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What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 4/11/2010; 6:46 PM Faith is one of those words (like "believe" or "God" or "truth") that I'm sure you know what it means. I'm also absolutely positive that you don't know what it means. It's a semantic null. It's not like the word "rock," where you could reasonably point it out to a child and go "There it is." It is both meaningful and meaningless. I will try and define it anyways, since it's pointless to go on about faith unless you know what I think I mean by the word. Faith Defined v 1.0It should be simple to define, right? Here's my first stab at it: Faith is what you have when you don't care about the evidence.Immediately, I bet you can see the problem here. What about all those people who say they have evidence to bolster their faith? Are they all insane, or deluded? Okay, I'll grant that some people think they have evidence for their faith. So we'll try faith, definition two: Faith is what you have when it doesn't matter if you have evidence or not. That's better. But now I have a problem with it. What does the word "evidence" mean here? You can always find evidence of your faith. It's easy: "God shows Himself by the wonderful fact that we exist." "I see God in the beauty of the seasons." Aren't these a kind of evidence? Isn't it meaningless to say that people of faith don't care about the evidence? Most of them must feel they have some reason to believe in their faith. Whatever that reason is, that is their evidence. I'll solve this one by digressing into empiricism for a minute. A Digression into EmpricismEmpricism is the idea that the universe can be investigated using our senses. There's a lot of other philosophical baggage that goes along with it, but that's basically it. What gets tricky is, first, what do we mean by "investigated"? For my purposes, investigations can take many forms:
Faith Finally DefinedSo let's do one final amendment: Faith is what you have when the presence or absence of empirical evidence doesn't matter.Now we've gotten somewhere. What does this definition imply? For starters, you may believe you have empirical evidence to bolster your faith. "I was at Fatima and saw the Virgin Mary talking to the children." But if someone debunks your evidence, you still have faith in the Virgin Mary. Faith holds on despite empirical evidence. Empirical evidence is wonderful, and it can bolster faith. But in the end, if some cranky skeptic type debunks your evidence, your faith holds on. (return to The Morgan Dilemna)
RE: What is Faith? By: William Hutto on 4/6/2002; 1:35 PM Since faith is the subject, please let me add my two cents. I believe in God and I have faith. Let me explain to you just why I believe. All a person has to do is just look at their surroundings. I guess I would loosely be termed a science freak because I have always enjoyed Physics, Electronics, Botany,Mathematics, etc. I do not claim to be good at any of it , but do understand it. I also dig the Theory of Relativity and the Quantum theory. The deeper I went into any of the subjects, the more I realized that there is a God. Consider, if you will, just how all the systems of the human body fit together in an overwhelming whole. The evidence is there and all one has to do is just observe. There are checks and balances that are very outstanding. Take the universe, as an example. All of it apparently was set up by a being much smarter than humans. In other words, everything fits. Could a human duplicate the feat? I think not. A few months ago, I read a very thought provoking article about a Genetic Scientist who was at the very cutting edge of his study. The article went on to say that he was almost at a point of finding knowledge that would wipe out most diseases such as cancer. This was actually an interview by the media. A reporter asked him if he thought there was a God. His reply was "From what I've seen, how can there not be a God?" There is no possible way that all this just popped into existence.
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 12:40 AM I like your final definition of faith, marcus. My sister defined religious faith as "A belief that may have questions, but has no answers." She was referring of course that there is no proof of god, and even if you have questions you still have faith, even if you get no answers. †Adam†
RE: What is Faith? By: Brian Carnell on 4/7/2002; 12:06 AM At 12:51 PM 4/6/2002 -0500, William wrote: >The deeper I went into any of the subjects, the more I realized that there >is a God. Consider, if you will, just how all the systems of the human >body fit together in an overwhelming whole. The evidence is there and all >one has to do is just observe. There are checks and balances that are very >outstanding. But the human body is a mess. Take the human eye, for example. Like tens of millions of people around the world I have to wear glasses due to defects in my eyes -- defects which are pretty much inherent in the way that the human eye is engineered. It is also difficult to understand why DNA does not have better error correction procedures. For example, about 1 out of 100,000 live male births has a genetic mutation that results in SCID -- the so-called "boy in the bubble" disease where the immune system is suppressed to such a degree that sufferers must live in a sterile environment. If I were an omnipotent being trying to engineer rational beings, I'm not sure why I'd need to equip them with such a defective DNA transcription process.
