This is what I don't understand about faith being considered a good thing.

[More Than A Feeling]

Nobody uses it or thinks its a good thing in any other part of life, where there are tangible consequences. I mean, suppose I were a college student, and I decided that I am going to take my finals by faith. I'd fail. My faith would not give me a single right answer, nor would it change any of the questions, nor would it alter my GPA after I had failed. I would have learned nothing, by faith. Nobody, believer or non-believer, would suggest that faith would be a viable strategy.

And yet, when it comes to whether or not there is an all-powerful creator entity of the universe who wants us to live in a certain way, faith is suddenly not just ok, but the best possible thing you could do. Doesn't that suggest disregard for the consequences of not just guessing wrong, but using faith in the first place? Suppose that this creator entity actually hates faith. How do you know it does not? Doesn't it bother you that there is literally nothing to go on in determining how one should react to this entity? Doesn't that suggest that "whatever works for you" is an inappropriate strategy, if people really thought that there was such an entity and that beliefs about said entity actually did have consequences?

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. I am, at best, an agnostic.

However, I do have to concede that prayer/meditation has the power to heal on the physical level.

[cosmik debris]

4. Placebos heal too,

Which do you think has the better track record?

[More Than A Feeling]

6. The most recent study found just the opposite effect for prayer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?ex=1301461200&en=4acf338be4900000&ei=5088

[kiahzero]

9. You're talking about different things.

From the first sentence of your article: "Prayers offered by strangers"

[Dhalgren]

7. The mind is an incredible organ and it can affect the body in ways

that modern science doesn't fully understand. Magical thinking is seductive for the very reason that it does, sometimes, appear to work.

[elocs]

2. Trying to understand faith and religion and thousands of years of human history.

Good luck with that. Many have tried. There really is no answer, just faith. I wonder, did Dr. Martin Luther King have faith, and did his faith make his life better and the lives of many others better? I am an atheist, but I understand the benefit of having faith. It is easy to come up with hypotheticals, such as the famous one of can god make a rock so heavy that even he can't lift it? Faith and its application can be like people, good or bad.

[nannah]

3. well said. nt

[truedelphi]

5. There was a quote that possibly summed up what your concerns are

And I saw it here on DU just 48 hours ago - SOmething like "A foolish faith results in dangerous mistakes."

[OHdem10]

8. It takes all kinds to make an interesting world

For some faith serves as a guide, a compass for
forming their purpose in life, helps guide
their conscience as to how to be a "good and
caring responsible citizen."

Some people reach these same guideposts through
means other than Faith. They can be equally
moral good, caring and responsible citizens.

For those who use Faith, most consider
it a gift.

No true person of faith would go to an exam
unprepared. Faith without works is dead.
Faith can put the person who is prepared in
state mentally to be confident if he or
she has applied himself or herself.

[kiahzero]

10. Could you define "faith?"

What are you meaning to discuss?

[More Than A Feeling]

12. Believing extraordinary claims in the absence of evidence.

If you claimed to me that right now in California, there is a woman giving birth, I'd probably believe you. You've offered no proof that its true, but I know that people give birth all the time, it isn't hard to see the possibility that one is giving birth at just this moment. It is not an extraordinary claim.

Compare that to a claim that there is a supernatural entity that created the universe. That's pretty extraordinary claim, and there is no evidence for it, only a lack of knowledge of what happened before the big bang. I would believe it only if I didn't care about evidence. Then I've have to decide which of the multitude of entities for which there is no evidence to believe in, with contradictory natures. That would take faith.

[kiahzero]

13. I'm gonna put on my epistemological skeptic hat here...

Can you define "extraordinary claim?" What makes one claim ordinary and one claim extraordinary?

[More Than A Feeling]

31. When a word is not defined, assume the plain meaning is meant

So in this situation:

Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Law

Main Entry: ex·tra·or·di·nary
Pronunciation: ek-'stor-d&-"ner-E, "ek-str&-'or-
Function: adjective
1 a : going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary; specifically : of, relating to, or having the nature of a proceeding or action not normally required by law or not prescribed for the regular administration of law <an extraordinary session of the legislature> <granted extraordinary relief>


American Heritage Dictionary
claim
# To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain: claimed he had won the race; a candidate claiming many supporters.

