Faith Vs Science

AdversusSarcalogos said:

I dont ignore actual evidence.
I dont consider anything anecdotal to be evidence.
It is not scientific process.

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What if there were nothing but anecdotal evidence on both sides of an argument?

cantata said:

No. It isn't.

It's like saying that there is a small amount of evidence that Mary is real because someone reported it. (Mary's actually a funny choice because she probably did exist - Jesus must have had a mother, after all - although I doubt she was a virgin when she had her kids.)

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That presumes that Jesus exists, and defines Mary to be whomever gave birth to him regardless of her actual name). A dubious argument, to say the least.

cantata said:

There is no need to conclude from this evidence that she does exist, however, if you have lots more and stronger evidence to the contrary.

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I disagree. Eye-witness reports (especially the 'I saw Jesus in my toast' form) do not support a claim unless there is more objective evidence in play.

For example, the Raëlian Church claims to have cloned a human, but this claim is not evidence of the phenomenon itself. However, if they allow this human to be subjected to scientific scrutiny, and it is found that it is indeed a clone, then the claims become evidence of the phenomenon. But the point is that they don't become evidence until something more objective supports them.

cantata said:

I am absolutely NOT SAYING that anecdotal evidence is conclusive. I'm just saying that it is evidence. Supposing you have five people who say that something happened, and one person who says it didn't. Then, suddenly, anecdotal evidence becomes extremely important.

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I disagree. If you had a million Creationists asserting their position and one Evolutionist asserting theirs, who would you go with? Logically, you should go to neither.
However, as soon as the Evolutionist presents a piece of evidence (say, ERVs), his position becomes the logical stance, no matter how loud the the Creationists talk.
The same would be true if a Creationist, rather than the Evolutionist, presented the evidence (not that they could, but w/e).

Anyway, my point is that asserting something is not evidence (even if you really did see what you claim you saw). From an objective standpoint, only objective evidence counts.

cantata said:

The fact that anecdotal evidence in favour of young earth creationism, for example, is almost completely insignificant against the weight of evidence against it, does not mean that the anecdotal evidence is not evidence at all. It is simply weak, inconclusive evidence which we are perfectly justified in throwing out because we have a better solution. The point is that IT IS STILL CALLED EVIDENCE.

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On the contrary, the point is that it isn't. But I fear this discussion could become semantical, if nothing else.

cantata said:

And no, I know (as far as it is possible to prove a negative) that ghosts aren't real. I have stated this over and over again. You are apparently not bothering to read those bits, but ignoring evidence seems to be a habit with you, so...

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The point is that if, as you claim, anecdotal evidence really is evidence, then one should logically believe in ghosts: there is no evidence against them (besides more anecdotal evidence, of course), but there is this anecdotal evidence for them.

Wiccan_Child said:

That presumes that Jesus exists, and defines Mary to be whomever gave birth to him regardless of her actual name). A dubious argument, to say the least.

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As an atheist student of theology, my considered opinion having studied many scholarly works on this subject is that such a person as Jesus did exist. His mother probably wasn't called Mary, but Jesus nevertheless must have had a mother, if he existed.

Yada, yada, yada. Disagreement about the meaning of terms. Yada, yada, yada.

Wiccan_Child said:

The point is that if, as you claim, anecdotal evidence really is evidence, then one should logically believe in ghosts: there is no evidence against them (besides more anecdotal evidence, of course), but there is this anecdotal evidence for them.

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There is plenty of evidence in opposition to the claim that ghosts exist: namely, that there are better explanations for how people come to have their experiences than "There was a ghost there", and also because people who have attempted to find physical evidence of ghosts' existence have consistently drawn a blank.

I am not really interested in arguing about the value of anecdotal evidence in particular. What I am saying is that it is possible to have a) evidence which can be interpreted in more than one way and b) evidence which appears to counter some well-established claim. The fact that these pieces of evidence cause some ambiguity or go against something that we take to be a fact does not mean that you can call them anything other than evidence. They are still evidence; they are just examples of weak or inconclusive evidence. Really, I don't know why you are finding this so difficult. It's simply a question of what the word 'evidence' means, and if you have a look in a dictionary you'll see that the definition I'm supporting is not at all contentious.

