Since there's been less action than usual around here for the past few days, here's another Thread Starter ™.

- Matthew 17:20

One central point of Christian belief is faith. While some Christians believe that God doesn't interfere with our lives, and that he just "takes care" of the afterlife, many others believe otherwise, and pray often for things to happen (or not). They believe that, as long as they have faith, God / Jesus will answer their prayers.

And, as shown in the quote above, Jesus himself said so. "Faith can move mountains" has that quote as its origin, in fact. Jesus wasn't talking about something "small", like someone changing their mind, or having "luck" at a particular time, which can happen naturally. No, what he described was, obviously, a supernatural event.

So, Jesus said that faith can move mountains.
I, on the other hand, say that all the faith from all the Christians in the world can't move one grain of sand one mililmeter.

Whom do you agree with? The son of God, savior of mankind... or poor little me?

It should be obvious who is correct here. As shown by many tests, faith has never had any effect in the physical world. It can have a placebo effect on the sick, but can't, for instance, heal amputees (which, if you think about it, would still be a much lesser feat than geographical reorganization). Even most Christians seem to realize that, and only pray for "small" things, things that can easily happen by chance.

Christians apologists, of course, have an answer here: that prayer only works, faith only has an effect, if it's already God's will. If it's part of God's plan. A brilliant excuse, of course, since when prayer fails, it was, of course, never God's will. But... you will notice that Jesus himself didn't add that condition. He didn't say "remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove, as long as it is the will of my Father", or something. No matter how you try to twist it, the fact is that Jesus (and it's not the only part of the Bible where he says something like that) was telling people that faith worked miracles. Which doesn't really happen, unless you redefine "miracles" (such as "life is a miracle, so I pray that I and my wife have a healthy son, our son is healthy... see, prayer worked!").

So, any thoughts? Any other excuses to show how Jesus didn't really mean that?

This post was last modified: 12-16-2006 09:23 AM by Pedro Timóteo.

Some say that praying is simply talking to god in the manner of usual relationships.

But one's time and energy are better spent trying to do things that would actually help to achieve the desired effect.

This post was last modified: 12-16-2006 01:51 PM by Einsteinmonkey.

Seconding Einsteins post.

Please stop spending money on churches, please start putting that money into my school's media budget.
Thanks.

Faith is belief though, and if you don't believe you could possibly move a mountain, then you won't even try. Dogs are a good example, because when you have a small older dog, and get a young bigger dog, when they are small, the big dog gets owned by the older dog, when the bigger dog grows and gets older, sometimes it still believes that the older smaller one is capable of destroying it.

Your own posts speak of horrible effects done by Xtianity. So if faith can't do anything, than it wasn't any faith that did these horrible actions.
Which is it? Did faith do something horrible, or is it incapable of anything?

I'm not sure what you're talking about, honestly, or how dogs are relevant to anything.

"Faith" can't do anything. It's just a concept. What people do (or at times, what people don't do) as a result of using faith or reason is significant. If I wanted a mountain moved, I wouldn't simply believe it would be moved to move it.

This post was last modified: 12-18-2006 11:39 AM by Einsteinmonkey.

Hi Monkey, That's about the response I expected.
Because it necessetates that people are responsible. Anything done wrong wouldn't be faith's "fault", only the person who actually carried out the action.

What I mean to say is, if faith in this thing or that does nothing, than it can be blamed for no wrong doing, only the humans who did it.

OR, it's faith's fault, and the horrible things done by those crusaders were a product of faith, and faith IS to blame.

Maybe faith can be considered a motive?

It's not the fault of "faith" in that humans are the agents, yes. But faith isn't a good system in itself.

I gues that depends on what you call Faith. Is it not believing in something without any physical evidence?

If so, then never believe anybody about anything, unless you've seen it for yourself. Try that for a couple of days and tell me that faith has no bearing.

I had to do that once in a class. It's rediculous, even WITHOUT reading the newspaper and watching the news.