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 12:40 AM Brian, I disagree to the strongest degree available. >But the human body is a mess. Take the human eye, for example. Like tens of >millions of people around the world I have to wear glasses due to defects >in my eyes -- defects which are pretty much inherent in the way that the >human eye is engineered. Just because you can find defects in something doesn't mean it's not the best you are going to get. Once you come up with a better eye, please let me know. I'll install it right away. Along with my numeric brain and hydraulic biceps. Just kidding. >It is also difficult to understand why DNA does not have better error >correction procedures. Unless you can understand how it could have better correction procedures, you're not fully qualified to say how it should be better. Or could be. >If I were an omnipotent being trying to engineer rational beings, I'm not >sure why I'd need to equip them with such a defective DNA transcription >process. Unless you are in close contact with an omnipotent being, or you have been one yourself, again, you aren't at right to say what you'd do. Engineer rational beings? Brian, it would appear you are trying to engineer superior beings. So, which DNA transcription process would you equip them with? I like the model on aisle 7. (sarcasm, jokingly). ↓My Last Words↓Brian, I think you should not try to think of the big guy in the sky as an engineer, cranking out different drafts and plans for each species. By the sound of your last post, it would seem as though you think of us as homosapien version 1.0. Unless you are god, which I'm fairly certain you're not, I don't think you are at right to say what god should have done and shouldn't have done. †Adam†
RE: What is Faith? By: Brian Carnell on 4/8/2002; 11:29 PM At 11:08 PM 4/8/02 -0400, Adam wrote: >Just because you can find defects in something doesn't mean it's not the >best you are going to get. Once you come up with a better eye, please let >me know. I'll install it right away. Along with my numeric brain and >hydraulic biceps. Just kidding. Actually, there are plenty of species that have eyes that are far superior to human beings (there are species, for example, where the retina is properly placed at the front of the eye rather than in the absurd rear position as is the case in our species -- what is the point of having light pass through a liquid medium filled with blood vessels and other obstacles before striking the retina?). I am not quite certain why God should create human beings with organs that are deficient compared to other animals. God clearly knows how to make a superior eye and yet he chose to give human beings a rather backward, limited sort of vision that tends to fail not long after humans are finished reproducing. I can easily understand why evolution would lead to such a half-assed solution, but it is difficult to understand why an omnipotent being would come up with such an odd solution to this engineering problem. This is a bit like saying that human beings would achieve the pinnacle of personal computing power and then saddle their systems with a buggy, crash-prone, unsecure operating system (wait, strike that). :-)
RE: What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 4/8/2002; 11:29 PM Adam, are you saying that you know the way an deity designer would design things? I don't know, I doubt Brian knows, and I doubt you know. If nobody can say how a deity designer would design, how can anyone say one way or another that the universe is designed? The most correct answer, to me, about the design question would be "We don't know, and we can't know". We have no standard for understanding the nature of a deity designer, which makes it impossible (in my opinion) to say that we can conclude the universe is designed.
