Is Faith Valuable?

[OmarKhayyam]

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

Mark Twain

And ain't no use to nobody what's got a'lick a'sense.

 

[Nepenthe]

In this thread I will define "Faith" as a belief/trust in someone or something and accepting it as true or untrue even if it goes against counter-evidence, reason, and/or logic. If you disagree with this definition of faith, please assert your own definition of faith before you post and if possible provide an example.
...
I wish to ask if faith and simple belief are valuable or at least more valuable than scepticism and rational thinking.

Using your definition of faith, I'd say that faith is absolutely worthless if the goal is to actually examine the world and understand how it works. If the goal is to make one feel good about themselves or appease them in a time of need, then your definition of faith would be a virtue for the individual. I have no doubt acceptance of an afterlife comforts many, and an appeal to faith in authority figures, religious text or ideologies is sure to placate some in need.

Faith is to trust something or someone to do what it said it would do, or work like it is said it will work.

If I use this definition of faith, then we all use faith to some degree. But I suspect most who use "faith" mean it in a much less "all encompassing" manner as you do.

When you turn the egnition you have faith that your car will start. Unless your car is is one of the scrapheap supermodels in which case you will be dissapointed and end up having no faith in it to start.

Mball and I very briefly touched upon this a long time ago in a thread I can't recall (I'm not even sure I remember why I remembered my post!), but I used the car ignition example as a reason why faith is an inaccurate use of the term here. There's no faith involved in starting my car, but a time tested statistically significant assumption the car will start based on months/years of previous results from turning the key. There's no reason to suspend logic or reason and adopt faith here (of course I'm falling back on nonbeliever_92's definiton).

You might have faith in your friends, to be there or do something for you
You have faith in politicians (that is a bad move)

Trust and faith are distinct.

People have faith in brands and or companies with good track records. People have faith, so its not a foreign thing here on this earth. Now before you say that it is easy to have faith in things that you can see, i would disagree. You cannot see electricity but when you flip the switch you have faith that it will work. <snipped examples>

It's not a matter of seeing but of statistical relevance. I can't see gravity, but there's no faith involved when I know a dropped object tends to fall to the ground and not straight up. It's based on understanding basic physics and actually experiencing objects falling downwards and not upwards- observations that go back thousands of years of repeated "fallings".

So faith is what children of god, have in an invisible yet real god, and when he appears we wont need faith anymore because we would have seen him with our own eyes. So to a christian faith is tremendously valuable because it proves that we have trust in god before we have seen him. ''Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe''

Heneni

Now this part is faith. As an atheist I can't rely on faith as it is a method or that has yet to offer anything substantial beyond vague statements.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Faith is worth more than gold for those who have their treasure in heaven. But we all have faith in some degree or another in something or another. Faith is to trust something or someone to do what it said it would do, or work like it is said it will work.

one must have faith (belief or trust without reason or evidence) in heaven.

When you turn the egnition you have faith that your car will start. Unless your car is is one of the scrapheap supermodels in which case you will be dissapointed and end up having no faith in it to start.

This is not faith. If your car has started before, you have evidence that it starts. This is an intuitive assumption based on past experiences, an inference.

You might have faith in your friends, to be there or do something for you

You have faith in politicians (that is a bad move)

People have faith in brands and or companies with good track records. People have faith, so its not a foreign thing here on this earth. Now before you say that it is easy to have faith in things that you can see, i would disagree. You cannot see electricity but when you flip the switch you have faith that it will work. You cant see the wind but you have faith that it will blow. Because it has blown since the time you were born. You have faith in your body to breath for you but you cant see the air, nor can you see your lungs or the mechanism by which it works.

This is not faith, anytime anything has a "good track record," you have evidence of it's effectiveness or ineffectiveness. And electricity and wind are observable, better yet, they're measurable and (in a sense) they're predictable and recreatable. Lightning is electricity. And we know the wind blows because we see things blown by the wind. there are tools for wielding and harnessing and "making" electricity as well as the wind. Shuffle your feet across the carpet and give someone a shock, that is electricity. Take in a big gulp of air and then blow it out, that is essentially wind.

