Faith vs Logic

[Quiet]

You have a beautiful heart and mind charlene.

I have a hard time even saying the word "faith" - and yet I've experienced 'source' as well.

So I prefer to explain faith as having a curious attitude.

I mean if the person you know is well educated - has always used excellent critical thinking skills - comes to you and says they had a "Non Ordinary Reality" experience - why aren't you at least curious? There are many people I know who balk when it comes to me telling them about my experiences - because they are rigidly adhered to their Faith - whether it be a christian religion - or atheism.

I know where they're coming from as I used to be an atheist.
But one day I followed my random curiosity and it led me to me where I am today.

Astounded.

I thinks its a mix of curiosity, genuine desire to learn, openess and tolerance for uncertainty. Cant have inspiration or movement without curioisty!
What i meant in regards to the leap of faith is like the hunch someone had long ago that the world wasnt flat, that it may actually be round, and how they would have had to take that leap of faith to follow that line of thought when they were surrounded by naysayers, dogmatics and generally people that thought they were a crazy twat! So a combination of faith in yourself, courage and willingness to go against the grain

 

[SealHammer]

I know what you're saying, but i think its more complicated than that. If one was to define atheism in the way that you have- than absolutely yes- there is no belief system and no dogma. Many people dont define atheism in that way though- they define it as the belief or theory that god/gods do not exist.

A lot of people also define atheism as worship of Satan and a crime against humanity - but does that make it so?

Here's what Paul Edwards wrote about atheism in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"On our definition, an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition. People frequently adopt an attitude of rejection toward a position for reasons other than that it is a false proposition. It is common among contemporary philosophers, and indeed it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, to reject positions on the ground that they are meaningless. Sometimes, too, a theory is rejected on such grounds as that it is sterile or redundant or capricious, and there are many other considerations which in certain contexts are generally agreed to constitute good grounds for rejecting an assertion."

So, the definition of atheism I provided is accurate: it is a rejection of belief. A rejection is not in itself a form of belief; if I choose not to play a game with someone, that does not mean that I lose the game. It only means that I have chosen not to participate.

With that definition, atheism is not just a word, it is a position. There are different kinds of atheism. Some atheists believe that there is no god/gods. Some atheists believe that there is probably no god/gods based on what they have experienced and found through evidence or found through a lack of evidence. Some athiests have no attachments and beliefs whatsoever about the existance or non existance of god/gods- These particular athiests have no dogma because they truly are open minded and not attached to any specific belief. Atheism can be a belief, and for many atheists, it is. God can not be proven nor disproven. There is no scientific proof either way.

Atheism is a lack of position and belief. The prefix of a word with the privative alpha ('a') means 'without' in this context. Very simplistically, it's a way of saying "Whatever, don't care" to the god question. An active, conscious belief that there is no god is antitheism. The fact that there are a great many people out there who confuse the terms does not make the definitions of the terms change. The words have traceable roots which bind them and their meaning together. Also, in science, when you cannot observe the existence of something, either directly or indirectly, the answer to its existence is always "no" until you can observe it or its effects otherwise. It isn't up for debate because of a lack of evidence.

Some atheists i have met are as attached to their belief as much as some christians and muslims i have met. For them, it is not about 'belief', because they believe that they are 100% correct, accurate and right. So what they 'believe' or think is not a belief for them- its just the truth and its everyone else that appears to have a belief system.

There are weak-minded people applying labels to themselves inaccurately no matter where you go. Just look at all the 'INFJs' on the internet! This is not an argument against atheism, it's an argument against stubborn idiocy.

Some people often use science in a dogmatic way. They use theories, research, evidence, and intepretations to create strong conclusions and 'facts' that they then see as irrevocable and 100% accurate. While science can help us create strong conculsions and facts, the purpose of science is to openly explore, theorise and build. Theories are beautiful, because they can be evolved, and they have room for growth and exploration- they are open ended. Science is NOT a closed book. But some people do treat science this way- as an absolute, as dogma. This is blatant disregard, disrespect and ignorance of the scientific method. Its putting our own human frailities and human ignorance onto science, using it as a tool to ignore uncertainties and unknowns. Quality science starts with the approach of tolerance for uncertainty.

First off, the purpose of science is not to "explore, theorise, and build." The purpose of science is to accrue and organize knowledge using testable explanations and predictions. When a scientist reaches the very end of their abilities to observe a phenomenon and test hypotheses about its occurrence, they stop, record all of the data they've tested and retested and confirmed, and say "I don't know" for the rest. Theories are also fairly linear and not open-ended at all - a theory is a hypothesis with a large body of evidence, observations, and testing results which confirm it, which will continue to be tested until it is either proven wrong and thus stricken down or at such point in time that the scientific community deems that it has withstood scrutiny to the extent that it can be considered a scientific law.

