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Interesting that the word 'humility' does not appear in the article, but it seems to me that is what the article is about. No matter how you explain the world

by csours 3y ago

Interesting that the word 'humility' does not appear in the article, but it seems to me that is what the article is about. No matter how you explain the world to yourself, I think you need some humility to recognize that you do not have a complete understanding. Humans also need faith to function, but not too much, or it's too easy to stay wrong and too easy to dismiss the idea that other people can have a valid point of view that disagrees with your own point of view.

deleted 3y ago
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wredue 3y ago
Humans do not need “faith” to function. If you’re talking about “having faith” as in “I have faith my car will start with morning”, then yes, but that is not the same thing as theological faith. I have loads of evidence and experience that I can draw on to “have faith my car will start”, whereas “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”.
- csours 3y ago
  You may notice that I did not specify theological faith.
- oaththrowaway 3y ago
  No, that's a common misconception. Faith in the context of religion requires or enables action. It's taking your belief and acting on it.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    That is just what follows from faith, not the definition of faith. That is just as true of anything someone really believes in; your actions would or ought not be incongruent with your beliefs. If you believed animals are sentient and ought not be harmed at all, then you wouldn't harm them. But those actions that follow have no bearing on the meaning of belief or faith (where the latter can be distinguished as being a "willful" belief).
- scop 3y ago
  This may come as a surprise to you but I have "religious" faith because of evidence, not lack thereof. As to how it operates on a day to day basis in my life, I have faith in God just as I have faith in my wife: it is a relationship founded upon experience and knowledge. Certainly the objection would be that that is entirely subjective, but that is where objective arguments can then be laid out in addition to my "experience" of God in my life: philosophical arguments for God, historical arguments for God's actions in time and space, etc. I am a convert and came from a non-religious background, most often seeking reasons to not convert, FWIW.
  - moritzwarhier 3y ago
    I am from a non-religious background as well, and I would love to be able to have religious faith. I like the comparison with having faith your wife, but it also shows the gap of reasoning between you and the post you are responding to, no? You start by saying > This may come as a surprise to you but I have "religious" faith because of evidence, not lack thereof What is that evidence? Are you sure you are not playing on words here? Because faith has positive effects on you? I like the argument about humility stated in another thread. For me, humility really seems to be the core value of religion that I find helpful. Another point you make I don't quite understand: > Certainly the objection would be that that is entirely subjective, but that is where objective arguments can then be laid out in addition to my "experience" of God in my life: philosophical arguments for God, historical arguments for God's actions in time and space, etc What are these arguments that are not debunked? As far as I know, proofs of God and arguments for His/Its/Her/Their existence are very indicative of the time and author's reasoning system. But there are none that I know of that have stood the test of time - be it Aquin, Kant, Descartes or whoever else?
    - scop 3y ago
      > What are these arguments that are not debunked?...there are none that I know of that have stood the test of time To say that the classical arguments for God, e.g. Aquinas' five ways, have simply been "debunked" is completely false. I recall reading Dawkin's The God Delusion in early college and being convinced that these arguments were indeed antiquated. However as I began to read book-length treatments on various arguments (beginning, contingency, etc) I realized Dawkins et al oversimplified the entire enterprise. Are there debates about them? Sure and there always will be. But there are many professional philosophers who consider various classical arguments sound (though they often prefer one over the other, a gradient of "soundness"). > What is that evidence? Are you sure you are not playing on words here? Putting aside the philosophical (see above), the historical arguments for Christianity and especially the mystery resurrection are what specifically convinced me. tldr - The gospels are written within a single generation of the apostles. They were likely written because the apostles and early disciples were beginning to die. - We have documentary evidence of the gospels being faithful to the original documents. We have a vast number of manuscripts, many more than most any other ancient work, and they all are in agreement with one another (ignoring small copyist errors here and there). - There are embarrassing stories in the gospels (Jesus' baptism, Jesus' rebuke of family, his inability to work miracles in certain places, Jesus' uncertainty as to the time of his return, the apostles total abandonment of him at his passion) - There is nothing placed in Jesus' mouth that are reflective of later debates in the early Christian communities (e.g. do we still circumcise?), which one would expect if later Christians were as free to make up stories to fit the "needs" or "meanings" in their community. - The names of people in the gospels