What is Faith?

[muhammad_isa]

I found out that I'm happier outside of religion..

..and I found out that satan is my enemy.
satan urges us to "enjoy ourselves" and not to think about the consequences.

My religion teaches me about how to avoid evil, and follow a straight path to success in this world and the next.
That does not mean that following truth cannot cause suffering and distress.
satan causes this, in order to lead us astray.
A person with faith, acknowledges truth and perseveres .. like an army in a war.
..and yes .. relies on G-d for success in the life hereafter, and hopefully in this life.
..but this life is short, whilst the hereafter is everlasting.

..and no .. I don't "wish it" to be everlasting, I just believe that it is.
A person with faith knows that they "fall short of the mark", and begs for G-d's forgiveness.

 

[PureX]

The consensus, in so far as there is one, among theoretical physicists is that there is a certain irreducible randomness in nature, so don't be too quick to dismiss the first statement. Nor to assume that everything is directed. It appears that the universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic.

Chance is a factor, but only within the limitations of what is possible and what is not. It is what is possible and what is not that is shaping the nature and character of existence. Not probability. Probability is only important to us, because we want to be able to see into the future of the existential event. Probability s how we try to read the tea leaves.

And everything IS directed by what is possible and what is not. There are no exceptions in this.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I found out that satan is my enemy.

I found out that religions that employ demons to coerce compliance was an enemy.

satan urges us to "enjoy ourselves" and not to think about the consequences.

Reason urges us to enjoy ourselves wisely. Abrahamic religions teach false consequences. That's why you made the comment you made. You've been convinced that the pursuit of happiness is a moral failing deserving of punishment. Life is the pursuit of happiness, and success is determined by one's degree of satisfaction living that life.

A person with faith, acknowledges truth and perseveres

Faith and truth are unrelated. Faith is not a path to truth. That's obviously the case, since any wrong idea can be believed by faith (but not using empiricism), and there are more wrong guesses than correct ones.

this life is short, whilst the hereafter is everlasting.

And if you are unconscious evermore following death, only the short part matters.

A person with faith knows that they "fall short of the mark", and begs for G-d's forgiveness.

A humanist understands that he needs no forgiveness from postulated beings for imagined moral crimes, that he only need to be true to his conscience. Once one buys into that whole "I need forgiveness" and the promise of an immortal soul, and of an afterlife of rewards and punishments, he has lost his autonomy. He is now the prisoner of an idea, which is the point in the church promulgating the idea. They want you. They want your compliance. They want you to substitute their wills for yours, their values for yours, and their agenda for your natural pursuit of happiness one, and they do that by calling it God's will and demeaning the pursuit of happiness. What else could it mean to call caring about oneself selfish? If one cares about himself at all, it is too much.

I see this in these sites where people write in the stories of the entitled people in their lives. I read one yesterday where a younger sister wanted her older sister to give her her reservation at a particular venue for a wedding celebration, one made over a year earlier. When the older sister declined, she was called selfish by the younger sister and much of the family for not putting the younger sister first. Here are a bunch more if you're interested. The point here is that these people try to guilt others by calling them selfish whenever they assert themselves, and it often works, but not in these stories. These are stories from people who rejected the attempted guilting from others trying to get them to substitute their judgment for theirs, just as all of those standing outside of Abrahamic religions have done.

True and Surprising Stories of People Who Encountered Extremely Entitled Parents - MoneyAwaits |

 

[muhammad_isa]

Once one buys into that whole "I need forgiveness" and the promise of an immortal soul, and of an afterlife of rewards and punishments, he has lost his autonomy..

On the contrary, he has gained wisdom and patience.

 

[F1fan]

Yes, a non-reviled and non-interfering God, that only serves one purpose:
To solve the problem of whether the universe is real or not.

How does belief in a God solve this problem? If a human is uncertain the universe is real then imagining a God can only be more confusing.

Since I believe the universe is real, but I have no evidence of that and being real is a human non-physical idea, it means the universe is a form of God.

Why do you only believe the universe exists when it is here to observe and verify? We only need to believe in things we are uncertain about.

You re part of the universe, so you don't think yourself thinking is adequate evidence? If you can't trust your own exverience then no amount of thinking or belief will resolve the initial dilemma of doubt.

That is a philosophical problem not even solved with evidence and reason as per your belief system. Read some actual skepticism.
You could start with the problem of realism in regards to epistemology. Or Rene Descartes and the evil demon.

