Exactly. No faith involved, just justified belief based on prior experience.
You do realize that "faith" and "belief" are the same thing, right?
But you've never made the case. You just insist. that others have faith. They deny it, explain why their beliefs are justified, and then you call it faith again without addressing their arguments, just as you did with Sayak and me. That a losing strategy.
I've made the case many times, in many threads. It's a basic epistemological principle, though; I shouldn't have to be walking people through it at all--it's almost like I'm being asked to prove that 1+1=2 every time I claim that 1+2=3. Ok, here we go again...
The claim is made that all facts (things that we can know about the real world) are based in faith (the acceptance of propositions as being true even in the absence of proof).
The three ways that we are able to ascertain facts are:
1) By personal experience.
2) By the experience of others.
3) By the manipulation of symbols in formal systems of reasoning.
Each of these ways of identifying facts is based in faith:
1) Any knowledge from personal experience is based in the faith that a "real world" exists outside of our own heads, and that at least some of our perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality.
2) Any knowledge from second-hand experience is based in the faith that the testimony of others having those experiences is reliable.
3) Any knowledge from formal systems of reasoning is based in the faith one has in the axioms underlying those formal systems.
So, to contradict the original claim that all facts are based in faith, one must do one of the following three things:
1) Demonstrate conclusively that the "real world" actually exists, and further, that there is a way to apprehend it directly, without the prerequisite faith in one's own perceptual and processing systems to approximate the real world.
2) Demonstrate conclusively that we can know for sure when other people are testifying accurately about their own experiences and when they are not (without of course resorting to personal experience or the experience of others to resolve the issue, since that would be begging the question).
3) Demonstrate conclusively that the axioms of formal systems of reasoning can be proven to be true.
Any other discussion is merely irrelevant noise.
Nope. Justified belief. Science consults nature, and when it interprets it correctly, we get confirmation that it has, whether that be by confirming predictions or practical application. Using that idea is not faith based. It is evidence based, and justified.
Again, I say "faith," and you say, "no, belief." Tomato, tomato. (Hmm, that doesn't work so well in writing.) Whether the faith/belief is justified or not is not my concern; my claim is merely that all facts are based in faith/belief. Sure, if the facts that you can determine from your faith/belief have utility for you, then your faith/belief is what you would call "justified"--but that's beside the point. Calling a fact "evidence based" as opposed to "faith based" doesn't release us from the certainty that any "evidence" is also necessarily based in faith. If you don't agree, then point me toward some evidence of anything whatsoever (in the real world) that isn't determined by one of the three methods of determining fact listed above.
Many people have learned to live without faith. It's a logical error. There is no good reason or need to believe anything more than the available evidence justifies.
People who think they are living without faith are merely ignoring the epistemological underpinnings of their knowledge. You can say that you believe only what the available evidence justifies, but THAT'S a logical error--it just ignores the faith you have in that evidence in the first place. Again, if you disagree, then point me toward evidence that is NOT determined by personal experience, the testimony of others about their own personal experience, or formal systems of reasoning.
What is a faith based belief is your belief that all of the rest of us are faith based thinkers as well.
Of course it is; ALL beliefs are faith-based. That's what the word means. What's more, all FACTS are faith-based as well, as I demonstrated above.
That's what faith actually is - simply believing something because you want it to be true.
Yes, there is typically utility involved in choosing to have faith in a perception of the "real" world, or in the testimony of another, or in the axioms of one formal system of reasoning versus another. For instance, if one wants to calculate the area of a rectangle, they would do well to accept the Euclidean version of the Parallel Postulate, but if one wants to calculate the shortest distance between two points on a globe, or calculate the flight path of an object in space, then one should have faith in an alternate parallel postulate.
We WANT there to be a "real world" that exists outside of our own heads, and we WANT to believe that at least some of our perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality. Sometimes we WANT to believe the testimony of another's experience, because it corroborates our own experience. Sometimes we WANT to have faith in the axioms of formal reasoning systems, because we would like to do logic or math or play chess or whatever. But of course just WANTING something to be true doesn't make it true; we still have to rely on our faith that it is true.
Nope. Justified belief again.
And again, it's the same thing, justified.
A fact is a linguistic string that accurately maps a portion of reality.
Or at least one believes/has faith that it approximately accurately maps a portion of reality.
Believing that fact is justified if it can consistently be used to ones advantage.
I have no problem with calling a faith/belief "justified" if it has utility--but again, it's kind of beside the point that all facts are based in faith/belief.
I mentioned earlier that I live five blocks north and three blocks east of the pier. That is an idea that was derived from examining reality, and it is an idea that can get me from my front door to the pier. For that reason, I consider it a fact.
And it is--a fact based in your faith/belief that a "real world" exists outside of your own head, and that at least some of your perceptions and sensations are reflective of that reality. To the extent that this fact has utility for you, you can say that the faith/belief that underlies it is justified.
Why you feel a need to gratuitously throw faith into your description of such thinking is a mystery. There are no unjustified beliefs there. I am perfectly justified in believing that by walking five blocks south and three blocks west, I will be at the pier.
It's not really "gratuitous," I think it's important to understand that everything we think we know is based in a faith/belief in our method of establishing those facts. We can never know "reality" or "truth" directly; we can only construct approximate symbolic representations of them in our heads, and have faith/belief that these representations are at least somewhat reflective of objective Reality or objective Truth.
But yes, you can say that your faith/belief in the route to the pier is justified to the extent that it has the utility of getting you to the pier. You just can't say that your faith/belief is not a faith/belief.
Sorry, but that's a fact not based in faith.
Don't be silly. You just said it was your BELIEF (faith) that was justified. How could it be justified if it wasn't the basis for that fact?
Those reasons or their lack is the difference between faith and justified belief. Perhaps that is the problem here.
There is no difference between faith and belief. They can be justified or not, but regardless, all facts are based in them--as demonstrated above.