correspond exactly to 1st century census data. If you were born in the 90s, you know a lot of Jennifers, yet there are very little baby Jennifers today. Names come and go quickly in cultures (outside of the true constant ones). There have been studies of the many names in the stories of Jesus and they all correspond to the timeframe expected (30ish AD) based on census data. - What explains the presence of the woman at the empty tomb? Woman held low esteem in ancient society, yet they are the first ones to learn of Jesus' resurrection. If this story was simply made up, why do we not see Peter, James, and John finding the empty tomb and immediately becoming full of faith? - After the collapse of faith of the apostles and their abandonment of Jesus at his passion, they all come "on board" with his resurrection and all go to their deaths attesting to this. - What explains the completely novel concept of a pre-resurrection resurrection? Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead, but this was simply a resuscitation. Jesus' resurrection on the other hand is an eschatological resurrection, which means "end of time" resurrection. He is given a glorified, eternal body that is capable of things unknown to us (passing through walls, suddenly appearing, etc). There were some Jews at the time of Christ who believed in an end-of-time resurrection, but nobody believed that a single person would experience this sort of thing before everybody else. This is a completely novel idea in Jewish thought and for it to so suddenly appear and fully formed within a Jewish "sect" is truly remarkable. Greek and Roman sources fail to explain this as well. The concept of an eschatological resurrection of so foreign that even the resurrection stories have an odd tone to them unlike the rest of the gospels, notably containing zero explicit biblical proofs ("here's where the Old Testament said I would rise") and containing remarks about various people doubting, being scared, etc. NT Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God is considered one of the best treatments on this.
- tombert 3y ago
  I mean, I'm a pretty big anti-theist, and I think that misinformation and supernatural thinking is pretty much invariably bad, but I'll admit that I have some level of "faith". I have "faith" in the sense that I don't think most scientists are faking scientific papers. I have faith that when the NIH publishes a study it's usually accurate. I have faith that physics and mathematics is a good way of modeling the world. The reason I say "faith" is because conceivably I could dispute every paper and try and replicate it on my own, and try and go through elaborate proofs to make sure every mathematical theorem is correct, and I think there might even be value in that, but I also have a life to live. At some point, I have to put my trust into others and just hope it works out, and usually it does. Of course, this falls apart, there's been plenty of cases of scientists faking data, the NIH and CDC have gotten stuff wrong before, and plenty of things in physics have been proven wrong either mathematically or experimentally, so of course it's not a perfect system (nothing involving trust ever is), but I will acknowledge that way I live my life involves something that could be considered "faith".
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    Unlike scientific 'faith', religious faith requires hoop jumping to maintain it in the face of evidence proving it false/unlikely. Or reducing ones faith to unfalsifiable things. I took the latter path until I realized there was nothing left but hot air and wasted time.
    - tombert 3y ago
      That's fair; I guess the difference between what I'm defining as "faith" is that I am more than happy to be wrong. If it turned out that a paper was using fudged data, or the results were measured poorly, or that the math being used to crunch something was incorrect, I would like to think that I would be willing to readjust my position on it and go where the latest research points. Einstein proved that Newton's "laws" of physics were really just really good approximations, and I think the vast majority of physicists were willing to adjust accordingly. If it turned out tomorrow that Type Theory was shown to be unsound or something, I'm pretty sure I'd just concede that I was wrong to believe it, and then move onto whatever revised framework came along to replace it. I wouldn't just tune out all contrary perspectives and vehemently insist that "no type theory is always right and I have faith!!!" So you're right; it's not equivalent to religious faith, because religious faith typically involves readjusting your perception of the world to fit with it, while "faith" in science involves changing the data to fit better with the world.
- aprilthird2021 3y ago
  There is actually quite a lot of evidence of God. There are many books, works, ancient religious structures, etc. which provides that evidence. It's the same evidence as there is evidence for ancient Sumerians. But then maybe you'll say "anything that exists is not evidence, we have to apply scrutiny to that evidence to see if it holds up". And of course everyone's level of scrutiny and what they view as proof and not proof will differ, so that's a road leading to nowhere fast. Perhaps the simplest proof of a God is that none of us truly live our lives as if there were no God. Many of even atheists don't live as if there is not a moral tally over their lives. They don't live as if their lives were truly meaningless (for if they did, they would see no issue in ending the whole cosmic accident of their own life or the lives of others on a whim). If God didn't exist, the ones who truly don't believe would likely act out much more on their beliefs no?