It's a good exorcise though. Carry around a notebook and anytime somebody says something that you aren't sure of, write it down and try to prove it as right or wrong later. You'll find that you'll never have enough time, or energy to do this. (IF you listen to people) Further, and more importantly, you'll find that you have faith in the PEOPLE who tell you these things. And that you take so much, everyday, as fact, that you have no real reason to take as fact, exept for faith in THOSE PEOPLE, that you may as well live in a little bubble if you didn't.

Seeing as how the news usually bombards you with things you aren't close with, leave that out of the picture first.

Faith is the denial of reason and reality. I have seen that simple parlor trick of which you speak Kren, but it is intellectually dishonest as it requires equivocation on the term "faith." It confuses well founded belief with faith, which even a generous descriptiom must be unfounded belief. It is only when one confuses the two that the sort of "problems" you describe come to be.

Skepticism (which is what you are describing as a course of action) is an inherently good thing and of course should be practiced. But the error being made, and it is sadly a common one, especially by those who are trying in vain to defend faith, is that they fail to understand that reason and reality are part of healthy skepticism. Combining knowledge from different areas of your life, reasoning through arguments and claims, and using your mind is part of skepticism. It is not surprising that the defenders of faith overlook this fact since faith denies the mind, reason, and reality.

"Parlor Trick", wow. It was a practice in college which showed you how much you trust what other people say, just because they say it. I don't see any trick in it, nor would you if you actually tried it TX.

As far as questioning waht you believe, that's healthy of course. But I never in that post overlooked that fact. Instead I thought anybody who read it would consider it. It doesn't take a genious.

Kren,

You should be careful in presuming your own omniscience. Rather than assuming that because someone can and does refute some claim you have made, they must be ignorant, maybe you should employ reason and examine the argument for soundness. You might also consider why it is that you are defending a known logical fallacy (equivocation) as something which leads you to truth...

TX- Please get off of the high horse you are on, while telling me that I should be careful.
I made my point perfectly clear, if you didn't see, I called nobody ignorant.

I also must state, that I hate it when you assume people as being informed enough to understand you, and then pelt me when I assume anybody to be as informed as I am.

Kren,

I was politely pointing out that your profound arrogance was showing in your assertion that I have never tried skepticism. As for your hating my pointing out that you are completely uninformed as to what I have done in my life, well... get over it or not, but the fact remains that you have no knowledge of my life contrary to your assumptions. In no way have I taken the course of action you attribute to me, as you very well know. Neither of us has any idea from where you get that claim.. The only point I have made about how informed you are is directly regarding your assumptions of complete knowledge of my own experiences.

Oh and btw this claim is indeed one in which you claim that I am indeed ignorant:

This post was last modified: 12-18-2006 05:18 PM by TXStorm.

I'd say that we must differentiate between types of faith, faith in the religious sense is to believe without evidence, to throw yourself at the feet of a unproven idea.
Faith in the common sense is different, "I have faith you will do X" is still being faithful to the X-doer, but it is based on some evidence, I would not trust my computer to the Austin computers gang tonight if I didn't see some evidence that they knew what they where doing.

And, out of interest, what is this palour trick that's being thrown around? I feel rather like a child with two arguing parents.

TX, Kren's post about the dogs can be summarised thus.
The bigger dog could easily kill the smaller dog, but due to past experience, is afraid of the smaller dog.
Kren, I would argue that this point of view, (the bigger dog's fear), is actually based on evidence, admittedly it is no-longer relevant, but it is still based on evidence.

TX- I do not remember stating that I knew what you had done in your life. As to the quote you attributed, yes I was assuming that you had not tried it. If you have... let me know. Either way, don't try to act like you haven't implied that I was ignorant, and are less guilty of the same.

And yet you call me "profoundly arrogant". I am not the one stating things as absolutes.

