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All Facts Are Based in Faith
- Thread starter Axe Elf
- Start date
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Define "faith".
Nope. All facts are based on observation. And there is a *huge* difference between the 'faith' that patterns that have been noticed will continue and 'religious faith' that isn't supported by observation.
Very well stated. Thank you! I was about to make the same points, but perhaps not as concisely and clearly as you did.
Defining "fact" is much harder, but I suspect any genuine adequate definition of "fact" would by itself answer the question, or at least imply an answer.
For instance, if we were to define "fact" as "any state of affairs that can be reliably observed", we have at least gone a long ways towards an answer to the question of whether all facts are based on faith.
"Faith" is such a mischievous word. (And it gets really testy when you pronounce it as
"mis cheev' ee us".) It can range from blind faith in superstition all the way up to inductive
reasoning based upon repeated observation. It morphs into one of its options depending
up whether it wants to clarify things, or revel in the silly arguments it causes. He once
lived in deep dark woods, but he's since moved to the internet.
Here's a rare photo of the word...
WalterTrull
Godfella
I feel that religious faith is a sort of subordinate to faith in general, and quite possibly misnamed.. It seems to me that faith is the mental state that allows us to move, to walk, to do, to accomplish anything. Without the faith that I can stand up and cross the room, I must stay seated.
OK rethinking a little: without the knowledge that I can stand up... faith is the mental "do".
Seems like sort of a mental hierarchy: hope, knowledge, faith.
OK rethinking a little: without the knowledge that I can stand up... faith is the mental "do".
Seems like sort of a mental hierarchy: hope, knowledge, faith.
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If facts are based in faith then every religious person will necessarily have two faiths - the duplicitous *7*^%*! 
It depends. Whatever I can sense through personal, first-hand experience, I accept as "real" and consider it "fact." I suppose it's possible that this could all be an illusion, but it's the "reality" that I have personally experienced and accept it as it is.
Then there are other facts which I may not have personal, first-hand knowledge of, but they are related to me in any number of ways and I might also accept them as true. That might require some degree of faith, along with some ability to discern between reliable and unreliable sources of information. Even if a source is reliable, language is still imperfect, and there can be miscommunications, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations. Human memory is fallible. Eyewitness testimony isn't always that reliable.
I don't know if it's so much a matter of faith as much as trust in other human beings and what they say.
I think you are striking up against.a problem in religion where belief and faith merge. If I turn and say that the athropocene epoch is 99% sciences creation I will certainly get a self delusional push back of belief that science is totally independent and objective from it and faith that it can fix it. The merging of belief and faith is common and "normal" psychological behaviour and "science"is not exempt.
Shadow Link
Active Member
True faith?
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Axe Elf
Prophet
Google says "complete trust or confidence in someone or something."
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I'm thinking that's why people get fact and faith confused. Something deterministic in one's head would appear as a fact to that person, but not to another person.
Axe Elf
Prophet
I don't necessarily distinguish between "religious faith" and "mathematical faith" or "scientific faith"; they all have to do with assuming certain things to be true without proof--faith statements.
So first of all, not all facts are based on observation. Some facts are based on formal systems of reasoning, like mathematical or geometrical theorems. But even for those facts which ARE based on observation, one must have faith in one's observations--that is, one must have faith that they are not just a brain in a vat being stimulated by a mad scientist. One must have faith that such a thing as the "real world" exists, and that at least some of their perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality. We know that not ALL of them are, but one must have faith that at least SOME of them are, if they are to trust their observations.
And so it is that all facts are based in faith--at a minimum, faith in one's ability to perceive a real world outside of oneself, and in more sophisticated settings, faith in the axioms (faith statements) that underlie formal systems of reasoning.
Axe Elf
Prophet
Then my response to Polymath257 applies to you as well.
Axe Elf
Prophet
I like it, although since I just explained that not all facts are of the observable variety, I might modify your definition to "any state of affairs that can be reliably verified." Or I might just go with Google: "a thing that is indisputably the case."