  - r2_pilot 3y ago
    Point 1: ">There is actually quite a lot of evidence of God. There are many books, works, ancient religious structures, etc. which provides that evidence. It's the same evidence as there is evidence for ancient Sumerians. " This is a false equivalency. We know the Sumerians existed both because of their writings and other physical artifacts. However, if none of these were present today, that doesn't mean the Sumerians didn't exist. Similarly, just because there are words describing a god, and they came from a previous society, does not mean their god exists. Most people can agree on solid evidence or at least are willing to compromise/determine standards of evidence in order to agree with others. Point 2: "Many of even atheists don't live as if there is not a moral tally over their lives. They don't live as if their lives were truly meaningless" Human history and evolution in general show that altruism helps promote species' growth. Morals are codified behaviors that generally (not always!!) promote the growth of a human society. It is evolutionary-negative to end other members of your own species, so those traits are heavily selected against. Bottom line, people are naturally good because that's what gets humans reproducing. No god needed
    - aprilthird2021 3y ago
      > Bottom line, people are naturally good because that's what gets humans reproducing. No god needed This flies in the face of survival of the fittest, species fitness, and all sorts of other evolutionary ideas. There is also lots of evidence that humans are not naturally good and that this does not get humans reproducing. The most reproducing man in history, Genghis Khan was not very good at all. It also skirted around the other point that atheists do not live their lives as if they were meaningless, which they purport to believe.
- kybernetikos 3y ago
  > “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”. I'm pretty sure this definition comes from atheists. I think it's a strawman. I don't know any religious person who thinks they believe without any evidence.
  - krapp 3y ago
    It comes from the Bible, for instance in Hebrews - "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
    - kybernetikos 3y ago
      And you get from that "believing absent evidence"? I get from that that faith is where your confidence in the logical conclusions of your belief gives you impetus to turn your hope into action. Faith isn't to do with why you believe, its to do with what you do with that belief, and the separate question of why you believe of course involves evidence.
      - slothtrop 3y ago
        > its to do with what you do with that belief No, that is simply what follows from having faith as is demanded of adherents. Faith in itself does not mean that. Faith is to fully believe by choice, and if one does, then it necessitates that they do what is demanded of followers.
        deleted 3y ago
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      - wredue 3y ago
        No see. Now you’re taking a third definition of faith and mangling it to shift the goal posts. This is a constant thing we see among religion argument. I do agree with you that “faith” is often defined in this way, but it is absolutely not the definition we are discussing.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”. I think that's a bit simplistic. I was taught (in a Buddhist context) that "faith" should be interpreted as a kind of confidence. To do meditation (beyond something like mindfulness), you need confidence that you aren't going to explode, or harm yourself. It's like that game of deliberately falling backward, with the confidence that your friends will catch you before you hit the ground. So you need confidence in your teacher and in the teaching. You gain that kind of confidence based on experience; you don't trust your friends (or your teacher) because you're supposed to; you trust them because they have shown themselves reliable in the past. You don't acquire confidence in a flash, as it were on the road to Damascus; it's something that develops. I don't know whether the Christian notion of faith jibes with this Buddhist interpretation. /me no longer a Buddhist, nor any kind of thing-ist.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    You could suggest we have a confidence interval for various things (e.g. 99% for gravity, 55% for whether x/y/z will happen or a president gets a second term), but in the capacity of Christianity the expression of faith demanded necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. The institutions (and what is conveyed in the Bible) don't want you to kinda sorta believe, they want you to believe by willfully eschewing all doubt. It's an action as much as a descriptor for belief. I never felt as though I could "choose" to believe anything, or not easily at any rate. I could choose not to explore certain data and be satisfied with ignorance (though I try not to) but if something is incongruent with the facts as I understand them, then I can't "faith" my way to believing it.
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      > the expression of faith demanded necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. OK. So in Buddhism (the way I was taught it), confidence or faith isn't something you express; you either have enough to achieve what you're trying to achieve, or you don't. And nobody demands it. But you're right, it's not an all-or-nothing deal. > necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. Indeed (although I'm not sure what "mild conviction" means; being convinced of something means you can see no room for doubt). For some kinds of meditation, e.g. some kinds of Tantric meditation, you need something that feels like certainty. It's not about falsifiable facts; it's about trusting, because you have to let go (like falling backwards). I don't know any evangelical Christians; I think that for them, expressing their faith is part of the deal, and it is expected (i.e. demanded). In that sort of context, I can imagine a pastor or community "demanding" that you hold beliefs that are false to fact, e.g. Young Earth. That's not what I understand by "confidence". Regarding trust and confidence, I just watched a two-part PBS documentary about Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre; it was an eye-opener. A lot of testimony from people who totally trusted this guy for a long time, despite (what looked to me like) his total charlatanism. He just wanted to be admired, apparently.