In most debates, evidence is presented on both sides. Let us imagine a debate where either one side is right or the other is. The fact that one person is right and the other is wrong does not mean that the person who is wrong has not presented any evidence. They have simply presented weak or inconclusive evidence for their claim.

cantata said:

As an atheist student of theology, my considered opinion having studied many scholarly works on this subject is that such a person as Jesus did exist. His mother probably wasn't called Mary, but Jesus nevertheless must have had a mother, if he existed.

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Well, that's a discussion for another time, perhaps.

cantata said:

There is plenty of evidence in opposition to the claim that ghosts exist: namely, that there are better explanations for how people come to have their experiences than "There was a ghost there", and also because people who have attempted to find physical evidence of ghosts' existence have consistently drawn a blank.

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First, the existance of more scientifically valid explanations does not count as evidence against per se, though it does reduce the likelyhood of the 'ghost' explanation from being true.
Second, the absence of evidence does not count as evidence of absence. Though it certainly gives one pause for thought.

But again, I think this is more down to the nuances of the word 'evidence'.

cantata said:

I am not really interested in arguing about the value of anecdotal evidence in particular. What I am saying is that it is possible to have a) evidence which can be interpreted in more than one way and b) evidence which appears to counter some well-established claim.

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From a scientific point of view, evidence that contradicts a hypothesis or a theory counts as a disproof of that hypothesis or theory. That's why falsifiability is such a useful property in scientific discourse.
So if evidence appears to contradict a claim, then

cantata said:

The fact that these pieces of evidence cause some ambiguity or go against something that we take to be a fact does not mean that you can call them anything other than evidence. They are still evidence; they are just examples of weak or inconclusive evidence. Really, I don't know why you are finding this so difficult. It's simply a question of what the word 'evidence' means, and if you have a look in a dictionary you'll see that the definition I'm supporting is not at all contentious.

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Because the common person's dictionary is not the same as a technical dictionary. Evidence has a relatively precise meaning in science, whereas religion and pseudoscience use a noticably more lax definition. Like I said, it's down to semantics.

Wiccan_Child said:

But again, I think this is more down to the nuances of the word 'evidence'.

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I concur.

Wiccan_Child said:

From a scientific point of view, evidence that contradicts a hypothesis or a theory counts as a disproof of that hypothesis or theory. That's why falsifiability is such a useful property in scientific discourse.
So if evidence appears to contradict a claim, then

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Then..? I suspect you didn't finish here...

Wiccan_Child said:

Because the common person's dictionary is not the same as a technical dictionary. Evidence has a relatively precise meaning in science, whereas religion and pseudoscience use a noticably more lax definition. Like I said, it's down to semantics.

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Yes, precisely. However, I would be interested to know what you would call information put forward by a person who is arguing a position which is actually false, if not 'evidence'.

As an atheist student of theology, my considered opinion having studied many scholarly works on this subject is that such a person as Jesus did exist. His mother probably wasn't called Mary, but Jesus nevertheless must have had a mother, if he existed.

Yada, yada, yada. Disagreement about the meaning of terms. Yada, yada, yada.

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Actually, this has relevance to the debate.
There isnt any actual evidence Jesus existed.
He wasnt written about until many years AFTER his "death" and "resurrection".
If you truly are a theology student, you would know that Jesus, the supposed "messiah", is almost identical in history, as other so called prophets, gods, and messiahs.
Take Horus for example.
Egyptian god.
Born under the same star, under the constellation Three Kings.
Performed miracles, healed the sick, even turned water into wine.
Was crucified, dead for three days, and was resurrected.

Keep in mind, in "Jesus" time, there were hundreds of other
"messiahs" running around trying to sell their beliefs.
Like Appleonius(sp?).
Like Jesus, he did all the same miracles almost exactly, and was caught by the romans, and crucified.

So the main point of this argument, is that creationists really dont have a foot to stand on, when their idea of creation mimics, or directly copies past religions, including, Norse mythology, Greek mythology, and even Egyptian mythology.
They have even gone as far as to copy themselves, Eg. The old testament, when there was a Jesus-like character by another name.

