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I think that while targeting specific faiths like this is interesting, targeting the very concept of faith itself is more interesting. What is faith? After mo

I think that while targeting specific faiths like this is interesting, targeting the very concept of faith itself is more interesting. What is faith? After more than a decade of thinking about it, I've concluded that what it means to exercise faith is to deliberately attempt to be more certain about something than the available evidence warrants. As such, faith is inherently dishonest, in that it involves lying to yourself about how certain you should be, and that faith is not a virtue, but a vice.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
Everybody could have a different definition of the word "faith", so perhaps there's some homework required every time you want a meaningful discussion on the topic. In traditional Christian theology, my understanding is that it's the willingness to live one's life on the premise that various propositions are in fact true. So in that context, exercising faith isn't some form of mental gymnastics; it's a willingness to bet everything on the hope that those propositions are true. I wouldn't call that definition of faith inherently dishonest. I think it as a decision about how to proceed in the face of uncertainty.
- kup0 8y ago
  A willingness to bet everything on the hope that those propositions are true, to me, seems essentially equivalent to deliberately attempting to be more certain about something than the available evidence warrants And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. I say this as someone that was a believer for 20+ years and is no longer. That said, I am not ascribing a value to whether "being intellectually dishonest" is always dangerous or bad for everyone. Overall I'd be inclined to say yes, at some deep/base level. But, it depends on the person and the way they use it. There are plenty of caring people I know that are religious, and in some ways, they use that faith to inspire them to do good things. There is always another side to that coin, though.
  - DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
    > And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. That's really interesting to me. Can you elaborate on what about that strikes you as dishonest? To me, that kind of decision in the face of uncertainty is a normal occurrence. For example, in college I had to pick some major, and despite uncertainty regarding what would give me the happiest life, I went with computer science. Or to use a more well-worn example, when my wife tells me that she loves me, I admit there's the possibility that she's wrong, but as far as making decisions in life, I'm willing to assume she's telling the truth. Neither of those two examples strike me as dishonest in any way, and the seem to fit the definition I gave.
    - kup0 8y ago
      Questions of evidence and trust (or trust vs. faith) complicate our conversation, I think. If you have consistent, major evidence that your wife does not love you, then it would be intellectually dishonest to believe she does. Some religious faith does the equivalent of this- believing in spite of evidence. The way you're framing "faith" to me is closer to what I would consider "trust" which IMHO is basically faith of future truth based on current evidence of said truth. Of course, the final wrench, is believers have sources that they think are evidence (holy books)- but that faux-evidence is not the kind I am referencing.

DoofusOfDeath 8y ago

Everybody could have a different definition of the word "faith", so perhaps there's some homework required every time you want a meaningful discussion on the topic. In traditional Christian theology, my understanding is that it's the willingness to live one's life on the premise that various propositions are in fact true. So in that context, exercising faith isn't some form of mental gymnastics; it's a willingness to bet everything on the hope that those propositions are true. I wouldn't call that definition of faith inherently dishonest. I think it as a decision about how to proceed in the face of uncertainty.

kup0 8y ago
A willingness to bet everything on the hope that those propositions are true, to me, seems essentially equivalent to deliberately attempting to be more certain about something than the available evidence warrants And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. I say this as someone that was a believer for 20+ years and is no longer. That said, I am not ascribing a value to whether "being intellectually dishonest" is always dangerous or bad for everyone. Overall I'd be inclined to say yes, at some deep/base level. But, it depends on the person and the way they use it. There are plenty of caring people I know that are religious, and in some ways, they use that faith to inspire them to do good things. There is always another side to that coin, though.
- DoofusOfDeath 8y ago
  > And it does seem willfully intellectually dishonest to do that, no matter how you frame it. That's really interesting to me. Can you elaborate on what about that strikes you as dishonest? To me, that kind of decision in the face of uncertainty is a normal occurrence. For example, in college I had to pick some major, and despite uncertainty regarding what would give me the happiest life, I went with computer science. Or to use a more well-worn example, when my wife tells me that she loves me, I admit there's the possibility that she's wrong, but as far as making decisions in life, I'm willing to assume she's telling the truth. Neither of those two examples strike me as dishonest in any way, and the seem to fit the definition I gave.
  - kup0 8y ago
    Questions of evidence and trust (or trust vs. faith) complicate our conversation, I think. If you have consistent, major evidence that your wife does not love you, then it would be intellectually dishonest to believe she does. Some religious faith does the equivalent of this- believing in spite of evidence. The way you're framing "faith" to me is closer to what I would consider "trust" which IMHO is basically faith of future truth based on current evidence of said truth. Of course, the final wrench, is believers have sources that they think are evidence (holy books)- but that faux-evidence is not the kind I am referencing.