justashooter

faith is a mechanism used by the unsophisticated to allow acceptance of manifestations of mechanisms beyond their comprehension.

faith is for the intellectually impaired. faith is for linear thinkers who cannot conceptualise that there are mechanisms beyond their scope of understanding.

a more sophisticated thinker, who has had the opportunity and motivation to make major schematic shifts is capable of grasping the concept. the acceptance that unknown mechanisms and resultant manifestations are not inherently dangerous is an indication of intellectual maturity that few achieve. this acceptance that things unknown can be learned and manipulated allows the individual to grow in intellect and experience without limit.

John Page

Perhaps the philosopher relies upon the faith that it is not.

Cheers, John

Nowhere357

IMO a lot of the confusion over belief and reason can be resolved with this POV:

Belief is the basis for all and any knowledge.
Rational belief (left brain?) is based on reason and logic.
Intuitive belief (right brain?) is based on reason and intuition.

So we possess two methods of obtaining knowledge. Neither is inherently superior to the other. Rational belief works best when studying the objective physical world. Intuitive belief works best when the concern is the subjective experience of emotions, etc.

As you define faith, then, you are talking about an intuitive belief. As such, I think philosophy is not at odds with faith.

malookiemaloo

Thanks one and all for responding.

Unfortunately time constraints prevent me from replying in detail.


m

Bill B

I think Mark Twain put it best when he said "Faith is believing what you know ain't so".

For so many folks on this earth, this is much too easy. For philosophers and freethinkers, almost impossible!

Pyrrho

First, as others have noted, your notion of "faith" is nonstandard.

Second, if we go with something like this for "faith": "Belief that is not supported by evidence", then you will find some disagreement among philosophers:

http://ajburger.homestead.com/ethics.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1931333076/

If you want a direct opinion on this, I believe faith is not rational. See the links above for why I believe this (I basically agree with Clifford and Burger).

Wanderer

(My answer will not be based on a definition of faith invlolving God as a guiding factor in life and what not, but rather the base concept of accepting something without conclusive proof. Sorry if that's not what you wanted, but it seemed like the discussion might be going in that direction anyway): I would say that in a lot of ways it's hard to avoid faith, regardless of what you believe. The belief in the existance or non-existance of God(s) for example requires some degree of faith since their is no conclusive proof either way. When we try to perceive anything in the world around us, especially matters of religion or philosophy, what we are left with, at best, is an incomplete picture. We then try to fill in the blanks, each in our own way and according to our own logic. But we as humans must acknowledge that we know very little, and that whatever answers we put in these proverbiel blanks will be nothing more than educated guesses. So even if we allow are beleifs to be fluid and are minds open to new ideas, we will always, on some level, be applying faith in our own way, wether we even realize it or not. The real arguement I think, is the issue of "blind faith"(believing something because somebody else tells you to; or to go back to my earlier metaphor, filling in the blanks with some one ELSE'S answers). I would argue however that this is not real faith at all, because it wasn't forged through that person's own understanding and discoveries. It's nothing more than a manipulation, even if victim, or the perpatrator, or both, have their hearts in the right place. Regardless of what belief/religion/issue/principal your discussing, faith imposed on you by others is not faith at all, faith is something that you find/make for yourself; and since it's impossible to know ANYTHING, faith in a way is a part of EVERYTHING. I have faith that I'm breathing oxygen right now, but that's all I have, since I don't know. Faith and skepticsm are not mutually exclusive, but that's a whole other area to discuss on another day. So to answer your question, no, faith(by my definition, not the traditional one) and philosophy are not at all at odds with each other, because in a way they are one in the same.

Philosoft

I disagree. A "belief in the... non-existence of God(s)" is more properly a non-belief. There are many things I do not believe in. Is it correct to say I have faith that fire-breathing dragons don't exist?

Quote:

So even if we allow are beleifs to be fluid and are minds open to new ideas, we will always, on some level, be applying faith in our own way, wether we even realize it or not.

I disagree. Beliefs are not universal knowledge-claims. They are ways of applying the limited knowledge we do have to our interactions with the world. People who have beliefs tend to realize their beliefs are necessarily tentative. People who have faith do not.

This is obfuscation. Surely it is possible to know something? Why do we have the word "knowledge" if it does not refer to a possible state-of-affairs? And how do we know your definition of "knowledge" is correct if it is something fundamentally unattainable?

Sophistry. What is gained by defining "knowledge" in this way? If you're not breathing oxygen, you'll know in about six minutes.
This was not one of the better attempts to marry religion and science.

Wanderer

LOL, not at all. Science and religion should have nothing to do with each other, at least not at the present time. Most people are simply to rigid and can only handle one of them, rejecting the other; sometime in the future maybe people will be ready, but not now.

I find your concept of non-beliefs a little silly. What's the difference between thinking something is so and thinking something ISN'T so.

The universe is an obfuscation my freind. Indeed, we cannot even be sure that it exists, or that we exist. There's a good chance we're breathing oxygen right, but we can't proove it conclusivly, maybe it's an illusion. At the end of the day we know NOTHING other than what's going on in our own miniscule little minds; we might not like to admit it, but it's true.

I still insist that faith(not blind faith) does not mean that your beliefs are locked in to place and can never change even as your circumstances and experiences change. It simply means you've gone beyond your level of knowledge and understanding(little to none), to form those beliefs; which is something everyone has probably done unless they've spent their whole lives in a comba.

Philosoft

This suggests you possess some metaphysical "knowledge" the rest of us lack.

The difference is everything. I'm not currently actively not-believing in the Jabberwocky, it just has no place in the bulk of my thought processes. I think people get confused when confronted with terminology like, "The Jabberwocky absolutely does not exist," which implies an unattainable level of ontological certainty. Why do you think belief and non-belief are equivalent?

There are many problems with solipsism. But I think it's funny that you try to use it as an epistemic foundation for anything. What is "true" in a world where there is a nonzero probability that everything is "false"?
I am consistently amazed at the attempts to cram the word "faith" into places where it isn't needed. We don't always have to couch everything in religious terminology. I say leave "faith" to describe a subset of belief "without evidence or in the face of contrary evidence." Everything else is perfectly well described by mere "belief."