Do We Need Faith?

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You are projecting your version of justified belief.

I don't think you know what projection means in the psychological sense. Projection is when I accuse you of what I do, or when one has an intuition of a deity and projects it from his mind onto reality.

My version of justified belief is the one from critical thinking - a sound conclusion derived from the proper application of reason to the evidence of the senses, one that is demonstrably correct and can be used to predict future outcomes. Faith-based beliefs meet none of these criteria and can do none of these things. Thus, evolution, which meets these criteria, is a justified belief, just like expecting the sun to rise, but creationism, which meets none of them, cannot be used for anything legitimate. Likewise with astrology and astronomy.

I decline to accept.

Nothing was offered to you. And there is no expectation that my words would have any impact on your thinking. I don't expect you to ever hold one new idea after reading words like mine ever. I am merely defining how I use certain words and phrases.

Did you read my post? Did you understand it? One of the things it wrote was that there are many people who do not know what justified belief is or what makes it justified. Do you know what that means? How do you suppose your answer is understood? That you have a clear and firm understanding of what justified belief is, one that it differs from the one used in academia? Did you understand what I claimed that the Dunning-Kruger syndrome is, and how it pertains to discussions like these? If so, and there is no evidence in your reply that you did, do you think that that reply contradicts those words?

"No question can be answered by science". We can compute sunrise to many decimal points but there is virtually no practical benefit.

What you are saying is that YOU have been unable to identify any practical benefit from science. I have. I have solar panels on my roof, so my power has been free for several years. Many use the Internet every day to benefit. Science lights up a house lit up at night without using fire. Science is probably why most of us never got polio or small pox. I guess either you didn't get those benefits or didn't notice that you had.

What have faith and religion taught mankind? What do we now know about whether gods exist or not because of religion? We have learned nothing about angels and the afterlife, nor anything else.

More correct than your comment is that only empiricism can answer questions, that is, add new knowledge. Not all questions can be answered that way, but no question can be answered any other way. If a question cannot be answered by consulting physical reality, then it can't be answered. It's a common mischaracterization to transform that claim into one that science will answer all questions.

 

[ChristineM]

Are you suggesting that believing in science is justified?

I am saying you believe in it and use it without thought

 

[cladking]

What you are saying is that YOU have been unable to identify any practical benefit from science.

You have to be kidding!!!

Without ancient science and the technology of agriculture homo omnisciencis would have been extinct in less than a few centuries. Without science we sure wouldn't have outposts in Antarctica and cities in Greenland. We wouldn't have cities in deserts or landed men on the moon and acquired vast technological improvements thereby. We are actually highly dependent on technology to support the huge population.

I said there is no practical benefit to being able to compute the sunrise or pi to many decimal places.

Science is probably why most of us never got polio or small pox

Lol.

"Polio" is a remarkably poor example of your point.

What have faith and religion taught mankind?

I hate to break this to you but ALL ideas, ALL advancement, and ALL breakthroughs are by individuals. ALL life and ALL consciousness is individual. Neither science nor religion has ever given man anything at all. Religion as an abstraction have helped people navigate their lives both practically and abstractly. Science as an abstraction has given us understanding and creation (technology).

The problem isn't science as a method to study nature the problem is science as a belief system. To most people it is a belief system because most people do not understand how and why it works. They think they can live their lives on scientific principles but this simply is wrong because like everything science is not immutable and can address very few practical problems. People who believe in science are adrift even before the paradigm changes but will learn it when it does. Most people who believe in science find very little practical benefit from it. Typing away lecturing heretics is not really much of a practical benefit.

Not accepting science is foolish, not believing in it is wise. Not accepting religion is a personal choice, not believing it is possible is foolish.

As a rule if you believe anything must be for any reason than that is faith and I believe it limits the individual, but obviously, all God's children must believe in something.

 

[sun rise]

It is my belief that development in the womb where the fetus takes its needs from the mother. The pain of childbirth, nirturing and raising the child fortifies the mothers love for a child. All these actons can be observed.

I'll drop the question since you're not inclined to answer it.

