• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

A Person Believes in Science by Faith if...

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Just the opposite ;) I mean; I do exist because I used believing in 'my' science, not of others. But this doesn't prevent there are many common ideas in mine and what someone else knows as science.
Can you elaborate on this. I am afraid I am not following you.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
I didn't know that my English is that bad :(
Actually, all useful ideas, said material (scientific) or spiritual (religious), in my set of knowledge are based now on reason (on my personal observations/experiments and/or my logical reasoning) only.
Didn't you allude that you were skilled in some kind of engineering and had made some sort of breakthrough that was denied by science or other engineers?

So you recognize that people can accept science based on observation, reasoning and validation.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Exactly; every idea in my set of knowledge now is based on reason, not faith.
But, naturally, I had faith in my parents when I was a kid.
And I had to have faith in my teachers at school then at the university; otherwise, I couldn't pass their exams :D
How do you know that most others don't accept science under those same considerations?

I had observations of my teachers and could check what they told me against texts and other teachers and with the results of the work I was given. That is not a faith in the unseen.
 

KerimF

Active Member
I'm trying to understand your reply, but honestly I don't. If you find yourself contemplating your levels of trust in yourself compared to other people, then it is logically impossible for you not to exist. In order to contemplate something then you must necessarily exist, and to say otherwise is incoherent.

Seeing me from your angle, you are totally right.
It is like saying I do exist while my living flesh is in deep sleep. Yes, anyone who sees me asleep can say I do exist. He says this while I personally have lost my will and all sort of connections to the time/space realm. But, it is okay if you can't get well this point... because it is somehow like Relativity in Physics :D

IFor example, there is no way to tell whose faith-based interpretation of a scripture is more correct, because there are no objective tools to measure this and so it all appears to be based on personal bias alone.

You call it personal bias alone, I call it personal experience :)
For example, how do you think I discovered that I have a living soul and it is different from my living flesh?
I did as I do in discovering the characteristics of an unknown device.
The Device Under Test (DUT) was simply my complex structure of which I am made.
One of the experiments is that I noticed that I had two contradicting feelings anytime I hurt back the one who hurt me. On one hand, I felt fine, if not proud, to show the other side that I am not less strong/smart than he is. On the other hand, I felt real bad for not being able to master my own flesh from reacting as a robot which is pre-programmed to defend itself. (By the way, most people, I knew, just feel great as on the first hand; after all, all other living things are supposed to also obey their instincts of survival.)
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Just like science tends to support the right things, in trying to be like God you can try to seek out the right God.
Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to the metaphor outright. I am just trying to understand it. I may agree with it metaphorically.

My life-long love of nature blossomed into a career in science where I seek to understand that nature. That might be viewable as becoming like God in some sense. At least for those that believe in a god.
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Don't get me wrong. I am not opposed to the metaphor outright. I am just trying to understand it. I may agree with it metaphorically.

My life-long love of nature blossomed into a career in science where I seek to understand that nature. That might be viewable as becoming like God in some sense. At least for those that believe in a god.
Totally; it's just a metaphor. Thank you so much for agreeing.

God would be what controls the Universe, and science is about trying to control the Universe. Yes they want to understand nature, but ultimately the reason is to control it, and that's where you have to be careful about the science being good or bad, same with trying to be like God would be good or bad.
 

Valjean

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Faith is unsupported or poorly supported belief. Science is pretty much the opposite, it's radical skepticism, its belief is provisional, and based on extensive observation and testing.

How "maturity" fits in I have no idea. Reasonableness might be a better descriptor.
 
Last edited:

QuestioningMind

Well-Known Member
A person [ A ] has faith in someone else [ B ], if [ A ] trusts [ B ] more than himself [ A ].

This could happen when [ A ] cannot verify in anyway (by a test or logic) what [ B ] says but, at the same time [ A ] doesn't mind accepting as true what he heard from [ B ].

For example, in general, a kid has faith in his parents.

That's nice, but please answer the question. Are you defining faith as belief without evidence or are you simply defining it as trust?

Personally I do not have faith in any significant claim without evidence, but I do put trust in things/people who have provided me with evidence that they are trustworthy.
 

Dan From Smithville

What's up Doc?
Staff member
Premium Member
Totally; it's just a metaphor. Thank you so much for agreeing.

God would be what controls the Universe, and science is about trying to control the Universe. Yes they want to understand nature, but ultimately the reason is to control it, and that's where you have to be careful about the science being good or bad, same with trying to be like God would be good or bad.
I support conserving our natural resources, including in some instances preserving them. That could be seen as control in some lights I suppose. I have also worked in applied areas in agriculture that can be more easily seen as controlling nature.
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I support conserving our natural resources, including in some instances preserving them. That could be seen as control in some lights I suppose. I have also worked in applied areas in agriculture that can be more easily seen as controlling nature.
That is science, and what you did was "subdue" the earth. "Subdue" in Hebrew means to control so as to overcome the fear of. In other words, grow to control.
And that's in Genesis 1:28, so you're right at the beginning of God's command to the human race, so great job!
 

KerimF

Active Member
Why the adjective 'mature'? Does, then, a non-mature person trust scientific conclusions through reason, by contrast?

I excluded the non-mature person because, in general, a kid has no choice but having faith in some elders (parents, relatives, teachers... etc.) concerning scientific matters and else.

Since we human beings are fallible creatures, we should never solely trust our own observations, experiences and logical reasoning. That is the beauty of science. We compare the observations, experiences and logical reasoning of many, many observers from which to draw reasoned and rational conclusions. The more observers that draw the same conclusion, the greater our degree of confidence in that conclusion.

Trust in the conclusions of the scientific community, and the knowledge gained there, is not equivalent to religious faith. Faith in religion is an acceptance or belief without evidence or in spite of contradicting evidence.