Don't misunderstand people, when they say "This is what definitively is," they most probably mean "This is what definitively is, so far as we know." That is the most basic tenet of scientific discovery - always seek to know more. I think it was Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astronomer, who pretty much said that science is the study of what we don't know, and that's how it should be seen, and how it is seen by the majority of scientists. Logic, the foundation for all science and for most arguments against theism, however, is a system which doesn't deal in uncertainty; it is about what one can absolutely determine using valid modes of reason. This is where most debates about religion fall apart - people with a poor grasp of logical reasoning reaching beyond their abilities to try and prove that a god does or doesn't exist.

Its hard to learn anthing when one starts with the approach that they already know. Its hard to have perspective when one is attached to a position.

Absolutely. But faith is not flexibility, nor is logic rigidity. It's the difference between making a decision based on evidence and making a decision in spite of a lack thereof. If anything, faith is far more rigid than logic could ever be. A faithful person, in the truest sense of the word, will believe something no matter what they are shown implying or outright declaring the contrary of their belief. A purely logical person, on the other hand, would be singing a different tune awful quick if someone could prove, using a solid basis of reasoning, that their position is faulty.

Its also hard to be truly open minded, because this state can leave one feeling lost and swimming in a world of uncertainty. Which is why tolerance for uncertainty is so conducive to learning. Some people think that being open minded means that one can accept any new idea that comes along. In my opinion, that is not open minded at all- just ignorance and lazy, uncritical thought. True open mindedness is being completely open to information and not becoming attached to any of it. Letting your mind hold each though as objectively as possible, and being prepared to let each go. This is really hard to do- we as humans have so many filters we have built and that we need in order to survive and comprehend our everyday experience. We build short cuts to save time and then forget that we have short cuts and dont understand how our beliefs and programming is defining and effecting our experience/interaction with ourselves, each other and the environment.

I do agree that people cling to certain petty tenets of their life like a claim to atheism or a claim to Christianity as a way to keep themselves from being confronted by what they see as the terror of the unknown. I don't agree, however, that uncertainty helps people to learn more completely. Teaching people "it's OK to not know" is what leads to people voting for a politician not because of his actual policy positions, but just because of his stated religious beliefs. A limited knowledge is what produces limited thinking; a comprehensive knowledge produces a comprehensive world view. The more one knows, the more they're comfortable with not knowing, because they will fully understand the breadth of things in the universe which are unknown at this point in time. To ask questions, be skeptical, and discredit information that is illogical is not narrow-minded, nor is it dogmatic - it is simply demonstrative of a mind attuned to see the rational underpinnings of the universe.

I have no doubt- so i have absolute faith- that i have experienced Source. I 'know' source exists. I cannot prove this experience to anyone else. I dont believe or disbelieve in god/gods. I think it is likely that the gods of the major world religion are not true/dont exist. There are no books, ideologies, or doctrines that i have found that hold the answers and are completely correct. Miilion of people existing right now and through history have experienced god/gods. None of these experiences can be proven or disproven. Some of these experiences have been healthy and others have been unhealthy. Some people are religious simply because that's what they were taught to do. Others are purpsefully brainwashed, others are ignorant, others are attached to a belief and others choose their faith for a completely different reason. Some come to that faith as an exploration of the world and their inner self. There are as many reasons someone may believe in god/gods as there are someone may believe in no god/gods.

I could take every instance of "god" in this paragraph and replace it with "Elvis Presley being alive" and it would sound ridiculous. It would sound ridiculous because there is no logical basis for the belief that Elvis Presley is alive.

In regards to faith as willful ignorance, that can certainly be true. I was replying to a previous poster who was asserting faith is what dumbs our society down. Although faith can dumb down our scoiety, sometimes it affords us something entirely different. Sometimes we need to take that 'leap of faith' to make progress. Some of the most important and influential scientific discoveries have started off as a hunch, then a leap of faith despite the odds, and then a concerted effort to create a comphrehensive theory. Sometimes we need to have faith in ourselves and our ability to create that drive and maintain the momentum of success. Sometimes we need to have faith in the people in our loved ones. The way faith is used is what makes it either healthy or unhealthy. Faith can be used in an ignorant manner or it can be used consciously, with full understanding of what faith is, and the knowledge of how to use this attribute to improve our lives.

Faith absolutely dumbs our society down. If everyone sincerely believed that they're going to be zipped up to their magic sky wizard once they die, regardless of whether or not they've put in work to make their environment healthier and improve the lives of their fellow man, they would have absolved themselves from a responsibility to pull their own weight and not wreck the world. Luckily, most people don't think that way - but there are still an unsettling number who do.