 

[ChristineM]

I'll drop the question since you're not inclined to answer it.

I have answered it twice.

 

[Truth in love]

I don't think you know what projection means in the psychological sense. Projection is when I accuse you of what I do, or when one has an intuition of a deity and projects it from his mind onto reality.

My version of justified belief is the one from critical thinking - a sound conclusion derived from the proper application of reason to the evidence of the senses, one that is demonstrably correct and can be used to predict future outcomes. Faith-based beliefs meet none of these criteria and can do none of these things. Thus, evolution, which meets these criteria, is a justified belief, just like expecting the sun to rise, but creationism, which meets none of them, cannot be used for anything legitimate. Likewise with astrology and astronomy.



Nothing was offered to you. And there is no expectation that my words would have any impact on your thinking. I don't expect you to ever hold one new idea after reading words like mine ever. I am merely defining how I use certain words and phrases.

Did you read my post? Did you understand it? One of the things it wrote was that there are many people who do not know what justified belief is or what makes it justified. Do you know what that means? How do you suppose your answer is understood? That you have a clear and firm understanding of what justified belief is, one that it differs from the one used in academia? Did you understand what I claimed that the Dunning-Kruger syndrome is, and how it pertains to discussions like these? If so, and there is no evidence in your reply that you did, do you think that that reply contradicts those words?



What you are saying is that YOU have been unable to identify any practical benefit from science. I have. I have solar panels on my roof, so my power has been free for several years. Many use the Internet every day to benefit. Science lights up a house lit up at night without using fire. Science is probably why most of us never got polio or small pox. I guess either you didn't get those benefits or didn't notice that you had.

What have faith and religion taught mankind? What do we now know about whether gods exist or not because of religion? We have learned nothing about angels and the afterlife, nor anything else.

More correct than your comment is that only empiricism can answer questions, that is, add new knowledge. Not all questions can be answered that way, but no question can be answered any other way. If a question cannot be answered by consulting physical reality, then it can't be answered. It's a common mischaracterization to transform that claim into one that science will answer all questions.

Dang all those collage degrees and over a decade as a therapist and someone on the internet knows psychology better then me. (GAG)

You dismiss the evidence that does not fit your wold view. This not the lack of evidence prevents you from getting answers.

 

[sun rise]

I have answered it twice.

Since we're not communicating clearly

A) A mother's love for a child is solely due to oxytocin and other brain chemicals.
B) There is something more than mere biology involved with a mother's love of her child.

It appears from rereading that you chose "A". True?

 

[ChristineM]

Since we're not communicating clearly

A) A mother's love for a child is solely due to oxytocin and other brain chemicals.
B) There is something more than mere biology involved with a mother's love of her child.

It appears from rereading that you chose "A". True?

I thought i was...

I guess so but i think there is more involved that ampliies those chemicals, gestation, childbirth, nurturing all build a bond, increase the chemicals.

 

[Link]

Since we're not communicating clearly

A) A mother's love for a child is solely due to oxytocin and other brain chemicals.
B) There is something more than mere biology involved with a mother's love of her child.

It appears from rereading that you chose "A". True?

Salam

I don't disagree with you necessarily, but you need to expand because you aren't providing reasons, but rather seems like a composition fallacy.

Sometimes there is more to the parts then the parts itself.

Mind generates personality, that has an experience, that experience is more then just chemicals.

Same with a computer. Its all 1 on and 0 off switches whether internet packages or the processor, but the design that goes to it, makes those meaningful from higher level to lowest level, the abstraction is taken away from the user, and the user plays video games, goes on internet, etc....

This is not a very good way to argue unless you elaborate.

 

[Link]

Salam

@sun rise some philosophers made argument for Qualia. But they didn't do it through composition fallacy. So what you say is correct, just want you to present it right.

You didn't do composition fallacy necessarily, but it can be your thought process from an atheist view. So they need to see your reasoning to show qualia and why its not material or not a generated program from material things.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What have faith and religion taught mankind? What do we now know about whether gods exist or not because of religion? We have learned nothing about angels and the afterlife, nor anything else.