AdversusSarcalogos said:

Actually, this has relevance to the debate.
There isnt any actual evidence Jesus existed.
He wasnt written about until many years AFTER his "death" and "resurrection".
If you truly are a theology student, you would know that Jesus, the supposed "messiah", is almost identical in history, as other so called prophets, gods, and messiahs.
Take Horus for example.
Egyptian god.
Born under the same star, under the constellation Three Kings.
Performed miracles, healed the sick, even turned water into wine.
Was crucified, dead for three days, and was resurrected.

Keep in mind, in "Jesus" time, there were hundreds of other
"messiahs" running around trying to sell their beliefs.
Like Appleonius(sp?).
Like Jesus, he did all the same miracles almost exactly, and was caught by the romans, and crucified.

So the main point of this argument, is that creationists really dont have a foot to stand on, when their idea of creation mimics, or directly copies past religions, including, Norse mythology, Greek mythology, and even Egyptian mythology.
They have even gone as far as to copy themselves, Eg. The old testament, when there was a Jesus-like character by another name.

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Excuse me, but I think I mentioned that I am an atheist student of theology. I do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah (whatever you take that to mean), or that he was divine, or that he was born of a virgin, or under a star, or that he performed any miracles. I am not a creationist.

I do, however, think that a person existed - he may not even have been called Jesus, and maybe the gospel accounts are actually accounts of the works of several people - who was crucified because the Romans were worried that he would begin a Jewish uprising. I think he was probably a Wisdom teacher and that he gained a few followers when he was alive, who multiplied exponentially after he died. He probably performed 'healings'. He probably taught in parables.

So yes, my considered opinion is that Jesus existed, with the qualifications outlined above.

Excuse me, but I think I mentioned that I am an atheist student of theology. I do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah (whatever you take that to mean), or that he was divine, or that he was born of a virgin, or under a star, or that he performed any miracles. I am not a creationist.

I do, however, think that a person existed - he may not even have been called Jesus, and maybe the gospel accounts are actually accounts of the works of several people - who was crucified because the Romans were worried that he would begin a Jewish uprising. I think he was probably a Wisdom teacher and that he gained a few followers when he was alive, who multiplied exponentially after he died. He probably performed 'healings'. He probably taught in parables.

So yes, my considered opinion is that Jesus existed, with the qualifications outlined above.

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I was aware of the atheist statement.
However, you seem to be overlooking the fact, that the Romans at that time, crucified anything they could nail to a stick.
So of course a person existed, hundreds of them existed.
Jesus was probably the only one written about, because he didnt whine like a sissy, when it was his turn to play pin the Jew on a stick.

AdversusSarcalogos said:

I was aware of the atheist statement.
However, you seem to be overlooking the fact, that the Romans at that time, crucified anything they could nail to a stick.
So of course a person existed, hundreds of them existed.
Jesus was probably the only one written about, because he didnt whine like a sissy, when it was his turn to play pin the Jew on a stick.

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Actually, according to Mark's and Matthew's gospels, he did whine somewhat. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

So yes, anyway, he did get written about. I don't think he was divine; what of it? It's likely, as I said, that he appeared to heal people, and that he taught in parables, and that he was crucified because the Romans thought he was a dangerous political figure (which is why Mark goes to such great lengths to show that he was nothing of the sort). Basically, I think the gospel accounts are distantly related to real historical events, although they are probably mostly fiction.

I would say that faith by definition is not science, because faith is based on belief, not necessarily knowledge. However, that does not mean that faith is wrong; for instance, Columbus believed the earth was round, but unless he had proved it by trying to sail to India it would have been only a faith-based assumption (but NOT incorrect), and not scientifically supported by evidence.

Faith is trusting something without proof. Science's definition is observation and experiments. Two different things.

Faith and science are not in opposition to each other, I can give hundreds of examples divided into types. It's just that people don't know what faith is, people abuse the word, and other people defending the word allow it to continually be abused. Logic is another highly abused word, as well as science.

Faith can be logical, science can be faithful, logic can be scientific, faith can be scientific, science can be logical, logic can be faithful, faith can be illogical, science can be without faith, logic can be unscientific, faith can be unscientific, science can be illogical, and logic can be without faith.

