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The kind of truth relevant for faith isn't the empirical sort that science concerns itself with, it's the kind of truth that is contained in wisdom. Faith is gu

The kind of truth relevant for faith isn't the empirical sort that science concerns itself with, it's the kind of truth that is contained in wisdom. Faith is guidance for all those situations where it's not practical to set up a double-blind study to decide on the course of action, it's the belief that there is good and bad in the world and that you can make meaningful decisions that will increase the good and counteract the bad. The opposite of faith (which doesn't have to be religious), is nihilism, not science.

jasperry 9y ago
I don't disagree, but it's too easy to pull a kind of bait-and-switch using one of these non-religious definitions of faith. You can define "faith" as something like "adopting principles or wisdom for living that isn't empirically verified and is based on personally felt or shared values". Fine; I agree that everybody needs that kind of faith to avoid being a nihilist. However, this doesn't imply that there's "another realm of truth" inaccessible to empirical demonstration, or that one ought to subscribe to some supernatural dogma. That's a separate definition of faith. The religious aspect is so baked into the usage of the word that we have to be careful that it doesn't get a free ride in on the back of a non-religious definition.
- mseebach 9y ago
  We should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are always going to be bad people standing by to abuse whatever -- there are also plenty of scams that shroud themselves in supposedly scientific fact, e.g. practically every single health and nutritional claim in consumer marketing. Certain health-nuts are building entire pseudo-religions around their supposedly scientific beliefs. I don't think it's correct to cordon off "truth" as being only that which can be empirically learned. That leaves us with phenomenon like true love and the self-evident truth that all men are created equal. If anything is in a separate realm, I'd argue it's scientific truth. That's not to demean it, rather it's a higher, superior realm.

jasperry 9y ago

I don't disagree, but it's too easy to pull a kind of bait-and-switch using one of these non-religious definitions of faith. You can define "faith" as something like "adopting principles or wisdom for living that isn't empirically verified and is based on personally felt or shared values". Fine; I agree that everybody needs that kind of faith to avoid being a nihilist. However, this doesn't imply that there's "another realm of truth" inaccessible to empirical demonstration, or that one ought to subscribe to some supernatural dogma. That's a separate definition of faith. The religious aspect is so baked into the usage of the word that we have to be careful that it doesn't get a free ride in on the back of a non-religious definition.

mseebach 9y ago
We should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. There are always going to be bad people standing by to abuse whatever -- there are also plenty of scams that shroud themselves in supposedly scientific fact, e.g. practically every single health and nutritional claim in consumer marketing. Certain health-nuts are building entire pseudo-religions around their supposedly scientific beliefs. I don't think it's correct to cordon off "truth" as being only that which can be empirically learned. That leaves us with phenomenon like true love and the self-evident truth that all men are created equal. If anything is in a separate realm, I'd argue it's scientific truth. That's not to demean it, rather it's a higher, superior realm.