We have faith in people to do what they say they will do. You dont wait till they do it before you have faith in them. When the act is done, you dont have to trust that they will do it, it would already have been done.

No, you trust and infer that people will do what they say they will do and that's becuase there are people that have said what they've done and then done it. In this case you are not talking about the actual person, you're talking about the plausibility and probablity of the person actually doing what they say they will do.
If someone says that they are going to grow wings and fly, would you just believe them? No, well at least i hope you wouldn't, because you've never observed someone grow wings from their body and fly before, you would be sceptical. If your car broke down and someone came over saying that they could fix your car, it wouldn't be improbable because there are people who fix cars, and it wouldn't be such a far reach to say that they could fix your car. This is an inference, not faith.

So faith is what children of god, have in an invisible yet real god, and when he appears we wont need faith anymore because we would have seen him with our own eyes. So to a christian faith is tremendously valuable because it proves that we have trust in god before we have seen him. ''Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe''

Heneni

But here's the problem, when you have belief in an unobservable, untestable, unverifiable, supernatural thing without objective evidence to suggests its existence, your belief is weak, no offence. And before you can give him attributes or actions and descriptions, you must provide a definite outline of what he/she/they/it is.

Faith is an excuse people give for their unconcious unwillingness or ability to think rationally.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

It just occurred to me that "value" is subjective, I should reword my question...

Hmmm...:sorry1: *Thinking*

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Using your definition of faith, I'd say that faith is absolutely worthless if the goal is to actually examine the world and understand how it works. If the goal is to make one feel good about themselves or appease them in a time of need, then your definition of faith would be a virtue for the individual. I have no doubt acceptance of an afterlife comforts many, and an appeal to faith in authority figures, religious text or ideologies is sure to placate some in need.

If I use this definition of faith, then we all use faith to some degree. But I suspect most who use "faith" mean it in a much less "all encompassing" manner as you do.

Mball and I very briefly touched upon this a long time ago in a thread I can't recall (I'm not even sure I remember why I remembered my post!), but I used the car ignition example as a reason why faith is an inaccurate use of the term here. There's no faith involved in starting my car, but a time tested statistically significant assumption the car will start based on months/years of previous results from turning the key. There's no reason to suspend logic or reason and adopt faith here (of course I'm falling back on nonbeliever_92's definiton).

Trust and faith are distinct.

It's not a matter of seeing but of statistical relevance. I can't see gravity, but there's no faith involved when I know a dropped object tends to fall to the ground and not straight up. It's based on understanding basic physics and actually experiencing objects falling downwards and not upwards- observations that go back thousands of years of repeated "fallings".

Now this part is faith. As an atheist I can't rely on faith as it is a method or that has yet to offer anything substantial beyond vague statements.

Exactly.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

When rational thinking leads to faith, you get the best of both

Faith then becomes extremely valuable, not only for inner peace and happiness, but also on the intellectual level

From a Muslim perspective, there is no contradiction ...........

From my point of view, rational thinking cannot lead to faith. Can you explain to me how this it can?

Greetings!

I would simply point out that the Baha'i scriptures state:

"Faith is conscious knowledge."

Peace,

bruce

Faith is belief; knowledge and belief are to different things. Knowledge is knowing because what is believed can be verified. Belief is a semblance of knowing without a need to verify.

Simply: Knowledge is belief + reason - nonsense.

 

[MoonWater]

Faith and blind faith have no difference when you attempt to rationalize your religious beliefs.

I have made no such attempt and I would disagree. What makes you think they are the same?

Well, okay, if you define faith like that, but I have a different word for this kind of "faith": Inference. Basing a belief on past experiences and acquired knowledge, as well as reason is an intuitive estimation based on former observations. But if this inference is not testable, observable, or predictable, then it is a theory.

You left out my mentioning of emotion. Inference is merely the conclusion drawn and there need be no emotion involved to infer something. I can infer based on past experience that when I drop something it will fall to the ground. The inference is the conclusion itself. Trust or faith is believing the conclusion drawn to be true. Trust and faith are what cause us to hold to the conclusions, the inferences that we draw.

These are inferences.

Again an inference is a conclusion drawn based on past experience. Faith and trust are the acts of believing the conclusion drawn to be true.