Back to faith now,

I don't believe that faith is the total denial of any reason, more like the belief in something with no physical or logical reasoning. For instance, somebody can tell you that they saw a bear in the city, and you can have faith, just because they told you. Of course you can apply reason to this, but many circumstances, such as "this person said, or did" things within daily life that we actually do take to beleiving, or FAITH.

I actually think TX, my and your points aren't far off. But I do also think that you've been arrogant, and attatched ME to that attribute, after I countered in the same way.

If I was mistaken, my bad... and I appologize.

I think that there's a big difference between faith and trust. If you trust, you are trusting someone to speak the truth; if you have faith, you simply believe in an outcome, no matter how well grounded in reality, and that's it.

Trusting some people may require faith, though. I believed that I used this example in the blog some time ago: if you tell me you have a dog at home, I'll believe you without asking for proof. It's something perfectly natural, and you'd have no reason to lie.

But if you tell me you have a dragon at home, I won't believe you at all. I'll believe you're joking. If you sound really serious, and I know you as trustworthy, I may believe that you believe in what you're saying. Maybe you're delusional, or something. Anyway, I'll ask to see it, and/or to have some evidence.

If it's a dragon "only you can see", I'll dismiss it as a delusion then and there. There have been too many of those in the past.

See? No "faith".

"Faith" would be taking both claims - a dog, or a dragon - at face value, and believing the latter without even asking for some kind of evidence.

Kren,

Sigh.. You do not change your claims by using ad hominem attacks, especially when you have no evidence at all to support them. Nor have you successfully distracted the discussion away from the distinction made between anti-reason (faith) and evidence based belief (which you mistakenly also call faith).

As for absolutes, that tactic won't work either since yet again you have no evidence nor basis whatsoever for the claim. Remember that only faith gives these sorts of conclusions, not reason and reality.. You are attacking me for daring to question and refute a parlor trick you were shown at some point. You may notice that I merely addressed the arguments and the parlor trick, until you directly and intentionally insulted me through your own presumed omniscience. Then I merely countered your presumed omniscience as you demonstrated it and left off going further, though you try to escalate. I hope that clarifies why this latest set of ad hominems are just as false as all of the previous ones have been.

Rather than lash out at me as a person, perhaps you could read the posts and consider the refutations and explanations offered. Notice that you have not once taken the clear difference of type which I and others have explained into account at all. You are still calling "faith" that which is not faith but instead is well founded belief. Drop this equivocation and the points which have been made become far more clear.

XTimmy,

I understood Kren's post, and responded by pointing out the equivocation on the term "faith" It is only by mislabeling evidence based belief as "faith" does he get the illusion that faith can be reasonable and is not the anti-reason behavior that it necessarily is. Separate the two, that is to say avoid the logical fallacy of equivocation and the illusion disappears.

As for the parlor trick, I am referring to the smoke and mirrors used in the little "experiment" of which Kren spoke which tries to confuse the misuse of the term faith with real faith, that is to say it tells you to ignore all evidence based beliefs as well as those for which there is no evidence or for which there is counter-evidence, and then declares that they are all identical. Of course this is intellectually dishonest and merely a trick for the belief that the earth will continue to revolve today and that the "sun will rise" (short hand for the phenomenom) tomorrow is well grounded in reality, unlike a belief in magical fairies, flying pink elephants, or any god. Unfortunately Kren did not want to have the parlor trick exposed (which is strange since it does not originate with him, but rather is simply an idea he holds onto) so in response to having the trick explained and exposed, he chose to attack me as an individual. These sort of emotional reactions to refutation of ideas or parlor tricks are big red warning flags to most of us...

TX- I don't think that the experiment I spoke of was all smoke and mirrors. Although I do see a problem within my own understanding between the two words Faith, and Trust.

I do have a hard time with this. But I do think I can come to terms and realize the difference. For instance... faith can be concidered a belief in something without ANY evidence, exept that somebody said it to be true. But do I just have faith, or do I trust the person who said it? The distinction there is hard for me.