I've done my time with these mental exercises and consider them impractical and useless beyond the exercise they offer. These ideas really can get a person stuck in insigificance as life goes by. Learning and pondering philosophy has to come with a serious dose of wisdom, and how fr to get absorbed in the confusion they can construct. They are similar to Buddhist koans, ideas that have no practical purpose and no utility, but exercise the mind.

I'd like to see @Ella S. address your post.

 

[F1fan]

Do you have a diploma to prove that you are skilled?

No, critical thinking is demonstrable and recognized by those who are skilled. You aren't skilled and that is your bias and blindspot. You also have no interest in learning as they threaten your religiious belief.

You absolutely do not avoid bias.

Feel free to point it out. But not accepting your claims is not bias. I don't see you understand what bias actually is, so your claim above means nothing.

I have never seen anyone as biased as you and your sidekick @It Aint Necessarily So. You two elevate the word bias to a whole new level. The fact that you do not even realize that means you are not very self-aware.

More mimicking my criticisms of you. Have you no original thoughts? That you mimic suggests you can't discern any actual flaws in the posts of critics.

It is easy to assess your inabilities by what you post. You have nothing substantive to offer in a debate, all you can say is "we are critical thinkers and you aren't." Where is the actual evidence that you can think critically, that you are smart enough to reject the only evidence that God has ever provided, and remain an atheist?

More grievance posting. This doesn't actually point out a problem I have, you are just complaining.

How is critical thinking serving you? Keeping you in an atheist box with a mind closed like a trap door. You do not look at any other viewpoints, you just keep repeating the same mantra - we are critical thinkers so we know better than to believe anything on faith.

Yet again, more complaining, no discussion.

Your atheist filter is very effective in filtering out what you don’t like, and there you go, doing just what your sidekick does, deflecting when you cannot respond to what I said. You cannot show me how you don't filter anything out so you have to resort to deflection, just like @It Aint Necessarily So. Anyone with half a brain can recognize what you two are doing constantly. It is called deflection. When you cannot respond to what I said, you hurl accusations at me. I don't think you understand you are doing it because you have no self-awareness.

Funny how you mimic the terms I use to explain your flawed thinking.

My critiques are accurate and they are a long time coming. There you go again, deflecting. This has nothing to do with my faith and how well it serves me.

You seem to think you are entitled to post and face no criticisms in an open forum. I can see how you are defensive, and this barrage of criticism feel like an intervention, but you keep it going every time to respond. That suggests you want something out of this. What do you think that is?

 

[osgart]

Is all faith naive - blind faith?

I think faith can be blind and it can be reasonable. For example trust in someone. It's reasonable not to trust a stranger (unless it's necessary) and to trust someone you know intimately and who has proven to be trustworthy. Is this knowledge or belief? If it was knowledge we wouldn't have to trust, right? We would just know it.

What about a pair of figure skaters that know each other very well. Wouldn't they be operating on known trust of each other. When you trust someone you know you can depend on them rather than believe it to be so.

 

[CG Didymus]

..and I found out that satan is my enemy.
satan urges us to "enjoy ourselves" and not to think about the consequences.

My religion teaches me about how to avoid evil, and follow a straight path to success in this world and the next.
That does not mean that following truth cannot cause suffering and distress.
satan causes this, in order to lead us astray.
A person with faith, acknowledges truth and perseveres .. like an army in a war.
..and yes .. relies on G-d for success in the life hereafter, and hopefully in this life.
..but this life is short, whilst the hereafter is everlasting.

..and no .. I don't "wish it" to be everlasting, I just believe that it is.
A person with faith knows that they "fall short of the mark", and begs for G-d's forgiveness.

Here again is the inconsistency of the major religions. To the Baha'is, Satan isn't real.

God has created all in His image and likeness. Shall we manifest hatred for His creatures and servants? This would be contrary to the will of God and according to the will of Satan, by which we mean the natural inclinations of the lower nature. This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satan—the evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 287.​

​

It is this inconsistency in the different beliefs in the different religions that I think justifies Atheists for demanding proof and evidence to back up religious beliefs. Faith allows any religion to claim anything and tell its follows that those things are what is true and real.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Here again is the inconsistency of the major religions. To the Baha'is, Satan isn't real.

I never commented whether satan is real or symbolises evil..
..or both.

It seems your agenda is one of division rather than unity.

 

[CG Didymus]

No, critical thinking is demonstrable and recognized by those who are skilled. You aren't skilled and that is your bias and blindspot. You also have no interest in learning as they threaten your religiious belief.