On the matter of your boyfriend, this "faith" is trust in that you have to build up trust, faith you can't until you have trust. And even then, it's just an inference.

I'm sorry but your first sentence here doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that I can't have faith unless I first have trust and that the faith I have is really just trust? I just explained to you that I find trust and faith to be very similar and that the only difference is that trust, unlike faith, does not require any emotional involvement or attachment. So while the word trust could certainly be used faith would be a more accurate term. As for your last bit I can certainly infer based on passed experience that he will be loyal to me. I have faith in that inference being true.

Subjective evidence, isn't evidence at all. And reason and emotion can contradict each other.

Subjective evidence IS evidence but only to the person holding it as it is based on personal experience and interpretation, hence the subjective part. If subjective evidence couldn't count as evidence then witness testimony would have no place in a courtroom. However subjective evidence, because it is subjective should never be seen as proof of anything, at least by itself, and should not be used to try and convince others that what you believe is true. This is why witness testimony in a courtroom is often the least reliable evidence and is never enough for a conviction by itself(unless you have corrupt lawyers and jury in the room).

And yes reason and emotion can and often do contradict eachother, hence the need to compromise between the two.

 

[katiafish]

I think faith can be described as a confidence in something (someone) or trust in something (someone). If you trust someone, you have a certain degree of faith in them, and of course you must trust yourself to make the right judgments,to progress in life, to provide for your family, to make friends, so that means you have to have faith in yourself.

Observing the way that you argue your point, nonbeliever, you obviously have a great deal of faith in yourself and the fact that what you believe is right. As a matter of fact I find it quite amusing, how a lot of atheists and skeptics are absolutely blinded by their faith that there is nothing to believe in..

The question is, are faith and religion synonyms? I think one can have a great deal of faith of what we know to be "right" from the moral standpoint without bringing religion into it..

 

[Cordoba]

From my point of view, rational thinking cannot lead to faith. Can you explain to me how this it can?

It's a two-phase intellectual process

Phase 1 is mainly a phase of pure logical thinking, including the following questions:

- By observing this amazing universe, the logical question to ask is what is its origin?

- What caused the Big Bang which took place around 14 billion years ago?

- Could this amazing universe be a pure coincidence?

- Where did we come from?

- Why are we here and what is the real purpose of life?

- What will happen after life on earth ends?

Most of the questions of Phase 1 may not have answers based purely on logical thinking, but they are important questions for reflection which lead to 2 main possibilities:

a) Either this universe does indeed have a Creator

b) Or the universe does not have a Creator

If one chooses option (b), one would still not get an answer to the puzzle of this life in this amazing universe, so we could keep (b) on hold for a while, and investigate option (a)

Phase 2 is a phase of comparative reflection

If answer (a) is the right answer, and this universe does indeed have a Creator, He must be a very intelligent Creator to have designed and created all this amazing universe. Intelligence means that each detail in this universe has a purpose, including the creation of mankind.

So the next logical question which needs an answer is why are we here? Why were we created?

As logical thinking on its own won't give an answer to this question, we need to see whether the Creator Himself sent us a hint or an answer to this question. As some religions claim that the Creator sent prophets and messengers to guide people to the right answer, and that He revealed to them this Guidance in Divine Books, the next logical step would be to do a comparative study of these books and see which ones, if any, make sense

If in this comparative study one is able to find one book which makes sense, a book which is free from errors and contradictions, and gives clear answers to the main questions above, then we would be on the right track, and an in-depth study of that book would either lead to faith, or lead to rejecting faith and going back to option (b) above

The main thing is to be objective and to have a true intention to finding out the Truth, whatever that truth may be, irrespective of our preconceived ideas and current subjective preferences and beliefs ..........

 

[ManTimeForgot]

The voice of reason should be dominant when thinking about the existence of anything supernatural. And yes, to much of a good thing can be bad, and...?


There is no such thing as anything supernatural. Either something exists and is a part of this reality (natural) or it does not exist and any "influence" it is said to have is mere fiction (placebo effect worst case). Faith is a virtue. Too much faith or faith used out of context is a bad thing.


