Thread: Faith........(not religion)

Faith is the truth of passion. Since no one passion is anymore true than another, faith is the truth of nothing.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with having faith in something. Only that faith should not be a circular argument (ie. "I believe in god therefore he must exist and is the cause of all good things that happen in life.)

Originally Posted by Dimension

Faith is the truth of passion.

how so ?
i always thought faith was belief without proof, or sometimes in the face of contradicting evidence

presumably we're not talking about the same type of (non-religious) faith ?

In part yes I mean non religious faith. But I'm making the statement about faith as a whole. I agree that faith is belief without proof but much of the time is is passion that backs that belief up. People believe things in the face of contradicting evidence that would deter most people. However passion (for what you think you've discovered or for your religion etc...) tends to blind people from seeing the truth. We often don't recognise it because it's so much more comfortable to have something to believe in than to not.

some would call it stubborness - you know, the "over my dead body" attitude

True, but people are usually fairly stubborn about their passions.

Yes, faith in general is bad; unless were are dealing on a purely subjective domain where the contradiction of objectivity holds no detrimental result whatsoever.

Cold Fusion, you have restored my faith in mankind - or is that a bad thing ?

Originally Posted by Cold Fusion

Yes, faith in general is bad...

How'd you come up with that?

Its probably bad.

I'll respond to wolf when I get home....can't think well enough here to adequetly respond to that.

Faith is placing your trust in something/body.

You have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow because you can't prove that the sun will rise tomorrow. You can't use casuality to prove casuality.

You have faith that stephan hawking is a genius because most people who know anything about what he talks about agree with him.


A statement like "Faith is the truth of passion" is absolutely meaningless. What is this truth of passion? What passion?

By saying faith is the truth of passion, he means (I think) that faith is like a form of passion in the way that since it often times subjectively generates itself, you cannot usually use objectivity to sway them unless they have faith in you (so that they can understand your logic, then later using that knowledge objectively prove that you were right) which would contradict their original faith...and unless you have strong persuasive/manipulative abilities, you will not win. In that way, faith can become a singular idea that can be devoid of reasoning either by yourself or others. Once you give up on everyone else (whatever #) you can face adversity towards your idea/opinion, and therefore form a passion of reliance in yourself in order to keep yourself going. That passion is the obsession in you being right (according to you); it is you staying with yourself no matter what and never letting yourself be swayed.

I think faith is bad since it generally arrives out of subjectivity; at least in the applicable circumstances.

Bad: Someone comes up to you and tells you that the earth is billions of years old, that carbon dating has proved it, and that we were born of evolution; yet you have FAITH in a god, illogical faith without any real back up, and therefore do not listen.

Good/ok: Your mother tells you that the girl you are thinking about marrying is actually an evil manipulative $^%#! and is only after your for unknown ulterior motives; you listen because you have faith in your mothers experiance in life, and allow yourself to see things in a different way in order to see if she was right.

The difference is that one deals with an objective (self) truth, and the other deals with subjective feelings that cannot be swayed in either direction through a device like scientific method.

Originally Posted by Cold Fusion

By saying faith is the truth of passion, he means (I think) that faith is like a form of passion in the way that since it often times subjectively generates itself, you cannot usually use objectivity to sway them unless they have faith in you (so that they can understand your logic, then later using that knowledge objectively prove that you were right) which would contradict their original faith...and unless you have strong persuasive/manipulative abilities, you will not win. In that way, faith can become a singular idea that can be devoid of reasoning either by yourself or others. Once you give up on everyone else (whatever #) you can face adversity towards your idea/opinion, and therefore form a passion of reliance in yourself in order to keep yourself going. That passion is the obsession in you being right (according to you); it is you staying with yourself no matter what and never letting yourself be swayed.

Precisely

There is nothing really 'subjective' about logic.
If people don't wish to accept conclusions then they have problems with the beginning assumptions, not with the logic that leads them there.

Religious people believe what they believe because they start with the assumption that God exists and that we can know god through some form of revelation either personal or natural or revealed.

I can see how the statement faith is the truth of passion (as explained by Cold Fusion) can work with personal revelation, as it is the personal revelation of God to the individual that renders that individual unable to accept the starting assumption that God does not exist for instance. However I still think it's a rather non statement, especially considering

Since no one passion is anymore true than another, faith is the truth of nothing.

does not follow. But eh, each to their own.

Faith is placing your trust in something/body.

You have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow because you can't prove that the sun will rise tomorrow. You can't use casuality to prove casuality.

You have faith that stephan hawking is a genius because most people who know anything about what he talks about agree with him.

Bad: Someone comes up to you and tells you that the earth is billions of years old, that carbon dating has proved it, and that we were born of evolution; yet you have FAITH in a god, illogical faith without any real back up, and therefore do not listen.