Feel free to point it out. But not accepting your claims is not bias. I don't see you understand what bias actually is, so your claim above means nothing.

More mimicking my criticisms of you. Have you no original thoughts? That you mimic suggests you can't discern any actual flaws in the posts of critics.

More grievance posting. This doesn't actually point out a problem I have, you are just complaining.

Yet again, more complaining, no discussion.

Funny how you mimic the terms I use to explain your flawed thinking.

You seem to think you are entitled to post and face no criticisms in an open forum. I can see how you are defensive, and this barrage of criticism feel like an intervention, but you keep it going every time to respond. That suggests you want something out of this. What do you think that is?

I find it hard to believe that the people that call themselves Baha'is, that is, people who stand for peace and unity, can be so divisive. They don't build bridges. They don't find ways to connect with people that have different beliefs than themselves. What is it that they are trying to prove? That God is real? That Baha'u'llah is a manifestation of God? They can't prove those things, and they know it.

So, why don't they do something they can do, and bring a little peace and understanding and humility and respect for the beliefs of others to these discussions? And no, Baha'is, don't try and say that "You guys started it." You guys, the Baha'is, are the ones that say you have the teachings that can unite the world as one. Then do it. Show it.

Or... keep arguing for your "beliefs" are not claims, and that you believe God is real.

 

[CG Didymus]

I never commented whether satan is real or symbolises evil..
..or both.

It seems your agenda is one of division rather than unity.

Are you in unity with Christians and Baha'is? One believes Satan is real. The other doesn't. You're going to have to be in "unity" with one of them and opposed to the other.

And my "agenda" is that Islam and the Baha'i Faith are not in agreement over some major issues. Go ahead and sort them out with them. If you guys can find some common ground and learn to get along in spite of your different beliefs, that'll be okay with me.

 

[muhammad_isa]

If you guys can find some common ground and learn to get along..

I get along with people just fine, unless they misbehave..
..regardless of faith.

 

[Ella S.]

How does belief in a God solve this problem? If a human is uncertain the universe is real then imagining a God can only be more confusing.

Why do you only believe the universe exists when it is here to observe and verify? We only need to believe in things we are uncertain about.

You re part of the universe, so you don't think yourself thinking is adequate evidence? If you can't trust your own exverience then no amount of thinking or belief will resolve the initial dilemma of doubt.

I've done my time with these mental exercises and consider them impractical and useless beyond the exercise they offer. These ideas really can get a person stuck in insigificance as life goes by. Learning and pondering philosophy has to come with a serious dose of wisdom, and how fr to get absorbed in the confusion they can construct. They are similar to Buddhist koans, ideas that have no practical purpose and no utility, but exercise the mind.

I'd like to see @Ella S. address your post.

Well, since you tagged me.

Faith in God would solve the problem of overcoming strict philosophical skepticism. Philosophical skepticism is the denial that we can know anything, more akin to Pyrrhonism. It's not a rational philosophy, but an intentionally anti-rational one, making it almost the exact opposite of "scientific skepticism" which is what pop culture tends to mean when it mentions skepticism these days. Unlike a scientific skeptic, a philosophical skeptic's doubt is not grounded in reason, but denialism, so they have to deny reason itself and its efficacy. It's been applied by a number of Anti-Enlightenment movements, including Romanticism and Postmodernism.

You can't really have a debate with a philosophical skeptic, because they don't believe in truth. The point of a debate is to reach an agreement about what is true, so the position of the philosophical skeptic necessarily undermines this Socratic goal and is therefore always in bad faith. Likewise, you can't approach them with logic, because logic is a method for extrapolating truth and they don't believe in truth. As such, you can't really reason philosophical skepticism away, because it's inherently unreasonable.

The only way someone who has rejected reason can believe in anything, including that the universe is real, is through the suspension of disbelief or an intellectual "leap of faith." It's apt to compare this faith in a universe to a faith in God.

Of course, faith is completely unnecessary to those who are equipped with logic, but philosophical skeptics would say that using logic to arrive at truth is (or requires) some form of faith in the axioms of logic and/or the premises that one uses. In this way, there are no facts. There are only narratives we tell ourselves and have faith in.