Again, as science is a field of study based on empirical knowledge, show me an instance when a scientist took a "leap of faith" in order to make progress with their studies. Not a calculated risk, not troubleshooting - I want a leap of faith, complete with a lack of evidence or intuition-derived analysis.

Making an ignorant usage-conscious usage dichotomy of faith is also fallacious. Those two are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, it is quite easy to do both simultaneously, particularly in having faith.

I'm not against hoping for good things - looking on the bright side of possibilities, seeing the best possible outcome and wanting it to happen and doing everything within my power to make it so - but to believe that they absolutely will happen, despite no evidence to the claim, accomplishes nothing and is ludicrous.

I thinks its a mix of curiosity, genuine desire to learn, openess and tolerance for uncertainty. Cant have inspiration or movement without curioisty!
What i meant in regards to the leap of faith is like the hunch someone had long ago that the world wasnt flat, that it may actually be round, and how they would have had to take that leap of faith to follow that line of thought when they were surrounded by naysayers, dogmatics and generally people that thought they were a crazy twat! So a combination of faith in yourself, courage and willingness to go against the grain

The spherical earth discovery didn't start with some guy going "What if the earth is round?" and then suddenly declaring "The earth is round! I believe!" And it definitely wasn't followed through by the first few guys who hypothesized it. It was over a hundred years between the first supposed postulations of the spherical earth and Aristotle's declaration that the earth was a sphere. He didn't say it was a sphere because he had faith, he said it because he made an irrefutable logical inference which became the undeniable evidence for that claim.

 

[Quiet]

A lot of people also define atheism as worship of Satan and a crime against humanity - but does that make it so?

Here's what Paul Edwards wrote about atheism in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"On our definition, an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition. People frequently adopt an attitude of rejection toward a position for reasons other than that it is a false proposition. It is common among contemporary philosophers, and indeed it was not uncommon in earlier centuries, to reject positions on the ground that they are meaningless. Sometimes, too, a theory is rejected on such grounds as that it is sterile or redundant or capricious, and there are many other considerations which in certain contexts are generally agreed to constitute good grounds for rejecting an assertion."

So, the definition of atheism I provided is accurate: it is a rejection of belief. A rejection is not in itself a form of belief; if I choose not to play a game with someone, that does not mean that I lose the game. It only means that I have chosen not to participate.



Atheism is a lack of position and belief. The prefix of a word with the privative alpha ('a') means 'without' in this context. Very simplistically, it's a way of saying "Whatever, don't care" to the god question. An active, conscious belief that there is no god is antitheism. The fact that there are a great many people out there who confuse the terms does not make the definitions of the terms change. The words have traceable roots which bind them and their meaning together. Also, in science, when you cannot observe the existence of something, either directly or indirectly, the answer to its existence is always "no" until you can observe it or its effects otherwise. It isn't up for debate because of a lack of evidence.

Rejection of belief is not the same as lack of belief. There is a big difference between saying 'i reject the existance of god/gods' compared to 'i lack a position and beliefs regarding the existance of god/gods'. Choosing to play or not to play a game with someone is a big difference to claiming that a game doesnt exist.

Perhaps i am entirely confusing the idea of antitheism with athiesm and the majority of people that i have across that identify with atheists are in fact antitheists. That is possible and likely.

There are weak-minded people applying labels to themselves inaccurately no matter where you go. Just look at all the 'INFJs' on the internet! This is not an argument against atheism, it's an argument against stubborn idiocy.

I am not making an arguement against atheism. I am making an assertion about people who are dogmatic about their beliefs and mistake their beliefs for truth.

First off, the purpose of science is not to "explore, theorise, and build." The purpose of science is to accrue and organize knowledge using testable explanations and predictions. When a scientist reaches the very end of their abilities to observe a phenomenon and test hypotheses about its occurrence, they stop, record all of the data they've tested and retested and confirmed, and say "I don't know" for the rest. Theories are also fairly linear and not open-ended at all - a theory is a hypothesis with a large body of evidence, observations, and testing results which confirm it, which will continue to be tested until it is either proven wrong and thus stricken down or at such point in time that the scientific community deems that it has withstood scrutiny to the extent that it can be considered a scientific law.

A theory is a way of explaining or understanding something. Theories are not definitive. They can be built on and modified. They are not closed.

