Thieving Magpie

Do you have 'faith' in things like science? Do you have faith in atheism?

Thieving Magpie

I know it needs a belief to start. That does not change the question.

I do not understand - what is bad, exactly?

Very good point Mr. Sammi. I was hoping someone would bring that up.

On a related point I would like to comment on the poll findings thus far. Firstly, I am glad that there is a fair bit of diversity in answers. Though very few people seem to have tried to justify themselves.

A lot of these concepts (but not all) are concepts that many people seem to disbelieve right out of hand as being 'too obviously true/false' In fact, another reason I put in the last answer is because I fully expected people to think that the topic itself was absurd (yet still misunderstand the question).

Why would anyone bother debating some of these issues, some might ask themselves? Yet people have shown here that they show (lack of) preference for some over others, perhaps suggesting a gradient, that varies from person to person. If something is incredibly, obviously the most 'outlandish' wouldn't everyone pick the same? Maybe, everyone is not as well informed, as they could be - but this argument is useless unless people start justifying their decisions, which they have not done.

The point I am trying to make with this is that perhaps we should be questioning things we take for granted more often. Atheists and theists alike question God's existence, but some theists never really try to.

Is: "Logic can only be proved by itself, and therefore employs circular reasoning." so incredibly absurd, compared to any other option considered here? Not everyone thought so. But some did. The general assumption, of course, is that logic is ultimate and infallible, but does everyone believe that? There has been a number of questions on this board recently about the validity and limits of logic. I suggest for anyone interested to read "Critique of Pure Reason" by Kant - it deals with this, though not as completely as I would have hoped.

Though one could note the blaring logical problems with option one, I will not address them, because the question itself argues against the importance of such questions.

I think everyone on this board, could, potentially vote on this poll because it is an issue based around relativity instead of absolutes which not everyone would agree on (and eventually cause the thread to sputter out). Asking a question of more/less is a lot easier to answer than an is/is not question of many polls.

Just what does everyone 'just assume'/'take for granted'/'believe by faith?' I think everyone will find a great many things fall under these categories, but they do not always want to address them.

tronvillain

Who claims that logic proves itself? I would have thought it was more of a brute fact than anything that was proved.

Thieving Magpie

The point I'm trying to make is that there very well be, no 'Brute facts' as you put it. A 'brute fact' is nothing short of an assumption - an assumption which may not be 'proven' true or false, because it transcends such terminology.

Supergirl

Crap - I vote fot the one that is LEAST outlandish. Trust newbies to screw things up.

Gurdur

What a weird "logic". And what a useless poll.

Thieving Magpie

Logic is logic, be it weird or not.

Why do you believe it is useless?

Psycho Economist

I have a tentitave trust in both... based on the affirmative track record of science, and the lack of a substantiable affirmative track record for religion. But I wouldn't dare say I have faith.

Aethari

I'm actually somewhat surprised that so many people chose 'God exists' as the most outlandish of all the propositions. Since TM didn't specific a particular God, we're left thinking about a generic God to which we must be agnostic...something that certainly seems far less outlandish than some of the other claims. Personally, I chose the statement about "faith" being a natural and necessary part of human existence. Maybe I'm just an optimist

~Aethari

Thieving Magpie

Yes, I did that on purpose, in fact... I noted earlier this year that if I thought a rock was a God for just being a rock, would I be wrong? Is everyone who put down 'God exists' going to refute my claim that this rock exists?

I find it interesting that Psycho Economist says:

Is tentative trust anything but 'faith?' Besides, the mere act of recognizing 'science' as having an 'affirmative track record' takes a certain amount of 'tentative trust' or 'faith' in the process itself. The same is true for the supposed 'lack of a substantiable affirmative track record for religion' - you may find that Christians (to take an obvious example) believe that religion does in fact have a long and affirmative track record - they just use different criteria than you do.

Are they foolish because they hold things to a different standard? Are you?

I think 'faith' is completely natural - people, and animals do not learn or believe just because of logical processes, A to B, and B to C. We learn by association which is basically the accumulation of assumptions - and it is these assumptions that we accept by faith, just because it is the way we operate. Other animals follow the same path.