Unsurprisingly, the most common place you will find philosophical skepticism in the modern age is in anti-intellectualism, pseudoscience, Marxist-Leninism, nationalism, racial realism, and all manner of conspiracy theories and urban legends. It's essentially madness distilled into a philosophy; "an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality" is part of the clinical criteria for psychosis. Since philosophical skeptics reject reason as a means for discovering the truth, you see here that they rely on magical thinking like faith to reach any conclusions, and magical thinking is also a common symptom of psychosis. Since this also means they cannot be reasoned out of their positions, having rejected reason as a method for arriving at knowledge, they are also delusional. Philosophical skeptics might even doubt that they themselves are real, and that sort of derealization can also be a warning sign of psychosis if it isn't explainable by something like trauma or SzPD.

Of course, not all philosophical skeptics are psychotic. The philosophy itself promotes psychotic thought patterns, though, so it can be treated as a sort of madness. I don't know what the treatment for it is, but debate isn't the solution. You might make some progress using defusion techniques from ACT, though, which is often used with psychotic patients. The general thought-pattterns displayed by philosophical skepticism and psychosis are nearly identical so similar interpersonal interventions might be effective.

It's worth noting that using these methods to treat psychosis is not always effective and, likewise, some philosophical skeptics might just be too far gone to ever return to reason. Personally, I pity them.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How does belief in a God solve this problem? If a human is uncertain the universe is real then imagining a God can only be more confusing.

Why do you only believe the universe exists when it is here to observe and verify? We only need to believe in things we are uncertain about.

You re part of the universe, so you don't think yourself thinking is adequate evidence? If you can't trust your own exverience then no amount of thinking or belief will resolve the initial dilemma of doubt.

I've done my time with these mental exercises and consider them impractical and useless beyond the exercise they offer. These ideas really can get a person stuck in insigificance as life goes by. Learning and pondering philosophy has to come with a serious dose of wisdom, and how fr to get absorbed in the confusion they can construct. They are similar to Buddhist koans, ideas that have no practical purpose and no utility, but exercise the mind.

I'd like to see @Ella S. address your post.

Could you please stop claiming a we that is not there. You are not humanity and neither am I. It just happens that when believers like you started claiming critical thinking I actually started reading about it and learned the problems with your worldview.

Yeah , I understand the bold one. But those are your personal opinion.
As to why I only believe that the universe only exists and don't know that?
Well, you could start reading say this wiki page for science and consider how come it states this:

Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"All scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that are untested by scientific processes.[43][44] Kuhn concurs that all science is based on an approved agenda of unprovable assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions—a paradigm—comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation.[45] For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the only paradigm. There is no such thing as 'supernatural'. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality,[46] and Naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists.[47]"

 

[PureX]

Well, since you tagged me.

Faith in God would solve the problem of overcoming strict philosophical skepticism. Philosophical skepticism is the denial that we can know anything, more akin to Pyrrhonism. It's not a rational philosophy, but an intentionally anti-rational one, making it almost the exact opposite of "scientific skepticism" which is what pop culture tends to mean when it mentions skepticism these days. Unlike a scientific skeptic, a philosophical skeptic's doubt is not grounded in reason, but denialism, so they have to deny reason itself and its efficacy. It's been applied by a number of Anti-Enlightenment movements, including Romanticism and Postmodernism.

I'm pretty sure that's a wildly inaccurate assessment. Philosophical skeptiscism refers to the idea that we humans can't know anything FOR CERTAIN. Not that we cant know anything AT ALL. The reasoning being that to claim certain knowledge would logically require omniscience, because anything left unknown could potentially change what we claim to know for certain. This is particularly true of post-modernism wherein knowledge become contextual.

You can't really have a debate with a philosophical skeptic, because they don't believe in truth.

Of course you can. You just can't do so based on the presumption that absolute truth is perceivable by we humans. Relative, truthfulness, however, is. And can stand as the basis or goal of debate.

The only way someone who has rejected reason can believe in anything, including that the universe is real, is through the suspension of disbelief or an intellectual "leap of faith." It's apt to compare this faith in a universe to a faith in God.

No one rejects reason. We couldn't function in such a state. We just tend reason differently from each other. Different abilities, different contexts, and different priorities.

Of course, faith is completely unnecessary to those who are equipped with logic, ...

Well, except for having to place one's faith in the ability of logic to produce the desired results, ... and in one's ability to reason logically.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well, since you tagged me.

