I'm not forgetting that claim at all. I'm saying that would be an example of the psychosomatic response that may exist either as an indirect or result of or completely independent from a more subtle and very real affect.
On another note, I've always been able to "hear" when TVs and such are on but completely muted. I'll be sitting at home and if it gets really quiet I'll be able to tell if a TV is on with the volume at 0 a couple of rooms away. It makes a kind of high pitched whine that annoys me - even though usually no one else can hear it. I'll go hunting around muttering about a noise while everyone else thinks I've lost it until I find the offending appliance and turn it off. Anyone else do that?
The whole "you can't tell when the EM source is on" approach seems rather problematic to me. If the reaction to EM takes time in the body, it could be quite possible that a person would not be be consciously aware of it.
What's more likely, in my opinion, is that some people genuinely do have a negative reaction to EM when exposed for long periods of time. Once they figure this out, or believe it, then they get the additional psychosomatic effect of having a headache whenever they *think* there's EM around. The psychosomatic effect could be masking an actual reaction.
I think you'd need experiments based on longer-term exposure (like the 3 weeks exposed, 3 weeks with filter experiment the article mentioned) rather than relying on people to be EM detectors. There are plenty of things that are bad for you over extended periods of time that you can't detect right away.
I was really excited by the possibility until I saw the three hour battery life. This cripples the entire project, in my opinion, because it dictates how you use it. Unless you can reliably use it whenever you feel like it during the day without having to monitor battery life continuously or worry about it pooping out on you it's effectively tied to outlets (car, office, etc). I know that's how I'd feel about it because even though I can get 3-4 hours out of my laptop on battery I rarely use it that way because I'm always worried that when I really need the batteries they won't be there.
Until they can get all-day battery life it's just not interesting to me. By "all day" I mean 8-hours with moderate use as a BARE minimum, and I'd really want something more like 12-16. It should be as portable battery-wise as cell phones were when they took off or portable players are when they took off. Otherwise it's just not genuinely portable.
That's very gracious of you. Seriously, very classy. I don't think I'd have the self control to do such a thing.
As far as generalized meanings go, I think that I may have overstated a few things. I certainly did come across that definition of general but only in the context of math - never in logic or philosophy so I was surprised to see it used that way.
As for who has more philosophers on their side or whatever, I really don't feel qualified to make a guess on that. My only real objective in this whole thread - and it's a recurring objective for me - is to really promote the concept that religion and faith do not have to exclude logic and reason. I understand that your technical definition of logic may refer to only deductive reasoning, and I have no problem with that, but for most people reading they will not understand that you're referring to an academic concept.
Anyway, it was certainly a good conversation and I look forward to encountering your viewpoint in the future.
"In the generalized case (i.e., always), the future will be like the past." As a quick question - how is the general case = always? Just a tangent I'm curious about. This seems to be a specialized use of the term "general" that contradicts the colloquial usage.
On to the point -
You probably meant something like "as a general rule, with exceptions, the future will be like the past." Indeed I did.
In which case, your sample argument now raises (and begs) the question: are light switches part of the generality, or part of the exception set?
I think you're totally jumping the gun on this. It's becoming clear again and again that whereas I'm approaching this entire discussion with a generic approach you're coming from a specialized system. I'd love to know what this system is. But regardless of what it is, I think that it (like all specialized philisophical systems) is bound to get us nowhere in the end. In order for you to say that my fairly simple assertion ("as a general rule the future will be like the past") necessitates some kind of a discrete breakdown of all events into one of two (apparently non-overlapping) sets (eg: generality vs. an exception set) there's a lot of background work that has led you to accept your system but which I can neither accept nor reject because I'm not aware of it.
In my opinion and experience you have all the halmarks of an overeager proponent of some system or other: you're so anxious to push your terminology onto the discussion that you immediately jump to levels of semantic specficity that simply do not correlate with the discussion at hand. Language is not neutral. It imposes a paradigm on the conversation. Hence I avoid specialized uses of language (at least until I've agreed with my conversational partner on the 'rules') and stick to more generic terminology. Whereas your peculiar viewpoint leads you to take as given certain premises that are in fact not clearly necessitated by our discussion. I see no reason whatsoever to drag set theory into the discussion and start applying it willy-nilly to things like generality and if you're going to insist on doing it you're going to have to explain to me how you can justify such a step. I'm not saying that you're wrong: just that your kind of failing to communicate because you don't realize I'm using generic vocabulary and you're using specialized vocabulary.
You can either write up some generalities about your peculiar philosphical system (which I find truly interesting) or, to make the matter more concise we can get to the specific bone of contention.
Bone of contention: Inductive reasoning is NOT inherently poor reasoning! It is simply not deductive, and therefore not logical by definition.
It's been apparent since your first post that you equate deductive reasoning and logic, and it's also been apparent that you take this for granted. That's the problem here. I see no reason to equate the two whatsoever and would like you to explain your position on this issue. In my opinion there's a reason we have two words: these are two non-identical terms.
Deductive reasoning: 1. In traditional Aristotelian logic, deductive reasoning is inference in which the conclusion is of no greater generality than the premises, as opposed to abductive and inductive reasoning, where the conclusion is of greater generality than the premises.
2. Other theories of logic define deductive reasoning as inference in which the conclusion is just as certain as the premises, as opposed to inductive reasoning, where the conclusion can have less certainty than the premises.
It seems to me that your definition of inductive reasoning is really more like 2 than 1 (both definitions from wikipedia). I would have defaulted to 1 since it's the more generalized of them, but I'm happy to work with 2 (or some other definition) if that's what floats your boat.
Logic: First of all I'd like to point out the obvious that wiki
What crack are you smoking? Look, I understand that you may have a philosophy course that really emphasized this strong/weak dichotomy, but it doesn't mean that it's suddenly the one and only officially sanctioned philosophical paradigm. And short of you believing that I have no idea how you come to the conlusion that:
Premise 2, that "in general, the future will be like the past" is just false
For one who's so intent on using logic perhaps you could specify to me what Inductive arguments, in order to be strong has to do with an a statement being true or not. I believe you've already correctly pointed out that an argument can be true or false without regard to being strong or weak.
I don't mean to talk down to you or anything. Maybe I'm just not seeing something. This whole strong/weak "inductive reasoning is inherently illogical" thing you've got going is very interesting. But you sound like you're just trying to tell me how it is. And that's just not going to fly.
1. I don't know what other languages are like - but I know that C, C++, java and C# are all similar. So even if you don't like the syntax the fact is that it's useful to know it.
2. If the comparison is C# (etc.) vs. VB I'll take C# any day. I vastly prefer the syntax because it's not at all like written English. VB (in my humble opinion) is just similar enough to be hard to use.
VB has all the functionality of an OOP powerhouse but the syntax is different. This isn't a major problem at all, but as an introduction I would definitely go with C#. C# has syntax that is more similar to Java, C, C++ and the like. This will make it a little easier in the near future to branch out from C# to another language.