Faith in anything without proper reason is bad, regardless of the varying "degrees" of "how much" faith there is. Faith is faith.


I fail to see how anything which leads to proper treatment of your fellow man can be considered a bad thing. Yes, Faith is indeed Faith. Tautologies are rather useful like that.


Faith in anything is unreasonable, i fail to see where faith can be placed "correctly." Please provide an example.


I provided such examples below. You for some reason discount them. I would like to know why since they one and all meet your definition of faith.


I don't see how faith in humanity is equivalent to faith in a diety. In fact, I would go as far to say that your faith in humanity isn't really faith at all.



I never claimed that faith in humanity is equivalent to faith in a deity. In point of fact I rather implied that faith in a deity is a wrong-headed or misplaced thing to do. But it is not necessarily so. If you were to take a look at the Theological Non-realism thread you might get some ideas of how faith in a deity can lead someone to living a better more moral life. I'm guessing you have never met a truly devout and good minister/priest before? Someone who actually strives to exemplify all the virtues lauded by his/her religion?

Really? On what grounds to claim that my faith in humanity isn't really faith at all? Its not like humanity has any kind of spotless record to work on. Its not like I actually have real knowledge of the future. I believe in all this regardless of whether or not I am presented with counter-evidence or counter-argument (logic). As such it meets every criteria you presented: I have no real evidence to support my believing/trusting and I continue to do so even when presented with counter-evidence.

The reason why you are so quick to dismiss this possibility is because it completely and totally undermines your argument that faith is a bad thing. My faith makes me more predisposed to upright behavior. Anything which leads a person to acting morally more often is a good thing. I don't care what the source is. You could be channeling the great Banana Sundae, and if it makes you a better person, then you keep on slurping down the cosmic Ice Cream!


Good is subjective, I can believe it's "good" to stone my son to death if he ever disobeys me, I can believe it's "good" to cut off the right hand of someone who steals from me...

Good is subjective for those who wish to take advantage of their fellow man. Do not fall prey to such obviously illogical ideologies. If things are made better by your actions, then it is good. Better might be thought to be subjective, but its components are not. Increased benefit and decreased harm, while not strictly quantifiable, are almost always readily recognizable. We may not be able to live 100% moral lives, but but that shouldn't stop us from trying to live peaceably, amicably, honestly, and favorably with our fellow man. And as such I count anything which leads people to better treatment, more harmonious cohabitation, to be a Good thing regardless of source.

MTF

 

[nonbeliever_92]

I have made no such attempt and I would disagree. What makes you think they are the same?

I was saying that they both are useless when it comes to practicality.

You left out my mentioning of emotion. Inference is merely the conclusion drawn and there need be no emotion involved to infer something. I can infer based on past experience that when I drop something it will fall to the ground. The inference is the conclusion itself. Trust or faith is believing the conclusion drawn to be true. Trust and faith are what cause us to hold to the conclusions, the inferences that we draw.Again an inference is a conclusion drawn based on past experience. Faith and trust are the acts of believing the conclusion drawn to be true.

The act of forming an inference is inferring, not faith. Faith is not required in either forming the inference nor in believing that the inference might be true. Yes, you can have valid trust in this fact, but this isn't faith.

If you have observed an object falling going to the ground several times before, and then infer that if you recreate the act you will get the same result, this is not faith, this is theory. If you believe that you are correct in your inference, this is not faith either because your original inference was supported with valid evidence and reason, thus supporting this additional one.

I'm sorry but your first sentence here doesn't make any sense. Are you saying that I can't have faith unless I first have trust and that the faith I have is really just trust? I just explained to you that I find trust and faith to be very similar and that the only difference is that trust, unlike faith, does not require any emotional involvement or attachment. So while the word trust could certainly be used faith would be a more accurate term. As for your last bit I can certainly infer based on passed experience that he will be loyal to me. I have faith in that inference being true.

My apologies, I was trying to get at that trust and faith are different in that you need valid evidence for trust and there must be an absence of valid evidence for there to be faith. Furthermore, truth must be earned and you earn truth through collecting evidence. Once you've collected evidence, you automatically dismiss this as being faith becuase faith is belief without evidence. I was saying that once you've collected enough evidence to permit trust, this is what you would call "faith" (plus, of course, emotional input but I'll get to subjective things in a moment) but it's not really faith, it's an inference.

