Okay, I guess I won't ask about hypothetical situations anymore then.
Hypotheticals are fine with me, just not when they simply become self-contradictory. "Can an omnipotent being make a rock he can't lift" is, to me, a totally pointless question.
Okay, I guess I won't ask about hypothetical situations anymore then.Hypotheticals are fine with me, just not when they simply become self-contradictory. "Can an omnipotent being make a rock he can't lift" is, to me, a totally pointless question.
Can one prick one's self on a pointless question is what I'm wondering?
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Okay, I guess I won't ask about hypothetical situations anymore then.Hypotheticals are fine with me, just not when they simply become self-contradictory. "Can an omnipotent being make a rock he can't lift" is, to me, a totally pointless question.
Not the question I asked. If you think my question was pointless, you don't have to answer.
Not the question I asked. If you think my question was pointless, you don't have to answer.Okay, I guess I won't ask about hypothetical situations anymore then.Hypotheticals are fine with me, just not when they simply become self-contradictory. "Can an omnipotent being make a rock he can't lift" is, to me, a totally pointless question.
Damn that was tooo long to type again.:/
Not the question I asked. If you think my question was pointless, you don't have to answer.
I might have misunderstood the question; it seemed to be along the lines of "how do you define the undefined?" -- which would be quite similar in nature to the rock question -- sort of a Zen koan.
Q: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"
A: "I drank tea last night."
The Belgian Catholic Church exceeds the worst of expectations.
"We can say that no congregation escapes sexual abuse of minors by one or several of its members," the commission concluded.
That's amazing even to a cynical jerk like me. It's the kind of thing one expects in an episode of Family Guy, not reality.
Regarding your other question, Stud, everyone answers it differently. I'm told the Indonesian name for orang-utans is something like "forest people" -- more strikingly, some of the West African peoples apparently didn't conceive of chimpanzees as being other than a different tribe of (often hostile) people. Given that not only have researchers taught chimps to speak using sign language, but at least one chimp (Washoe) has taught it to her offspring... and at least one bonobo (Kanzi) can beat Pac-Man and also make stone tools (in addition to communicating fluently using pictographs)... well, the dividing line is a big blur, not a line.
It may be even messier because of ape lineage-human lineage interbreeding after the initial divergence.
I read this article the other day where a physicist argued that since, using something akin to ridiculously large hadron collider, it is theoretically possible to create new universes, there exists the possibility that our universe was created in this way by entities from another universe.
I had already dismissed this as fluff, when a thought occurred to me this morning: We know the universe grows and dies, what if it also reproduces? And what if the means by which universes reproduce is by evolving sapient elements which then develop the means to create new universes?
Now, not all of these created universes will themselves reproduce, due to various chao-deterministic elements: gravity could be too weak, or space-time expansion too fast, or life within may (for whatever reason) never develop the means to create universes. Natural selection thus favors universes with scientifically advanced sapient life.
If one were to accept this theory, and desire the continuation of the multiverse, it becomes a metabiological imperative to work towards the means of creating universes.
Anyway, just spitballing here.
Would you like fries with your universe?
Inspired by comments in another thread:
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.
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Inspired by comments in another thread:
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.
Hmmm.
Blind Faith -- accepting what someone else tells you without thinking about it.
Faith -- Thinking about what someone else says and making your own decision about it.
Basically the difference between thinking and not thinking. And religious people certainly don't have the corner on the "blind faith" market.
Inspired by comments in another thread:
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.
Hmmm.
Blind Faith -- accepting what someone else tells you without thinking about it.
Faith -- Thinking about what someone else says and making your own decision about it.Basically the difference between thinking and not thinking. And religious people certainly don't have the corner on the "blind faith" market.
I would have went with:
Blind Faith -- accepting what someone else tells you without thinking about it.
Faith -- accepting something without proof or evidence.
Inspired by comments in another thread:
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.