So when we combine the two, we get "a statement of truth which goes beyond what is usual, regular, or customary."

But you should have known that, just from looking at my examples.

[kiahzero]

40. It seems like the "extraordinary" bit might be superfluous.

Am I correct in saying that you would believe my claim, "A woman is giving birth in California right now" because, even though I haven't provided evidence for you, you have enough evidence from other sources to support that claim? If that's the case, you don't need "extraordinary" at all... you could simply say that someone needs to over evidence to support any claims you don't already agree with.

More on topic, perhaps I'm having difficulties because my conception of the divine is significantly different from the usual, and so I just don't see the relevant comparison. The nature of divinity isn't relevant for my day to day life, so I don't see how it would follow that my reasoning regarding it would have to follow the same methods that are useful in my day to day life.

There's the additional issue of epistemology... in my day to day life, I'm not concerned about what's true so much as what's a useful model of reality for getting by.

[More Than A Feeling]

42. Your turn. It would help if you would explain your concept of the divine.

[kiahzero]

47. I admit that's somewhat problematic

I'm not entirely sure I can pin it down (which is rather frustrating), but I'll do as best I can.

I can tell you what I don't mean, and that's an omnipresent omnipotent personal deity, like the type of thing most Americans mean when they are discussing "God." On the one hand, when I use the word I'm thinking of things outside of the material world (the things we can sense, the "reality" we deal with on a day to day basis), but I also see it as more of an idea than an entity.

I don't suppose that helped?

[More Than A Feeling]

54. That sounds like faith to me.

Ideas about the supernatural (outside of the material world is a good definition of "supernatural", if you use material and natural as synonyms). And you say it has no relevance to your day to day life, and so you don't use the same standards? That's the very point of my OP: WHY NOT USE THE SAME STANDARDS?

[kiahzero]

57. Because the same standards don't work.

Evidence (which is by definition limited to the natural world) is completely useless for discussing things which are outside of the natural world.

[More Than A Feeling]

59. Why is evidence definitionally limited to the natural world?

[kiahzero]

63. Because we can only observe the natural world.

Our senses - vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell - are necessarily tied to the natural world.

[More Than A Feeling]

64. So where does this idea of "outside the natural world" come from?

[kiahzero]

67. Thoughts. The mind-body problem.

It's not trying to build a model of the world that's useful for survival, for instance.

[More Than A Feeling]

68. I don't understand the last part of what you just said.

What does this mean, and how does it relate to the title of the post I am replying to:"It's not trying to build a model of the world that's useful for survival, for instance."

[kiahzero]

70. It's defining a concept by opposition.

Perhaps I'm not understanding your question properly... do you mean, what leads me to have any sort of beliefs about things outside the natural world?

[More Than A Feeling]

72. Exactly. Why assume, that because evidence only relates to the natural world

that the evidence itself is somehow limited? Why not consider the possibility that the evidence is not limited, its just that the natural world is all that there is?

[kiahzero]

74. Well, that's where the title line came in.

The existence of thoughts as non-natural "things" indicates that there is *something* outside of the natural world. Since we're not concerned with a useful model for relating with the natural world, Occam's Razor is no longer relevant.

[More Than A Feeling]

76. Ah, now we are getting close to the crux of the matter.

Why are thoughts not derived solely from the physical structure in our brains, and the sensory input we receive? In other words, what makes you think that thoughts aren't natural?

[kiahzero]

77. Would you agree that would entail determinism?

If our thoughts are derived solely from the physical structure of our brains and the sensory input we receive, then with sufficient knowledge of one's brain structure, one's thoughts would be as inevitable as the results of an equation.

[More Than A Feeling]

78. It doesn't have to.

It could be a question of probabilities. In other words, sensory input could have the potential to result in a variety of possible thoughts or responses from the brain, each with a likelihood of happening, and you don't know which one it is going to be until it has already happened.

But even if it were, what of that? We acknowledge that all the time, when we say things like "I did this, because that happened" Doesn't that assume causation?

Even if you don't like the idea of being fully caused, does that dislike justify not looking to the possibility that thoughts are natural, when it is generally known that thoughts happen because of electrical impulses in the brain?

