seebs

If you find that something sometimes has bad effects, and sometimes has good effects, wouldn't the best thing to do be "try to figure out what causes it to work better sometimes and worse others", not "condemn it in general"?

It seems to me that Amie has it right; faith is a potentially useful thing. Overused or misused, it's harmful, but what tool isn't?

Asha'man

I’m sure there is, but I’m not aware of it. If I was, I would ask myself: why would I believe that? If I couldn’t find some form of reasonable evidence, I would revise my beliefs.

I should point out that reasonable evidence is often pretty easy to come by. If a friend tells me he had chicken for dinner last night, his statement alone is probably reasonable evidence. The usual rule about “extreme claims require extreme evidence” is always true.

Nope, not that I recall. That has always seemed like a pretty melodramatic comment, the type that happens in movies but not in real life.

Amie

Hi Asha'man
I had In-N-out for dinner, I should have had chicken but I felt as if I was starving so I ate 2 cheeseburgers

ok so lets say that same friend of yours who ate chicken for dinner tells you he saw an angel. I am assuming you would think an angel sighting to be an "extreme claim" however would you be inclined to believe your honest friend? I guess what I am asking is when you take someone in your life whom you are close to, someone you trust and love who has a subjective experience, what do you do with that? I think you would believe your friend but would you think they were delusional? chalk it up to a hallucination? would his statement about the angel count as reasonable evidence at all?

Do you have faith in yourself? in your capabilities? or do you feel that faith is really not an appropriate word for things of that nature?

I think everyone has faith in *something* to some degree.

Robert G. Ingersoll

As an atheist, I have no religious faith whatsoever. That's what being an atheist means.

As for having 'faith' about other types of claims, I use the word 'assumption', rather than faith, since 'faith' has the baggage of being a 'religious' word. I think Arnie is using 'faith' as a weasel word here.

I have all sorts of assumptions about reality, but most are based on experience, and most are pragmatic, i.e., I see them as reasonable assumptions. My reasonable assumption about religious claims like god and ghosts is that such seems to be wish-fulfillment fantansies, or the taking of myths as literal truths.

seebs

What constitutes a "reasonable" assumption is, so far as I can tell, purely subjective. I see it as a "reasonable" assumption that my experience of God is, in fact, what it seems to be. I see no objective standard here.

Oxymoron

Amie,

I fail to see how a belief that is made without the need for supporting evidence can somehow be "unmade" by later evidence. You have already thrown away the requirement for validation of your belief by appeal to evidence.

Religious Faith can be summarised thusly:

It's true because I wish it to be true (and/or)
It's true because a book says so (and/or)
It's true because someone else told me so

None of these has anything to do with evidence or rational enquiry. Indeed they are anti evidence and rational enquiry. If one were to require one's faith to be supported by evidence and rational enquiry, it would dissolve on the spot because the beliefs would either be indeterminable or false. Consequently, the extra requirement of religious faith is that the beliefs are never validated against reality (hence "an article of faith"). And if that is not narrow-minded, I'll eat my hat without the aid of salt and pepper.

Oxymoron

It might point to the fact that my friend believed he saw an angel. Whether he actually did see an angel is, um, debatable.

My confidence in my own capabilities is learnt through my abilities to succeed and fail at certain tasks in the past. It is inductive. Even when I approach a new sort of task that I've never done before, I can still inductively appeal to my ability to handle unfamiliar tasks.

If this is faith, then yes, I have faith. However, it is not religious faith. Religious faith is an intellectual abomination that has nothing to do with induction and everything to do with the propogation of self-serving lies and half-truths whose ultimate result is to turn the believer into someone who cannot distinguish reality from mythological fantasy.

Asha'man

I sort of addressed the question of angels earlier in the thread, but I will repeat my answer: nobody ever sees an angel. What they see is something that looks like a person with “special” attributes. They may see wings, they may see a glow, they may see great strength. From that observation, they attempt to draw a conclusion about what they saw, and that explanation may be an “angel.” Personally, I’m more likely to conclude that such an observation is explained by a member of the X-Men, or perhaps a Vorlon. I might also conclude that a large projection TV had been placed carefully, or that it was some other form of deliberate illusion. Finally, it is a known fact that people do have hallucinations, so that is another possible explanation.

If my friend was able to convince me that he wasn’t kidding, then I might accept his observation. But I wouldn’t need to accept his explanation, especially if it was something as poorly supported and vague as an “angel.”

I have confidence in my capabilities, and that confidence is based on evidence. I always did well in school with little effort, I tested well, I understand difficult and complex subjects that other people avoid, I have done well in my career and am well compensated because of that.

You keep saying that, but it isn’t changing the fact that I have no faith that I am aware of.

Shadowy Man

At this point you have to define "faith".

Your statement is not true with my definition of faith.

thebeave

Amie,
If you saw the winged horse Pegasus from Greek Mythology flying down the street, would you abandon your Catholicism and suddenly become a believer in the Greek Gods? If not, then don't you think its kind of silly to expect athiests to suddenly become believers in a Christian God if we saw a winged human flying around?