Trust in scientific conclusions is based on experience through schooling, learning the scientific process and practicing it, first-hand in lab experiments. Trust in scientific conclusions is based on our observation and experience with the observed outcomes of our scientific knowledge, such as technology, healthcare industry, weather forecasting, etc.

It is not blind faith that we have in science, it is trust or degrees of confidence based on our shared experiences.

You give me the impression that you are ready to believe that an idea has to be true if, for example, all TV channels says it is scientific and approved by scientists. After all, who am I to tell someone here which ideas, said scientific, are true or fake?
 

KerimF

Active Member
If my faith that my computer keeps working to deliver you this message is the same faith that you have in God, does that mean God and my computer are similar?

You are very good in playing with words.
First, you don't need having faith that your computer will deliver your message, because you know, based on your own observations (not of others), that this is likely to happen.
But believing in moon landing for example (as it was presented on our TV monitors) has to be based on faith only; unless one was personally in its project or believes as being true/real whatever he may see and hear on his monitors.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
It happens that it is... to me in the least :(
But I also understand fully that, in general, the last word in most forums is of the Believers of Science.

I get it. You've defined the word as you wish not as all the dictionaries define it

Definition of interfaith
: involving persons of different religious faiths
 

KerimF

Active Member
Could they not verify their credentials? Does the scientist work for a reputable organization or institution? Also, time. If someone in the scientific community makes a claim, others in the field will evaluate it and work to replicate the results.

I am afraid that, in reality, a member of any scientific community in the world cannot act as a free independent person; he is much like a journalist working for an international news agency. I am not saying this is wrong or bad, it is just a fact and I had the chance to observe it personally from inside, a couple of times ago. (Yes, me too, I was surprised how things could be seen real different from outside).

I'm not sure what you mean by propaganda. Are you suggesting that all scientist in a particular field collude to support conclusions that they know are false? I would say that type of global collusion is impossible. There extremely high incentive to being right or accurate.

You are right. After all, it is not wrong or bad (in order to be on the safe side) if someone believes that scientists in any field cannot be controlled fully (in what they do and say in public) by their bosses who in turn have to serve the interest of their powerful ruling system, so that their businesses can survive.
 
Last edited:

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
But believing in moon landing for example (as it was presented on our TV monitors) has to be based on faith only; unless one was personally in its project or believes as being true/real whatever he may see and hear on his monitors.
I can infer, based on my own observations, how likely the moon landing was. Further, I can infer its facticity from the numerous material and visual evidence that it left, as well as testimony from people who were physically there.

The facticity of the moon landing is no more an article of faith than my hypothesis on how my computer works.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
I excluded the non-mature person because, in general, a kid has no choice but having faith in some elders (parents, relatives, teachers... etc.) concerning scientific matters and else.

You give me the impression that you are ready to believe that an idea has to be true if, for example, all TV channels says it is scientific and approved by scientists. After all, who am I to tell someone here which ideas, said scientific, are true or fake?

Yikes! No, I would not use TV as a basis for figuring out the reliability of a supposed scientific result. At the very least, go past the TV news and look at some publication devoted to reporting on science. That way, you will at least get journalists who have some acquaintance with the science. There are a number of publications, both online and dead-tree that are devoted to this.

Next, find and read some basic science books at the beginning college level. That will already put you miles ahead of the TV journalists. In a similar way, I would recommend reading history books as a prerequisite to understanding world events. Again, don't do popular books (for the most part). For the background reading, use textbooks that are used at any accredited university. They won't cover everything, but they will cover the basics, which makes it easier to smell out garbage claims.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
You are right. After all, it is not wrong or bad (in order to be on the safe side) if someone believes that scientists in any field cannot be controlled fully (in what they do and say in public) by their bosses who in turn have to serve the interest of their powerful ruling system, so that their businesses can survive.

Yes, be skeptical of 'scientists' that are hired by businesses, especially if their contract doesn't allow them to say things the business doesn't like.

Look to academic scientists. They tend to have more independence of the sort you are wanting here. And no, usually they would NOT be 'in control' by their bosses. That isn't how it works.

But, again, focus on the actual journal articles and not on TV or popular media. Maybe get something devoted to science articles.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Finally, just like with science, many acquire faith in their spiritual path because when they practice it, it results in what they had expected. Trouble is that the payoffs of humility, for example, are invisible to the arrogant.
If the payoff is accompanied by a lot of falsehood, then we should try to remove the falsehood. The falsehood also is a payoff of religion.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
You are very good in playing with words.
First, you don't need having faith that your computer will deliver your message, because you know, based on your own observations (not of others), that this is likely to happen.
But believing in moon landing for example (as it was presented on our TV monitors) has to be based on faith only; unless one was personally in its project or believes as being true/real whatever he may see and hear on his monitors.

Sorry, this seems rather silly. A bit of common sense would show that a 'fake' new landing would *immediately* have been exposed by Russia (for example), China, and any number of other countries that would have LOVED to embarrass the US.

And it would have been *easy* to expose. Just see where the signals were coming from. If they weren't from the direction of the moon, you know it was a lie.

So, no, it isn't just what you can see on your monitors. It is also understanding the context and how easy it would have been for *anyone* with some basic technology to expose.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
In order to contemplate something then you must necessarily exist, and to say otherwise is incoherent.
That takes you to Eastern religions, AlexanderG. Do you really exist? You are a bunch of atoms and atoms are a bunch of sub-atomic particles (or waves), whatever you call them. And that is perturbation in an electric field. And your sub-atomic particles are none other than virtual particles and they can disappear in a puff. So where do you exist? It is a quantum existence. Buddha said it has no substance (anatta), Hindus say it is 'maya' (illusion).

Quantum_Fluctuations.gif
 
Top