'....the Enlightenment, on closer examination, has turned out to be a secularization and reification of long-standing tradition, without which it collapses into nihilism and self-destruction: the dialectic of Enlightenment. Its rationalism cannot be a self-justifying rational choice, and can only be predicated on the same kind of ultimately arbitrary grounds (e.g., faith and revelation) that modernists routinely mock in their dismissals of traditionalists and anything premodern.'-Paul Piccone
'...the Enlightenment, on closer examination, has turned out to be a secularization and reification of long-standing tradition, without which it collapses into nihilism and self-destruction: the dialectic of Enlightenment. Its rationalism cannot be a self-justifying rational choice, and can only be predicated on the same kind of ultimately arbitrary grounds (e.g., faith and revelation) that modernists routinely mock in their dismissals of traditionalists and anything premodern.'-Paul Piccone
... 'wheat, being a fruit, is therefore merely another form of citrus, like oranges, and therefore wards off scurvy.' --Captain Bligh the Toothless
Inspired by comments in another thread:
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.
Blind Faith -- accepting what someone else tells you without thinking about it.
Faith -- Thinking about what someone else says and making your own decision about it.Basically the difference between thinking and not thinking.
I'm not sure that distinction works in practical terms. It works on paper, but how would we apply it to actually tell the one from the other?
We can't just scan someone's brain since we don't have the technology. (Pity, that.) One can ask, but who would admit that ideas the owner considers important were ill-considered, full of holes, silly, wrong on the facts, or otherwise faulty? I think essentially nobody would confess to it. Even truly, honestly believing that one has given a matter a good deal of thought is hardly enough as we're all quite proficient at believing flattering things about ourselves regardless of facts. They're just so tempting! :) Thus even sincere reportage could be quite wrong.
It seems to me that either we must have a test or we're going to end up with blind faith all our own in whatever answer they give.
Hmmmm. I didn't want to touch on "proof". There are quite a number of people who feel that they have "proof".
But is that proof 'personal' proof which can not be presented to an unbiased group for review?
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I really should leave well enough alone. But this subject really got to me.
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.
While not explicitly said, the implied message here (especially considering where it was posted) is that at least all religious faith is "blind faith".
I'm not sure that distinction works in practical terms. It works on paper, but how would we apply it to actually tell the one from the other?
Ok then no one actually has any "faith" at all. All your "faith" is "blind" as well.
"But I don't have any faith."
B.S.
We practice this all the time. All the time.
We have faith that others are telling us the "truth". But not only the "truth" but also what is actually "true".
So, do I have "faith" that the news caster is actually telling me the "truth" (in one form or another) or do I have "blind faith" that the news caster is telling me exactly what happened with 100% accuracy without leaving out any details?
Medicine -- Do I have "faith" that the medicine will do as the description says? Or does it actually do what it says? Maybe I just believe it so strongly that my body makes it happen. It could just be a placebo (sp?). I have no real idea. I didn't take the medicine apart and run tests on it to find out what the chemical makeup is. And if I did, maybe it was just that one. I have to have "faith" that the doctors and scientists are actually doing their "due diligence". Because I wasn't there. I have no idea what tests they ran. They could be entirely wrong -- and I wouldn't know.
Enter "exibit 'A'" -- My mother-in-law gave us a pamphlet that she was given by her doctor when she was pregnant. One of the things that it said was "Smoking will not harm your unborn baby in any way". I'm sure that they ran tests on this to come to their conclusion. They most likely brought it before an "unbiased group for review". It was still wrong. Yet they believed that they had "proof" for what they wrote.
For just about anything that we read or see or experience we can use Samnell's definition for "blind faith".
Take Archeology -- One thing I thought was interesting was that a lot of archeologists use each other to make their point. At some point this feels a bit circular. "Bob believes this to be true because John wrote this." "John believes this to be true because Bob wrote this." But further from that, did Samnell actually go out to the Sinai Penninsula dig up his own artifacts, date them, examine them himself, and so on or did he just take it on "blind faith" that what he read is actually the truth?