RE: What is Faith? By: Brian Carnell on 4/8/2002; 11:49 PM At 11:45 PM 4/8/02 -0400, Mark Morgan wrote: >Adam, are you saying that you know the way an deity designer would design >things? I don't know, I doubt Brian knows, and I doubt you know. Damn agnostics. ;-)
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 12:41 AM Mark...It gets annoying to the point of being offensive when you come back at me arguing with somethign I never said. It's reached that point. >Unless you can understand how it could have better correction procedures, >you're not fully qualified to say how it should be better. Or could be. I never said anything inferring or stating otherwise that I thought I had knowledge of how a "deity designer" would do things. Reply to Brian part 2<method=VoU subject=Faith sagacontinues=true alittlepissed=true stupid=false>>God clearly knows how to make a superior eye and yet he chose to give human >beings a rather backward, limited sort of vision that tends to fail not >long after humans are finished reproducing. I can easily understand why >evolution would lead to such a half-assed solution, but it is difficult to >understand why an omnipotent being would come up with such an odd solution >to this engineering problem. I see one problem that is pretty obvious here. Who says god was ever tryign to make us perfect? >This is a bit like saying that human beings would achieve the pinnacle of >personal computing power and then saddle their systems with a buggy, >crash-prone, unsecure operating system (wait, strike that). :-) I'll correct your analogy. That's like using Windows ME on your Patriot 2.4 ghz. That's like owning a GeForce 4 and playing Duke Nukem. >Actually, there are plenty of species that have eyes that are far superior >to human beings (there are species, for example, where the retina is >properly placed at the front of the eye rather than in the absurd rear >position as is the case in our species -- what is the point of having light >pass through a liquid medium filled with blood vessels and other obstacles >before striking the retina?). I'll answer your question with a question-although they are both basically statements. What is the point of you saying how god messed up when you can't do any better? ↓My Last Words Version 2.0↓There's a little system of predator and prey here on Earth. We have natural selection and the works. If you think there is no point to God not making us superior, you might as well say god should have made everyone perfect. Where would our natural selection go then? As long as we are human, perfect is like reaching the speed of light→It's not going to happen. Everyone is just going to have to deal with it. Not to say that you can't. †Adam†
RE: What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 4/9/2002; 6:32 PM Adam, I never said you said that you know how a deity designer operates. I will point out that both you and Brian seem to assume that you can. Brian said "God clearly knows how to make a superior eye...", and you said "Who says god was ever tryign to make us perfect?" Both of these statments imply that we know what a deity design considers better or perfect design. Perhaps God means perfect to be something else (such as, perfectly pleasing to Him, in a fashion unknowable to us). I think that's in the neighborhood of what you're saying, and I think we're in the neighborhood of agreeing. The watchmaker argument is, if we find a watch on the beach we clearly know it is not the result of evolutionary processes, because it was clearly designed. Therefore, the argument goes, when we look at the universe it is set up to be so well engineered that we must conclude it too is designed. My point is, how do we know a watch was designed? From a lifetime of experience around human designers. We know what standards go into a good or poor human design. We do not have any experience with deity designers, so we cannot say that item X was or was not designed by a deity. We don't know what the standards are that a deity uses in his or her engineering process. Admittedly, this is more a response to William Hutto's post and Brian's responses than to yours.
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 12:41 AM However you took or take it, I don't have any feeling at all that I know how the big guy in the sky decides who gets what eye or who gets which DNA transcription, or any of that stuff that's been said. "We do not have any experience with deity designers, so we cannot say that item X was or was not designed by a deity. We don't know what the standards are that a deity uses in his or her engineering process." →That's what Mark said. I agree with the last sentence. But as for the first, of course we can't say that anything was designed or wasn't designed by god. Because we don't have empirical evidence. That, Mark, is where I have faith. †Adam†
RE: What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 4/9/2002; 9:16 PM I wonder if William will post again any time soon, since his original claim that the universe *must* have been designed is what started this all.
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 12:39 AM I can see where he'd get that impression, I'd like to see what he had to say because It seems like something I'd like to put my two cents in for. Was this post on the VoU discussion that he claimed that? †Adam†
RE: What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 4/9/2002; 11:59 PM "Was this post on the VoU discussion that he claimed that?" Yes. Right here he wrote: " Consider, if you will, just how all the systems of the human body fit together in an overwhelming whole. The evidence is there and all one has to do is just observe. There are checks and balances that are very outstanding. To paraphrase: it seems designed, therefore there must be a designer--the watchmaker argument.