ALL life and ALL consciousness is individual. Neither science nor religion has ever given man anything at all. Religion as an abstraction have helped people navigate their lives both practically and abstractly.

So nothing, then. You didn't rebut or try to rebut the claim that faith has given man no new knowledge.

What you are describing is comforting, nor knowledge. Religion only comforts needs it creates or perpetuates. Religion has nothing to offer to comfort a person allowed to mature outside of it. Does your faith give you hope that you will meet a good god and have a happy afterlife? Do you need to hope for that? I don't.

I've had decades to adjust to the possibility that the universe may be godless and death the permanent extinction of consciousness, that nothing unseen is watching over me or answering my prayers, and so I am quite comfortable entertaining such thoughts. So, in the case of the humanist, there is not only no new knowledge coming from religion as is also true for the believer, but also no comfort, which is not true for the believer. Religion perpetuates the need for religion in those who let it, like cigarettes create and perpetuate the need for the comfort of a cigarette in smokers.

You also didn't address the following:

More correct than your comment is that only empiricism can answer questions, that is, add new knowledge. Not all questions can be answered that way, but no question can be answered any other way. If a question cannot be answered by consulting physical reality, then it can't be answered. It's a common mischaracterization to transform that claim into one that science will answer all questions.

***************

Dang all those college degrees and over a decade as a therapist and someone on the Internet knows psychology better then me. (GAG)

"GAG"? As in choking? You demonstrated that you didn't understand what projection is. How is that possible if you're trained in psychology? One's credentials on RF are his words and the quality of his arguments, not any alleged accomplishments.

So what are your degrees and work experience? Do you see patients? The word therapist implies as much. Do you make diagnoses or therapeutic recommendations?

You dismiss the evidence that does not fit your world view.

You have insufficient evidence to support your faith-based beliefs, and, you've made no arguments evidenced or otherwise - just claims.

 

[sun rise]

I thought i was...

I guess so but i think there is more involved that ampliies those chemicals, gestation, childbirth, nurturing all build a bond, increase the chemicals.

Outside of a few extreme nihilists, everyone I've questioned winds up with the feeling that that there's meaning to life. That does not mean a God to atheists but with consciousness of emotions comes a sense that life has value.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Faith is unreliable unless there is evidence that supports the faith.
There is no evidence for magical pixies but there is evidence for God.

If you have verifiable evidence then faith isn't required. If your evidence isn't verifiable then all you have is poor evidence unworthy of consideration. The faith you have in the poor evidence for god is just as valid as the faith people have in the poor evidence they have for the existence of magical pixies.

The only reason you think your evidence for god is valid and the evidence for magical pixies isn't is because you've chosen to place your faith in the god being's evidence. You would have the exact opposite opinion if you simply choose to place your faith in the magical pixie evidence instead.

That's why faith is an unreliable path to truth. It enables you to label poor evidence as good evidence.

 

[ChristineM]

Outside of a few extreme nihilists, everyone I've questioned winds up with the feeling that that there's meaning to life. That does not mean a God to atheists but with consciousness of emotions comes a sense that life has value.

Ahh, i see... no meaning to life unless you want to count continuing life.

Life is an accident of nature. There is little point in it on the scale of the universe.

 

[cladking]

"More correct than your comment is that only empiricism can answer questions, that is, add new knowledge. Not all questions can be answered that way, but no question can be answered any other way. If a question cannot be answered by consulting physical reality, then it can't be answered. It's a common mischaracterization to transform that claim into one that science will answer all questions."

I don't have time now to address your other points.

I believe your words here are merely a perspective imparted by logical thinking. This would be great if thinking were logical like it is with ancient people and all other life forms but our thinking is not logical and we are each on different pages except for believers who tend to think about the same.

All thought and all ideas are individual. No individual used science to invent the internet. It was a conglomeration of ideas and invention over many years. This was made possible by the invention of science which originated from religious thought. Certainly western religions this line of thought can be traced rather directly but I believe this also applies to an earlier version which was developed in the Arab world.