Faith is often wrongly confused with hope. Faith is pure trust and belief in something in the presence of the contrary, reguardless if you "know" or not or how that came to be. Hope is willingness to believe without "knowlege" and reguardless if there is contrary or not. You can have faith in something reguardless if you "know" or not. It takes faith to bench press 500 lbs. You can have all the logic in the world, you could have benched 495 the week before. If you have trust that you can do it, you have faith. There is a contrary, as you still might fail anyway. The "know" part is irreleveant with faith, you could know for a fact or you could have no idea, you just have to have a contrary. Faith can be logical or illogical, it dosen't matter. Faith 90% of the time involves some type of knowlege, either conscious of subconscious. Therefore faith can better be described as reason to trust despite the presence of contrary. Hope, you have to believe without reason, but it dosen't have to be in the presense of contrary. Blind faith is a form of hope. With Hope, you have to not know, but the contrary part is irrevelant. You could have contrary or not, it dosen't matter. The only thing that Hope and Faith have in common is the situation where you don't know and there is a contrary.

Logic is relative reason without trust and without contrary. One person's logic is different from the next. Science is unrelative reason without contrary and without trust.

It must be said that faith isn't based off of logic and logic isn't based off of faith. Neither are based off of anything, that's because both logic and faith are bases themselves. It is other things that are based off of logic and/or faith. Most people's opinions are a combination of faith and logic, with a little hope falsley masked as faith, and a little science.

thesunbeast said:

Faith is often wrongly confused with hope. Faith is pure trust and belief in something in the presence of the contrary, reguardless if you "know" or not or how that came to be. Hope is willingness to believe without "knowlege" and reguardless if there is contrary or not. You can have faith in something reguardless if you "know" or not. It takes faith to bench press 500 lbs. You can have all the logic in the world, you could have benched 495 the week before. If you have trust that you can do it, you have faith. There is a contrary, as you still might fail anyway.

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Faith is what you have in the absence of reason.

I have faith that my obese son can do 300 push-ups, because all the evidence in the world implies that he cannot: I believe in something despite the lack of evidence supporting it.

However, I don't have faith that my body-building daughter can do 50 push-ups: all the evidence in the world implies that she can: I believe in something because the evidence supports it.

And that's just what faith is: believe in the absence of supporting evidence. You have no reason to believe that something is true, that something exists, that something will occur... but you have faith that it is, that it does, that it will.

So while logic, faith, hope, science, certainty, trust, are all ostensibly different, neither are they compatible:

• Logic is deriving conclusions from premises. If the logic is valid and the premises sound, then the conclusions are true.
• Science is deriving the most probable explanation of phenomena. Scientists look at the available evidence, and come up with various hypotheses to explain it. Via experimentation, observation, and the acquisition of new data, we become more confident that one of those explanations is true.
  Not 100% confidence, but that's an inherent limit of anything outside of pure logic. Trust and certainty? Sure. Faith and hope? No part of science whatsoever.
• Faith is belief in the irrational, the uncertain, and the unevidenced. It is directly opposed to rational, evidence-based belief.
• Hope is what you want to be true, and what, while improbable, is not uncommon. I hope I'm not sick: there's a good chance that my runny nose and pounding head are symptoms of an illness, but there's also a chance that I'm overreacting.
  It's like statistical faith: it's happened before, albeit infrequently, and you would like for it to happen again.
• Certainty is a measure of how sure we are that it's true: with faith you believe without reason, and thus have no confidence. With science and logic, beliefs are those that are most likely to be true, and thus you have some measure (usually a good dollop) of confidence that they're true.

But then, this is all semantics .

Wiccan_Child said:

Faith is what you have in the absence of reason.

I have faith that my obese son can do 300 push-ups, because all the evidence in the world implies that he cannot: I believe in something despite the lack of evidence supporting it.

However, I don't have faith that my body-building daughter can do 50 push-ups: all the evidence in the world implies that she can: I believe in something because the evidence supports it.

And that's just what faith is: believe in the absence of supporting evidence. You have no reason to believe that something is true, that something exists, that something will occur... but you have faith that it is, that it does, that it will.