I've coded in all three and it's not too difficult to switch from one to another but Visual Basic alwys gives me problems because the sytax is so different.
You seem to have missed the point of my post. Your example would indeed be illogical. But here is the example of inductive reasoning that would not be illogical.
1. I flip the switch three times and the light comes on three times. 2. I take it as a given that in general the future will be like the past (which Hume pointed out we can never actually know and I do not dispute that). C. Therefore the light will come on every time I flip the switch - contingent on 2 actually holding.
The logic is fine but the certainty is gone. All conclusions are now conditional. As long as all conclusions are given as conditional the rules of logic have simply not been broken. This isn't really debatable - we can reduce the argument to symbolic logic and procede following the strictest rules of logic that you like, and the argument above will violate none of them. It's a standard rule of logic - you can assume any old premise you want and still have a logical argument but the conclusion gets weighed down by the cumulative uncertainty of all your unproved assumptions.
I understand what you mean by the strong/weak vs logical dichotomy. If you wish to keep your conclusions as non-conditionals than that dichotomy does indeed become necessary. But there's always the alternative of just giving up on certainty but retaining logic.
What you say is true, but also more relevant to offline than online gaming. If I want to do quests, gain equipment etc. then I can boot up Diablo and play.
But WoW is an MMO game - that means it's about community and interacting with other people. If everyone else is levelling up faster than me than it becomes a negative environment. To be honest - I know myself well enough to know that if I played I would have to be at least running with the pack. That would require time. I don't have time. But I would end up staying up late, blowing off extra opportunities and hobbies to keep up. So I just don't play.
My whole problem is there's no way to enjoy the game AS AN ONLINE GAME if you're only going to play 3-4 times a month (in chunks of 4 or 5 hours). I do enjoy a lot of games that can be played incrementally. I'm a fan of single-player mode. I loved the actual story of Halo (and Halo2 but not as much). I'm taking my time working through Half Life 2 right now. But I don't have a whole horde of people streaming past me every time I play. If I did it would get discouraging and unfun pretty quickly.
Hahahahahahaha. So you're busy too. Sorry to have assumed incorrectly, no need to bite my head off. I probably play about 4 or 5 hours a week of video games total (mostly HL2, a little mariokart on either my GBA or GC). So I guess we actually have pretty similar lifestyles.
1 - If the game was so moronic that all it took was a time investment and no skill whatsoever, who would play it? Look, this will be my final word on it. I've watched people play the game, I've talked to people that play the game, but I haven't played it myself. So you may have a point. But on the other hand TV requires NO skill and people are happy to stare at it for hours. Poker requires minimal skills and yet not only is it wildly popular but people spend hours and hours discussing "strategy" (now poker I have played). It's fun despite being mostly about luck. I played DiabloI and II and other RPG games. There's never any skill at all. You have to know a few basic rules but it's not actually challenging in any significant way. The point I'm making is this: Games don't have to be hard to be entertaining.
2 (and 3) - The difference is all momentum. If I log onto a server at any given time there will probably be a lot of people my level. But if I don't log on for another 2 weeks and everyone else has logged on every day (just an example) then two weeks later I'm playing with different faces. Do you see the problem? Now if there are really a lot of casual players who would play 3 or 4 times a month than maybe I'd have a good time. I could have a bad impression. But I don't know anyone that plays like that. Everyone I know that plays WoW (and I know several people) plays at least a few times a week. I could never keep up with the characters and thus there would be no sense of community for me.
Anyway, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. You think RPGs take skill. I think they don't. Which is fine - I enjoy them for the storyline and the sense of immersion. I didn't play Diablo because I wanted a challenge. Having the feeling of having a challenge is important to make the tension of the story seem real - but the point is the story and not the challenge. Otherwise I'd just play Go or chess or something.
Wow... you brought the latin into a WoW thread. That's intense. I should probably just fear for my life and run away now. Clearly you care WAY more than I do. But since work is slow today...
- I don't play WoW, so in a sense I'm not really one to tell you how important talent is. But I have a really hard time believing skill is relevant in any significant way. The whole point of an RPG game is that they have stats for your character to differentiate between low-level and high-level characters. If it was a game of skill stats would be redundant because lvl 60 players would be that much better than lvl 12 players. I've played DiabloI and II enough to know that there's no skill whatsoever. You just have to avoid doing a few stupid things (like spreading your experience points out on to many diverse branches of the skill tree). But other than that you just run around and beat stuff up. The higher level you are the bigger the stuff you beat up. But please - skill? It's just not really relevant.
- Who cares? Uh - people who dont' have time to play video games on a regular basis. I'd have to be paying every month to have the privilege of watching my character get destroyed (or at least vastly overshadowed) by people who's only redeeming quality is that they have nothing better to do with their life than lvl up virtual characters. That's annoying. It's like saying to somone who doesn't have time to do professional sports "you can't get into the NBA? Fine! Don't play basketball". This is supposed to be a recreational activity, a fun diversion from the real world, an ameteurish hobby. It's no more fun for me to play WoW than it would be for me to join a pick-up game with NBA all stars. Actually less fun - since those guys are actually developing talent and skill and strength and speed. When you find the boots of speediness or whatever so your character can run twice as fast (as an example) this may come as a shock but YOU aren't any faster. So at least the NBA stars would genuinely be better than me. In WoW your avatar just has better stats. (Sure, sure, there's some skill - but you get the point).
- Define "ridiculously tedious". It's relative to what your life is like. I have a full time job, two part time jobs, I'm a new homeowner and a new husband, and I'm getting ready to start work on a masters program in a couple of months. I'd love to have an RPG that I could play on my off moments, maybe even a MMORPG where I could meet up with friends a couple of times a month. But as long as the servers are continously flooded by people who value time like you do it will be a frustrating and unrewarding experience for people with a lot on their plate in the real world. And as long as Final Fantatsy games get bogged down in endless lvl grinding and pointless "random encounters" when I try to get from point A to point B I will continue to prefer MarioKart on my GameBoy Advance.
How can I phrase this delicately... the character doesn't exist. The character doesn't do anything. It's just imaginary. We're on Slashdot, not some RPG WoW server so we can drop that facade right now.
The player either spent time playing the game or spent money buying gold. The availability of time to play WoW is just as disjoint from the game as the amount of real world USD available to buy virtual gold. One of the main reasons I don't play on-line RPGs is precisely this: it's obnoxious to me that I can't just sit down and play a fun game without some 12-year old who spends 4 or 5 hours a day coming around and squishing my character. Even if I'm smarter and a better gamer, even if I have more talent for the game it doesn't matter: the game gives preferential skills/stats/etc to people with an extreme excess of time on their hands (or no time management skills).
You're a perfect example of "1. Investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill." If you're going to give out virtual gold to any idiot with 5 hours to burn then why not let any idiot with $50 to burn get some too?
I could never compete at WoW (if I played) because I don't have time to run around leveling up. I have a wife, three jobs, an education. So I'm at a disadvantage because I don't have as much time to spend. Does that mean people who do spend more time than me are cheating? No - they just choose to allocate more time (resources) to the game. Good for them.