Invention and discovery can occur in anyone and as I mentioned earlier I believe that all beliefs tend to limit an individual's ability to invent by deceasing his imagination and limiting his perspective.

If you want to credit anyone it is not "scientists" or "Peers" because they can't think at all. You must credit individuals many of whom were religious and many of whom had very few beliefs at all. In my experience the most successful scientists are those whom are least mystical; who have the fewest beliefs to entangle their thinking. Relatively few "believe in science". Even fewer believe "Peer review" is part of the scientific method.

No question of any import can really be addressed by science. Obviously one consults a weatherman instead of tea leaves for weather predictions, however. If one wants to go to the moon you don't call a shaman.

I think you can guess why I skipped the question,.

 

[Truth in love]

So nothing, then. You didn't rebut or try to rebut the claim that faith has given man no new knowledge.

What you are describing is comforting, nor knowledge. Religion only comforts needs it creates or perpetuates. Religion has nothing to offer to comfort a person allowed to mature outside of it. Does your faith give you hope that you will meet a good god and have a happy afterlife? Do you need to hope for that? I don't.

I've had decades to adjust to the possibility that the universe may be godless and death the permanent extinction of consciousness, that nothing unseen is watching over me or answering my prayers, and so I am quite comfortable entertaining such thoughts. So, in the case of the humanist, there is not only no new knowledge coming from religion as is also true for the believer, but also no comfort, which is not true for the believer. Religion perpetuates the need for religion in those who let it, like cigarettes create and perpetuate the need for the comfort of a cigarette in smokers.

You also didn't address the following:



***************



"GAG"? As in choking? You demonstrated that you didn't understand what projection is. How is that possible if you're trained in psychology? One's credentials on RF are his words and the quality of his arguments, not any alleged accomplishments.

So what are your degrees and work experience? Do you see patients? The word therapist implies as much. Do you make diagnoses or therapeutic recommendations?



You have insufficient evidence to support your faith-based beliefs, and, you've made no arguments evidenced or otherwise - just claims.

I have a Bachelor's and Masters' degree in the social sciences. I'm licensed and do see clients. I've been in the filed over 10 years. You keep falsely stating that their is no evidence. Your refusal to accept evidence as it is very different from there not being any.

 

[Trailblazer]

If you have verifiable evidence then faith isn't required.

We have covered this before. I do not have verifiable evidence that God exists because verifiable evidence would constitute proof and establish God as a fact.

Proof: evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish a fact or the truth of a statement: https://www.google.com/search

Proof is a kind of evidence (verifiable evidence) that establishes something as a fact.
Therefore verifiable evidence is proof.

Something is scientifically verifiable if it can be tested and proven to be true. Verifiable comes from the verb verify, "authenticate" or "prove," from the Old French verifier, "find out the truth about." The Latin root is verus, or "true." Definitions of verifiable.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/verifiable

Something that's verifiable can be proven. In a courtroom, verifiable evidence is backed up with specific proof. If you have a birth certificate, your exact time and place of birth is verifiable — in other words, you can prove where and when you were born.
Verifiable - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms | Vocabulary.com

Other kinds of evidence that are NOT verifiable do not establish anything as a fact.
They only indicate whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid: https://www.google.com/search

There is no proof that God exists since God chooses not to provide proof. Nobody can make an omnipotent God do what He does not choose to do.

If your evidence isn't verifiable then all you have is poor evidence unworthy of consideration.

What is unworthy of your consideration is not unworthy of my consideration and the consideration of others. Anyone who has a logical mind could figure out that verifiable evidence (proof) is not what makes God exist so the lack of verifiable evidence (proof) does not mean that God does not exist. Proof is simply what atheists want but proof has no bearing on whether God exists or not.

Just because existent things cannot be verified that does not mean they do not exist. There was a time before 1930 when the planet Pluto had not yet been discovered but it still existed before 1930.

 

[gnostic]

Faith is unreliable unless there is evidence that supports the faith.
There is no evidence for magical pixies but there is evidence for God.

Faith don’t require explanation, nor any evidence.

Faith is just trust or acceptance of one’s belief.