Faith in God would solve the problem of overcoming strict philosophical skepticism. Philosophical skepticism is the denial that we can know anything, more akin to Pyrrhonism. It's not a rational philosophy, but an intentionally anti-rational one, making it almost the exact opposite of "scientific skepticism" which is what pop culture tends to mean when it mentions skepticism these days. Unlike a scientific skeptic, a philosophical skeptic's doubt is not grounded in reason, but denialism, so they have to deny reason itself and its efficacy. It's been applied by a number of Anti-Enlightenment movements, including Romanticism and Postmodernism.

You can't really have a debate with a philosophical skeptic, because they don't believe in truth. The point of a debate is to reach an agreement about what is true, so the position of the philosophical skeptic necessarily undermines this Socratic goal and is therefore always in bad faith. Likewise, you can't approach them with logic, because logic is a method for extrapolating truth and they don't believe in truth. As such, you can't really reason philosophical skepticism away, because it's inherently unreasonable.

The only way someone who has rejected reason can believe in anything, including that the universe is real, is through the suspension of disbelief or an intellectual "leap of faith." It's apt to compare this faith in a universe to a faith in God.

Of course, faith is completely unnecessary to those who are equipped with logic, but philosophical skeptics would say that using logic to arrive at truth is (or requires) some form of faith in the axioms of logic and/or the premises that one uses. In this way, there are no facts. There are only narratives we tell ourselves and have faith in.

Unsurprisingly, the most common place you will find philosophical skepticism in the modern age is in anti-intellectualism, pseudoscience, Marxist-Leninism, nationalism, racial realism, and all manner of conspiracy theories and urban legends. It's essentially madness distilled into a philosophy; "an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality" is part of the clinical criteria for psychosis. Since philosophical skeptics reject reason as a means for discovering the truth, you see here that they rely on magical thinking like faith to reach any conclusions, and magical thinking is also a common symptom of psychosis. Since this also means they cannot be reasoned out of their positions, having rejected reason as a method for arriving at knowledge, they are also delusional. Philosophical skeptics might even doubt that they themselves are real, and that sort of derealization can also be a warning sign of psychosis if it isn't explainable by something like trauma or SzPD.

Of course, not all philosophical skeptics are psychotic. The philosophy itself promotes psychotic thought patterns, though, so it can be treated as a sort of madness. I don't know what the treatment for it is, but debate isn't the solution. You might make some progress using defusion techniques from ACT, though, which is often used with psychotic patients. The general thought-pattterns displayed by philosophical skepticism and psychosis are nearly identical so similar interpersonal interventions might be effective.

It's worth noting that using these methods to treat psychosis is not always effective and, likewise, some philosophical skeptics might just be too far gone to ever return to reason. Personally, I pity them.

Yeah, you like logic and reason. Now with logic and reason alone solve the following problem.
You know that a brain can produce a hallucination and you know according to your worldview that it is natural.
In effect the universe causes you to experience something that is not real or true.

So here is the formal problem: If that is true and you can't deny it, because then you deny that the universe is natural and real, because you in effect some unnatural and unreal is caused by the universe, thus it is true and real, that the universe in effect can trick you.

So how do you know that is not happening now? Well, you can't because you then assume that which you question. You question if your experiences are real and true and thus you can't start by assuming that they are, because then you have done a circular argument.

So here it is for the 2 possibilities:
The universe causes you to have experiences that are not real and true.
The universe causes you to have experiences that are real and true.

It comes in many variants: Descartes. A brain in a vat. The computer simulation. A Boltzmann Brain.

The same problem is here on a different scale:
"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.

And thus you get this in the Wiki article about science:
"All scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that are untested by scientific processes.[43][44] Kuhn concurs that all science is based on an approved agenda of unprovable assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions—a paradigm—comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation.[45] For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the only paradigm. There is no such thing as 'supernatural'. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality,[46] and Naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists.[47]"

Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I am just honest. I don't know that the universe is real. I have faith in that.

 

[Trailblazer]

Just to nitpick. We have no evidence of God. You have evidence of your understanding of God. Other people have other evidence as per a different understanding. And some people have yet another understanding where there is no evidence of God.

Yes that's true. I have evidence of the God I believe exists, so the evidence is according to my understanding of God.

 

[Ella S.]

I'm pretty sure that's a wildly inaccurate assessment. Philosophical skeptiscism refers to the idea that we humans can't know anything FOR CERTAIN. Not that we cant know anything AT ALL. The reasoning being that to claim certain knowledge would logically require omniscience, because anything left unknown could potentially change what we claim to know for certain. This is particularly true of post-modernism wherein knowledge become contextual.

