avalanche:ix

"This claim confuses me because I utilized faith when I drove to work this morning,the faith that I would not be in a car accident with a semi,and faith I would arrive safely to work."


that's not faith, that's justified trust. presumably, you've never, or rarely been in a car accident, you know that the chances are relatively slim of getting in a car accident, ergo, justified trust. faith on the other hand is the belief in something while having an absense of reason/evidence in favor of this belief. in essence, you have to accept it blindly without question.

thus your argument does not apply.

Starboy

But what is the need for faith when you can carry out experiments?

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Autonemesis

Was it really faith? Or was it merely lack of doubt?

I do not fear driving to work because I have little reason to doubt my ability to avoid most any accident, not because I have faith that an accident will not occur.

My position seems to be gravitating to the idea that there is no way to know empirical truth absolutely. We can only be certain about what is false. Therefore we should measure confidence in terms of how little doubt we have, not in terms of how much faith we can muster.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

I have often been told that I 'have faith' everytime I sit in a chair, drive a car, etc.

The problem is, every now and then a chair breaks beneath me, and I have been in a car wreck or two.

So, what does 'having faith' actually do?

I trust that the chair is structurally sound--

--and, most of the time, it is.

But not always.

So much for 'faith'.

Keith.

crocodile deathroll

Faith is often use as a polite term for a "religious belief" Like a multi-faith congregation or "we accomodate people of all faiths".

In that situation I would personally find the word "faith" to be more of an insult.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: crocodile deathroll ]</p>

abe smith

That mawkish Red-Skelton "God bless" is offensive to me, not sure why. What"s it supposed to mean? apart from being some sort of phatic noise akin to "cheers"?

doubtingt

These arguements are pointless, unless we are willing to agree upon a definition of terms.
There is a psychological state where a person accepts (i.e., believes) a claim irregardless of any supporting evidence or knowledge they may have. This is what is meant theolocially by faith.
You are using faith to mean belief in the absence of 100% absolute proof, which is entirely different.
By your definition all beliefs must be considered "faith" and therefore the very concept of faith becomes meaningless and uninformative.

If we stick with the former definition (which is the more theologically relevant) then your friend is correct and your example is not an act of faith at all but a reason based, evidence supported belief.

Belief that is independent of consideration of supporting knowledge has no more chance of constituting accurate knowledge than if you placed every possible alternative belief on an infinite dart board and blindly through a dart. Every once in a while your belief will happen to be correct, just as the dart will happen to hit the correct answer sometimes. However, faith based epistemologies provide no mechanism whatever to identify which small % of all faith based beliefs happened to blindly stumble on the right answer.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: doubtingt ]</p>

Synaesthesia

It's worth noting that some of the best evidence that your car will take you to work is the fact that the proposition is consistent with scientific theory. Coherence with good theories constitutes evidence unto itself.

Keith Russell

Syn:

But the single best evidence that my car will take me to work, is the FACT (independent of any and all THEORY) that my car actually TOOK me to work.

Facts are better than theories anyway (nothing against theories, but...) and--to be rational--claims and beliefs must be based on evidence.

Keith.

[ November 14, 2002: Message edited by: Keith Russell ]</p>

Ms. Siv

Yeah ... thats probability.
Given that, until yesterday, it did take me to work and given the likelihood of any possible faults, or someone stealing the engine etc ... you come out with a probability distribution of the event that your car will take you to work today.

- S.