- idkdotcom 3y ago
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- jayknight 3y ago
  In classical Christianity, "having faith" really means "being faithful". To be a a faithful husband/wife, you have to do more than "believe" that you are married, you have change your life such that it is inseparable from your spouse. The same is true for Christians.
- mistermann 3y ago
  > I can draw on to “have faith my car will start”, whereas “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”. I have some bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism The implementation of reality/"reality" is Indirect Realism, but you experience it and (implicitly) assert it to be Direct Realism, due (in part) to the ideology you are "subscribed" to, whether you know it or not. Your ideology has taught you to respond with (predictable) memes, perhaps we will now get to see them and I will increment my counters. Oh, in case you "don't know what I'm talking about": > whereas “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence” You think you are referring to reality, but you are actually referring to the model of reality contained within your mind, the composition of which is what you have been trained on by your culture, ideology, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology... https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychology-normative-cognition/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychology-normative-cogn... (I could go on and on and on...there is so much for you to learn, if you still have adequate ability.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning The sad part about Western Civilization, Planet Earth, 2024, is that there are some conceptual spaces (the one we are in right now) where you are "disallowed" (it's complicated) from using science and the scientific method to figure out what is going on, because either of the two are more than capable enough to figure this out on your own....what I am saying can be learned directly from science.
s_dev 3y ago
>Humans also need faith to function Faith is fundamentally a bad idea. Take my word for it. If you're rebuttal is: "Why should I take your word" you've already partially come around to a more formal method of thinking that is based on questioning.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Did you see the definition of faith Tillich uses? Do you think that's "fundamentally a bad idea?"
- jmcqk6 3y ago
  I wonder if you're taking a particularly narrow definition of what faith is. I don't think it's possible to operate without faith, regardless of belief in god. You are not going to get out and check every bridge you drive across. You're going to trust that they are not going to fall, and that is a type of faith. The same can be said for the vast majority of human experience. Living requires us to constantly act with incomplete knowledge. I'm not sure that complete knowledge is even possible.
- erikpukinskis 3y ago
  No, the rebuttal is, “I’d rather take my own word for it.”

by csours 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

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wredue 3y ago

Humans do not need “faith” to function. If you’re talking about “having faith” as in “I have faith my car will start with morning”, then yes, but that is not the same thing as theological faith. I have loads of evidence and experience that I can draw on to “have faith my car will start”, whereas “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”.

csours 3y ago
You may notice that I did not specify theological faith.
oaththrowaway 3y ago
No, that's a common misconception. Faith in the context of religion requires or enables action. It's taking your belief and acting on it.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  That is just what follows from faith, not the definition of faith. That is just as true of anything someone really believes in; your actions would or ought not be incongruent with your beliefs. If you believed animals are sentient and ought not be harmed at all, then you wouldn't harm them. But those actions that follow have no bearing on the meaning of belief or faith (where the latter can be distinguished as being a "willful" belief).
scop 3y ago
This may come as a surprise to you but I have "religious" faith because of evidence, not lack thereof. As to how it operates on a day to day basis in my life, I have faith in God just as I have faith in my wife: it is a relationship founded upon experience and knowledge. Certainly the objection would be that that is entirely subjective, but that is where objective arguments can then be laid out in addition to my "experience" of God in my life: philosophical arguments for God, historical arguments for God's actions in time and space, etc. I am a convert and came from a non-religious background, most often seeking reasons to not convert, FWIW.
- moritzwarhier 3y ago
  I am from a non-religious background as well, and I would love to be able to have religious faith. I like the comparison with having faith your wife, but it also shows the gap of reasoning between you and the post you are responding to, no? You start by saying > This may come as a surprise to you but I have "religious" faith because of evidence, not lack thereof What is that evidence? Are you sure you are not playing on words here? Because faith has positive effects on you? I like the argument about humility stated in another thread. For me, humility really seems to be the core value of religion that I find helpful. Another point you make I don't quite understand: > Certainly the objection would be that that is entirely subjective, but that is where objective arguments can then be laid out in addition to my "experience" of God in my life: philosophical arguments for God, historical arguments for God's actions in time and space, etc What are these arguments that are not debunked? As far as I know, proofs of God and arguments for His/Its/Her/Their existence are very indicative of the time and author's reasoning system. But there are none that I know of that have stood the test of time - be it Aquin, Kant, Descartes or whoever else?