Subjective evidence IS evidence but only to the person holding it as it is based on personal experience and interpretation, hence the subjective part. If subjective evidence couldn't count as evidence then witness testimony would have no place in a courtroom. However subjective evidence, because it is subjective should never be seen as proof of anything, at least by itself, and should not be used to try and convince others that what you believe is true. This is why witness testimony in a courtroom is often the least reliable evidence and is never enough for a conviction by itself(unless you have corrupt lawyers and jury in the room).

And yes reason and emotion can and often do contradict eachother, hence the need to compromise between the two.

Subjective evidence by itself is not evidence, we agree on that. And even when subjective evidence is applied in courtand has the verification of its high probabilty and congruity with the rest of the information, the subjective part is still not evidence, but the additional verifying information however is. Besides, subjective evidence in the court is used most often to sway and convince the jury or the judge, this is why in court someone is said to be "not guilty" and not "innocent" which doesn't mean that the accusation wasn't true.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

And of course you must trust yourself to make the right judgments,to progress in life, to provide for your family, to make friends, so that means you have to have faith in yourself.

Not necessarily.

Observing the way that you argue your point, nonbeliever, you obviously have a great deal of faith in yourself and the fact that what you believe is right. As a matter of fact I find it quite amusing, how a lot of atheists and skeptics are absolutely blinded by their faith that there is nothing to believe in..

1) I don't have faith in myself, but i do trust myself based on my prior actions.

2) Alot of atheist and skeptics don't have faith in GOD(S), this doesn't mean that they can't have faith in other things. Although I doubt that they would.

3) You're a bit too condescending on your pillar of crap.

The question is, are faith and religion synonyms? I think one can have a great deal of faith of what we know to be "right" from the moral standpoint without bringing religion into it..

Faith and religion are not synonymous. Faith is belief or trust without proper evidence or reason.

Religion is belief in a supernatural power or powers that govern and/or create natural laws.

(All religions are faiths, but not all faiths are religion)=(All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares)

P.S.

I think that you're a bit too condescending on your pillar of crap.:sorry1:

 

[nonbeliever_92]

It's a two-phase intellectual process

Phase 1 is mainly a phase of pure logical thinking, including the following questions:

- By observing this amazing universe, the logical question to ask is what is its origin?

- What caused the Big Bang which took place around 14 billion years ago?

I don't know

- Could this amazing universe be a pure coincidence?

Yes

- Where did we come from?

Humans most plausibly evolved from more primitive apes, those apes most plausibly evolved from from more primitive mammals...etc..etc....etc.. until, way way back down to a single celled organism assembled, most plausibly, from a, quite primitive, "soup" of organic elements. before that I'm a bit fuzzy on the deats concerning abiogenisis...

- Why are we here and what is the real purpose of life?

Why must we have a reason to exist? Rocks exist, why? Water exist, why? Blabbity blah blah exists, why? Doesn't really matter if your wondering it's purpose.

Life doesn't have a real purpose behind its own selfish means to survive.

- What will happen after life on earth ends?

I dunno, why does it matter now anyway?

Most of the questions of Phase 1 may not have answers based purely on logical thinking but they are important questions for reflection which lead to 2 main possibilities:

a) Either this universe does indeed have a Creator

b) Or the universe does not have a Creator

Truly you should condense these into one question

"Is there a god?"

and then investigating both possibilities:

a) God exists
or
b)God doesn't exists.

If one chooses option (b), one would still not get an answer to the puzzle of this life in this amazing universe, so we could keep (b) on hold for a while, and investigate option (a)

Correction, if one chooses option (b), one would still not get a clear answer to the objective questions, yet would have overwhelming reasonble evidence to assert that they are correct to assume so.

Phase 2 is a phase of comparative reflection

If answer (a) is the right answer, and this universe does indeed have a Creator, He must be a very intelligent Creator to have designed and created all this amazing universe. Intelligence means that each detail in this universe has a purpose, including the creation of mankind.

So the next logical question which needs an answer is why are we here? Why were we created?