Don't misunderstand people, when they say "This is what definitively is," they most probably mean "This is what definitively is, so far as we know." That is the most basic tenet of scientific discovery - always seek to know more. I think it was Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the astronomer, who pretty much said that science is the study of what we don't know, and that's how it should be seen, and how it is seen by the majority of scientists. Logic, the foundation for all science and for most arguments against theism, however, is a system which doesn't deal in uncertainty; it is about what one can absolutely determine using valid modes of reason. This is where most debates about religion fall apart - people with a poor grasp of logical reasoning reaching beyond their abilities to try and prove that a god does or doesn't exist.

If they probably mean it then they should state their point clearly. Otherwise, for all intents and purposes they are saying that 'this is what definatively is'.

Absolutely. But faith is not flexibility, nor is logic rigidity. It's the difference between making a decision based on evidence and making a decision in spite of a lack thereof. If anything, faith is far more rigid than logic could ever be. A faithful person, in the truest sense of the word, will believe something no matter what they are shown implying or outright declaring the contrary of their belief. A purely logical person, on the other hand, would be singing a different tune awful quick if someone could prove, using a solid basis of reasoning, that their position is faulty.

Yes. I am not having a debate about faith vs logic. That has never been my point. Im asserting that all people use faith and logic.

I do agree that people cling to certain petty tenets of their life like a claim to atheism or a claim to Christianity as a way to keep themselves from being confronted by what they see as the terror of the unknown. I don't agree, however, that uncertainty helps people to learn more completely. Teaching people "it's OK to not know" is what leads to people voting for a politician not because of his actual policy positions, but just because of his stated religious beliefs. A limited knowledge is what produces limited thinking; a comprehensive knowledge produces a comprehensive world view. The more one knows, the more they're comfortable with not knowing, because they will fully understand the breadth of things in the universe which are unknown at this point in time. To ask questions, be skeptical, and discredit information that is illogical is not narrow-minded, nor is it dogmatic - it is simply demonstrative of a mind attuned to see the rational underpinnings of the universe.

Tolerance for uncertainty is not teaching people its okay not to know. Thats just basic ignorance. 'Tolerance for uncertainty' is starting from the position that everything cannot necessarily be known and that we dont have to immediately categorise and box everything. and i absoloutely agree that when people seek and build their knowledge they become more tolerant of uncertainty. Asking questions and being skeptical is important in order to be open minded. True detachment is absoloute open mindedness.

I could take every instance of "god" in this paragraph and replace it with "Elvis Presley being alive" and it would sound ridiculous. It would sound ridiculous because there is no logical basis for the belief that Elvis Presley is alive.

? This discussion has nothing to do with elvis presley being alive. The fact that many people do experience god/gods is very interesting and relevant.

What would you would think, believe and do if you did experience god/gods?

Faith absolutely dumbs our society down. If everyone sincerely believed that they're going to be zipped up to their magic sky wizard once they die, regardless of whether or not they've put in work to make their environment healthier and improve the lives of their fellow man, they would have absolved themselves from a responsibility to pull their own weight and not wreck the world. Luckily, most people don't think that way - but there are still an unsettling number who do.

That is an example of unhealthy faith. And a very superfluos one. Faith is neutral, it is how its used which makes it healthy or unhealthy.

Again, as science is a field of study based on empirical knowledge, show me an instance when a scientist took a "leap of faith" in order to make progress with their studies. Not a calculated risk, not troubleshooting - I want a leap of faith, complete with a lack of evidence or intuition-derived analysis.

Look it up. There are lots of examples and i dont have the time to sit around and find them for you. And what do you mean by intuition-derived analysis? What is intuition and how is it not related to taking a leap of faith into the exploration of the unknown? Intuition is useless when one doesnt have any faith in themselves or their ideas. Many people are intuitive and use their intuition to gain insight and create theories.

Making an ignorant usage-conscious usage dichotomy of faith is also fallacious. Those two are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, it is quite easy to do both simultaneously, particularly in having faith.

I'm not against hoping for good things - looking on the bright side of possibilities, seeing the best possible outcome and wanting it to happen and doing everything within my power to make it so - but to believe that they absolutely will happen, despite no evidence to the claim, accomplishes nothing and is ludicrous.

I strongly disagree. Using beliefs and faiths in a conscious way can be very empowering and useful. And it definately has been for me.

The spherical earth discovery didn't start with some guy going "What if the earth is round?" and then suddenly declaring "The earth is round! I believe!" And it definitely wasn't followed through by the first few guys who hypothesized it. It was over a hundred years between the first supposed postulations of the spherical earth and Aristotle's declaration that the earth was a sphere. He didn't say it was a sphere because he had faith, he said it because he made an irrefutable logical inference which became the undeniable evidence for that claim.