How is money any different? If someone wants to allocate more money (resources) to the game how is that any different from them allocating more time?
All in all I agreed with your post. I would beg to differ that inductive reasoning is not logical. It's not certain, but the rules of logic still apply. It assumes a premise (the future will be like the past) but there's nothing illogical about assuming a premise as long as you realize it's assumed and consider all the following results to be contingent on the assumed premise.
Eg I could say "let's believe faeries are real" and then procede to make an argument. As long as at the end of the day I realized that anything I'd proved was contingent on that one assumed premise there's nothing illogical about what I've done.
I don't know a single religious person who would accept your examples a[s] genuine faith.
Well, I'll be the one religious person you (kind of know) who accepts the light switch example as a perfect example of faith. I understand your arguments about the differences between the light switch and "religious" faith, but I think those are differences of quantity - not quality. The fundamental definition of faith, in my opinion, is simple extrapolation of evidence/experience using logic beyond the realm of certainty. As such I consider every action, belief, thought made by humans about or with respect to the real world to be at least in part a matter of faith. The only difference is how much of our motivation is faith and how much is knowledge. In physics it may be very little in prayer it may be very much but the fundamental operations are the same.
As far as I can tell we both believe that there are two distinct versions of the word "faith". In one case faith is operative whenever a truth-claim is asserted in the absense of total knowledge or certainty. This is the "confident belief" aspect of faith which you prefer to describe as "expectation", "probability", etc.
The other definition of faith is belief in thing without ANY material or logical evidence. This is the "blind belief" variant of faith.
So we agree in the definition of the terms, the only question is how we choose to apply them. You seem to be saying that all faith of a religious nature is type 2: blind belief. Stop me if I got that wrong. I'm simply saying that some religious faith is type 2 and that some is type 1. Some religious beliefs are held not out of wishful thinking but with material and/or logical support.
I can provide you with several examples of these type 1 claims. One example would be historical belief in certain events of the Bible. The Bible is material evidence for events taking place. It's not proof by any means - but it is evidence. People with type 2 faith in the Bible just go straight to "the Bible is the word of God" and never question it, doubt it, or try to verify it. People with type 1 faith in the Bible go out and dig in the desert (metaphorically or literally) precisely because they want to prove or disprove (or at least strengthen or weaken) their faith in the Bible. Now I don't think that the Bible can be proved or disproved - it's too complex and fragmentary. But through research you can come to realize things like: 1. the story of Job was probably never intended to be literal and therefore Job probably didn't exist or 2. although previously thought to be a mere legend, ancient evidence has been found to support the existence of King David.
As another example you can evaluate the moral claims of a given religion philosophically. Is it just, in other words, for one to believe in a God that condemns people who did not hear about Christ to eternal damnation? You're never going to find material evidence that's relevant to this discussion but you have an entire body of philosophical ethics from which to start building logical arguments.
I'm not trying to say that you can prove or disprove religion or that faith in God is the same as faith in the law of gravity. Science is defined by those things that we can make quantifiable observations about. So it's by definition restricted to material claims. Some elements of religion rely on material claims: usually archealogy and history. But for the most part religious belief and conviction will never be based on material evidence. As a result the level of certainty in religion in general will always be substantially lower than the level of certainty in things like turning a light on or off.
My sole point is that just because a religious conviction is not AS grounded in material evidence or logic doesn't mean it has NO grounding in material logic or evidence. Furthermore I'd like to point out that a lot of the things we believe in and have faith in on a day-to-day basis are also not based on scientific knowledge. Faith in friends is a good example of this. We know our friends better than we know God so it's not as much faith (there's more evidence) but the evidence is of a decidedly non-scientific nature. And that doesn't stop us from espousing it every day of our lives.
Most people have numerous assumptions and prejudices that they live by without question. Sometimes belief in God is just another one of those. But sometimes belief in God is something that is rigorously and earnestly critiqued. When that happens it stops being wishful thinking and starts to become the same type of faith as expectation.
As an example - read the first chapter of C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity". He doesn't prove God exists (nor does he try) but he does present a rational, logical and somewhat compelling argument for Christianity. No one can honestly say his book is nothi
If that was the case, then you could explain your logic, and expect and desire people to give feedback on your estimation, to help refine your theory. That would be similar to Science.
I do this on a regular basis with my friends and family. And it is rather like science - that's my point.
The chief difference between religion and science is that scientific queries can be addresed with quantifiable data via reproducible experimentation. That's pretty much what defines science. Religion (and philosophy) are what you get when you're dealing with questions that can't be directly addressed through quantifiable data. You still use logic and reason, but you can't really test the hypothesese.
That's why philosophy (and theology) are still discussing the free-will debate after several thousand years of recorded history will science manages to progress substantially from early Greek conceptions of matter to the current model of the atomic and subatomic universe.
My only point is that logic is necessary to both.
And yes some people view faith as raw assertion of dogma. In my view - they're simply wrong. I could interview three people on the street at random about physics and call it science but that wouldn't make it so.
I tend to think belief is popular because it provides answers to questions which are otherwise unanswerable.
Wow - talk about nail on the head. I think that's exactly dead on. But here's what I think is really interesting. I think that for thousands of years religion has allowed people to avoid confronting unpleasent thoughts like their own mortality or the problem of human suffering in the world. It has fulfilled core human psychological needs and because of that conveniense it has been corrupted. Serious religion is not nearly that comforting. Serious religion has to adress questions like "If God exists and cares about us - then why the Hell is this planet so screwed up?". Serious religion can be demanding, frightening and intimidating. Dogmatic religion, on the other hand, allows a priest to be the designated guy to deal with tough questions while the rest of us can just go about our lives assuming these issues are delt with. We don't need to think - just engage in wishful thinking and we'll all be saved.
The real irony here is that I think that science is starting to fulfill the same role in human society. If you were sick in the middle ages you turned to God not only for a possible solution (getting better) but more importantly to discover meaning - why were you sick? What was the reason for the pain? Now when you're sick you turn to science both for relief but also for framework of answers. Science - via evolution for example - explains what sickness is and why we feel it. To that extent I think you are starting to see science corrupted in the same way religion was to server human psychological needs by acting as a buffer between us and hard questions. Just read any of Michael Crichton's essays on the way in which science is politicized by environmentalist, health advocates, etc.
Thousands of years ago religion began to be hijacked for those who realized that anyone who came along with robes, incense, a few scriptures and a pleasing philosophy could make a pretty good living. The trouble came when different camps decided to fight over religious dominance. None of this had anything to do with real religion. Real religion means asking honest questions and being courageous enough to look for the answers to matter what they are. It has nothing to do with robes or hierarchies.
Now the same thing is starting to happen with science as organizations that were once founded for the unbiased pursuit of natural knowledge are hijacked by those who want money. Take the pharmaceutical companies who are out to get another drug FDA approved. For them science becomes a mean to an end instead of an end in itself.