You really should read the book I recommended in my worldview recommendations thread: "The Problem of the Soul" by Owen Flanagan (if you haven't already). That is the source of the notion of probability,a nd the whole book is about this very topic of the mind/body relationship, and why people have problems with the idea of being fully natural.

[kiahzero]

79. Fair enough.

That does leave a question of, "Would that still be free will?" but that's rather tangential. I'm not a monist. :shrug:

Even if you don't like the idea of being fully caused, does that dislike justify not looking to the possibility that thought are natural, when it is generally known that thoughts happen because of electrical impulses in the brain?

We know that thoughts are correlated with electrical impulses in the brain. Regardless, the issue is that I view determinism as a prima facie absurdity.

At any rate, I doubt we'll be able to come to some sort of a conclusion about the mind-body problem, since dualists and monists have been going at it for a couple thousand years.

[More Than A Feeling]

80. Well, at least we've finally distilled the fundamental issue.

But it is way past my bedtime, and I am going to be dead-tired later today, so I bid you good night, and thank you for a fair, interesting discussion.

[kiahzero]

81. Crap... it's really late.

G'night. Thank you too.

[cyborg_jim]

83. Absurd?

Regardless, the issue is that I view determinism as a prima facie absurdity.

You have three choices for a decision making machine:

1) Determinism
2) Non-Determinism
3) 'Free Will'

I posit that you can't even begin to define what the third one is let alone give a cogent explanation of how such a thing could work without reducing to the other two.

At any rate, I doubt we'll be able to come to some sort of a conclusion about the mind-body problem, since dualists and monists have been going at it for a couple thousand years.

Well as long as people keep on ignoring the evidence about the brain that is slowly utterly destroying the dualist stance then that will be true - but people deny evolution, heliocentric astronomy and modern medicine as well.

[cosmik debris]

14. You're being set up

For an endless semantic argument.

[kiahzero]

18. Yes, actually defining ones terms at the outset is a bad thing.

That's why most fields avoid it like the plague. It's not like most academic papers carefully define what they're talking about at the beginning.

[cosmik debris]

20. In the R/T forum

asking for a definition of faith indicates that you are not operating in good faith. When you follow up that request with a request for another definition which is relatively clear from the context, it provides even more evidence of your bad faith. How many more definitions will you need? Are you really so dense that you can't get the meaning from the context?

[kiahzero]

23. Well, I tried to answer the OP and realized I had no idea what he was talking about

So I asked for clarification. When he made a further categorical statement without any sort of definition, I asked for clarity in that term. If I answer his question using my meanings, we're doomed to forever go around and around, because we're not talking about the same thing. It's better to get through these issues beforehand, rather than being accused of equivocation later.

I don't think using the Socratic method merits calling me "dense," personally. Do you feel like personal attacks do anything to advance the discussion, or was my fault in actually attempting to discuss the issue rather than responding polemically?

Edit: Post #21 is case-in-point as to why I asked for definitions.

[cosmik debris]

24. Learn to read

I did not call you dense. But the more evidence you bring to light, the more my question seems prescient.

[kiahzero]

25. OK, so you clearly *do* see personal attacks as necessary.

"Are you really so dense that you can't get the meaning from the context?"

Since I'm in a logic mode:
You said, "Not_Getting_Meaning(X) -> Dense(X)"

Since I'm Not_Getting_Meaning, that would imply under your rule that I'm dense. I wouldn't have asked the question if I knew the answer.

If I were to say, "All green-eyed people are dumb," I couldn't subsequently argue that I didn't call an individual green-eyed person dumb. :shrug:

[beam me up scottie]

27. Actually, I thought it was nice of him to try to warn the op.

Maybe you like endless semantics.

We're all masochists in here.

[kiahzero]

28. I like to know that I'm answering the question being asked

For instance, I first was going to say something akin to elocs, but apparently that's not what H&E meant.

[beam me up scottie]

35. I'd quit while you're behind.

I've been here long enough to know when to throw in the towel, even if I rarely do so myself.

[kiahzero]

36. I'd ask "what am I behind," but apparently asking questions is bad.

So... I dunno.