"But those things can be taken to an "unbiased group for peer review". I'm not even sure what an "unbiased group" would look like when talking about a subject as focused as some of this stuff. I still have to take it on "faith" or "blind faith" that the group was actually "unbiased".
And we can even get into the extremely silly -- how do we know that said person's credentials are even valid? Maybe he forged his diploma. Maybe he got a 1.0 GPA. Maybe he somehow got through making up outlandish stories which he has carried on through adulthood. I don't know these people at all.
You can apply this same thing to just about anything. But is all "faith" just simply "blind faith"?
Let's look at something else. Homeopathic medicine. I know a few people who have a whole lot of "faith" that this stuff will cure anything from ingrown toenails to cancer. "Faith" or "Blind Faith"?
Here's something else. Raw Milk. I know a number of people who strongly believe that, not only is raw milk good for you, but that drinking any other kind of milk is bad. Many (most?) that I've come across have said that "studies have shown...", yet I can't seem to find any such studies. I find a lot of blogs with people's opinions in them. They even have links to "studies", but when you click on the link, there is no "study". "Faith" or "Blind Faith"?
Related to this subject is when science keeps being brought up as being "wrong" in the past and then it is told that the point of science is to change, modify, and update to whatever is current. Yet it seems like the same people who feel that way also feel that religion should be immune to this. As if we cannot learn more about the religion, or anthropology, or archeology, etc. Just kind of feels like a double-standard to me.
We all practice "faith" to some degree or other. Many people practice "blind faith" to some degree or other. I feel that there is a difference -- and this isn't exclusive to just religion.
We have faith that others are telling us the "truth". So, do I have "faith" that the news caster is actually telling me the "truth" (in one form or another) or do I have "blind faith" that the news caster is telling me exactly what happened with 100% accuracy without leaving out any details?
Neither. I assume everyone is full of BS most of the time. Then, if what they told me corresponds with what I see, or with what they do, so that a meaningful, internally-consistent pattern emerges one way or another, then I start to get a handle on it. With respect to scientific studies -- I can actually read them, and compare methodologies, repeatablility, and a host of other factors to determine if one conclusion is better-supported than another. And I accept that that still doesn't mean it's right; only that it's more likely to be right than the alternative.
See, there's an option other than simply taking things on faith -- but it requires a high tolerance for uncertainty, and a bit of effort and patience.
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Hmmmm. I didn't want to touch on "proof". There are quite a number of people who feel that they have "proof".But is that proof 'personal' proof which can not be presented to an unbiased group for review?
I said enough just above. So I'll try and be quick here.
The original post didn't clarify at all. I was originally trying to say that simply saying "proof" isn't exactly correct.
In answer to your question -- the nature of this doesn't lend itself well to being "presented to an unbiased group for review". In my situation, I guess that if you can find me a "certified" (not sure what that would entail) demon possessed person, then I can probably perform an exorcism (well not exactly me, but God through me...). But considering that I've gone through 41 years of life and come across only one person and the fact that most people go their entire lives and never see this, I find it doubtful. Further from that, if you witness it, is that sufficient for Samnell? We don't have to actually witness so many things in our lives that essentially we end up having "faith" that it's true -- yet when it comes to religion, by golly, we need to see it and document it and have it verified by 2,000 "unbiased" individuals, etc.
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Neither. I assume everyone is full of BS most of the time.
I agree. I take most things "with a grain of salt". That being said, there are some things that are just not practical for me to see or that I simply can't "prove" to be "true". Medicine is the first and simplest thing that comes to mind. And I could read all kinds of medical journals or what have you and it still wouldn't mean anything to me.
That being said, there are some things that are just not practical for me to see or that I simply can't "prove" to be "true".