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 12:39 AM I can see where he can get that conclusion, as can just about anyone else. Yes, the scientific evidence, clearly shows that there is no proof, but as they say in a courtroom, it's "beyond reasonable doubt." That was regarding the watchmaking example. The psychological aspect would point to the fact that we, as humans, naturally try to come up with a solution, even if we know we can't prove it. In your mind, it's hard to think of something not being created→because everything we know to exist, we have have some theory on how it could be created. Even on stuff we don't know is there. It's like being asked "what would it be like to not exist?" You can't comprehend that, because no matter what, it's impossible to feel that, because not existing would kind of limit your feelings and thoughts. It's like following the line of a circle trying to find the end, I tell ya! I think that something or someone created the universe, but that is my faith. From my grass mound, looking at all the grass surrounding me, I think the reason he, in that case, anyone, has come up with this theory is because there is no evidence against it. Would that count as evidence for it? That's not really something I can answer, although I'm sure everyone has their own viewpoint from their own grass mound about it. Personally, I think it does count as evidence for it. Only in my head though. It's like multiple choice and the only choice we can see is letter A. We think of things as being created by default, because what other choice do we have? I rest my case. †Adam†
RE: What is Faith? By: Brian Carnell on 4/10/2002; 1:07 AM Mark: Is this discussion now offtopic? I'm confused about how you've reordered things. At 09:27 PM 4/9/2002 -0400, Adam wrote: >However you took or take it, I don't have any feeling at all that I know >how the big guy in the sky decides who gets what eye or who gets which DNA >transcription, or any of that stuff that's been said. That's fine, but then you are by default left with Mark's agnosticism. Saying that we can know nothing about how God works is agnosticism. There is no Big Guy in the Sky -- there are just all of these events happening around us and we have no way of telling whether or not they imply a creator (or what kind of creator -- one implication of agnosticism is that an evil god is not logically impossible. Maybe the Elder Ones are plotting our demise at this very moment). One of the more common sets of contradictory claims I hear regularly on this account are people who believe that God's motives are opaque and yet ascribe to God intentionality when anything extraordinary happens. But if God is unknowable to human beings, it make no sense at all to say something like, "Praise God for saving Alice from cancer." The correct thing to say would be, "Alice's cancer went into remission, but since we don't know what God thinks of cancer or Alice, we can have no knowledge of what, if any, role God played in either causing or curing Alice's cancer." What most people seem to want is an intermediate position which allows them to ascribe all of the good stuff to God and then backpedal into agnosticism when it comes to bad things. So the reason people get cured of cancer usually has to do with God's intervention, whereas why an infant is born with a dangerously inefficient immune system is at best explained away by saying we cannot understand God's intentions. All of which, by the way, is why I now much prefer cartoons to philosophy, as long as these pants are square, and this sponge is bob!
RE: What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 4/10/2002; 1:53 AM Brian: no, since it's feedback on a published piece. I got tired of the random posts and babble messages, 'sall.
RE: What is Faith? By: Adam Schirmacher on 4/10/2002; 5:21 PM Brian-I hear ya'. I agree with that last part of your statement. On three, I'll race you to make an essay about it. -1- -2- *takes off*
RE: What is Faith? By: Bryan Streich on 12/5/2005; 4:52 PM First off, i think you have one of the most thought out, and well crafted essays on faith that I have seen while searching the subject. but i think your defination of faith needs a little refinement, Faith is what you have when the presence or absence of empirical evidence doesn't matter Empiricism is defined as: The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge. (www.answers.com)So in your view, the concept of faith isnt tied to empirical evidence and therefore that would mean that the presence of scientific proof wouldnt change the person's faith, and in my mind, they are very much tied, and a clearer definition of faith is: a belief in something that empirical evidence cannot prove the validity of, or disprove. If we could prove the existence or non-existence of a deity/deities then faith wouldnt be necessary, although any way you look at it, there will still be a few people that just dont like to go along with the crowd, and would still have/not have faith.
RE: What is Faith? By: shawn kelly on 8/21/2006; 4:17 AM hey i have all answers and of these answers all pespectives to all personality types suming all answer to a few just transliterating them ina way for all to understand to some the answering become anomalitycal strnge.,.,. flexx31 on "aim" flexx31x on yahoo messenger i kno so rediculous at first but i can go that far
RE: What is Faith? By: shawn kelly on 8/21/2006; 4:24 AM not a definition but a point out of what it can be "faith" is more powerful then the "lord" heself, for without "faith" in the "lord" the "lord" does not exhist put it together once u place ur faith in your lord he will exhist it faith makeing real by super belief manifest destiny by thinking about it "destiny or somthing to be destined" till manifestation mind over matter can shatter all the laws of physics so why can not faith mind over matter in the utmost technique
RE: What is Faith? By: ScottN on 8/25/2006; 6:07 PM Shawn, this site is for potential writers. Please note "Obesiances before the written word". If you write in complete sentences, and use proper English, rather than text-speak, your contributions will be much easier for others to respond to. Thank you. Disclaimer: I am not an official representative of this site, though I do claim to be its resident curmudgeon.