That's why the two sides arguing loudest about stuff like ID and evolution aren't really opposites at all. The fundamentalists hijacked religion for political power, money, or just sheer egoism. Any "scientist" that dismisses all religion out of hand betrays the fact that he or she is merely using science the same way the fundamentalist uses religion - as a tool for self-aggrandizement.
Meanwhile true religion and true science have no conflict whatsoever. Science continues to enlarge the sphere of knowledge about the natural world - religion continues to grapple with serious questions that fall outside the realm of quantifiable data and neither threatens the other in any way.
Thanks for the reply. I want to do something more than just respond with "no, my definition of faith is right afterall". There are two things I want to bring up. First an argument for my definition of faith using your light switch example. And then a further critique on your preferred definition of faith.
1. Regarding the Light Switch
You claim that it is not faith because the question "will the light turn on when I hit the switch" is answered by such facts as "how electricity works", etc. You're not depending on the unknown - you're depending on the known. Thus there's no need for faith. I would point out, however, that sometimes the light has blown and you don't know it until you hit the switch. What this points out is that your "knowledge" is actually imperfect.
The real implication of this is that faith and knowledge work in tandem. The more knowledge you have the less faith is required. The amount of faith required to believe the light will come on, for example, is minimal precisely because you know a lot of relevent facts. Certainty in the real world is non-existent, however, and for that reason all actions and beliefs about the real world will rely at least in part on faith. So I would say that when you flip the switch you ARE relying on faith - but only to a small degree.
2. Faith, on the other hand, is what you invoke in cases where you do not have the evidence to rely on.
I want to point out that the word "faith" has a broader definition thatn just "faith in God". You can have faith in your friends, for example, or faith in democracy, faith in people or faith in yourself. So I think if we want to get an idea of what faith should really mean we need to start with the common sense definition before we jump straigh to "faith means believing in things like God - about which we can have no evidence".
In all of these cases faith is what you get when you take the knowledge that you have - how well you know your friend, how well you know democracy, what you know about people in general or what you know about yourself - and you use it in a context where that knowledge is insufficient for certainty. If you're relying on your friend to back you up in a fight, say, then you have faith in your friend BECAUSE he's your friend. You know him and you expect him to act in certain ways and you rely on him. You have reason to believe but, when it comes down to it, you can not be quite certain. You can't directly see his thought proces, you can't influene his decision making, you can just take all your knowledge and then extrapolate.
Since that's what faith means in general, I think it's a better model for religious faith. Yes - there are those who say we need to believe certain things about God just because the Bible says so. This is the dogmatic version of faith and it's stupid. But there are many believers who have much more complex - and much more rational - reasons for their faith in God. Like the light switch it's not a case of absolute ignorance. If you just baselessly assert "God lives!" for absolutely no reason that's not faith. That's wishful thinking (whether it's true or not).
I believe in God in the same way I believe the light wil come on when I hit the switch. There are some differences. Belief in the light switch is simpler to express, easier to verify, and the operating features are open to my study. I understand the basic phyics and therefore when I hit the switch it's (just for an example) 95% reason and 5% faith (that the light hasn't blown, that the power's not out, that my wife hasn't taken the light bulb out, that a fuse hasn't blown, etc.) When I pray, on the other hand, it may be something more like 5% reason and 95% faith.
The point I'm making is that you have to have reason to believe or it's just wishful thinking. Some people say wishful thinking is faith. But that's now what the word means in any other context - why should it be different here? I say faith is the extension of the best experience we have into the unknown. It's relying on something that is at least in part an unknown quantity. That's what the word means in every other context and it makes the most sense in religion as well.
Thank you, the poll of anti-religion slashdot readers is now complete. It was also fairly good practice for me. I have this overwhelming tendency to reply to each and every reply individually and I get bogged down in counltess threads with - how else can I put it - scientific bigots. This time, however, I managed to hold off.
Religion is one of those topics - like abortion or evolution or homosexuality - that causes slashdot readership breaks into a frenzy whenever we have an article that allows us to vent (again) our particular poition on this issue. The tiresome part of this is not only that almost everyone is just talking to hear themselves talkk, but also that most people are also quite content to argue with phantom straw men rather than respond to real-world positions.
In this case the straw-man for the anti-religion crowd is a very specific definition of religion; more particularly its theological definition of faith as "blind belief". This type of faith is nothing more than willful assertion of some rote dogma or other. As such it necessitates an anti-science position as it is anti-thought. Rational thought involves questioning and doubting. These activities threaten the very nature of (blind beleif) faith itself. In short - I can see why people who value science, knowledge, fairness, and information highly would find this form of religion utterly repugnant. I share that sentiment.
There are two problems, however. The first problem is that not all religion is anti-intellectual. Not all religion has this "blind belief" view of faith. Some, like the existentialist thinker Kierkegaard, have blind belief but situated within a compelling rational framework. Others, like C.S. Lewis, focus on the aspects of their faith systems that are logically and rationally appealing to thinking, questioning and questing individuals and marginalize the blind-belief aspects as inconsequential. To throw out all religion as the base "blind faith" variety is just to show one's utter and complete ignorance for the vast spectrum of religious thought that does exist. Most people who are so convinced that religion is anti-intellectual have never bothered to read the writings of a single religious intellectual (note: this means someone other than Falwell or Robertson). When you dismiss all of religious heritage with witty one-liners you may think you look cool. +5 mod points for "informative" or "funny" may give you the credibility you apparently desire. But the fact is that you are no more informed than some Bible fundamentalist who's never taken a real sciene class in his or her life would be in assuming that evolution was just some crocked up scheme by satanist communists to lead the world from the path of God. Not only are they wrong (everyone is wrong from time to time) but they are publicly demonstrating their own prejudice and arrogance. The saddest part is that they, like you, would never even comprehend their own humiliation.
The second problem is quite simple: it's impossible to get away from some definitions of faith. What if faith isn't believing in gnomes, faeries, Gods or Goddeses just because it's the dogma - what if faith is actually the rational extrapolation from insufficient evidence to guide necesary action? In other words - faith is what guides our actions when we don't have knowledge but need to make a choice. Well, if you realize that certainty about the real world is impossible you quickly realize that all of the things we know or do are - in a sense - dependent on faith. Even science is, in some sense, dependent on faith. Faith in the law of causality logically (if not temporally) preceeds all experimentation. It may be subsequently reinforced by experience but it can neither be directly proved by experimentation or any other known means and yet is the pre-requisite for rational experimentation.
In the end it's a simple case of hatred for one thing spilling irrationally over into hatred for related or similar things. You guys really hate dogmatic and anti-i
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"Mysterious" is a relative term. It certainly was mysterious to me.
Thanks for the info.
-stormin
I'm not forgetting that claim at all. I'm saying that would be an example of the psychosomatic response that may exist either as an indirect or result of or completely independent from a more subtle and very real affect.