So while logic, faith, hope, science, certainty, trust, are all ostensibly different, neither are they compatible:

• Logic is deriving conclusions from premises. If the logic is valid and the premises sound, then the conclusions are true.
• Science is deriving the most probable explanation of phenomena. Scientists look at the available evidence, and come up with various hypotheses to explain it. Via experimentation, observation, and the acquisition of new data, we become more confident that one of those explanations is true.
  Not 100% confidence, but that's an inherent limit of anything outside of pure logic. Trust and certainty? Sure. Faith and hope? No part of science whatsoever.
• Faith is belief in the irrational, the uncertain, and the unevidenced. It is directly opposed to rational, evidence-based belief.
• Hope is what you want to be true, and what, while improbable, is not uncommon. I hope I'm not sick: there's a good chance that my runny nose and pounding head are symptoms of an illness, but there's also a chance that I'm overreacting.
  It's like statistical faith: it's happened before, albeit infrequently, and you would like for it to happen again.
• Certainty is a measure of how sure we are that it's true: with faith you believe without reason, and thus have no confidence. With science and logic, beliefs are those that are most likely to be true, and thus you have some measure (usually a good dollop) of confidence that they're true.

But then, this is all semantics .

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As far as semantics, yes it is, but, there are issues/objects and then there are concepts behind those objects/issues. You can arrive to the same conclusions even with different ways of getting there. A guy can meditate in deep thought for a long time and arrive to the same conclusions that someone else did through independent study. I, for example, knew what semantics was even before i ever heard of the word. that will happen if you understand a concept that goes behind and object/issue before actually knowing the concept/issue (I love that kind of stuff).

You automatically assumed that faith is the absense of reason first before defining what it is. If this were true then you would only be able to give examples of faith only when it pertained to belief without reason. You may have chosen to only give examples of blind faith (ever heard that term?), but you could have given examples of faith that head reason behind it. I didn't want to have an example war, but I should have known that I was going to have to. You can have faith in something with reason, therefore, it is not bound only by lack of reason, it is bound both by reason and lack of reason, the only thing is that there has to be contrary present. Yours was another example of confusing Hope with faith.

I'm going to have to follow this further, and really break it down this time.


Faith As I defined it earlier is trust in something either with or without reason in the presense of contrary. What that means is this:


-#1 You have faith that your out-of-shape son can do 300 pushups. You have no reason to logically believe that he can do 300 pushups, it is without reason, but also without knowlege. There is contrary, the possibility of failure. Is this faith? Yes. It is blind faith.

Some more #1. You have a friend fighting a war in Iraq. You have faith that he'll be ok. You have little reason to believe that he'll be ok, but you do have a little. There is contrary, the possibility of death. Is this faith? Yes, it is blind faith, but not as blind as the example before, mabe inbetween.


-#2 You believe that your bodybuilder daughter can do 50 push-ups. You "know" that she'll be able to do them because it's a "forgone conclusion". Therefor you don't "think" she'll do them, you "know" she'll do them. Is this faith? Yes.You believe with reason, and there is contrary, the possibility of failure. You had in your mind that it was a "definite" that she will do 50 pushups. you didn't "think" she'd succeed, you "knew". Therefore all definitions of "think" you wouldn't say applies to you here. However, your position includes lack of "knowlege", even though you had "reason". In reality it is very easy to for a bodybuilder to fail at doing 50 pushups. In any case it does not matter, she may have done her 100 pushups after carb loading and having glycogen storage. You would have been correct, even with reasons that wern't entirely applicable to the success of your doughter. But you didn't know that, but what you did know, or think, is what contributed to your mindset of "knowing" that she was going to do it. In reality, you had faith in your daughter, reguardless If you "knew", "didn't know" or was tricked into "knowing". This is where the definition of faith gets scewed. The person who is tricked into knowing really has faith, but they just don't know it. The reason why they don't know it is because they think faith is only in the absense of reason.

