Faith (as in Religious Faith, or "Absolute Trust without evidence" as you wish to say) is not the same as Trust based on Evidence (as in prior experience, or demonstrated success). My Islamic Friend uses Faith in exactly the same way you do to profess his religion as being the correct religion over yours, just as you profess yours to be correct over his. How do we tell the difference between your claim and his claim without the evidence we take from every day happenstance scenarios?
Of course they are safe and healthy, thank you!
- Again though, as an Atheist discussing the topic with Theists of various stripes, I speak about Faith in its religious form because this is how Theists generally use the word in relation to their Religion. It is different to how you use the word in the above example because the child has prior experience or evidence (no matter what it is) to justify obeying a parent, or any authoritative figure. So your use of Faith is what I would define as Trust (i.e. evidence or experience based) and not Religious Faith (as in Unevidenced). Your child example is different to your Religious example, the two are not the same. My reasoning will follow below.
This is fine if, as I said, you're using it in the evidence based form of "Faith" and not as the religious version of "Faith"
Of course I would consider any and all evidence, which would be how I proportion my Trust in a person, process or thing. and Sure if you consider that statement from the Bible as a Declaration of Faith as opposed to a description of Faith, many believers and non-believers alike take it as a description to justify why they take their religious belief without evidence, so then I have to ask, why do you believe if that Bible quote is a declaration and not your justification for evidence free and absolute trust in your God?
Also, for clarity in our conversations, I'll use "Trust" to indicate "Faith with evidence" and "Faith" when I referring to "Faith without evidence" - this will save any confusion from here on I hope...
I'm not sure what I'll accept, but claims aren't acceptable. I would require an appropriate level of evidence to support the claim (i.e. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" -Carl Sagan)
Not sure what material possessions and physical comfort have to do with Trust, but these things are tangible, I suppose (?) - Also, what are "Spiritual Values" and how do they differ from "Values"?
Explained what constitutes evidence as above...
Great! so now you understand why I don't have "Faith" then.
Well, of course I think this is all reasoned "Trust", as I mentioned before, 100% certainty is not a requirement (and in fact is an impossible position to hold).
If I have a "firm conviction that something is the truth but have misconstrued the facts" - then I guess I wouldn't hold a firm conviction any longer. If the evidence is not in support of the conviction I hold, then I would change my level of confidence in that position accordingly. Whether I'm less convinced, or no longer convinced at all in a position is dependent on the evidence available to me.
I have reasoned trust in a Doctor because I have trust in the system that allows him to operate as such. I know that my society protects me as a consumer and patient by requiring this person to go through a stringent and comprehensive six year medical degree at a university that ascribes to the standards set out by my government on evidence based medical science, I know this person also had to intern and be supervised at a medical facility for at least another year of further medical training before they can register with the medical board to even be able to practice in the first place. I also know that the system has a backup recourse should all of this fail (whether through medical neglect, or malpractice) in a legal system that could ascribe civil damages if not delisting from the medical board and even criminal charges in the more extreme cases. - Contrast this with "Faith Healers" (as in unevidenced trust) for example where there's no checks and balances in place to support anyone! No study has ever supported the efficacy of these faith healers, or for that matter, intercessory prayer.
Degrees of Certainty is literally as implied. That is, I can never be 100% sure of anything. Nobody can. That aside, I can be reasonably sure the plank set up over the trench was likely to support the traffic as intended, and the chair that broke was known to have supported your own & the ample posteriors of those who used it with you til it broke - but in both cases, nobody could be 100% sure this would continue to be reliable. We only have all the supporting evidence of it working for us beforehand, and therefore a justified reason to tentatively trust it would continue to do so.
Sure, but again to save on confusion, I consider "Faith" to be unevidenced trust, and "Trust" to be based on evidence and reason. Just so there's no confusion conflating the two positions - which I still think you're trying to do...