On another note, I've always been able to "hear" when TVs and such are on but completely muted. I'll be sitting at home and if it gets really quiet I'll be able to tell if a TV is on with the volume at 0 a couple of rooms away. It makes a kind of high pitched whine that annoys me - even though usually no one else can hear it. I'll go hunting around muttering about a noise while everyone else thinks I've lost it until I find the offending appliance and turn it off. Anyone else do that?
-stormin
The whole "you can't tell when the EM source is on" approach seems rather problematic to me. If the reaction to EM takes time in the body, it could be quite possible that a person would not be be consciously aware of it.
What's more likely, in my opinion, is that some people genuinely do have a negative reaction to EM when exposed for long periods of time. Once they figure this out, or believe it, then they get the additional psychosomatic effect of having a headache whenever they *think* there's EM around. The psychosomatic effect could be masking an actual reaction.
I think you'd need experiments based on longer-term exposure (like the 3 weeks exposed, 3 weeks with filter experiment the article mentioned) rather than relying on people to be EM detectors. There are plenty of things that are bad for you over extended periods of time that you can't detect right away.
-stormin
See - that's what I'm talking about. He's looking for a wife - but who's wife? Sounds pretty suspicious to me.
-stormin
If you want to get married it's best to look for single women, IMHO.
I was really excited by the possibility until I saw the three hour battery life. This cripples the entire project, in my opinion, because it dictates how you use it. Unless you can reliably use it whenever you feel like it during the day without having to monitor battery life continuously or worry about it pooping out on you it's effectively tied to outlets (car, office, etc). I know that's how I'd feel about it because even though I can get 3-4 hours out of my laptop on battery I rarely use it that way because I'm always worried that when I really need the batteries they won't be there.
Until they can get all-day battery life it's just not interesting to me. By "all day" I mean 8-hours with moderate use as a BARE minimum, and I'd really want something more like 12-16. It should be as portable battery-wise as cell phones were when they took off or portable players are when they took off. Otherwise it's just not genuinely portable.
-stormin
The last word is yours.
That's very gracious of you. Seriously, very classy. I don't think I'd have the self control to do such a thing.
As far as generalized meanings go, I think that I may have overstated a few things. I certainly did come across that definition of general but only in the context of math - never in logic or philosophy so I was surprised to see it used that way.
As for who has more philosophers on their side or whatever, I really don't feel qualified to make a guess on that. My only real objective in this whole thread - and it's a recurring objective for me - is to really promote the concept that religion and faith do not have to exclude logic and reason. I understand that your technical definition of logic may refer to only deductive reasoning, and I have no problem with that, but for most people reading they will not understand that you're referring to an academic concept.
Anyway, it was certainly a good conversation and I look forward to encountering your viewpoint in the future.
-stormin
Thanks for saying that. I meant syntax to include the kinds of keywords you're talking about - so i totally agree with your post.
-stormin
Tangentially -
"In the generalized case (i.e., always), the future will be like the past." As a quick question - how is the general case = always? Just a tangent I'm curious about. This seems to be a specialized use of the term "general" that contradicts the colloquial usage.
On to the point -
You probably meant something like "as a general rule, with exceptions, the future will be like the past." Indeed I did.
In which case, your sample argument now raises (and begs) the question: are light switches part of the generality, or part of the exception set?
I think you're totally jumping the gun on this. It's becoming clear again and again that whereas I'm approaching this entire discussion with a generic approach you're coming from a specialized system. I'd love to know what this system is. But regardless of what it is, I think that it (like all specialized philisophical systems) is bound to get us nowhere in the end. In order for you to say that my fairly simple assertion ("as a general rule the future will be like the past") necessitates some kind of a discrete breakdown of all events into one of two (apparently non-overlapping) sets (eg: generality vs. an exception set) there's a lot of background work that has led you to accept your system but which I can neither accept nor reject because I'm not aware of it.
In my opinion and experience you have all the halmarks of an overeager proponent of some system or other: you're so anxious to push your terminology onto the discussion that you immediately jump to levels of semantic specficity that simply do not correlate with the discussion at hand. Language is not neutral. It imposes a paradigm on the conversation. Hence I avoid specialized uses of language (at least until I've agreed with my conversational partner on the 'rules') and stick to more generic terminology. Whereas your peculiar viewpoint leads you to take as given certain premises that are in fact not clearly necessitated by our discussion. I see no reason whatsoever to drag set theory into the discussion and start applying it willy-nilly to things like generality and if you're going to insist on doing it you're going to have to explain to me how you can justify such a step. I'm not saying that you're wrong: just that your kind of failing to communicate because you don't realize I'm using generic vocabulary and you're using specialized vocabulary.
You can either write up some generalities about your peculiar philosphical system (which I find truly interesting) or, to make the matter more concise we can get to the specific bone of contention.
Bone of contention: Inductive reasoning is NOT inherently poor reasoning! It is simply not deductive, and therefore not logical by definition.
It's been apparent since your first post that you equate deductive reasoning and logic, and it's also been apparent that you take this for granted. That's the problem here. I see no reason to equate the two whatsoever and would like you to explain your position on this issue. In my opinion there's a reason we have two words: these are two non-identical terms.
Deductive reasoning:
1. In traditional Aristotelian logic, deductive reasoning is inference in which the conclusion is of no greater generality than the premises, as opposed to abductive and inductive reasoning, where the conclusion is of greater generality than the premises.
2. Other theories of logic define deductive reasoning as inference in which the conclusion is just as certain as the premises, as opposed to inductive reasoning, where the conclusion can have less certainty than the premises.
It seems to me that your definition of inductive reasoning is really more like 2 than 1 (both definitions from wikipedia). I would have defaulted to 1 since it's the more generalized of them, but I'm happy to work with 2 (or some other definition) if that's what floats your boat.
Logic:
First of all I'd like to point out the obvious that wiki
What crack are you smoking? Look, I understand that you may have a philosophy course that really emphasized this strong/weak dichotomy, but it doesn't mean that it's suddenly the one and only officially sanctioned philosophical paradigm. And short of you believing that I have no idea how you come to the conlusion that:
Premise 2, that "in general, the future will be like the past" is just false
For one who's so intent on using logic perhaps you could specify to me what Inductive arguments, in order to be strong has to do with an a statement being true or not. I believe you've already correctly pointed out that an argument can be true or false without regard to being strong or weak.
I don't mean to talk down to you or anything. Maybe I'm just not seeing something. This whole strong/weak "inductive reasoning is inherently illogical" thing you've got going is very interesting. But you sound like you're just trying to tell me how it is. And that's just not going to fly.
-stormin
1. I don't know what other languages are like - but I know that C, C++, java and C# are all similar. So even if you don't like the syntax the fact is that it's useful to know it.
2. If the comparison is C# (etc.) vs. VB I'll take C# any day. I vastly prefer the syntax because it's not at all like written English. VB (in my humble opinion) is just similar enough to be hard to use.
-stormin
VB has all the functionality of an OOP powerhouse but the syntax is different. This isn't a major problem at all, but as an introduction I would definitely go with C#. C# has syntax that is more similar to Java, C, C++ and the like. This will make it a little easier in the near future to branch out from C# to another language.
