The non-religious among us think of blind faith as probably the primary reason for everything that is wrong with religion. To believe without question, they say, is idiocy.
The religious folk suggest there is no need to question because they know what they feel, and any questions they may have are answered by the bible.
Is either side right, even nearly?
-
To "know" is not to have "faith"40% Voted for by TheDarknessVisible, ennoia, DryIce808, raven shadow 13.
When a person Knows something they have a belief which is founded on reason. It is consistant with everything they have personally observed and all information that they have obtained from sources which they have reasonable grounds to also consider reliable. And they have actually challenged that information against the earlier (not simply accepted it).
I do not have FAITH in the existence of this computer I am typing at. I KNOW it exists, because I see it, and in my experience what I see, especially if I can touch it as well, has always demonstrably been REAL. In fact there has been no instance in all the thousands or millions of experiences I've had where I have both touched and seen something and it turned out not to exist. On *that* basis.. I can say I know.
This belief in the existence of my computer is therefore KNOWLEDGE.
However.. No one can KNOW that Jesus (as depicted in the bible exists).. because the bible makes claims about Jesus which violate the laws of physics (Laws which you have personally observed and can be demonstrated time and time again.), but also that can not be confirmed or tested in any other way. There is no body of knowledge to put these facts on.
Thus the belief in JESUS or GOD for that matter can not be accurately called KNOWLEDGE. It contradicts KNOWLEDGE. no one you know can personally claim to have KNOWLEDGE either. Merely faith. Belief built on the "faith" of another is also not KNOWLEDGE. It is still merely "faith".
Science is a body of knowledge.. it is built up on top of observations and measurements, experiments and other things we collectively refer to as the scientific method. It is not a body of faith. When a particular piece of information in science contradicts another piece of information, they can not simply be accepted as is. There must be a testable and disprovable explanation which would explain the contradition without introducing any other contradiction in the process or else ONE of those pieces of information is FALSE. Then the job of science is to determine which piece is false. Science is effectively the procedure of disproving things.
Nothing is answered by the bible to the point where you can KNOW that it is true. The bible even contradicts itself. Believing in Zeus is just as plausible as believing in God. Neither are KNOWLEDGE.
-
Faith is the most missunderstood concept20% Voted for by Orgaelin, nahomie.
I believe that faith is very important, but that it is invariably misplaced.
It would be a cruel god who would deny his people any evidence of his existence, and yet demand people believe in him, would it not?
But this is not to say that the scientific method is best. To only believe in things that are demonstrable is to miss out on half of the picture.
There are things in life that cannot be demonstrated and in which we should nevertheless have faith.
The one thing you should have faith in more than any other is yourself, because no god would want the faith of someone who had not faith even in himself.
And yes, it should be *blind* faith, without question. Absolute blind faith is not a product of what you can observe... what you can observe is the product of your absolute faith.
-
Believing20% Voted for by geniusloci, DryIce808.
even scientist hold faith, the faith of 'proof'. faith that there IS an unequivocal explanation...or faith that someday there 'Will Be' a cure for our illnesses... everyone should carry some kinda faith for, if not, what do we have to look forward too? if nothing is to be discovered or unveiled?
motioning the faith of discovery, is, to me, believing in ~betters days to come.
-
FaithVoted for by Kaily.
Faith, what exactly does that word mean? We here it so much and yet we only attribute certain things to it, we say "that person follows the faith," or "he is a man of great faith" but really what does it mean?.... I think (and this is just my opinion) that faith equals trust. it is that simple, a yes or no question "do you trust me, or not?" that is all God asks for trust, and with trust there is really only 2 options: you do, or you don't. In skydiving you either jump or you don't, there is no middle ground. It is the same with God you trust(have faith) or you don't. as misguided as the Muslim terrorists are, I admire them for their extreme passion and trust. And you can't have faith in yourself, I mean you can but what is the point you are not a god and you will ALWAYS fail eventually, to be mortal is to eventually fail, but that doesn't stop us from trying....
-
FaithVoted for by DryIce808.