Yet I do see your point in having evidence, no evidence, or at leas using knowlege to determine if what somebody said actually happened or not.
For instance, when somebody says that somebody else got into a car accident during the weekend, I have no reason to believe them exept to
A: have faith in them. or
B: Use reasoning to determine weather or not I think they are telling the truth.

Why would somebody make up a story like that, especially if it was insignifigant to me? They probably wouldn't so most likely they are just expressing their own feelings about such a thing, by telling it to me.

Let me know if I'm on the right track, or just a dumbass.

Pretty well on the right track, and for the record I don't call anyone a dumbass in an honest intellectual discussion and I certainly wouldn't do so now.

The distinction I would draw is between the different types of belief.

There are the beliefs which are contrary to evidence, these are clearly central to faith.
There are the beleifs without evidence, this is what many faithful will tell you is faith (and for the sake of this step in the discussion we can call "faith")
There are the beliefs for which there is good evidence, but not conclusive evidence. These are qualified or conditional beliefs.
Then there are the beliefs which are in fact true. These (combined with certainty of the belief as well) beliefs are knoweldge.

This post was last modified: 12-19-2006 01:46 PM by TXStorm.

Massive quote!

The "principles", by the way, are heuristics.

If there were no blind faith there would not be any religion, nor would most politician get elected, cops trusted, etc. Self-delusion is rampant and all faith stems from this. Which is not to miss the fact that under this suggested definition of faith, knowledge is faith. Since these two are polar opposites, clearly there is a problem with the definition.

To make matters worse, this scheme necessitates that all humans are always rational in the strongest sense. We know that this is in fact not the case, so again we have a false premise.

But that is not all, the core of it is a list of logical fallacies, including but not limited to: appeal to popularity, appeal to "authority," appeal to convenience, etc. That said, these are usually elements of faith so that far it is apropos.

This post was last modified: 12-20-2006 12:02 AM by TXStorm.

TX- again with the cops and trust thing. (I'm not trying to 'pick' on you, this just struck me)

I like how this time it's attatched to blind faith, because easily someone who knows a cop and trusts them does not trust them out of blind faith. Is that wrong?

Kren,

The bias which has been shown ad nauseum in the other thread is a symptom of the blind faith of which I speak. Where you will rightly condemn others for a set of actions or intentions, you give priests and cops carte blance BECAUSE they are priests of cops. This is an example of blind faith.

Knowing a cop and trusting them is a sign of irrationality, but you are correct it is not necessarily blind faith, though it is necessarily faith since it goes directly against reason.

I make you sick?

Actually I give almost anybody the benefit of the doubt (no not KLANSMEN) because they are people, just like me. And different from Klansmen in the ways I have already stated and probably in other ways.I disagree with notion that trusting a cop you know would be irrational, I think the thought that being a police officer does not necesitate the need to do harm unto others. It could simply be a want to protect people or save lives. (Even if the job itself has very little of that involved)

What I don't get is the clear and undeniable double standard that you employ in denying Klansmen the preferential treatment you grant to others who adopt the same or sufficiently similar attitudes, behaviors, and paths. Yes you STIPULATE WITHOUT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE OR REASON that others are "different' but thus far have been unable or unwilling to demonstrate that this is true.

BTW just for clarification, the ongoing and normally unnecessary repeating of the very same points, the very same refutations, and very same explanations are to what I was referring. The turn of phrase is a common one, akin to ad infinitum.

The post points out that we take everything on faith, and that the difference is simply in degrees of faith. 'Knowledge' to us is still part of 'faith', but it isn't as bad as it sounds because remember there's still that first epistemological assumption we can never verify, and as such we can never truly know something for certain. This doesn't mean everything has the same level of validity at all. In day-to-day life, we simply assume the premise and continue living.

In the definition of blind faith, one word should probably be switched ("little observed..." -> "no observed..."). In saying that there's no completely blind faith, he means that there's no way you can assume something with absolutely no evidence because even if one single insane person makes a claim to you, there's some evidence to it. That evidence is probably something like 0.0000000000000000000000000000001% (and you wouldn't believe it), but it's not 0%.