[More Than A Feeling]

38. Meanwhile, I gave you the definitions you asked for.

I am patient with socratic questions, but only so far. You after all, are not my law professor or anything.

[kiahzero]

39. Yeah, I was going back to your original post.

I got distracted. >.<

[beam me up scottie]

46. No, arguing about something that's been done to death is bad.

I thought you were in a state of flux about your beliefs, why would you want to go toe to toe with people who are most definitely not coming from the same place?

You have nothing to support an opposing viewpoint.

[kiahzero]

50. Because the adversarial method is useful for sussing out truth?

I don't think I'd be able to understand myself if I just hung out with people who agreed with me.

Take the present case, for example. I don't think Heaven and Earth's argument makes much sense, which to me presents two options: the argument's flawed, or I'm flawed. Hence, I try to understand the argument better... part of that is adversarial, in that I press for details, for undefined terms to be defined, for limits to be probed, and such.

[beam me up scottie]

55. Okay, then.

Enjoy.

I have to finish my boyfriend's taxes or else I'll have to admit that I was playing on the damn internet all night again.

[kiahzero]

56. Getting that last dig in on me was important though, wasn't it?

It's all so very funny.

[beam me up scottie]

62. Read my reply, Captain Offended.

It wasn't a dig at you but a salute to a common tactic.

Why do you always try so hard to get your feelings hurt?

This is The Arena, remember?

[kiahzero]

66. It's not an issue of trying.

Am I seriously doing something that makes it just look like I'm dealing in bad faith? I didn't think so, but it seems to be a common theme... if there's something you can point to, I can work on changing it, but I can only do that if I know what the problem is.

Yes, my feelings were hurt... I'm not too proud to admit that. I don't like thinking that I've been an enormous prick and not realized it... it's really rather painful for me to think about.

[beam me up scottie]

71. No one said you were being an ... I'm not going to repeat that.

But this is not someplace you want to be if you're not up to doing battle with the veterans.

Trust me, I've had my feelings hurt many times, I just don't usually admit it.

I've been attacked, threatened, stalked and had a bad scare when one poster I considered to be my friend really went postal on me and I couldn't remember if I had ever told him where I lived.

Lurk and learn is a good fallback mode.

[cosmik debris]

60. Oh Geeze!

You don't like H&E's argument but instead of offering a counter argument, you start an obvious semantic argument. It is a tactic that has been seen way too often in this forum. You can pretend that you are being socratic, but we've all seen it before. You are trying to put H&E on the defensive rather than offering a contrary opinion that might be criticized. You're not original, you're not clever, and you're not fooling anyone.

[cosmik debris]

32. You can pretend

That you don't have a history and reputation in this forum. But some of us know better.

You can pretend that an interrogative is an affirmative statement. But some of us know better.

So, go ahead and pretend, but don't expect the rest of us to pretend
also.

Edit: And you can pretend that your logic is valid, but some of us know better.

[kiahzero]

33. I have a reputation?

I was legitimately unaware of that.

Should I refrain from using the Socratic method in the future, lest my "forum cred" be permanently ruined?

[cosmik debris]

37. Too late

It wasn't the socratic method that ruined your credibility.

[kiahzero]

41. What was it?

Or are you just going to insult me without telling me what you're insulting me about?

[cosmik debris]

43. Review your own posts

If you don't see the problem, that would prove my question to be even more prescient.

[kiahzero]

44. I can't fix a problem I'm not aware of.

If you have a problem with me, why don't you point it out (PMs would be fine), rather than making vague claims like "You have a reputation of bad faith."

[cosmik debris]

45. I never made that claim. Learn to read. n/t

[kiahzero]

48. No, of course not

You just inferred that I was dense, told me that I can't read, accused me of acting in bad faith by asking for a definition, and then, when pressed on this, said "You can pretend that you don't have a history and reputation in this forum. But some of us know better."

Would you care to explain what you meant there, or are you more satisfied insulting me than actually trying to communicate?

[cosmik debris]

49. Define "insulting" n/t

[kiahzero]

51. Impugning my character.

Ascribing characteristics viewed by society to be negative (such as "denseness," illiteracy, or acting in bad faith).

Somehow I doubt that was a good faith question, but so be it.