  - scop 3y ago
    > What are these arguments that are not debunked?...there are none that I know of that have stood the test of time To say that the classical arguments for God, e.g. Aquinas' five ways, have simply been "debunked" is completely false. I recall reading Dawkin's The God Delusion in early college and being convinced that these arguments were indeed antiquated. However as I began to read book-length treatments on various arguments (beginning, contingency, etc) I realized Dawkins et al oversimplified the entire enterprise. Are there debates about them? Sure and there always will be. But there are many professional philosophers who consider various classical arguments sound (though they often prefer one over the other, a gradient of "soundness"). > What is that evidence? Are you sure you are not playing on words here? Putting aside the philosophical (see above), the historical arguments for Christianity and especially the mystery resurrection are what specifically convinced me. tldr - The gospels are written within a single generation of the apostles. They were likely written because the apostles and early disciples were beginning to die. - We have documentary evidence of the gospels being faithful to the original documents. We have a vast number of manuscripts, many more than most any other ancient work, and they all are in agreement with one another (ignoring small copyist errors here and there). - There are embarrassing stories in the gospels (Jesus' baptism, Jesus' rebuke of family, his inability to work miracles in certain places, Jesus' uncertainty as to the time of his return, the apostles total abandonment of him at his passion) - There is nothing placed in Jesus' mouth that are reflective of later debates in the early Christian communities (e.g. do we still circumcise?), which one would expect if later Christians were as free to make up stories to fit the "needs" or "meanings" in their community. - The names of people in the gospels correspond exactly to 1st century census data. If you were born in the 90s, you know a lot of Jennifers, yet there are very little baby Jennifers today. Names come and go quickly in cultures (outside of the true constant ones). There have been studies of the many names in the stories of Jesus and they all correspond to the timeframe expected (30ish AD) based on census data. - What explains the presence of the woman at the empty tomb? Woman held low esteem in ancient society, yet they are the first ones to learn of Jesus' resurrection. If this story was simply made up, why do we not see Peter, James, and John finding the empty tomb and immediately becoming full of faith? - After the collapse of faith of the apostles and their abandonment of Jesus at his passion, they all come "on board" with his resurrection and all go to their deaths attesting to this. - What explains the completely novel concept of a pre-resurrection resurrection? Jesus rose Lazarus from the dead, but this was simply a resuscitation. Jesus' resurrection on the other hand is an eschatological resurrection, which means "end of time" resurrection. He is given a glorified, eternal body that is capable of things unknown to us (passing through walls, suddenly appearing, etc). There were some Jews at the time of Christ who believed in an end-of-time resurrection, but nobody believed that a single person would experience this sort of thing before everybody else. This is a completely novel idea in Jewish thought and for it to so suddenly appear and fully formed within a Jewish "sect" is truly remarkable. Greek and Roman sources fail to explain this as well. The concept of an eschatological resurrection of so foreign that even the resurrection stories have an odd tone to them unlike the rest of the gospels, notably containing zero explicit biblical proofs ("here's where the Old Testament said I would rise") and containing remarks about various people doubting, being scared, etc. NT Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God is considered one of the best treatments on this.
tombert 3y ago
I mean, I'm a pretty big anti-theist, and I think that misinformation and supernatural thinking is pretty much invariably bad, but I'll admit that I have some level of "faith". I have "faith" in the sense that I don't think most scientists are faking scientific papers. I have faith that when the NIH publishes a study it's usually accurate. I have faith that physics and mathematics is a good way of modeling the world. The reason I say "faith" is because conceivably I could dispute every paper and try and replicate it on my own, and try and go through elaborate proofs to make sure every mathematical theorem is correct, and I think there might even be value in that, but I also have a life to live. At some point, I have to put my trust into others and just hope it works out, and usually it does. Of course, this falls apart, there's been plenty of cases of scientists faking data, the NIH and CDC have gotten stuff wrong before, and plenty of things in physics have been proven wrong either mathematically or experimentally, so of course it's not a perfect system (nothing involving trust ever is), but I will acknowledge that way I live my life involves something that could be considered "faith".