I've coded in all three and it's not too difficult to switch from one to another but Visual Basic alwys gives me problems because the sytax is so different.
-stormin
You seem to have missed the point of my post. Your example would indeed be illogical. But here is the example of inductive reasoning that would not be illogical.
1. I flip the switch three times and the light comes on three times.
2. I take it as a given that in general the future will be like the past (which Hume pointed out we can never actually know and I do not dispute that).
C. Therefore the light will come on every time I flip the switch - contingent on 2 actually holding.
The logic is fine but the certainty is gone. All conclusions are now conditional. As long as all conclusions are given as conditional the rules of logic have simply not been broken. This isn't really debatable - we can reduce the argument to symbolic logic and procede following the strictest rules of logic that you like, and the argument above will violate none of them. It's a standard rule of logic - you can assume any old premise you want and still have a logical argument but the conclusion gets weighed down by the cumulative uncertainty of all your unproved assumptions.
I understand what you mean by the strong/weak vs logical dichotomy. If you wish to keep your conclusions as non-conditionals than that dichotomy does indeed become necessary. But there's always the alternative of just giving up on certainty but retaining logic.
-stormin
What you say is true, but also more relevant to offline than online gaming. If I want to do quests, gain equipment etc. then I can boot up Diablo and play.
But WoW is an MMO game - that means it's about community and interacting with other people. If everyone else is levelling up faster than me than it becomes a negative environment. To be honest - I know myself well enough to know that if I played I would have to be at least running with the pack. That would require time. I don't have time. But I would end up staying up late, blowing off extra opportunities and hobbies to keep up. So I just don't play.
My whole problem is there's no way to enjoy the game AS AN ONLINE GAME if you're only going to play 3-4 times a month (in chunks of 4 or 5 hours). I do enjoy a lot of games that can be played incrementally. I'm a fan of single-player mode. I loved the actual story of Halo (and Halo2 but not as much). I'm taking my time working through Half Life 2 right now. But I don't have a whole horde of people streaming past me every time I play. If I did it would get discouraging and unfun pretty quickly.
-stormin
Hahahahahahaha. So you're busy too. Sorry to have assumed incorrectly, no need to bite my head off. I probably play about 4 or 5 hours a week of video games total (mostly HL2, a little mariokart on either my GBA or GC). So I guess we actually have pretty similar lifestyles.
1 - If the game was so moronic that all it took was a time investment and no skill whatsoever, who would play it? Look, this will be my final word on it. I've watched people play the game, I've talked to people that play the game, but I haven't played it myself. So you may have a point. But on the other hand TV requires NO skill and people are happy to stare at it for hours. Poker requires minimal skills and yet not only is it wildly popular but people spend hours and hours discussing "strategy" (now poker I have played). It's fun despite being mostly about luck. I played DiabloI and II and other RPG games. There's never any skill at all. You have to know a few basic rules but it's not actually challenging in any significant way. The point I'm making is this: Games don't have to be hard to be entertaining.
2 (and 3) - The difference is all momentum. If I log onto a server at any given time there will probably be a lot of people my level. But if I don't log on for another 2 weeks and everyone else has logged on every day (just an example) then two weeks later I'm playing with different faces. Do you see the problem? Now if there are really a lot of casual players who would play 3 or 4 times a month than maybe I'd have a good time. I could have a bad impression. But I don't know anyone that plays like that. Everyone I know that plays WoW (and I know several people) plays at least a few times a week. I could never keep up with the characters and thus there would be no sense of community for me.
Anyway, I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. You think RPGs take skill. I think they don't. Which is fine - I enjoy them for the storyline and the sense of immersion. I didn't play Diablo because I wanted a challenge. Having the feeling of having a challenge is important to make the tension of the story seem real - but the point is the story and not the challenge. Otherwise I'd just play Go or chess or something.
-stormin
Wow... you brought the latin into a WoW thread. That's intense. I should probably just fear for my life and run away now. Clearly you care WAY more than I do. But since work is slow today...
- I don't play WoW, so in a sense I'm not really one to tell you how important talent is. But I have a really hard time believing skill is relevant in any significant way. The whole point of an RPG game is that they have stats for your character to differentiate between low-level and high-level characters. If it was a game of skill stats would be redundant because lvl 60 players would be that much better than lvl 12 players. I've played DiabloI and II enough to know that there's no skill whatsoever. You just have to avoid doing a few stupid things (like spreading your experience points out on to many diverse branches of the skill tree). But other than that you just run around and beat stuff up. The higher level you are the bigger the stuff you beat up. But please - skill? It's just not really relevant.
- Who cares? Uh - people who dont' have time to play video games on a regular basis. I'd have to be paying every month to have the privilege of watching my character get destroyed (or at least vastly overshadowed) by people who's only redeeming quality is that they have nothing better to do with their life than lvl up virtual characters. That's annoying. It's like saying to somone who doesn't have time to do professional sports "you can't get into the NBA? Fine! Don't play basketball". This is supposed to be a recreational activity, a fun diversion from the real world, an ameteurish hobby. It's no more fun for me to play WoW than it would be for me to join a pick-up game with NBA all stars. Actually less fun - since those guys are actually developing talent and skill and strength and speed. When you find the boots of speediness or whatever so your character can run twice as fast (as an example) this may come as a shock but YOU aren't any faster. So at least the NBA stars would genuinely be better than me. In WoW your avatar just has better stats. (Sure, sure, there's some skill - but you get the point).
- Define "ridiculously tedious". It's relative to what your life is like. I have a full time job, two part time jobs, I'm a new homeowner and a new husband, and I'm getting ready to start work on a masters program in a couple of months. I'd love to have an RPG that I could play on my off moments, maybe even a MMORPG where I could meet up with friends a couple of times a month. But as long as the servers are continously flooded by people who value time like you do it will be a frustrating and unrewarding experience for people with a lot on their plate in the real world. And as long as Final Fantatsy games get bogged down in endless lvl grinding and pointless "random encounters" when I try to get from point A to point B I will continue to prefer MarioKart on my GameBoy Advance.
-stormin
How can I phrase this delicately... the character doesn't exist. The character doesn't do anything. It's just imaginary. We're on Slashdot, not some RPG WoW server so we can drop that facade right now.
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The player either spent time playing the game or spent money buying gold. The availability of time to play WoW is just as disjoint from the game as the amount of real world USD available to buy virtual gold. One of the main reasons I don't play on-line RPGs is precisely this: it's obnoxious to me that I can't just sit down and play a fun game without some 12-year old who spends 4 or 5 hours a day coming around and squishing my character. Even if I'm smarter and a better gamer, even if I have more talent for the game it doesn't matter: the game gives preferential skills/stats/etc to people with an extreme excess of time on their hands (or no time management skills).
Remember that article about WoW teaching the wrong things? http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20060222/sirlin
You're a perfect example of "1. Investing a lot of time in something is worth more than actual skill." If you're going to give out virtual gold to any idiot with 5 hours to burn then why not let any idiot with $50 to burn get some too?