[beam me up scottie]

52. ROFLMAO!!!

:rofl:

[kiahzero]

53. Should I just not bother coming here anymore?

If I'm just a big fucking joke to everyone, there's really not much of a point in trying to have a conversation.

[beam me up scottie]

58. Chill!

He's just turning the "Please define" around on you.

We do it all the time in here.

Most evil atheists are very dark, that's reflected in our sense of humour. Some people believe we don't have one 'cuz they don't understand it. We get accused of being malicious when we're really not trying to be.

[kiahzero]

61. Maybe I'm just a tad sensitive tonight.

I tend to have a dark sense of humor too, but I try not to be hurtful... I admittedly fail sometimes, but it's not for lack of trying. However, if all I'm doing here is pissing people off and not contributing, then there's really no point in coming at all... I'd rather not be a nuisance.

[beam me up scottie]

65. Like I said, we're all masochists.

All of us are addicted to this place for different reasons, but we're all liberals, so we're not that different when you look at the big picture.

I'd continue with this thread if I had the energy, but I don't.

I said enjoy, btw, because I thought that was what you were doing.

[More Than A Feeling]

69. You're acting like the law student that you are.

You're applying some of the lessons you learned in law school about being precise in word usage and definition, because using two different words in a statute (for example), even though people use them interchangeably in the real world, can have two different consequences. Am I right?

[kiahzero]

73. Pretty much.

That's all true, but it's even a bit more complex than that, because of the exchange of ideas between my girlfriend and I... she was a philosophy major / cognitive science minor, and is now working on a masters in family therapy, and she impressed on me the subjective nature of language. Apparently, a lot of relationship problems stem from both partners believing that they are using the same words to mean the same thing, when really they don't mean the same thing at all.

[More Than A Feeling]

75. That makes a lot of sense.

Cosmik's reminder to me to be precise in both thought and word was well-taken but I think that, you would have given me the same warning, if you had thought that I needed it.

[Dorian Gray]

85. Kiahzero

You are not a joke, and I have appreciated the dialogue at the beginning of this thread between you and Heaven and Earth. I don't know how it devolved into this. But, you are arguing with two people right now, not the majority of posters in R & T. So, don't let it get you down.

[Djinn]

11. if the amount of people who CLAIM to have faith

actually did you'd see far more smiles in the oncology ward. The Palliative care nurses I worked with used to tell me that religious believers were always more scared of dying than the non religious - perhaps because their faith is actually nothing more than wishful thinking.

Many people seem to think the fact they they have "faith" is proof that God exists, when it is simply proof that they are delusional. People will no doubt take umbrage at the use of the word delusional, however it is most definitely the word they'd used to anyone living their life according to the rules of Woden, Baal, Zeus or any other of the millions of Gods invented by humans over time and dispensed with when communal intelligence and science pointed out their flaws/inconsistencies/impossibilities.

It's about time we jettisoned Yahweh too.

[roguevalley]

15. God helps him who helps himself. Anyone who takes a final by faith

alone is an idiot. :) My beliefs have nothing to do with religion. I found my way to an equilibrium that doesn't require a hierarchy. Since the Neanderthal people are the first we know that seemed to understand a presence beyond this world, I doubt that they lived their life by faith. They put their skills to use and used faith, if that is what they had, to help them make sense of their humanity and their world.

Personally, I believe in the conservation of energy. When I die, my body may moulder but my soul, my unique individuality transforms from this reality to what is next. If I go back to the great love that is 'God', then I will be tremendously happy for that is where my father is, my g-parents, my pets and all the lovely things of my life. My soul doesn't disappear. I firmly believe it. My energy called RV becomes what is next.

God bless all tonight. Notice how I don't need religion to wish you only love, peace and goodness.

RV

[Tom Joad]

16. Faith is the turning of dreams into deeds, It is betting your life on the unseen

realities.


Clarence Jordan, a southerner preacher who Did the gospel, in a loose translation of Hebrews.

In my view, the unseen realities are concepts of love, justice, compassion, solidarity... very real, but not something you can just pick up at Kmart.

[More Than A Feeling]

17. Those concepts are not unseen at all, they are human words

created by human brains, to describe human relationships and human feelings (which are also created by human brains). Nothin' unseen or invisible about it.