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  Unlike scientific 'faith', religious faith requires hoop jumping to maintain it in the face of evidence proving it false/unlikely. Or reducing ones faith to unfalsifiable things. I took the latter path until I realized there was nothing left but hot air and wasted time.
  - tombert 3y ago
    That's fair; I guess the difference between what I'm defining as "faith" is that I am more than happy to be wrong. If it turned out that a paper was using fudged data, or the results were measured poorly, or that the math being used to crunch something was incorrect, I would like to think that I would be willing to readjust my position on it and go where the latest research points. Einstein proved that Newton's "laws" of physics were really just really good approximations, and I think the vast majority of physicists were willing to adjust accordingly. If it turned out tomorrow that Type Theory was shown to be unsound or something, I'm pretty sure I'd just concede that I was wrong to believe it, and then move onto whatever revised framework came along to replace it. I wouldn't just tune out all contrary perspectives and vehemently insist that "no type theory is always right and I have faith!!!" So you're right; it's not equivalent to religious faith, because religious faith typically involves readjusting your perception of the world to fit with it, while "faith" in science involves changing the data to fit better with the world.
aprilthird2021 3y ago
There is actually quite a lot of evidence of God. There are many books, works, ancient religious structures, etc. which provides that evidence. It's the same evidence as there is evidence for ancient Sumerians. But then maybe you'll say "anything that exists is not evidence, we have to apply scrutiny to that evidence to see if it holds up". And of course everyone's level of scrutiny and what they view as proof and not proof will differ, so that's a road leading to nowhere fast. Perhaps the simplest proof of a God is that none of us truly live our lives as if there were no God. Many of even atheists don't live as if there is not a moral tally over their lives. They don't live as if their lives were truly meaningless (for if they did, they would see no issue in ending the whole cosmic accident of their own life or the lives of others on a whim). If God didn't exist, the ones who truly don't believe would likely act out much more on their beliefs no?
- r2_pilot 3y ago
  Point 1: ">There is actually quite a lot of evidence of God. There are many books, works, ancient religious structures, etc. which provides that evidence. It's the same evidence as there is evidence for ancient Sumerians. " This is a false equivalency. We know the Sumerians existed both because of their writings and other physical artifacts. However, if none of these were present today, that doesn't mean the Sumerians didn't exist. Similarly, just because there are words describing a god, and they came from a previous society, does not mean their god exists. Most people can agree on solid evidence or at least are willing to compromise/determine standards of evidence in order to agree with others. Point 2: "Many of even atheists don't live as if there is not a moral tally over their lives. They don't live as if their lives were truly meaningless" Human history and evolution in general show that altruism helps promote species' growth. Morals are codified behaviors that generally (not always!!) promote the growth of a human society. It is evolutionary-negative to end other members of your own species, so those traits are heavily selected against. Bottom line, people are naturally good because that's what gets humans reproducing. No god needed
  - aprilthird2021 3y ago
    > Bottom line, people are naturally good because that's what gets humans reproducing. No god needed This flies in the face of survival of the fittest, species fitness, and all sorts of other evolutionary ideas. There is also lots of evidence that humans are not naturally good and that this does not get humans reproducing. The most reproducing man in history, Genghis Khan was not very good at all. It also skirted around the other point that atheists do not live their lives as if they were meaningless, which they purport to believe.
kybernetikos 3y ago
> “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”. I'm pretty sure this definition comes from atheists. I think it's a strawman. I don't know any religious person who thinks they believe without any evidence.
- krapp 3y ago
  It comes from the Bible, for instance in Hebrews - "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
  - kybernetikos 3y ago
    And you get from that "believing absent evidence"? I get from that that faith is where your confidence in the logical conclusions of your belief gives you impetus to turn your hope into action. Faith isn't to do with why you believe, its to do with what you do with that belief, and the separate question of why you believe of course involves evidence.