The thing about faith is humans are hard wired for it. We are the only species conscious of our own demise. Yet, we don't accept it. Religion was created as a way out of this finality of life. We are programmed to believe. Without faith, life gets depressing. This is sad, considering there are several better things to do with ones life, as short as it is, than to sit there and pray to an imaginary being. I catch myself occasionaly hoping that there might be something else out there. I dream of the possibility of an afterlife. I, on the other hand do not have faith. I do not truly believe something is out there because I have been educated otherwise. I have been provided alterier, more sensical explanations for how the world works. I think many people do not have blind faith, but rather, are blinded by faith. They refuse to accept modern scientific ideas because it conflicts with their faith that life will be just peachy and continue forever as long as you accept God. Faith blinds. It does not allow questioning. To question the nature of God is to lose faith. It will never change either. People will always be looking for something to end their fear of non-existance after death. Everyone knows there were polytheistic religions before the more recently accepted monotheistic ones. Old ideas die out. Sadly knew and just as nonsensical ones with a better written text take their place. I'm just waiting for scientology to kick in. Then the world will really be a great place... Right... Faith is, in essence, blind. It has no rationality and has more purpose than it can support. Thats all.
Adding your reply:
Registration is required because of issues with spam. It is fast and free! This author would LOVE to get a comment from you, please join!
December 27, 2005
Edit | Reply
KNOWLEDGE VS BELIEF
True maybe no one will ever know what Jesus and god's real works are. For we humans and our now buisness ways with religon cloud up the bible with things we want to say. It has become so fogged up maybe will will never know what god's wiill is. But we can belive. Beliving is not knowing. Beliving is kind of like faith.(I commented on the meaning of faith as well)Something that you know in your heart rather than what you look evidence for. In your eyes you do not belive maybe. But i say to you "it doesn't matter if its true or not, if you belive in it, it doesn't matter to anyone else."December 27, 2005
something that you "know" in your heart?
Safire Sky: Perhaps you mean to say: Something that you *feel* like you know in your heart, but in fact you don't know because you DON'T have evidence for. Because for the exact reason that you don't have evidence you can't actually KNOW it. That is unless you intend to redefine the word "knowledge". I say to you, what others believe should matter to you. It mattered to the almost 3000 now dead people who Osama Bin Laden faithfully killed on September 11, 2000. It matters to the almost 100,000 iraqi's who died because George Bush had FAITH that Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and attempting to aquire yellow cake uranium from nigeria and refusing to come clean about it, when in fact HE WAS NOT doing such things as WAS comming clean about it when he denied it because it was TRUE. This idea that it doesn't matter what you believe should be put up as a whole new thread. In fact I think I will. (if I can figure out how). cheersJanuary 12, 2006
Edit | Reply
December 29, 2005
Edit | Reply
TeChNoWC
July 19, 2006
Edit | Reply
TeChNoWC
July 19, 2006
Edit | Reply
You need faith, you dont need knowledge
I like your experiences analogy too. Please read about Rene Descartes. Its a real eye opener, seriously.July 19, 2006
Edit | Reply
if you are God
If think you are God because you created the universe then that would be knowledge on your part. You are remembering something you did and applying reason and reaching a conclusion. That is not faith. But for someone else who didn't see you create the universe to know you are God they would need to have some means of measuring or detecting Godhood. If they lack such means of detection, and lack the knoweldge to even know what quality God would have, or what they ought to be looking for, then they can't be said to KNOW you are God. They may still have FAITH on the otherhand. As christians do in regards to Jesus. No human being on earth was ever qualified to detect whether or not Jesus was actually a God or merely some kind of superhero. No one KNOWS or ever knew whether or not he was God. I never said knowledge works in spite of belief. You can not KNOW something to be true and believe it is false. But you can know it to be true and have no faith in it. I know I exist because I can see myself and test my existence. But I don't have FAITH in my existence. I know that it is possible that I am mistaken and simply a hallucination. Faith allows no possibility for error. knowledge has a degree of reliability, which is objective and based on the quality of measurements and the statistical likelyhood of error. Knowledge is not absolute since it depends on the accuracy of observation. i.e. you can be 99.999% certain that you have a home because the odds that you have been living on the street all these years and not realizing it is very very very small. That is knowledge. On the otherhand, there is a slight chance you are crazy and completely mistaken. Perhaps you are homeless and simply dreaming of a home. A small number of people could in fact hallucinate their entire lives. Nonetheless it is still knowledge (albeit inaccurate knowledge). not faith. Even a person who imagines that they hear voices via mental illness, does not have FAITH about the voices. they have plain old knowledge. They happen to be mistaken; The voices are not real. But it is not a matter of faith. They think they hear the voices and they are remembering what they hear. As soon as you are basing your beliefs on what you see, hear, measure, calculate etc... you have lost faith. As soon as you are willing to ignore evidence and believe things to be certain without sufficient evidence or proof to justify such belief then you have found faith.Please register or login to comment! It's totally free