Good/ok: Your mother tells you that the girl you are thinking about marrying is actually an evil manipulative $^%#! and is only after your for unknown ulterior motives; you listen because you have faith in your mothers experiance in life, and allow yourself to see things in a different way in order to see if she was right.

The difference is that one deals with an objective (self) truth, and the other deals with subjective feelings that cannot be swayed in either direction through a device like scientific method

Discussing faith is something that I have found to be very difficult, because arguments of semantics always get very tedious. I may attack faith and say it is irrational, but then someone will tell me that I have faith in such and such, therefore it is not always irrational. . . . things like that. It gets very fuzzy. Creative interpretations like "faith is the truth of passion" serve only to exacerbate this already difficult issue. I have thought a lot about how to approach the issue, and I hope that I can bring about some clarity here. I put the quotes above so that I could use something appropriate to refer to. . .

I think the real basic issue that we are discussing here is how do we know what is what. We are talking about the sun rising, characteristics of a girl we are going to marry, whether Stephen Hawking is a genius. . . we are looking for truth. How do we evaluate the many claims about phenomena and determine their truth value. Really, it comes down to evidence. So now we come to the definitions. Faith can be defined as belief without, or in spite of, evidential support. In this sense, faith is ludicrous in that it could justify belief in anything, and furthermore, provides no basis for discriminating true information from not true information. Faith is not a rational way of thinking. The alternative to using faith is using evidence. If there is evidence, faith is not needed. Also, the converse is true. When there is evidence, we simply determine how strong the evidence is in support of the claim.

Now, here is where it gets tricky. Sometimes someone will use faith as a synonym for belief. . . well, you have faith the sun is going to rise tomorrow, or you have faith that the ground isn't going to fall out from under you when you walk out the door. . . .yes, it can be true that one has faith in these propositions, but only if faith is tagged with the proper definition. Faith can also be defined as "belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing." So we have faith the sun is going to rise means- I believe the sun is going to rise. So, the necessary question is-why do you think that? Well, I'm sure we all have sufficient evidence to believe the sun is going to rise; we see it everyday, heliocentric theory explains how we revolve around it, which explains why we see it when we do. . .so we know using the evidence. If we had no evidence, then we would be using the first definition of faith, and the belief would be characterized as irrational (at least in my book).

So in summation, the relevant question will always be How Do You Know? Evidence. . . .No Evidence. Also, in response to Cold Fusion, yes subjective feelings can be swayed by "the scientific method". The scientific method is, fundamentally, a way of thinking, and it requires the use of evidence. Evidence will always apply to everything for a rational thinking being, even when it comes to subjective feelings and emotions. Here, I suppose, the faith you are talking about fits into the second definition of faith. . .therefore, the relevant question is, "how, mother, do you know my fiance is a manipulative person that has ulterior motives for marrying me?". We just analyze the evidence. Let's not get caught up in characterizing claims as "bad" or "good" by using words like faith. As we see, it gets sticky. Pretty much the only real question we need to determine the veracity of someone's claims (so as to determine whether they are "bad" or "good" if you will) is HOW DO YOU KNOW???

I hope this may clear things up a little. I used definitions for faith that are found in the dictionary, so it's not like I am telling everyone to adopt the definitions I thought up. I realize this is a slightly long post, so if anyone has any questions of where I was coming from or anything I need to clarify just ask and I will do so.

There is no such thing as a long post!

Yep; good summary.

Sometimes (as stated in my example) you have to rely on faith (on their mother) when evidence is lacking, and all of the conditions are right. The conditions? Well, by saying evidence lacking, and therefore you can use faith, this only means that evidence cannot be formulated since it is on a subjective domain...and the only truth that you could find would come from the subject of scrutiny itself; which of course if you could ask, would void the situation all together.

There is no such thing as a long post!

Yep; good summary.

Sometimes (as stated in my example) you have to rely on faith (on their mother) when evidence is lacking, and all of the conditions are right. The conditions? Well, by saying evidence lacking, and therefore you can use faith, this only means that evidence cannot be formulated since it is on a subjective domain...and the only truth that you could find would come from the subject of scrutiny itself; which of course if you could ask, would void the situation all together.

I think I understand what you are saying, and all I would say is that either the mother gives information, which constitutes as evidence, or the mother does not give information, which means that you would not have had the suspicion of manipulation in the first place, which means you would be going off the evidence you already had, which was that she loved you. . . . I guess all I am getting to is that there is no case in that scenario where you have absolutely no evidence. You are either leaning one way or another, based off of the information you have taken in. Therefore, faith, as I first defined, is unnecessary as it always is and always will be. It is simply not rational to believe just to believe and with no reason or evidence.

Its objective subjectivity. An objective basis that is on a subjective plane. Any evidence that you can get is only objective due to the restraining parameters on the situation...it is comparative. But if you see the situation as on the domain of the total scale, then I would consider the evidence as a faith of sorts...since it cannot be mathematically (or through similar methods) proven, ever.