You're still missing the thrust of skeptical and scientific thought, though. NOTHING is EVER "proven to be true." We can prove things to be false, and then accept that what's left is more likely to be true, but we never, ever "prove" it. Thinking scientifically means accepting that our knowledge will never be complete, and that truth, for us, can only be a matter of likelihood, never one of certainty.
Ok then no one actually has any "faith" at all. All your "faith" is "blind" as well."But I don't have any faith."
B.S.
We practice this all the time. All the time.
We have faith that others are telling us the "truth". But not only the "truth" but also what is actually "true".
So, do I have "faith" that the news caster is actually telling me the "truth" (in one form or another) or do I have "blind faith" that the news caster is telling me exactly what happened with 100% accuracy without leaving out any details?
Medicine -- Do I have "faith" that the medicine will do as the description says? Or does it actually do what it says? Maybe I just believe it so strongly that my body makes it happen. It could just be a placebo (sp?). I have no real idea. I didn't take the medicine apart and run tests on it to find out what the chemical makeup is. And if I did, maybe it was just that one. I have to have "faith" that the doctors and scientists are actually doing their "due diligence". Because I wasn't there. I have no idea what tests they ran. They could be entirely wrong -- and I wouldn't know.
Enter "exibit 'A'" -- My mother-in-law gave us a pamphlet that she was given by her doctor when she was pregnant. One of the things that it said was "Smoking will not harm your unborn baby in any way". I'm sure that they ran tests on this to come to their conclusion. They most likely...
I believe your getting the different definitions of 'faith' confused (confidence or trust in a person or thing) vs (belief that is not based on proof).
When I say 'faith' I only ever mean (belief that is not based on proof).
Personally I try to never have faith in anything. If I find myself doing it I will correct it asap.
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That being said, there are some things that are just not practical for me to see or that I simply can't "prove" to be "true".You're still missing the thrust of skeptical and scientific thought, though. NOTHING is EVER "proven to be true." We can prove things to be false, and then accept that what's left is more likely to be true, but we never, ever "prove" it.
Two things...
1) You're one of the incredibly few people I know that actually talk that way about science. (And you know it.)
2) My point was that I really can't go through the same steps that others have done to get the same conclusions. It's not practical, I don't have the right knowledge, and I don't have the appropriate equipment. At some point I need to have "faith" that people know what they are doing or saying. EDIT: or that they are not deliberately lying.
I've noticed a surprising amount of "faith" (blind or otherwise) surrounding a number of political discussions...
I find that many people have a disturbing high level of blind faith in capitalism and economics.
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(confidence or trust in a person or thing)
And this doesn't explain or define "religion"?
I have "confidence" that the Bible is the Word of God.
I "trust" that Jesus has forgiven my sins.
And you don't have faith in anything? How do you know that what you know is correct?
The way some people treat and talk about raw milk or homeopathic medicine, it might as well be a religion.
…yet when it comes to religion, by golly, we need to see it and document it and have it verified by 2,000 "unbiased" individuals, etc.
Joseph Smith, Jr. had eight witnesses for the golden plates. What more do you need to realize the Book of Mormon is divinely inspired?
Only when the new evidence is stonger than the existing stuff, and the new model exhibits verifiably greater predictive power than the existing one, do scientists start to shift their thinking.
Is this a weakness of religion? That is has no predictive power other than the afterlife, which obviously presents some difficulties in assessing its validity.
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…yet when it comes to religion, by golly, we need to see it and document it and have it verified by 2,000 "unbiased" individuals, etc.Joseph Smith, Jr. had eight witnesses for the golden plates. What more do you need to realize the Book of Mormon is divinely inspired?
Well, considering that none of the witnesses "saw" the plates and "hefted" its weight at the same time. Also, considering the fact that many (all?) of the witnesses modified their "testimony" (sometimes quite a bit) afterwards and seemed to imply that they were strongly coerced into signing it...
(and not sure just how "unbiased" they were...)