For instance, God did it, isn’t an explanation. It is declaration of one’s belief, and that you would accept such declaration being true, it is a matter of faith.

I would call the above example - the “God did it” - to be the same as superstition. Superstition isn’t evidence for anything.

Faith or superstition, are the same as a personal and subjective opinions, that require no evidence to support such belief.

As to “evidence”.

Evidence is “physical”, and evidence is either (A) a sample of natural phenomena or its natural process (eg nature), or (B) a sample of physical phenomena or its physical processes (eg anything manmade, such as technology or engineering, like car or computer).

Evidence is physical in that it can be “observed” in some ways, sometimes “directly”, at other times, “indirectly”.

Observations, in science and engineering, don’t just mean “seeing” with “eyes”. Observations can also referred to other natural sensory perception, such as hearing, touch & smell. These are direct observations.

But sciences can also “observe” evidence indirectly, using technology, devices or equipment, that can observe things where our limited human senses cannot observe or detect.

Example of indirect observation using devices, telescopes that observed stars and galaxies too far away for human eyesight, and likewise, microscopes can aid with view objects too small for human eyesight, or multimeter that not only detect electricity in wires or circuitry, but can also measure current, resistance, voltage, power, etc, or oscilloscopes that can detect and measure the same things as multimeters, but do a lot more, such as types of waveforms, measure frequencies, wavelength, etc.

Other devices include ultrasound machine, X-ray machine, MRI, and whole of medical technology uses in hospitals. Speed camera or speed radar. Camera - photographs and video are also considered indirect observations, recording evidence.

The points of indirect observations, are how useful these devices or instruments are in sciences, they not only observe or detect some things physical, they can measure, analyze and provide other useful information or data.

The points being evidence are something “physical” that can be observed or detected, as well as measured, analyzed and recorded evidence.

Why am I telling you this, you may ask.

I have given you all these examples about evidence and methodology of observing evidence, is that evidence are physical, even when we cannot directly sense them with our human sensory perceptions.

So, what I wanted to ask you, what physical EVIDENCE you have “for God”, Trailblazer?

 

[Truthseeker]

Anything that influences government is imposed on people.

What I mean that is that ethics of religion should influence the people who are in government. And when I say the ethics of religion I mean it's derived fairly from the Founder of that religion, and not a distortion thereof.

If you mean something like religious people putting pressure on government to do away with Roe vs. Wade, I don't mean that.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I don't want to go too far afield here nor do I want to support belief in anything. But I believe religion is merely reality from a human standpoint but twice removed. Nothing can be "proven" because reality doesn't work this way and because it is more than infinitely complex. The complexity of every event from almost any perspective is so large a number it can't even be expressed. There isn't enough room on the cloud to express the odds against anything even using scientific notation. Yet, reality always is unfolding against such staggering odds. THIS is the only possible "big picture" provided by reductionistic science but not all science is reductionistic. All other life forms use a different science that works on logic and sees reality only in terms of itself. A bird doesn't see reality in terms of abstractions and experiment. It acts on what it knows and experience is a large factor in all of its behavior. It can extrapolate and interpolate knowledge and experience. It communicates what it knows and in terms of reality itself. Its knowledge would become a "religion" if birds lost the ability to see reality directly. Of course without technology they would quickly become extinct as well.

From,
“I don’t want to go to far afield” or “support belief in anything. But…..
” to nothing can be “proven””, to “the complexity”…“is so large a number it can’t even be expressed”….
To “reality is unfolding against such staggering odds.”….
To “other life forms use a different science”….
To birds would quickly become extinct without technology?

I fear you’re starting to bable incoherently.

Insights about humanity should be of interest to all of us because it helps us make important decisions based on logic instead of "feelings". It helps us make decision consistent with good outcomes and improvement in ourselves and the commonweal.

Yes, this is what science does;
Makes decisions on logic consistent with good outcomes and improvement in ourselves a d the commonwealth;
Instead of “feelings” as religion does.

I won’t bother addressing the new red herring of conspiratorial paranoia.
No need to ho down yet another rabbit hole.