I never said any of that. When the first people imagined a round world they didnt have the ability to prove or disprove this. It was a matter of intuition, critical thought, faith and courage that allowed us to prove the logical reality of this over time. And i daresay there would have been plenty of people that believed and understood that the world was round before the 'first supposed postulations'. Just because someone takes a leap of faith and is not able to prove their point right there and then doesnt mean that it was all for naught. Sometimes we need to get the ball rolling

Sorry if this is full of spelling/grammatical errors! hope some of it is coherent and readable. In a hurry and im pisspoor at typing

 

[Matt3737]

I don't really mind it when people have faith. It's when they confuse it with knowledge that it bothers me. You don't just automatically know things because you believe that something is true... and no, science is not a belief system.

The only time that faith and logic don't contradict each other is when someone is prepared to change what they believe as soon as all available evidence proves them wrong.

I also think that all beliefs should be falsifiable, but in the end that's up to you... to me it doesn't make sense to believe in something just because you can't prove that it doesn't exist, but as long as you're not being a douche about it, it's fine.

Actually, science very much resembles a belief system with the very notable exceptions of a deity and an afterlife. Science as systemized knowledge based on observation and experimentation is structured into the form of theories, i.e. explanations (mythos) and predictions (divination).

Similar to how the big bang theory bears a remarkable resemblance to the cosmic egg mythological motif, it serves the function of explaining how and why the universe came into being.

Science features explanatory myths, ethical codes of behavior (morals), and ritualistic predictive patterning. The scientific method is a form of ritualized divination.

Theories and beliefs change over time, the difference being that theories are predicated upon change while belief is typically accepted as unchanging until such time that it is discarded as being untrue and exchanged for another belief (theories also, but they will adjust to contradictory evidence until such time that an improved theory displaces it). Science is simply more adaptable than the rigid dogmatic faiths (not all faiths are rigid and dogmatic though). People change their beliefs and theories all the time at no greater or lesser rate than either of the two.

There have been many brilliant people that have made lasting contributions to their respective fields that also believed in a deity.

Epistemologically speaking, science has no greater claim to absolute truth than any other belief system, but it does seem to be a more refined system for the purpose that it holds claim to.

Scientific inquiry has to accept certain, unprovable axioms as fundamentally-held beliefs for any logic to proceed.

See: Münchhausen Trilemma

 

[Jagang]

One must always seek the truth in life for themselves, rather than simply believing that which they are told without their own rational understanding and justification for that belief.
Failure to do so can lead to a life of clinging to empty promises and following trails of false hope.
The knowledge gained through seeking the truth, if used for the purposes of good, is the key to enjoying life to its fullest.

Faith is a device of self-delusion, a sleight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up.
Faith is the attempt to force truth to surrender to whim.
In simple terms, it is trying to breathe life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes.
Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men.

The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.
The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is; and from this irreducible bedrock principle, all knowledge is built.
It is the foundation from which life is embraced.
Thinking is a choice.
Wishes and whims are not facts nor are they a means to discover them.
Reason is our only way of grasping reality; it is our basic tool of survival.
We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss that we refuse to see.
Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason's light.
In rejecting reason, refusing to think, one embraces death.

Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.

 

[just me]

One must always seek the truth in life for themselves, rather than simply believing that which they are told without their own rational understanding and justification for that belief.
Failure to do so can lead to a life of clinging to empty promises and following trails of false hope.
The knowledge gained through seeking the truth, if used for the purposes of good, is the key to enjoying life to its fullest.

Faith is a device of self-delusion, a sleight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up.
Faith is the attempt to force truth to surrender to whim.
In simple terms, it is trying to breathe life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes.
Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men.

The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.
The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists; what is, is; and from this irreducible bedrock principle, all knowledge is built.
It is the foundation from which life is embraced.
Thinking is a choice.
Wishes and whims are not facts nor are they a means to discover them.
Reason is our only way of grasping reality; it is our basic tool of survival.
We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss that we refuse to see.
Faith and feelings are the darkness to reason's light.
In rejecting reason, refusing to think, one embraces death.

Willfully turning aside from the truth is treason to one's self.

I believe turning away from truth can cause complications, as the truth usually reveals itself. I also believe there exists a certain amount of disgrace for a young person to believe anything they are told. Truth is not reason. When one reasons with oneself, are they not weighing the odds? Do they not choose reconciliation in their mind? Do they not throw aside the things of little weight in their searching for the truth? Who doesn't reason with oneself now and again? Our thoughts may be filled with things we understand, but are there not things we cannot fully explain? Does that infer a state of not being real? There are those that can see things others do not see; understand things others do not understand. If faith and feelings darken the light of reason, cannot reason darken the light of understanding?