Uh...hold on, you didn't answer anythong, you inquired, but didn't investigate in either of these situations, whether a) or b). You disregarded one veiw to assume that another is correct without evidence or reason to believe so.

As logical thinking on its own won't give an answer to this question, we need to see whether the Creator Himself sent us a hint or an answer to this question. As some religions claim that the Creator sent prophets and messengers to guide people to the right answer, and that He revealed to them this Guidance in Divine Books, the next logical step would be to do a comparative study of these books and see which ones, if any, make sense



If in this comparative study one is able to find one book which makes sense, a book which is free from errors and contradictions, and gives clear answers to the main questions above, then we would be on the right track, and an in-depth study of that book would either lead to faith, or lead to rejecting faith and going back to option (b) above

The main thing is to be objective and to have a true intention to finding out the Truth, whatever that truth may be, irrespective of our preconceived ideas and current subjective preferences and beliefs ..........

Well you have certainly shown me how a form of logical thinking can lead to faith, unfortunately, the form of logical thinking you're using is the faulty kind that is more popularly known as bulls**t. No offence.

 

[nonbeliever_92]

Good is subjective for those who wish to take advantage of their fellow man. Do not fall prey to such obviously illogical ideologies. If things are made better by your actions, then it is good. Better might be thought to be subjective, but its components are not. Increased benefit and decreased harm, while not strictly quantifiable, are almost always readily recognizable. We may not be able to live 100% moral lives, but but that shouldn't stop us from trying to live peaceably, amicably, honestly, and favorably with our fellow man. And as such I count anything which leads people to better treatment, more harmonious cohabitation, to be a Good thing regardless of source.

MTF

Well I will agree that my definition of "good" is anything that doesn't cause anyone else harm, but when talking about mental, non-physical, concepts everyone has a differing POV on what that thing is.

Equate "good" with "faith" or "love", and everyone has their own definitions and meaning. Do not set your standard of what mental concepts are to everyone, or else you're treading rocky ground.

And there is a distinct difference between subjective concepts and objective results.

 

[opuntia]

Religion is irrational. True religion is not going to be bound by the things of this world. Paul the Apostle wrote that the religion he preached was going to be perceived as foolish or irrational (1 Corinthians 1:17-29). The rational mind does not depend upon the principle of divine revelation but the religious mind does. It does indeed require the power of God upon the mortal mind in order to comprehend what appears to be an irrational proposition or event. It is true that the rational will never comprehend the irrational.

 

[MoonWater]

I was saying that they both are useless when it comes to practicality.

You mean that the terms are impractical? That seems quite different from saying that they are the same when it comes to religion. And in either case i would still disagree.

The act of forming an inference is inferring, not faith. Faith is not required in either forming the inference nor in believing that the inference might be true. Yes, you can have valid trust in this fact, but this isn't faith.

I agree up to a point. I know that the act of forming an inference is a faith and that faith is not required to form it. You seem to keep missing that I differentiate between trust and faith based on emotional involvment/attatchment. The way I see it one does not need faith to believe in an inference or anything else provided there is no emotional "entanglement" involved in it(like trusting gravity to hold me down) If there is an emotional entanglement involved then yes faith would be required.

If I defined faith as you do then I would be in complete agreement with you, but I don't. In my book faith is not "belief without evidence or reason"(I consider that blind faith) but belief drawn out of reason emotion and personal experience.

If you have observed an object falling going to the ground several times before, and then infer that if you recreate the act you will get the same result, this is not faith, this is theory. If you believe that you are correct in your inference, this is not faith either because your original inference was supported with valid evidence and reason, thus supporting this additional one.

I agree

My apologies, I was trying to get at that trust and faith are different in that you need valid evidence for trust and there must be an absence of valid evidence for there to be faith.

This is where we disagree. Nonbeliever you said so yourself at the beggining of this thread that if anyone here had a different definition of faith they should assert their own definitions. I have done this, which leaves me confused as to why you are trying to argue against my definition of faith by using arguments that go against your own definition. That would be like if you tried to argue that me believing in a god is folly by using arguments against the Christian god when I don't even believe in the Christian god. It's pointless due to the differing perspectives. Now if your interested in arguing only from the perspective of the definition given the OP that's fine. You just won't find much debate with me on that part as under that definition I am in agreement with you.

