, then yes, I'm going to call you on that.

[smoothmoniker]

Oh, to be sure, I still believe in invisible supernatural powers. I take issue with your characterization of why.