Of course I'm always open to the possibility, Sure! Remember, I can't be 100% sure of anything if I'm to be honest. If I want to accept as many true things as possible while rejecting as many false things as possible, then I have to be as diligent as I can in ensuring the method I use affords me the most success here. The Scientific Method and an understanding of what evidence is, are paramount to that process, and any God will understand (and in fact would support) such a stance - after all, wouldn't God be disappointed were I to accept the unevidenced claim of the wrong religion based on authority, or culture I happen to be born into?
Of course, I have no doubt that you couldn't find anything on Fairies answering prayer, just as you'll probably find success of prayers to a desklamp or a magic 8 ball light on substance too, but they all answer prayer just as well as religions do. So by that extension, I'm as certain that fairies answer prayers to them at least as good as any God answers prayer because all the studies on the efficacy of prayer are no better than chance either.
The point of the exercise is that their "Faith" in their religion which has as much evidence for it as your religion's Faith has, gives them no better reason to make decisions that affect you as your decisions ought to affect others. I understand that you personally don't think you affect others, but I imagine you have positions on gay marriage, abortion, evolution & the sciences that underpin it, rational thinking, etc. and you vote?
If yes to any of those, then your "Faith" based beliefs affect those around you, including those that don't share your beliefs, some of them are the very subject of those beliefs - your beliefs and decisions based on them don't operate in a vacuum... You make unevidenced "Faith" based decisions that impact others in exactly the same way that an Islamic Administration of a country you might be in, could very well affect you.
It's a demonstration of how an unevidenced "Faith" based belief can be destructive in a bad way to the people who don't share those beliefs. Whether you believe yourself to be right or not, you don't seem to appreciate how your potentially incorrect beliefs could be damaging to others and the society you live in. So for this reason alone, you ought to care about having evidence for your beliefs, and not to just take it on "Faith".
Sure it can. That said though, your Dad likely lived longer than he would've otherwise, and likely benefited from palliative care borne from the medical sciences that wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for the progress of technology and medicines due to science and the scientific method.
It also teaches that we are born in sin and are sinful ourselves by default and our very distant ancestor did something so evil that God had to sacrifice himself to himself in bloodlust to create a loophole in the rules he made so we could go to heaven by believing in him.
I have no reason to think "sin" is a thing either, btw...
Apart from the fact that Atheism addresses no such point, I can tell you my personal position on this point (which has nothing to do with Atheists) - I have trust that I proportion to the claim and the evidence in support of it. The scientific method, which I think is the process you describe here, is the single most reliable method by which we have all the technology and progress we enjoy in our modern lives.
We didn't come upon computers by faith, we don't qualify doctors to practice medicine on faith, we don't communicate with people from around the world on faith, we don't fly anywhere on the planet in 24 hours on faith, and so on... None of these things we take as granted are a product of Faith.
Of course, that's why I require Evidence and/or reasoned thought before I accept a position of Trust (and not Faith) in a thing.
They say to me exactly what you say to me, and all of you have the same amount of evidence for your claims.
Of course I wouldn't, the child has no prior experience (i.e. Evidence) with a power point, and may not even survive the process of coming about the evidence in this case, so yes, this is going to come down to the child's experience of having to obey my authority on the knowledge it will be in lots of trouble otherwise... This is still experience, even though I am its authority figure. The child knows to obey when I say something in no uncertain terms, otherwise it will suffer my punishment. It knows that its reward will be not getting in trouble through an established history of such events.
But again, how do you know your track is the right one without evidence? If you invoke "Faith", then I can take anyone's position of "Faith" in their religion just as easily.
Well, if he is real, then Sure I want him to get through, this would be a point of fact I NEED to know in order to be accurate in my world view. The point still remains though, I have no reason to believe your particular version of this God is in fact real, and plenty of reasons not to believe he exists. If there is a God, any God let alone a Christian God of some type, then that God derived us through billions of years of evolution on a 4.5 billion year old planet in a 13.8 billion year old universe. All the evidence this God has left us through his creation contradicts your version of God. I go back to the degrees of certainty based on the evidence at hand to tell you that I'm quite certain that your version of God in your version of reality doesn't exist.