Furthermore, truth must be earned and you earn truth through collecting evidence.

you mean "trust" right not "truth"? I would say that faith requires this as well. The "evidence" simply takes on a different form.

Once you've collected evidence, you automatically dismiss this as being faith becuase faith is belief without evidence.

See above

I was saying that once you've collected enough evidence to permit trust, this is what you would call "faith"

No I would not. Unless the "trust" requires an emotional involvement in order to exist, in which case it's not really trust but faith IMHO. I certainly believe that you could call it trust and it wouldn't be wrong, it would just be less accurate.

(plus, of course, emotional input but I'll get to subjective things in a moment) but it's not really faith, it's an inference.

Why do you keep claiming that I'm equating faith and inference, I'm not. An inference is a conclusion. It is the act of believing in that conclusion which requires either faith or trust and it is the reasons for the belief and what ledt to that belief in the first place which determines which one is used.

Subjective evidence by itself is not evidence, we agree on that. And even when subjective evidence is applied in courtand has the verification of its high probabilty and congruity with the rest of the information, the subjective part is still not evidence, but the additional verifying information however is. Besides, subjective evidence in the court is used most often to sway and convince the jury or the judge, this is why in court someone is said to be "not guilty" and not "innocent" which doesn't mean that the accusation wasn't true.

I'm afraid I can't make heads or tails of the underlined part. Beyond that, witness testimony is always subjective. If the subjective part could not be considered evidence then witness testimony would not be involved in courts at all. But yes witness testimony by itself is not enough. And I am well aware of the reasons behind why we say "not guilty" versus "innocent".

 

[Cordoba]

<< - What will happen after life on earth ends? >>

I dunno, why does it matter now anyway?

If your soul survives, don't you think what will happen next will matter?

And staying on the path of logical thinking, research in the field of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) is today investigating whether there is more to humans than just the physical body

This research done in Holland was published in The Lancet in December 2001:

Dutch Study

 

[ManTimeForgot]

Well I will agree that my definition of "good" is anything that doesn't cause anyone else harm, but when talking about mental, non-physical, concepts everyone has a differing POV on what that thing is.

Equate "good" with "faith" or "love", and everyone has their own definitions and meaning. Do not set your standard of what mental concepts are to everyone, or else you're treading rocky ground.

And there is a distinct difference between subjective concepts and objective results.

Your definition of "Good" is just fine by me. But you still haven't actually addressed my point.

Subjectivism won't save you here. Everyone will have different ideas about what "Good" "Faith" "Love" are, but that doesn't change the fact that objective results can be observed and so long as those subjective concepts (regardless of actual definition and how that person conceives of them) predispose someone towards an objectively beneficial end, then it hardly matters that people have a different conception of love. I and my neighbor may not agree on what love is exactly, but if our faith in love and the better nature of our fellow man leads us to treat each other with respect and understanding more often than not, then it hardly matters that our definitions are different: only that we treat each other with respect and understanding.


You have tacitly admitted that you cannot find a difference between my faith in humanity & in love and faith in a deity. So the only question that remains unanswered is whether you can agree that so long as a person has faith in those things as I do that they would be more predisposed towards objectively beneficial actions.

MTF

 

[BruceDLimber]

Greetings!

From my point of view, rational thinking cannot lead to faith. Can you explain to me how this it can?

I believe the point is the sort of surety (aka certitude) that comes after due informed & open-minded (i.e., unprejudiced, <prejudice being "pre-judging>) investigation.

Nor do I see any necessary barrier between rational thinking and faith. Lots of us employ both.

Peace,

Bruce

 

[nonbeliever_92]

<< - What will happen after life on earth ends? >>

I dunno, why does it matter now anyway?

If your soul survives, don't you think what will happen next will matter?

And staying on the path of logical thinking, research in the field of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) is today investigating whether there is more to humans than just the physical body

This research done in Holland was published in The Lancet in December 2001:

Dutch Study

There is no such proven thing as a "soul." Until you can provide evidence that there is, I will not believe in an afterlife, and fuind no good reason to.