[Tom Joad]

19. Turning them into actual deeds is "Faith"

Doing nothing... and expecting something.. as in the examply you gave, is not "faith" but just foolishness.

[More Than A Feeling]

21. The only way doing deeds is faith is if you are doing them because

a supernatural creator entity will be pleased by them. After all, lots of people do deeds...even non-religious folk, who would disclaim any notion that they had faith. Are you calling them liars, or playing the redefinition game, where ideas and concepts that need no supernaturalism get dressed up in words that have supernatural connotations, because society approves when those words are used, and people can still be in the "religious club" if they use them?

[Tom Joad]

22. That's your interpretation. whatever.

[barbtries]

26. spiritual beliefs are personal choices

my faith is in love, and in spirit. it makes life bearable since my daughter was killed. i don't believe in gawd. well actually what i do believe is that gawd was made up by people as opposed to the other way around. it was not acceptable that bekah was dead, especially since i was not. she was young, healthy, happy, growing, learning, living. her life was stolen by a person who didn't know her and killed her with absolute contempt. bekah's death was a fact that i could not change and a devastation beyond description. i kept breathing; i had a 9-year-old for whom i am the sole support. i felt upon hearing that she had been killed that in that second my own faith was stripped of me, and i had not even known how much it meant, how deep and absolutely i believed it, but it was this: i will die before my children. when that was proven false i was in a spiritual crisis and i did not know for some time if there would be any way possible for me to achieve a spiritual calm for the rest of my life. i was consumed with the question of why this happened to my girl (a question i have not figured out an answer to by the way - my theory is either a. there is no why or b. we don't get to learn it until we're on the other side. what i tend to really, really think is that over there, we still don't know why, but we are no longer hounded by the question - because over there is so much more peaceful, pure, non-violent).

i browsed beliefs and pastimes. i attended open circles, watched john edwards nightly, read sylvia brown and edward anthony. i studied numerology, animal spirits, the chakras, meditation. tarot, reiki, astrology...i kept my mind and my eyes and my ears and my skin and my nose open, and begged bekah to haunt me because i wanted her with me so, so bad.

i had rejected religion years before bekah died and her death did not cause me to want to subscribe to any particular religion (technically i am a jew ethnically i am a wasp. if i must label myself i would say i am a spiritual humanist, or a humanistic spiritualist. bleeding heart liberal and peace loving hippie might work as well). Her funeral was performed by a rabbi who did a wonderful job, and just recently i was thinking about the fact that the rabbi who married her father and myself also did a really nice job. i think religion is good for at least one thing after all, and that is ritual.

and this is the thing: from the start i gravitated toward a spirtualist approach. The day Bekah died i remember thinking that the movie "Ghost" was like the wisest most accurate rendering of what goes on when a person dies. even if that sounds totally absurd to this day (bekah has been dead since 7-19-01), i find a lot to recommend it. for me it was an avenue i could not afford to reject. from like day one when i got the chills i believed that bekah was hugging me. i began to catalogue all the phenomena and all the coincidences: there were many instances. i call it the bekah church of wonder catalogue of unexplained phenomena and incredible small world stories, and over the next couple of years bekah made miracles happen for me.

she demonstrated her presence in so many ways faith was restored. i still had to choose it, and this was not a simple decision. to me faith is a feeling invested with love, peace, justice, serenity. my belief says that even if i never knew that bekah was next to me, many times she was, right next to me, a spirit, my daughter forever. i believe that when i die bekah will meet me and take me over. and who knows what else - nothing i can prove (though i can testify about things that went on after Bekah died that guaranteed would make you shake your head in wonder at the very least). what i believe is different from what most people in this part of the world believe. but so what - that is the nature of the "faith" that i claim. it's got nothing to do with dogma or religion; it is mine because i say so, and my classes were taken alone in my room mourning and grieving and wondering and writing, during long tearful conversations with my grief counselor and other bereaved mothers whose spiritual beliefs run the gamut but almost without exception include gawd and jesus. but here we are with our five senses and we get born and we die and what is it all about. i believe that the faith i embrace enables me to hope and seek happiness and believe there might actually be a day in my lifetime before i am dead and buried when i can describe myself as happy, and at peace. it means a lot to me.

i further believe that faith can make a demonstrable difference in how well you perform on the test. you take your lessons, concentrate, meditate, pray, call it what you will. you visualize yourself acing the test. faith healing to my mind is effective not because gawd decides to act on the healer's prayers, but because power and energy are aspects of faith. our minds are formidable.