Its objective subjectivity. An objective basis that is on a subjective plane. Any evidence that you can get is only objective due to the restraining parameters on the situation...it is comparative. But if you see the situation as on the domain of the total scale, then I would consider the evidence as a faith of sorts...since it cannot be mathematically (or through similar methods) proven, ever.

What is objective subjectivity? This seems like a contradiction. Perhaps you could clarify by explaining this in terms of our example.

YES, the art of contradiction; this requires an enire new post in itself to really discuss though....

Here is the thing, LANGUAGE IS THE LARGEST RESTRAINING FORCE ON OUR MINDS. Many words have a base notion that can be used with another word, yet we have an idea in our minds that they cannot work together....but they can! In my mind, I think on the equivalent of computer machine code; that language is only for my mind and cannot be conveyed into my viewable reality. So, I do things like make up/manipulate words and appear to make contradictions in order to better convey my feelings. If you only use the feelings of words, you will never (it will be hard) supersede the mental abilities of the common public.

So, by saying objective subjectivity I am inferring that you are using the pinnacle of objective reasoning that can be done on the subjective plane that you are working on. Truly objective things can be broken down to math in some sense or another. For my example....even if you possessed some form of god like mental capacity, you could still not make a truly objective choice since the tools to make that choice cannot exist in the situation. So, the best you can do is to objectively use subjective tools to the best of your ability.

Objective subjectivity is not very potent in my example, but it is still present enough to mention.

Originally Posted by Rationalist

Faith can be defined as belief without, or in spite of, evidential support. In this sense, faith is ludicrous in that it could justify belief in anything, and furthermore, provides no basis for discriminating true information from not true information. Faith is not a rational way of thinking. The alternative to using faith is using evidence. If there is evidence, faith is not needed. Also, the converse is true. When there is evidence, we simply determine how strong the evidence is in support of the claim.

That is exactly what I was getting at with my initial statement

Rationalist,

Regarding faith as a philosophical question I stick with the strict definition of putting your trust in somebody/thing. I think that explains it regardless of what situation you use it in. By saying you believe in the Bible without evidence means you have trust in God and his word. By saying I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow means I trust in casuality, I can't prove that casuality exists because to do so will render a circular argument, but I live my life in the trust that it is.

In my opinion to talk about faith as a subject in and of itself is to talk about nothing.

Or alternatively there are those who use the word Faith as synonymous with the word Religion (which is often used as a synonym for a particular religion). Which is fine considering that the word faith has come to be only associated with religion.

Rationalist,

Regarding faith as a philosophical question I stick with the strict definition of putting your trust in somebody/thing. I think that explains it regardless of what situation you use it in. By saying you believe in the Bible without evidence means you have trust in God and his word. By saying I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow means I trust in casuality, I can't prove that casuality exists because to do so will render a circular argument, but I live my life in the trust that it is.

In my opinion to talk about faith as a subject in and of itself is to talk about nothing.

Or alternatively there are those who use the word Faith as synonymous with the word Religion (which is often used as a synonym for a particular religion). Which is fine considering that the word faith has come to be only associated with religion.

Right, and that definition would work fine. . .it's just that I have had discussions before where the definition confused the real issue, and that is why I set out to clarify, and to get at the real issue, which is how we are thinking. Do we have good reasons to trust in x,y,z. . . .and so forth. . .

Now, it seems you were equating trust in God to trust in the sun rising. This is interesting. You must be assuming both are equally valid assumptions (that the sun will rise and that God is). Of course, with the same logic on could try to justify having trust in a flying invisible purple rabbit with donkey ears. . .but I don't think that would really wash well. I go back to, do you have good reasons to trust in x,y,z. Well, with the case of the sun, we can see it! So we can first assume its existence, and then, because we tend to see it all the time at the same times and physics and cosmology tell us exactly why this is. . . , we can decide to trust in its existence, and that it will rise everyday (until it burns out). You cannot trust in something that doesn't exist, because that makes no sense. So to trust in God you must first assume its existence. But without justification for his existence the trust means nothing. If you were doing what I think you were with your argument about trust, then I'll tell you it doesn't follow.

Rationalist,


What faith is and whether we have good reasons or not to have faith are two separate questions. This is because the second question of whether we have good reasons for faith or not is dependant on what you're having faith in.

I wasn't equating faith in God with faith in the sun rising. They just provided two ready examples for two instances of faith, the first being God and the second being in casaulity.

Blind faith, in all instances is worth avoiding.

Rationalist,


What faith is and whether we have good reasons or not to have faith are two separate questions. This is because the second question of whether we have good reasons for faith or not is dependant on what you're having faith in.

I wasn't equating faith in God with faith in the sun rising. They just provided two ready examples for two instances of faith, the first being God and the second being in casaulity.

Blind faith, in all instances is worth avoiding.

Ok, perhaps I misinterpreted you. I think we both agree. Cheers.