-stormin
I could never compete at WoW (if I played) because I don't have time to run around leveling up. I have a wife, three jobs, an education. So I'm at a disadvantage because I don't have as much time to spend. Does that mean people who do spend more time than me are cheating? No - they just choose to allocate more time (resources) to the game. Good for them.
How is money any different? If someone wants to allocate more money (resources) to the game how is that any different from them allocating more time?
-stormin
All in all I agreed with your post. I would beg to differ that inductive reasoning is not logical. It's not certain, but the rules of logic still apply. It assumes a premise (the future will be like the past) but there's nothing illogical about assuming a premise as long as you realize it's assumed and consider all the following results to be contingent on the assumed premise.
Eg I could say "let's believe faeries are real" and then procede to make an argument. As long as at the end of the day I realized that anything I'd proved was contingent on that one assumed premise there's nothing illogical about what I've done.
I don't know a single religious person who would accept your examples a[s] genuine faith.
Well, I'll be the one religious person you (kind of know) who accepts the light switch example as a perfect example of faith. I understand your arguments about the differences between the light switch and "religious" faith, but I think those are differences of quantity - not quality. The fundamental definition of faith, in my opinion, is simple extrapolation of evidence/experience using logic beyond the realm of certainty. As such I consider every action, belief, thought made by humans about or with respect to the real world to be at least in part a matter of faith. The only difference is how much of our motivation is faith and how much is knowledge. In physics it may be very little in prayer it may be very much but the fundamental operations are the same.
-stormin
As far as I can tell we both believe that there are two distinct versions of the word "faith". In one case faith is operative whenever a truth-claim is asserted in the absense of total knowledge or certainty. This is the "confident belief" aspect of faith which you prefer to describe as "expectation", "probability", etc.
The other definition of faith is belief in thing without ANY material or logical evidence. This is the "blind belief" variant of faith.
So we agree in the definition of the terms, the only question is how we choose to apply them. You seem to be saying that all faith of a religious nature is type 2: blind belief. Stop me if I got that wrong. I'm simply saying that some religious faith is type 2 and that some is type 1. Some religious beliefs are held not out of wishful thinking but with material and/or logical support.
I can provide you with several examples of these type 1 claims. One example would be historical belief in certain events of the Bible. The Bible is material evidence for events taking place. It's not proof by any means - but it is evidence. People with type 2 faith in the Bible just go straight to "the Bible is the word of God" and never question it, doubt it, or try to verify it. People with type 1 faith in the Bible go out and dig in the desert (metaphorically or literally) precisely because they want to prove or disprove (or at least strengthen or weaken) their faith in the Bible. Now I don't think that the Bible can be proved or disproved - it's too complex and fragmentary. But through research you can come to realize things like: 1. the story of Job was probably never intended to be literal and therefore Job probably didn't exist or 2. although previously thought to be a mere legend, ancient evidence has been found to support the existence of King David.
As another example you can evaluate the moral claims of a given religion philosophically. Is it just, in other words, for one to believe in a God that condemns people who did not hear about Christ to eternal damnation? You're never going to find material evidence that's relevant to this discussion but you have an entire body of philosophical ethics from which to start building logical arguments.
I'm not trying to say that you can prove or disprove religion or that faith in God is the same as faith in the law of gravity. Science is defined by those things that we can make quantifiable observations about. So it's by definition restricted to material claims. Some elements of religion rely on material claims: usually archealogy and history. But for the most part religious belief and conviction will never be based on material evidence. As a result the level of certainty in religion in general will always be substantially lower than the level of certainty in things like turning a light on or off.
My sole point is that just because a religious conviction is not AS grounded in material evidence or logic doesn't mean it has NO grounding in material logic or evidence. Furthermore I'd like to point out that a lot of the things we believe in and have faith in on a day-to-day basis are also not based on scientific knowledge. Faith in friends is a good example of this. We know our friends better than we know God so it's not as much faith (there's more evidence) but the evidence is of a decidedly non-scientific nature. And that doesn't stop us from espousing it every day of our lives.
Most people have numerous assumptions and prejudices that they live by without question. Sometimes belief in God is just another one of those. But sometimes belief in God is something that is rigorously and earnestly critiqued. When that happens it stops being wishful thinking and starts to become the same type of faith as expectation.
As an example - read the first chapter of C.S. Lewis's "Mere Christianity". He doesn't prove God exists (nor does he try) but he does present a rational, logical and somewhat compelling argument for Christianity. No one can honestly say his book is nothi
If that was the case, then you could explain your logic, and expect and desire people to give feedback on your estimation, to help refine your theory. That would be similar to Science.
I do this on a regular basis with my friends and family. And it is rather like science - that's my point.
The chief difference between religion and science is that scientific queries can be addresed with quantifiable data via reproducible experimentation. That's pretty much what defines science. Religion (and philosophy) are what you get when you're dealing with questions that can't be directly addressed through quantifiable data. You still use logic and reason, but you can't really test the hypothesese.
That's why philosophy (and theology) are still discussing the free-will debate after several thousand years of recorded history will science manages to progress substantially from early Greek conceptions of matter to the current model of the atomic and subatomic universe.
My only point is that logic is necessary to both.
And yes some people view faith as raw assertion of dogma. In my view - they're simply wrong. I could interview three people on the street at random about physics and call it science but that wouldn't make it so.
-stormin
I tend to think belief is popular because it provides answers to questions which are otherwise unanswerable.
Wow - talk about nail on the head. I think that's exactly dead on. But here's what I think is really interesting. I think that for thousands of years religion has allowed people to avoid confronting unpleasent thoughts like their own mortality or the problem of human suffering in the world. It has fulfilled core human psychological needs and because of that conveniense it has been corrupted. Serious religion is not nearly that comforting. Serious religion has to adress questions like "If God exists and cares about us - then why the Hell is this planet so screwed up?". Serious religion can be demanding, frightening and intimidating. Dogmatic religion, on the other hand, allows a priest to be the designated guy to deal with tough questions while the rest of us can just go about our lives assuming these issues are delt with. We don't need to think - just engage in wishful thinking and we'll all be saved.
The real irony here is that I think that science is starting to fulfill the same role in human society. If you were sick in the middle ages you turned to God not only for a possible solution (getting better) but more importantly to discover meaning - why were you sick? What was the reason for the pain? Now when you're sick you turn to science both for relief but also for framework of answers. Science - via evolution for example - explains what sickness is and why we feel it. To that extent I think you are starting to see science corrupted in the same way religion was to server human psychological needs by acting as a buffer between us and hard questions. Just read any of Michael Crichton's essays on the way in which science is politicized by environmentalist, health advocates, etc.
Thousands of years ago religion began to be hijacked for those who realized that anyone who came along with robes, incense, a few scriptures and a pleasing philosophy could make a pretty good living. The trouble came when different camps decided to fight over religious dominance. None of this had anything to do with real religion. Real religion means asking honest questions and being courageous enough to look for the answers to matter what they are. It has nothing to do with robes or hierarchies.