    - slothtrop 3y ago
      > its to do with what you do with that belief No, that is simply what follows from having faith as is demanded of adherents. Faith in itself does not mean that. Faith is to fully believe by choice, and if one does, then it necessitates that they do what is demanded of followers.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
    - wredue 3y ago
      No see. Now you’re taking a third definition of faith and mangling it to shift the goal posts. This is a constant thing we see among religion argument. I do agree with you that “faith” is often defined in this way, but it is absolutely not the definition we are discussing.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”. I think that's a bit simplistic. I was taught (in a Buddhist context) that "faith" should be interpreted as a kind of confidence. To do meditation (beyond something like mindfulness), you need confidence that you aren't going to explode, or harm yourself. It's like that game of deliberately falling backward, with the confidence that your friends will catch you before you hit the ground. So you need confidence in your teacher and in the teaching. You gain that kind of confidence based on experience; you don't trust your friends (or your teacher) because you're supposed to; you trust them because they have shown themselves reliable in the past. You don't acquire confidence in a flash, as it were on the road to Damascus; it's something that develops. I don't know whether the Christian notion of faith jibes with this Buddhist interpretation. /me no longer a Buddhist, nor any kind of thing-ist.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  You could suggest we have a confidence interval for various things (e.g. 99% for gravity, 55% for whether x/y/z will happen or a president gets a second term), but in the capacity of Christianity the expression of faith demanded necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. The institutions (and what is conveyed in the Bible) don't want you to kinda sorta believe, they want you to believe by willfully eschewing all doubt. It's an action as much as a descriptor for belief. I never felt as though I could "choose" to believe anything, or not easily at any rate. I could choose not to explore certain data and be satisfied with ignorance (though I try not to) but if something is incongruent with the facts as I understand them, then I can't "faith" my way to believing it.
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > the expression of faith demanded necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. OK. So in Buddhism (the way I was taught it), confidence or faith isn't something you express; you either have enough to achieve what you're trying to achieve, or you don't. And nobody demands it. But you're right, it's not an all-or-nothing deal. > necessarily goes beyond mild conviction. Indeed (although I'm not sure what "mild conviction" means; being convinced of something means you can see no room for doubt). For some kinds of meditation, e.g. some kinds of Tantric meditation, you need something that feels like certainty. It's not about falsifiable facts; it's about trusting, because you have to let go (like falling backwards). I don't know any evangelical Christians; I think that for them, expressing their faith is part of the deal, and it is expected (i.e. demanded). In that sort of context, I can imagine a pastor or community "demanding" that you hold beliefs that are false to fact, e.g. Young Earth. That's not what I understand by "confidence". Regarding trust and confidence, I just watched a two-part PBS documentary about Jim Jones and the Jonestown Massacre; it was an eye-opener. A lot of testimony from people who totally trusted this guy for a long time, despite (what looked to me like) his total charlatanism. He just wanted to be admired, apparently.
idkdotcom 3y ago
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jayknight 3y ago
In classical Christianity, "having faith" really means "being faithful". To be a a faithful husband/wife, you have to do more than "believe" that you are married, you have change your life such that it is inseparable from your spouse. The same is true for Christians.
mistermann 3y ago
> I can draw on to “have faith my car will start”, whereas “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence”. I have some bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_and_indirect_realism The implementation of reality/"reality" is Indirect Realism, but you experience it and (implicitly) assert it to be Direct Realism, due (in part) to the ideology you are "subscribed" to, whether you know it or not. Your ideology has taught you to respond with (predictable) memes, perhaps we will now get to see them and I will increment my counters. Oh, in case you "don't know what I'm talking about": > whereas “faith” in the context of religion means to “believe absent evidence” You think you are referring to reality, but you are actually referring to the model of reality contained within your mind, the composition of which is what you have been trained on by your culture, ideology, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_realism_(psychology... https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychology-normative-cognition/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/psychology-normative-cogn... (I could go on and on and on...there is so much for you to learn, if you still have adequate ability.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning The sad part about Western Civilization, Planet Earth, 2024, is that there are some conceptual spaces (the one we are in right now) where you are "disallowed" (it's complicated) from using science and the scientific method to figure out what is going on, because either of the two are more than capable enough to figure this out on your own....what I am saying can be learned directly from science.

s_dev 3y ago

>Humans also need faith to function Faith is fundamentally a bad idea. Take my word for it. If you're rebuttal is: "Why should I take your word" you've already partially come around to a more formal method of thinking that is based on questioning.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Did you see the definition of faith Tillich uses? Do you think that's "fundamentally a bad idea?"
jmcqk6 3y ago
I wonder if you're taking a particularly narrow definition of what faith is. I don't think it's possible to operate without faith, regardless of belief in god. You are not going to get out and check every bridge you drive across. You're going to trust that they are not going to fall, and that is a type of faith. The same can be said for the vast majority of human experience. Living requires us to constantly act with incomplete knowledge. I'm not sure that complete knowledge is even possible.
erikpukinskis 3y ago
No, the rebuttal is, “I’d rather take my own word for it.”