But aside from that -- even if Joe Smith somehow managed to create some gold plates (not sure why he didn't), that wouldn't show that the book was "divinely inspired".
But none of that was really my point in the first place. We take things on "faith" all the time. But for some reason, religious "faith" is so much more foreign to people, yet in practice it really is more similar than you seem to think.
[1) You're one of the incredibly few people I know that actually talk that way about science. (And you know it.)
Yeah, but how many actual practicing scientists do you talk to, as opposed to fanboys?
Is this a weakness of religion? That is has no predictive power other than the afterlife, which obviously presents some difficulties in assessing its validity.
That's my single biggest gripe with afterlife-based religions, in fact -- there is no way to test their predictions, and hence no way to assess their validity. Since they are all equally likely to be valid by this measure, and since most of them are mutually-contradictory, I mentally file them all in the "unlikely to be true" box.
But none of that was really my point in the first place.
Maybe not, but it is my point. It seems to me, and I accept that I could be entirely wrong, that you apply the same 'we need to see it and document it and have it verified by 2,000 "unbiased" individuals, etc.' logic to other religions you are accusing atheists of doing to yours.
I think you have a valid point that we take things for granted every day. I am not terribly mechanically inclined and have only the very basic understanding of how a car operates. I take it for granted that it does.
However, the problem I have with most religions is that I am expected to accept a very fundamental assumption of which, to me, there is absolutely no proof of: the existence of a god. I may not understand cars, but I see them everywhere. I could go to a mechanic, and he could probably explain a part of it. I may never understand every aspect of it.
But god? Especially one with definite qualities such as omniscience, omnipotence and compassion. From my own observation, this appears impossible. Add on the fact I have never seen, heard or felt any sort of god. The only evidence offered is a single book whose origin is questionable. It does not seem much of a logical leap that I would be better off worshiping cars.
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I have great friends, very devout Christians, who describe their faith as you do. But they seem a tiny minority, surrounded by those who murder abortion doctors to "sustain a culture of life," or who claim all gays are going to Hell (while they themselves sleep with male prostitutes in some cases, as we've seen recently).
I love when people point to the less than .1% that do crazy stuff and then say they are the majority. I didn't realize one guy could "surround" the other 100+ million Christians in the US. You even said you had friends(as in plural) that are devout Christians and since that is more than one, they would be the majority.
From my own observation, this appears impossible. Add on the fact I have never seen, heard or felt any sort of god.
You realize that you've just repeated the arguments for "Intelligent Design" almost verbatim? Swap out the word "evolution" for "God" and see how it reads. We need to do better than arguing from incredulity.
That's my single biggest gripe with afterlife-based religions, in fact -- there is no way to test their predictions, and hence no way to assess their validity. Since they are all equally likely to be valid by this measure, and since most of them are mutually-contradictory, I mentally file them all in the "unlikely to be true" box.
That is largely my position too. There certainly seems to be a long history of belief in the false. Therefore, it seems to me, that any given religion has a high opportunity for being false. As far as I have seen, there is no evidence to dispute operating under the theory that they are all false.
You even said you had friends(as in plural) that are devout Christians and since that is more than one, they would be the majority.
Of quite a number, a total of about three of them don't have a problem with gays, for example, don't yell about abortion being murder, and don't try at every turn to convince me the Earth is 6,000 years old. Then again, I live in Texas, and am perfectly willing to accept that what passes for "Mainstream Christian" in the southern United States would be considered "fringe lunacy" anywhere else.
I love when people point to the less than .1% that do crazy stuff and then say they are the majority.
Referencing the Islam thread, I love when less than .1% do crazy stuff, and less than 0.01% actively intervene against the crazies, and the remaining 99.89% turn a blind eye to the crazies and demand that I "respect their beliefs."
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However, the problem I have with most religions is that I am expected to ...
I think that this is where the communication breakdown is occuring.