[beam me up scottie]

30. I am very sorry for your loss.

You speak very eloquently about it, I'm sure your words will comfort others who are going through grief as well.

[intheflow]

29. Can't there be an all-powerful creator who does't care how you live?

I can have faith in something larger than me without giving up my reason, or even feeling like that entity owes me anything. Seems to me you're making a blanket assumption that faith only manifests itself in narrow ways.

[More Than A Feeling]

34. You can believe anything you want, if you believe it only because you want to.

I could believe tomorrow that I will wake up tomorrow and the streets will be paved with gold, if I didn't care about having my ideas about the nature of life and the universe validated by evidence. Somehow, I don't think you'd take that belief very seriously, and you'd be right not to.

[intheflow]

86. We all have our blinders.

Less than a century ago every scientist on the planet would have categorically defended the universal knowledge that time runs in a single, linear direction. But quantum physics has now shown us that assumption was a human illusion, based on our limited, mortal existence. To pun your name, there is more in heaven and earth than is imagined in your philosophy.

[More Than A Feeling]

88. Maybe, but we won't make it exist or find it by wishing that it were so.

See this thread for an exhaustive discussion of an idea that is very similar to what you are trying to say: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=214&topic_id=122665&mesg_id=122665

[unblock]

82. you're confusing "faith" with "do nothing and hope for the best"

which are two very different things.

i'm an atheist, but i won't be using your argument in discussions with believers.

[trotsky]

84. When I was losing my faith, I came across this quote:

Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear. - Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

It was a real eye-opener for me at the time, and has remained one of my favorite quotes. I was reminded of it with your question about whether a creator actually might hate faith. If I were a god, I would.

[shrike]

87. Human beings do things on "faith" all the time

Wonderful things and horrible things. And I'm not talking about religion.

Faith can be an arrogant belief in one's self, or one's talent, which pushes one to persevere when any "reasonable" person would say throw in the towel. I think it's one of the things that makes us human.

If anyone were strictly rational a lot of great things would never have happened. A lot of great art would never have been made: take Van Gogh for instance -- was anything he ever did rational? And above and beyond whatever mental illness he had, what rational person would expect that he, of all people, would contribute something lasting to culture? How reasonable and rational was it for a human being to persevere, without reward or remuneration, as long as he did.

It wasn't rational, you would say. HE wasn't rational, he was crazy. Yes, he was, and he made great art.

[More Than A Feeling]

89. That's an interesting point, and worthy of further consideration.

The distinction is, I think, between believing things about oneself and believing things about external phenomena. "I have the talent to become a great painter" would be an example of where you just don't know that. You hope you do have that talent, so you work hard to develop that quality. At the end, you may or may not be proven right, but eventually, it will be possible to make that determination.

Independent phenomena, on the other hand, don't require us believing in them and working towards them to exist. Earth would exist whether we believed it did or not. We didn't first believe that the Earth could exist, then work to build it. My argument is that gods are in the category of independent phenomena, as are social standards imposed by others. Believing whatever we want about them won't make what we believe true, and clearly in the case of social phenomena, can have detrimental consequences. I'm asking why doesn't that invalidate taking the same faith-based approach towards supernatural creator entities?

[MistressOverdone]

90. Your definition of faith and mine

seem to be on two different pages in a very large book.

Faith for me is a way of living via an internal dialogue. It is intensely personal.

[knitter4democracy]

91. Faith is throughout life, not separate from other parts of life.

When I write my papers, yes, I do pray when I get stuck. Sometimes it's a silly, selfish prayer, but most often it's the Jesus Prayer that's gotten me through some pretty nasty crap in the last couple of years.

I'm not saying I'm better for believing, I'm not saying that Christians are these great and amazing people all the time, I'm just saying that my faith has helped me get through these last couple of years.