Some more on example 2. A doctor gives a patient a placebo to cure him. Let it be known that a placebo has never, nor has it ever, cured someone of a sickness.The patient is cured because he believes/has trust in the pill to do it's job. Is this faith? Yes. he has belief/trust in the pill, he has an overabundance of reason, and the possibility of contrary, not being cured (or according to him, the pill might not work). Could the placebo effect fail? Absolutely, if he dosen't have any faith. It is faith that is doing the curing. The placebo has never worked. Faith is not a placebo, faith is what is behind the placebo that allows the placebo effect to work. The guy dosen't "think" that he might be cured, he knows for a fact because he took the pill as instructed, after being told logically how the chemicals in pill will work. However, using your definition if faith, ask this guy if faith played any role in him being cured and watch what he tells you.

Faith is belief and trust in something with or without reason with the possibility of contrary . There are many different levels of reason reguarding faith, ranging from none at all to absolute reason (different than "knowlege") Even true knowlege would be reason of faith. Some people just don't like the "F" word. Faith is not soley defined by the absense of knowlege. Like Faith and Logic, knowlege is a base in and of itself, in which other things are based off of it. I gave you an example of faith that involves reason without knowlege, an example that involves reason with knowlege, and even an example that involves knowlege without reason, and all of them are worthy of being described as a faith.



Hope Is belief/want in the possibility of something without reason and with or without contrary. What that means is this:

-#1 You have a firend firghting a war in Iraq, you say "I hope he's OK". Is this hope? Yes.You believe that there is a possibility that he's ok. You have no idea for sure, and no reason to know at all. There is a possibility of contrary, death. There is a reason why I put this as #1 in my hope argument, and that's because It's almost exactly the same as #1 in my faith argument. Hope is not the same as faith, but it is the same as blind faith, with the exception of two things. #1, blind faith won't require the thought or anxiety that Hope does. Blind faith is exactly the same as hope except something is making you sure of yourself, despite the fact that you have no knowlege or reason whatsoever. And #2, Hope does not have to have the possibility of contrary.

-#2 You say "I hope I get a bike for Christmas ". Is this hope? Yes. You want something to be, but have no reason to believe that it will be. There is no possibility to contrary, as you yourself aren't failing at anything and you have nothing to loose. (I define contrary as failure or loss on either you or someone else). Hope id the only one in which it can still be defined even without the possibility of contrary. This isn't to say that anything without contrary could theoretically be defined as hope. That would be absurd. If you have reason to believe without contrary or opposition, It is logic or knowlege (not that I fully defined logic or knowlege here, I hope I don't have to say that LOL). If you don't have reason to believe wity or without contrary, It is hope. I could also say "I hope we'll find a way to shoot lightning from our hands". It has never happened and never will happen. I'm not sure that your definition of hope fits that, but I think mine does.


I don't want to spend too much time here. I'll come back and spill my views on the difference between Logic and science.

Peace.

thesunbeast said:

As far as semantics, yes it is, but, there are issues/objects and then there are concepts behind those objects/issues. You can arrive to the same conclusions even with different ways of getting there. A guy can meditate in deep thought for a long time and arrive to the same conclusions that someone else did through independent study. I, for example, knew what semantics was even before i ever heard of the word. that will happen if you understand a concept that goes behind and object/issue before actually knowing the concept/issue (I love that kind of stuff).

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Nevertheless, it's still all semantics .

thesunbeast said:

You automatically assumed that faith is the absense of reason first before defining what it is.

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No. I define it to be belief without reason, evidence, or other justification.

thesunbeast said:

Faith As I defined it earlier is trust in something either with or without reason in the presense of contrary.

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This is equivalent to the difference between knowledge and belief: if you truly know something, then there is no contrary. If I 'know' I have a bacon sandwich, then there is no possibility that I don't have a bacon sandwich.

In practice, all I can say is that it is extremely likely that I have a sandwich. This is not a statement of faith, even though there is the minute possibility of being wrong. A statement of faith is something like "I have faith that God will pull me through this".

thesunbeast said:

-#1 You have faith that your out-of-shape son can do 300 pushups. You have no reason to logically believe that he can do 300 pushups, it is without reason, but also without knowlege. There is contrary, the possibility of failure. Is this faith? Yes. It is blind faith.