I don't. I don't expect you to accept anything. Others might, but I don't. If you ask me what I believe, I'll tell you. If you ask me why, I'll tell you. But (to my knowledge) I have never asked you to believe what I believe. At best, I ask that you accept that I believe it.
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I love when people point to the less than .1% that do crazy stuff and then say they are the majority.Referencing the Islam thread, I love when less than .1% do crazy stuff, and less than 0.01% actively intervene against the crazies, and the remaining 99.89% turn a blind eye to the crazies and demand that I "respect their beliefs."
Again, your point doesn't wash as after the Tiller incident, the condemnation by Christians was very vocal and immediate. Also, they had no trouble convicting him and the jury was all Christian except one.
You realize that you've just repeated the arguments for "Intelligent Design" almost verbatim? Swap out the word "evolution" for "God" and see how it reads. We need to do better than arguing from incredulity.
Point.
However, one, it is not my only evidence/proof/reason, two, it seems a good start. I am not going to make beginning assumptions based on a lack of evidence. I might get around to it when I find supporting indicators.
You could argue there is no air since we can not see it. And I would say, without further knowledge, that is a good start.
One more thought…the argument works equally well for intelligent design. If someone wants to say we have not seen/heard/felt evolution, we have not seen/heard/felt intelligent design either. We will call it a draw and move on to other evidence.
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However, the problem I have with most religions is that I am expected to ...I think that this is where the communication breakdown is occuring.
I don't. I don't expect you to accept anything. Others might, but I don't. If you ask me what I believe, I'll tell you. If you ask me why, I'll tell you. But (to my knowledge) I have never asked you to believe what I believe. At best, I ask that you accept that I believe it.
Exceedingly well put Sir!!
At best, I ask that you accept that I believe it.
Fair enough Moff. It was not meant as an attack on your beliefs. I am just trying to see things from your eyes. To do that, I have to find a way to wrap my head around accepting there is a god.
EDIT: And by that, I mean honestly wrap my head around it. Sure, I can imagine believing in unicorns. But to really get into someone's shoes, I want to fully understand the reasons behind it.
For the record, you have helped me solidify and better understand my faith more than any Christian has.
I am truly flattered. See? God is working through me. Now if he would just send me to Damascus.
And I don't know if you really want to figure out how I think. Few people who go there escape intact. ;-)
Why would that be a bad thing? I am perfectly open to change. I like to think I embrace it, in fact. If nothing else, it gives me a new perspective which I view as a useful tool.
Again, your point doesn't wash as after the Tiller incident, the condemnation by Christians was very vocal and immediate. Also, they had no trouble convicting him and the jury was all Christian except one.
What that tells me is that there is, thankfully, a limit to how far most people will go in the service of abhorrent commandments, even ones that supposedly come from God. That people have a concept of morality that allows them to look at the supposedly "divine" commandment to stone rebellious teenagers, and to say "You know what? That just ain't right. I'm not going to do that." Given several hundred years, they'll eventually write another "Holy" book that explains why the old one was wrong.
These are all Very Good Things. But they don't represent a way in which religion is itself self-correcting, but rather a way in which humans will act to correct it.
*Sigh* A nice long detailed post eaten by beings of pure chaos.
(confidence or trust in a person or thing)And this doesn't explain or define "religion"?
I have "confidence" that the Bible is the Word of God.
I "trust" that Jesus has forgiven my sins.And you don't have faith in anything? How do you know that what you know is correct?
I know what is correct based off of previous experiences (mine and others). If something I thought was correct turns out not to be, I reassess it and try to reform my ideas and their subsequent conclusions/behaviors.
I trust people that have not lied to me in the past and expect them to fulfill their promises.
Having faith in them would be believing in them in spite of having them betrayed or failed me previously.
The way some people treat and talk about raw milk or homeopathic medicine, it might as well be a religion.
Well I detest both of those arguments/ideas so...