Not necessarily. People just assign different probability values to claims.

These probabilities/degrees are how much stock you put in the population, the expert, etc.

For example, if everybody tells me that people will die if they do X, experts tell me people will die if they do X, this corroborates with what I've learned about the human body, etc., even if I've never actually seen a person die if they do X, I'll act as though people will die if they do X. (Even if I did see it happening, I still wouldn't entirely know because of the underlying epistemological assumption.)

An appeal to popularity, for instance, would say that most people think people will die if they do X, therefore people will die if they do X.

This may or may not actually be true. In the first case, I might believe it and act as though it's true if I deem that there's enough evidence in favour of it. In the second case, I would believe it and act as though it's true automatically because most people think it. The fallacy is assigning an excessively high probability to the claim.

This post was last modified: 12-20-2006 06:50 AM by Einsteinmonkey.

Well Emonkey we diverge before we come together. While I am perfectly willing to allow reality to determine truth, it seems that you are not willing to allow that truth is possible given that you deny knowledge is possible (by stipulating that knowledge is faith which is identical to stipulating that existence is identical to non-existence or any other necessarily contradictory pair).

Once you arbitrarily label everything as faith, then of course nothing can truly be deemed to be faith at all. There is no difference between knowledge and false belief, no difference between lies and truth, in fact it become impossible to tell a lie since a lie is necessarily false and nothing can be false without knowledge.

You do realize that by declaring that knowledge cannot exist (which is identical to the effort to redefine knowledge as merely "faith,") you have necessitated that you cannot know this claim to be true, therefore cannot support the claim? The position is of course inherently self-defeating even if it lacked the fallacies upon which it is based.

Someone declaring something is NOT evidence, any more than faith is knowledge. This is a form of equivocation and nothing more.

The fallacy relies on no way upon "assigning an excessively high probability to the claim," rather it relies upon the invalid nature of the argument form. The conclusion is not necessitated by the premises therefore the conclusion cannot be trusted. That is what it means to be a fallacy.

This post was last modified: 12-20-2006 07:06 AM by TXStorm.

Ack, I had a larger post here. But I can't resolve that paradox. The quote was how we practically go about things, I suppose.

Edit: Perhaps it's simply that we can't absolutely know anything by observational means, which makes sense.

This post was last modified: 12-20-2006 10:05 AM by Einsteinmonkey.

Resolving the contradictino is easy: drop the arbitrary and uninformative new "definition" of faith.

Why? It's still degrees of faith in observational matters. (Faith isn't necessarily belief without substantial proof, though that's one common use of the word.)

Why drop it? Because it is false. Because it prevents understanding. Because it necessarily makes the words "faith" and "knowledge" completely meaningless.

The so called degrees of faith are your conclusion, therefore appealing to them as your lone remaining premise is simply a text book case of circular reasoning.

So, Jesus said that faith can move mountains.
I, on the other hand, say that all the faith from all the Christians in the world can't move one grain of sand one mililmeter.

Whom do you agree with? The son of God, savior of mankind... or poor little me?

Once again, your letting your intelligence get in your way. See with your heart and not with your mind. Lean not on your own understanding. My faith in Christ has changed my life. It has changed the lives of those around me, along with several billion others.

You cannot see the other side or feel the ripples we make there from here. Try to open your mind, just a little.

This post was last modified: 01-12-2007 06:48 AM by Pedro Timóteo.

What you call opening your mind is in fact KILLING your mind, or shutting it down. You are suggesting that we ought to deny reality, reason, and all conscious thought because it disproves conclusively the non-sense which constitutes the whole of religion.. Sorry but I happen to like reality no matter what evil form your illusion takes..

To borrow your sentiment and line, try opening you eyes and using your mind a little..

This post was last modified: 01-11-2007 01:05 PM by TXStorm.