Now the same thing is starting to happen with science as organizations that were once founded for the unbiased pursuit of natural knowledge are hijacked by those who want money. Take the pharmaceutical companies who are out to get another drug FDA approved. For them science becomes a mean to an end instead of an end in itself.
That's why the two sides arguing loudest about stuff like ID and evolution aren't really opposites at all. The fundamentalists hijacked religion for political power, money, or just sheer egoism. Any "scientist" that dismisses all religion out of hand betrays the fact that he or she is merely using science the same way the fundamentalist uses religion - as a tool for self-aggrandizement.
Meanwhile true religion and true science have no conflict whatsoever. Science continues to enlarge the sphere of knowledge about the natural world - religion continues to grapple with serious questions that fall outside the realm of quantifiable data and neither threatens the other in any way.
-stormin
Thanks for the reply. I want to do something more than just respond with "no, my definition of faith is right afterall". There are two things I want to bring up. First an argument for my definition of faith using your light switch example. And then a further critique on your preferred definition of faith.
1. Regarding the Light Switch
You claim that it is not faith because the question "will the light turn on when I hit the switch" is answered by such facts as "how electricity works", etc. You're not depending on the unknown - you're depending on the known. Thus there's no need for faith. I would point out, however, that sometimes the light has blown and you don't know it until you hit the switch. What this points out is that your "knowledge" is actually imperfect.
The real implication of this is that faith and knowledge work in tandem. The more knowledge you have the less faith is required. The amount of faith required to believe the light will come on, for example, is minimal precisely because you know a lot of relevent facts. Certainty in the real world is non-existent, however, and for that reason all actions and beliefs about the real world will rely at least in part on faith. So I would say that when you flip the switch you ARE relying on faith - but only to a small degree.
2.
Faith, on the other hand, is what you invoke in cases where you do not have the evidence to rely on.
I want to point out that the word "faith" has a broader definition thatn just "faith in God". You can have faith in your friends, for example, or faith in democracy, faith in people or faith in yourself. So I think if we want to get an idea of what faith should really mean we need to start with the common sense definition before we jump straigh to "faith means believing in things like God - about which we can have no evidence".
In all of these cases faith is what you get when you take the knowledge that you have - how well you know your friend, how well you know democracy, what you know about people in general or what you know about yourself - and you use it in a context where that knowledge is insufficient for certainty. If you're relying on your friend to back you up in a fight, say, then you have faith in your friend BECAUSE he's your friend. You know him and you expect him to act in certain ways and you rely on him. You have reason to believe but, when it comes down to it, you can not be quite certain. You can't directly see his thought proces, you can't influene his decision making, you can just take all your knowledge and then extrapolate.
Since that's what faith means in general, I think it's a better model for religious faith. Yes - there are those who say we need to believe certain things about God just because the Bible says so. This is the dogmatic version of faith and it's stupid. But there are many believers who have much more complex - and much more rational - reasons for their faith in God. Like the light switch it's not a case of absolute ignorance. If you just baselessly assert "God lives!" for absolutely no reason that's not faith. That's wishful thinking (whether it's true or not).
I believe in God in the same way I believe the light wil come on when I hit the switch. There are some differences. Belief in the light switch is simpler to express, easier to verify, and the operating features are open to my study. I understand the basic phyics and therefore when I hit the switch it's (just for an example) 95% reason and 5% faith (that the light hasn't blown, that the power's not out, that my wife hasn't taken the light bulb out, that a fuse hasn't blown, etc.) When I pray, on the other hand, it may be something more like 5% reason and 95% faith.
The point I'm making is that you have to have reason to believe or it's just wishful thinking. Some people say wishful thinking is faith. But that's now what the word means in any other context - why should it be different here? I say faith is the extension of the best experience we have into the unknown. It's relying on something that is at least in part an unknown quantity. That's what the word means in every other context and it makes the most sense in religion as well.
-stormin
Thank you, the poll of anti-religion slashdot readers is now complete. It was also fairly good practice for me. I have this overwhelming tendency to reply to each and every reply individually and I get bogged down in counltess threads with - how else can I put it - scientific bigots. This time, however, I managed to hold off.
Religion is one of those topics - like abortion or evolution or homosexuality - that causes slashdot readership breaks into a frenzy whenever we have an article that allows us to vent (again) our particular poition on this issue. The tiresome part of this is not only that almost everyone is just talking to hear themselves talkk, but also that most people are also quite content to argue with phantom straw men rather than respond to real-world positions.
In this case the straw-man for the anti-religion crowd is a very specific definition of religion; more particularly its theological definition of faith as "blind belief". This type of faith is nothing more than willful assertion of some rote dogma or other. As such it necessitates an anti-science position as it is anti-thought. Rational thought involves questioning and doubting. These activities threaten the very nature of (blind beleif) faith itself. In short - I can see why people who value science, knowledge, fairness, and information highly would find this form of religion utterly repugnant. I share that sentiment.
There are two problems, however. The first problem is that not all religion is anti-intellectual. Not all religion has this "blind belief" view of faith. Some, like the existentialist thinker Kierkegaard, have blind belief but situated within a compelling rational framework. Others, like C.S. Lewis, focus on the aspects of their faith systems that are logically and rationally appealing to thinking, questioning and questing individuals and marginalize the blind-belief aspects as inconsequential. To throw out all religion as the base "blind faith" variety is just to show one's utter and complete ignorance for the vast spectrum of religious thought that does exist. Most people who are so convinced that religion is anti-intellectual have never bothered to read the writings of a single religious intellectual (note: this means someone other than Falwell or Robertson). When you dismiss all of religious heritage with witty one-liners you may think you look cool. +5 mod points for "informative" or "funny" may give you the credibility you apparently desire. But the fact is that you are no more informed than some Bible fundamentalist who's never taken a real sciene class in his or her life would be in assuming that evolution was just some crocked up scheme by satanist communists to lead the world from the path of God. Not only are they wrong (everyone is wrong from time to time) but they are publicly demonstrating their own prejudice and arrogance. The saddest part is that they, like you, would never even comprehend their own humiliation.
The second problem is quite simple: it's impossible to get away from some definitions of faith. What if faith isn't believing in gnomes, faeries, Gods or Goddeses just because it's the dogma - what if faith is actually the rational extrapolation from insufficient evidence to guide necesary action? In other words - faith is what guides our actions when we don't have knowledge but need to make a choice. Well, if you realize that certainty about the real world is impossible you quickly realize that all of the things we know or do are - in a sense - dependent on faith. Even science is, in some sense, dependent on faith. Faith in the law of causality logically (if not temporally) preceeds all experimentation. It may be subsequently reinforced by experience but it can neither be directly proved by experimentation or any other known means and yet is the pre-requisite for rational experimentation.
In the end it's a simple case of hatred for one thing spilling irrationally over into hatred for related or similar things. You guys really hate dogmatic and anti-i
When did religious conviction become ignorance?
-stormin