Raw milk may or may not be more nutritious/easily digestible. The studies Ive seen are closer to negligible to no measurable difference.
What is a fact is that raw milk can pass bovine tuberculous on to humans. It is a rare occurrence but it is a highly infectious transmittable disease.
Also fortified milk (and bread) has lead to the near elimination of rickets, a rather nasty childhood condition.
So the people the promote mass consumption of raw milk are optimistic, ill informed and/or socially irresponsible.
Homeopathy is a large pile of garbage built off of a few philosophical ideas and Herbalism (hit or miss on its own).
How does one make a distinction between faith and blind faith? I don't think there is one, at least not in any meaningful sense, but if there is then I would quite like to know it.While not explicitly said, the implied message here (especially considering where it was posted) is that at least all religious faith is "blind faith".
I think that's the case, yes. But it's possible that I could be wrong, so I thought I would ask. One of my major goals is to exterminate any traces of faith left in me from my upbringing and culture. I also want to purge many other undesireable things I learned passively growing up where I did: racism, misogyny, xenophobia, the list goes on. (And no I'm not saying that faith is morally identical to racism or whatever, only that all are undesireable.)
I am unlikely to be entirely successful, since I'm not perfect. But one does one's best.
We have faith that others are telling us the "truth". But not only the "truth" but also what is actually "true".
So, do I have "faith" that the news caster is actually telling me the "truth" (in one form or another) or do I have "blind faith" that the news caster is telling me exactly what happened with 100% accuracy without leaving out any details?
It sounds like it. I'm not much of one for trusting the news just because it's the news. Newsmedia have well-defined, rather obvious biases. The days when news divisions were run at a loss as a public service are decades behind us now. Among the most universal biases are avoiding things that will alienate advertisers, powerful people being covered, threaten the social standing of the reporters and their access to the good parties, a strong preference for novelty and conflict however artificial and vapid these may be, and avoidance of anything that would upset their bosses. This is all before we get into any inclinations of the reporters.
Medicine -- Do I have "faith" that the medicine will do as the description says? Or does it actually do what it says? Maybe I just believe it so strongly that my body makes it happen. It could just be a placebo (sp?). I have no real idea. I didn't take the medicine apart and run tests on it to find out what the chemical makeup is. And if I did, maybe it was just that one. I have to have "faith" that the doctors and scientists are actually doing their "due diligence". Because I wasn't there. I have no idea what tests they ran. They could be entirely wrong -- and I wouldn't know.
The first thing I do when I'm given a drug is go home and hit the internet looking for data. Obviously neither of us has the tools on hand to cut the pill apart and analyze every particle of it, but that's a practical limitation. One need not have gone to the Moon to know it's been done. We have evidence. If you take the pill and it does not do what it's supposed to, then clearly someone has done something wrong and we can proceed to figure out who and why. It's probably the case that either the pill has been oversold (to doctors and patients both, often enough) or the doctor plain misdiagnosed you. People do make mistakes. We can know and we can figure it out.
Enter "exibit 'A'" -- My mother-in-law gave us a pamphlet that she was given by her doctor when she was pregnant. One of the things that it said was "Smoking will not harm your unborn baby in any way". I'm sure that they ran tests on this to come to their conclusion. They most likely brought it before an "unbiased group for review". It was still wrong. Yet they believed that they had "proof" for what they wrote.
And yet we know they're wrong. We know they're wrong because science catches and fixes its mistakes. It's self-correcting and indeed one of the best ways for a young scientist to make a name for himself would be to demonstrate how some widely-held scientific notion is actually wrong. It's a great way to make your name because it's so hard.
For just about anything that we read or see or experience we can use Samnell's definition for "blind faith".
I didn't know that I'd given one. I've been working with your definition. Mine would be a simple definition for faith, since I think it's all blind:
"Faith is the act of believing in things which lack sufficient reason and evidence to justify that belief."