Of course you can. You just can't do so based on the presumption that absolute truth is perceivable by we humans. Relative, truthfulness, however, is. And can stand as the basis or goal of debate.

No one rejects reason. We couldn't function in such a state. We just tend reason differently from each other. Different abilities, different contexts, and different priorities.

Well, except for having to place one's faith in the ability of logic to produce the desired results, ... and in one's ability to reason logically.

You're redefining reason and truth in idiosyncratic ways, which is a semantic game not worth my time. As far as I use the words, as with most of academia throughout history, philosophical skepticism does include the rejection of reason. You yourself do it. Historical examples of this include Pyrrho and Pierre Bayle. Denying that you deny reason is just patently dishonest. It's why nobody takes their debates with you seriously; your serial irrationality is potent to pretty much everyone here.

Yeah, you like logic and reason. Now with logic and reason alone solve the following problem.
You know that a brain can produce a hallucination and you know according to your worldview that it is natural.
In effect the universe causes you to experience something that is not real or true.

So here is the formal problem: If that is true and you can't deny it, because then you deny that the universe is natural and real, because you in effect some unnatural and unreal is caused by the universe, thus it is true and real, that the universe in effect can trick you.

So how do you know that is not happening now? Well, you can't because you then assume that which you question. You question if your experiences are real and true and thus you can't start by assuming that they are, because then you have done a circular argument.

So here it is for the 2 possibilities:
The universe causes you to have experiences that are not real and true.
The universe causes you to have experiences that are real and true.

It comes in many variants: Descartes. A brain in a vat. The computer simulation. A Boltzmann Brain.

The same problem is here on a different scale:
"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."
William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis. p. 2. ISBN 978-3-540-72534-3.

And thus you get this in the Wiki article about science:
"All scientific study inescapably builds on at least some essential assumptions that are untested by scientific processes.[43][44] Kuhn concurs that all science is based on an approved agenda of unprovable assumptions about the character of the universe, rather than merely on empirical facts. These assumptions—a paradigm—comprise a collection of beliefs, values and techniques that are held by a given scientific community, which legitimize their systems and set the limitations to their investigation.[45] For naturalists, nature is the only reality, the only paradigm. There is no such thing as 'supernatural'. The scientific method is to be used to investigate all reality,[46] and Naturalism is the implicit philosophy of working scientists.[47]"

Philosophy of science - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I am just honest. I don't know that the universe is real. I have faith in that.

Deductively, unfalsifiable questions like these are irrelevant for forming coherent descriptions of our experiences, which includes the concept of reality. Newton's Flaming Laser Sword dismisses your sophistry entirely.

Inductively, we form our conclusions based on what is most likely, according to the a posteriori consideration of the evidence. We have evidence that there is a self-coherent world external to our control that can be perceived through the senses. Directly because we are able to affirm the reality of this external, mind-independent universe, we are also able to rationally determine when we have experienced illusions or hallucinations that distort our perception of this reality. Ultimately, it is through induction that we come to conclusions about the content of the world we perceive.

Is it possible that we're all brains in a vat? It is deductively possible. Are we justified in believing that this is not the case? Absolutely, until you can demonstrate evidence to the contrary, because that is the inductive conclusion that sensory experience leads us to. I don't think it's very controversial to point out that literally denying reality is irrational, and it's completely ridiculous that you need that explained to you.

I'm not going to give any further undue credit to either of your positions by dignifying them with my time. You have both had plenty of opportunities to make your cases as best you can and you've failed, which is inevitable when you abandon logic. There's no sense in rehashing the same discussion over and over again when neither of you are interested in progressing the subject.

 

[Trailblazer]

So there is also evidence that God communicates to some people directly. How do you choose who to believe?

I choose to believe what Baha'u'llah wrote since I believe He speaks for God.
I believe that God inspires people directly and guides them through His inspiration, but that is not the same as speaking to them as He speaks to Messengers, to whom God reveals teachings and laws and His will for humanity in every age.

 

[Trailblazer]

So faith means you get persuaded by others that something is true. In doing so you accept only "evidence" (claims) that most corresponds with your bias or wishful thinking.

No, I think faith has to come from oneself, we cannot get it from someone else. For example, I have had other Baha'is try to convince me to have faith in God's love, but it never worked. I had to come to that faith myself, although others helped me by reasoning with me.

I do not think we should accept "evidence" that corresponds with our bias or wishful thinking. I think we should try to look at the evidence objectively.