truthie

It is not necessarily a problem.
But, does that mean that every time that people have a problem they should recur to drinking because that looks convenient and easy?
There are other ways to face problems in life.

I try to face the world as it is with its ups and downs, the bad and the good and rely on myself, not on drinking, other drugs or myth and superstition.
If we never reject supernatural worldviews, we are not living in a way that does justice to our nature as mortal animals and nature itself.
However, not everybody is capable of acknowledging/doing that.

I guess I am too naturalistic.

T.

reprise

In general, isn't this a behaviour which is more about avoiding dealing with problems rather than failing to acknowledge that they exist? It might not be a productive behaviour, but I'm not sure that it's inherently dishonest.

Heathen Dawn

OK, thanks. I asked because I have faith for the same reason some people drink alcoholic drinks: to soothe the pain, to make me happier.

reprise

I think that's it's possible to find comfort in following a particular philosophical path without necessarily believing all of its dogma, and I think that some people do use religion as a philosophical model without being fully convinced of the objective existence of a deity.

Evoken

Or believing in the diety or dieties but without taking the scripture as literal but as allegories.

Pyrrho

To say that one is less than absolutely certain is beside the point. One rarely, if ever, is justified in being absolutely certain about anything. The point is that one's belief that another person is to be trusted may very well be the position with the most evidential support.


You are not using the term "faith" in the sense defined in the original post. I will grant you, however, that one of the definitions of "faith" is "trust", but it is not the only one.



You have experience with people generally, so you have some idea of how people are generally going to act. This is based upon the evidence of your experience, and is not simply a matter of faith when you expect that most people will not, for example, pull a gun out without provocation and try to shoot you. The evidence of all of your experience is used in such circumstances.


And what kinds of assessments are ever complete? It is always possible to be in error, but that only means that one should be as careful as reasonably possible. One must make one's decisions based upon either imperfect evidence, or upon wishful thinking (i.e., faith, or in other words, no evidence). I recommend going with the best available evidence, no matter how imperfect it may be. Of course, the more imperfect it is, the more uncertain one should be about conclusions based upon it.

Gurdur

Not really, but in any case I did note that often where trust is used there's something like 0 % of knowledge, which covers the point very well.
Because the OP itself did not use "faith" in the everyday sense, but only in a very specialised sense --- and that itself was misleading and the problem.

Real-life:
"I took him on faith"
"We have faith in each other"
"The people have lost faith in the government"
"He did not act in good faith"
That really doesn't answer the point when interacting with individuals not well-known to one. But that isn't just how it actually works,
Were I to apply such a rigorous standard in business life, I might as well retire completely instead -- it's not possible.
Most of the time my faith in other people becomes justified --- but in each and every specific case, I have no ability to know that in advance, thus the use of good faith.

Godless Wonder

I used "faith" not in the "everyday sense" because there is no word that means only the sense in which I used it. If you wish to equate faith and trust, and then say faith is ok because it is nothing more than trust, this is equivocation.

There are similarities and differences between trust in the claim that a woman isn't fooling around and faith in the claim that a magical undetectable invisible being exists.

Similarities first:

There is only incomplete knowledge.
There may be resistance in accepting contrary evidence. Some flimsy excuse from your sweetie for that used condom in the wastebasket might suffice for you, while all your friends quickly suspect different from far subtler clues. So, it's clear that even such ordinary trust is not well founded, and may involve deceiving oneself.

Differences next.

The claim that a woman is not fooling around is falsifiable. Videotape of her fooling around with another guy while making jokes at your expense would suffice. The claim that God exists is not falsifiable in the form it is generally made by the faithful.

The claim that a woman is not fooling around is pretty ordinary. There are plenty of women who don't fool around. And then there are those who do. The claim that a man who supposedly performs a few paltry and suspect "miracles" (raising himself from the dead, turning water to wine, walking on water, etc.) is the creator of the entire universe. is a rather extraordinary claim, for which there is no evidence.

Now the fact that there is no single word that distinguishes extreme "faith" in such nonsense from "faith" (or trust) in your sweeties fidelity in no way means that such extremes are just as valid.

What I'm doing is advocating usage of the word "faith " exclusively for this extreme and invalid form of trust, and trying to show it for what it really is -- self deception, and bullshit.

If there is no word for this variety of "faith," I propose abandoning other usages of the word faith, since trust serves just as well for those, and trust does not alreay carry an implication of unreasonable loyalty to a particular idea, and reserving "faith" for a synonym of "extremely unreasonable trust" and advertising it as the terrible and shameful thing that it is.

jbernier

First off, I am not convinced that thinking about faith in evidentiary terms is really an adequate way to discuss faith as existential and social reality. Id do not have faith due to evidence or a lack thereof; I have faith because it seems to make the most sense of my existential experiences. Nonetheless...

When speaking evidentiary I think that you are correct that claims to greater certainty than is warranted by evidence is problematic. However I am not convinced that this is a necessary aspect of religious belief or practice. It is completely possible to say "This is what makes most sense to me" while recognizing that the "evidence" is far from decisive. Moreover, it is hardly a people exclusive to religious belief and practice: I have seen quite a few natural scientists who had greater certainty in their theories than the evidence warranted.

Gurdur

Nobody here is using "faith" as synonymous with "trust".
Trust can be a component of faith, yet it is only one attribute among others of faith.
Thus your suspicion of equivocation is unjustified.
And that has already been said -- by me, among others,
Why ? I prefer real-world language. Otherwise it is going to get confusing.
Redefining the English language is not going to work.
We have to address how realworld people actually talk and think.