But further from that, did Samnell actually go out to the Sinai Penninsula dig up his own artifacts, date them, examine them himself, and so on or did he just take it on "blind faith" that what he read is actually the truth?
No, Samnell examined the evidence and arguments proffered by the authors. Finding them sufficient to dispose with Exodus as a myth, he consequently did so.
And we can even get into the extremely silly -- how do we know that said person's credentials are even valid? Maybe he forged his diploma. Maybe he got a 1.0 GPA. Maybe he somehow got through making up outlandish stories which he has carried on through adulthood. I don't know these people at all.
I use the internet. Here is Israel Finkelstein's credential list, per his alma mater. It looks to be about typical for a person in his field. He has the usual degrees, a considerable list of field work, an extensive list of publications, and even a collection of students. We can go to the university and look up those publications. We can contact the relevant department of antiquities and learn where he directed excavations and when. We can do all of this. Where does faith come into it?
We cannot, of course, say with perfect certainty that this isn't all some elaborate fraud perpetrated with the sole intention of pulling the wool over my eyes and yours so that we don't notice the aliens invading and blowing up all our favorite landmarks in preparation for stealing the world's supply of Cheetos. The universe doesn't provide us perfect certainty. That would require omniscience. But we can say with a very high degree of confidence that this is not the case. It is not where the vast body of evidence and reason point.
Let's look at something else. Homeopathic medicine. I know a few people who have a whole lot of "faith" that this stuff will cure anything from ingrown toenails to cancer. "Faith" or "Blind Faith"?
How about "damned fools who should be ashamed of themselves"? The work on homeopathy has been done. There is no mechanism by which it could work, nor any evidence that it actually does work any better than a placebo. It's been studied and rejected with good cause. This being the case, I divide homeopaths into two groups. The first are hopeless suckers. The second are the parasitic conmen that reap great profit from the misfortune of the second. The first should be educated and the second incarcerated.
They even have links to "studies", but when you click on the link, there is no "study". "Faith" or "Blind Faith"?
If they say there's a study and it transpires that there is not, they are lying to you. If you believe them anyway, I would say that this is a textbook case of blindness.
Related to this subject is when science keeps being brought up as being "wrong" in the past and then it is told that the point of science is to change, modify, and update to whatever is current. Yet it seems like the same people who feel that way also feel that religion should be immune to this. As if we cannot learn more about the religion, or anthropology, or archeology, etc. Just kind of feels like a double-standard to me.
I don't think religion is immune to the challenges of new data. In fact, it's applying the most potent, self-correcting, and useful method of generating knowledge ever conceived to religion that we have found it so comprehensively wanting.
We all practice "faith" to some degree or other. Many people practice "blind faith" to some degree or other. I feel that there is a difference -- and this isn't exclusive to just religion.
Certainly faith is not unique to religion, though I think it one common to all religions. Stalinism looks pretty damned faith-based to me. Homeopathy is not obviously religious, at least so far as I'm aware, but clearly faith-based.
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I think that we're pretty well on the same page. Maybe have a few minor disagreements about it, but close enough for now. One thing you said that caught me...
No, Samnell examined the evidence and arguments proffered by the authors.
How do you know that they are "unbiased"? That they don't have an agenda? That they aren't deliberately hiding other possible "evidence"?
The truth is that I actually agree with a lot of what Finkelstein has said. Not necessarily all of his conclusions. But my point is that in the end I have a certain amount of "faith" that what he says is true -- because I have no real means by which to prove or disprove it at this point. (And the fact that others share his feelings doesn't really "prove" anything either -- there are certainly a lot of Christians who share similar feelings.)
With regard to religion (and maybe this will help CF get into my head)...
I feel that I have taken what I know, what I have observed, and how I see things and put that together to fit my current "religious" view. That is "faith". I do not just take what some ya-hoo behind a pulpit says on "faith". That is "blind faith".
At least how I see it.