RE: What is Faith? By: Jeff Hollett on 11/8/2007; 11:49 AM All you have done is define credulity. http://m-w.com/dictionary/credulities This is what is referred to as blind faith; faith is the conviction of the truth of anything. It is more of a noun than a verb. This is the problem: we all believe things, both true and untrue; to the degree that we believe it will cause us to act. This call to action is the evidence that you believe something. For example I believe that you are mistaken in your attempt to define faith, to the degree to which I believe you are mistaken causes me to act. I could sit back in pride and call you ignorant and rest in the pride and conviction that I am right and knowledgeable. or What actually happened is that because you wrote publicly I felt strongly, and with humility to attempt a dialog and not a monolog about the truth. By entering into a dialog about the truth we could better gain understanding of each other and hopefully discover the truth along the way. I want to know truth I hope you do too. This is important because if I believe something that ultimately turns out not to be true and especially if I have defended it this is just rhetoric and of no real value. Because it will ultimately be proven false, I will have wasted time and effort on something false. If I have defended something false vehemently to the point of causing pain than worse than believing something false and wasting time I have acted brutishly and have become a fool. This is why I love the word agnostic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism)because it just means "without knowledge" or ignorance. "I don't know" is a perfectly good answer if it is true. The problem with most agnostics is they use the word agnostic to describe themselves and then proceed to lay out a case for why they are convinced that the lack of knowledge it is the truth calling it evidence. How do you prove a lack of knowledge? If what can be known is the size of the universe and what is actually known is the size of the head of a pin why do we boast with pride a possession of complete knowledge? All we really have is the ability to mutually respect each other and enter into a search for truth and with grace and dignity have a dialog about it. Jeff Hollett
RE: What is Faith? By: Mark Morgan on 11/9/2007; 6:39 PM Well, let's look at the definition of credulity you provided: "readiness or willingness to believe especially on slight or uncertain evidence" But what I wrote was "Faith is what you have when you don't care about the evidence." "Don't care" is the key phrase. Slight, uncertain, strong, weak, whatever. Faith is about not caring about evidence. But I need to also be very clear that by "evidence" I mean "empirical evidence." My friends with strong faith, my fiancee included, have evidence for their faith including personal experience and observances and whatever they want to chime in with. But I stand by my claim that if you need empirical evidence to bolster your faith, you're missing the whole point.
Re: What is Faith? By: Brian Carnell on 11/9/2007; 11:21 PM People appear to have deep-seated intuitions. Faith seems to be the explicit decision to reject evidence and rationality in favor of such intuitions. Which might not be so bad if it weren't the case that a significant portion of said intuitions are extremely inimical. Once you remove reason from the equation, there's no reason to prefer Martin Luther King Jr's intuitions over the Westboro nutjobs. Mark Morgan wrote: > [Talkback about Essays: What is Faith? by Mark Morgan] > ---------------------------------- > > Well, let's look at the definition of credulity you provided: > > "readiness or willingness to believe especially on slight or uncertain > evidence" > > But what I wrote was "Faith is what you have when you don't care about the > evidence." "Don't care" is the key phrase. Slight, uncertain, strong, weak, > whatever. Faith is about not caring about evidence. But I need to also be very > clear that by "evidence" I mean "empirical evidence." My friends with strong > faith, my fiancee included, have evidence for their faith including personal > experience and observances and whatever they want to chime in with. > > But I stand by my claim that if you need empirical evidence to bolster your > faith, you're missing the whole point. > > ---------------------------------- > This message copyright (c) 2007 Mark Morgan > Please do not remove the [Msg#] from the subject line (it will be removed > automatically). > To unsubscribe: > Web archive: http://www.voicesofunreason.com/fullthread$9707#VU9707 > >
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