Some more #1. You have a friend fighting a war in Iraq. You have faith that he'll be ok. You have little reason to believe that he'll be ok, but you do have a little. There is contrary, the possibility of death. Is this faith? Yes, it is blind faith, but not as blind as the example before, mabe inbetween.

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there is a subtle difference between faith and hope. I hope my hypothetical friend will survive, but I doubt I would have faith that he will survive. If I have faith, then I believe that he will: I affirm the statement "My friend will survive Iraq". If I have hope, then I merely want that statement to be true.

If I had an obese son, I would likely have hope, not faith, that he would do 300 push-ups: the evidence suggests that he will fail, despite my best wishes. As a scientist, I must believe what is evidenced and probable. Thus, I would affirm (albeit only in internal monologue): "My son will not be able to do 300 push-ups". I'd naturally hope that he succeeds, but the odds are against him.

thesunbeast said:

-#2 You believe that your bodybuilder daughter can do 50 push-ups. You "know" that she'll be able to do them because it's a "forgone conclusion".

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This is another semantic difference between us. To me, truely knowing p means that you can say with absolute and unequivocal confidence that p is true.

However, due to inherent epistemological limitations, we can only 'know' something if it is derived from pure logic without assumption. We know mathematical proofs are true (that's why they're called 'proofs'), but we don't truely know that, say, the world exists: the possibility remains, however remotely, that we're all just brains in vats.

This is so unlikely that it's almost offensive, so we can safely (albeit incompletely) reject such outlandish conclusions. That said, it's important to note that such absurdly improbably things can, in time, be evidence (from atomic theory to quantum mechanics).

thesunbeast said:

Therefor you don't "think" she'll do them, you "know" she'll do them. Is this faith? Yes.You believe with reason, and there is contrary, the possibility of failure. You had in your mind that it was a "definite" that she will do 50 pushups. you didn't "think" she'd succeed, you "knew". Therefore all definitions of "think" you wouldn't say applies to you here. However, your position includes lack of "knowlege", even though you had "reason". In reality it is very easy to for a bodybuilder to fail at doing 50 pushups. In any case it does not matter, she may have done her 100 pushups after carb loading and having glycogen storage. You would have been correct, even with reasons that wern't entirely applicable to the success of your doughter. But you didn't know that, but what you did know, or think, is what contributed to your mindset of "knowing" that she was going to do it. In reality, you had faith in your daughter, reguardless If you "knew", "didn't know" or was tricked into "knowing". This is where the definition of faith gets scewed. The person who is tricked into knowing really has faith, but they just don't know it. The reason why they don't know it is because they think faith is only in the absense of reason.

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I would probably agree with all of that, except for the words used.

thesunbeast said:

Some more on example 2. A doctor gives a patient a placebo to cure him. Let it be known that a placebo has never, nor has it ever, cured someone of a sickness.The patient is cured because he believes/has trust in the pill to do it's job. Is this faith? Yes. he has belief/trust in the pill, he has an overabundance of reason, and the possibility of contrary, not being cured (or according to him, the pill might not work). Could the placebo effect fail? Absolutely, if he dosen't have any faith. It is faith that is doing the curing. The placebo has never worked. Faith is not a placebo, faith is what is behind the placebo that allows the placebo effect to work. The guy dosen't "think" that he might be cured, he knows for a fact because he took the pill as instructed, after being told logically how the chemicals in pill will work. However, using your definition if faith, ask this guy if faith played any role in him being cured and watch what he tells you.

Click to expand...

Why? He could have an entirely difference definition.

With regards to the placebo effect, under my definitions:

• The doctor believes that the pill won't have any direct physiological, biochemical, neuroendocrinological, etc, effect.
• The patient believes that the pill will such effects.
• The doctor believes that the patients own beliefs will cure him.
• The patient believes that the pill will cure him.

There is no faith involved: the doctor's and patient's beliefs are grounded on evidence and reason. Though the patient is wrong*, his beliefs were nevertheless justified. He did not have faith because he had reason to think that the pill would cure him. That he was wrong is irrelevant.

The difference between faith and belief is why you believe something. Whether or not it's true is irrelevant.

*Assuming for the sake of argument that the placebo works as the doctor intended.


I believe I have covered the rest of your post in the above. Interesting chat, tsb .