Faith leaping! A work out for us all?

lugha

I have a question relating to faith which perhaps someone might offer an opinion on (apologies if this has been raised elsewhere).
I am a godless creature and take a relatively simple stance in refuting the arguments of those who believe, namely the evidential one. They have no evidence to substantiate their view of the origins of the universe and indeed in some cases ala Bart Simpson are, well, proud of this, as is evident by the Christian regard of faith as being a virtue. Paradoxically, they rejoice in miraculous occurrences and make claims for the efficacy of praying (would not any instance of divine intercession constitute a miracle??) but that's another matter.
Thus my refutation of a believer's postulating of a God is simple. There is no evidence, and evidence is a natural demand we all make (and not just scientists as is sometimes suggested here) when presented with new knowledge. We want to see this new knowledge substantiated, or perhaps more often, we want to be convinced that it can be substantiated by those whom we can subsequently trust to inform us, i.e. the scientific community. So believers are compelled to adapt a different paradigm, that of faith, which circumvents the need for evidence. I, and many other atheists presumably, simply reject this out of hand.
But here is my problem. To make sense of my world I have to engage in a little bit of faith leaping and self delusion myself! I assert (with no evidence) that I am not the sole conscious entity that exists. I deem the people that play a part in my life to be unquestionably real despite the fact that I cannot think of any evidence that might definitively resolve this matter one way or the other. Also, I assert that the emotions I experience, love in particular, are real and are not reducible to complex chemical reactions in my brain. This latter view I would suggest involves a considerable element of denial. And there may be other fractures in the foundations on which I have built a tolerable interpretation of my world. The upshot of all of this is that I feel I need in some to modulate or qualify or somehow adjust my dismissal of the faith paradigm by believers. If someone argues that they must postulate without proof that there is a God for their existence to have meaning then how credible is it for me to dismiss such a view when I too must do some postulating to make sense of my own world?

CerebralCortex

I'm not quite sure what postulating you're actually doing?

Zillah

I work on the principle that the following things are very different:
- What I know.
- What I believe.
- What I will behave as if.

Some examples:
- I know there is such a thing as existence, be it in my head or an objective reality.
- I believe there is no God.
- I will behave as if morality matters.

So, for example, you seem to behave as if love is special. That's cool. Doesn't mean you really believe it is, nor that you claim to know it is.

As for faith, I suggest that word be retained for use only when the logical leap goes beyond a certain scale of reasonableness or practicality. From a practicality point of view everyone believes or acts as if there is an objective universe. From a reasonableness point of view most people do not believe their head will explode at any given second. Rational people tend to not believe claims as to the undetectable interference in our reality by an omnipotent alpha male. To describe such positions as "faith" reduces the word faith to meaninglessness; what word shall we use to describe God worshipping transfusion denying homo-beating psychopathy then?

Yes, rational positions such as that of an objective universe or atheism require logical leaps, but they are to faith as a pebble is to a planet.

Zillah

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I'm not quite sure what postulating you're actually doing?

He's essentially saying that we all make leaps of logic without concrete proof so perhaps we're not so entitled to condemn religious faith.

"Nuts to that!" I said.

CerebralCortex

Oh I completely agree. I think we atheists are entitled to condemn religious faith because for one we don't claim to understand the nature of existence and two we don't impose that misinterpretation as truth.

lugha

Zillah wrote: »

As for faith, I suggest that word be retained for use only when the logical leap goes beyond a certain scale of reasonableness or practicality.

Well that begs an obvious question as to what constitutes reasonableness and whose call is it to answer this question. Many believers proclaim themselves utterly convinced of their views and see nothing unreasonable about them. In any case I am not concerned with the semantics or usage of the word faith and of course believers do go too far down the road of postulating arbitrary axioms of reality. But my concern is that I might be on the same road at all. I wonder if I am like Joe Soap who rants at tax evading high earners but happily pays his window cleaner cash. Yes there is an order of difference but Joe cannot quite say "it is wrong to engage in or facilitate tax evasion" without some measure of qualification. Similarly, I am not sure if I can baldly say to a believer "you must not make assertions without evidence".

Zillah wrote: »

So, for example, you seem to behave as if love is special. That's cool. Doesn't mean you really believe it is, nor that you claim to know it is.

On the contrary I am inclined to believe it isn't and with sufficient research by neurologists and psychologists and perhaps some other ologists I might one day upgrade that belief status to knowledge status. But until then and even after I will willfully ignore such an unpalatable truth. Which brings me back to my original point. How can I appeal to believers to look to science for answers if I exercise a degree of selectiveness myself?

Zillah

lugha wrote: »

Well that begs an obvious question as to what constitutes reasonableness and whose call is it to answer this question. Many believers proclaim themselves utterly convinced of their views and see nothing unreasonable about them. In any case I am not concerned with the semantics or usage of the word faith and of course believers do go too far down the road of postulating arbitrary axioms of reality. But my concern is that I might be on the same road at all. I wonder if I am like Joe Soap who rants at tax evading high earners but happily pays his window cleaner cash. Yes there is an order of difference but Joe cannot quite say "it is wrong to engage in or facilitate tax evasion" without some measure of qualification. Similarly, I am not sure if I can baldly say to a believer "you must not make assertions without evidence".

Your tax evasion metaphor is flawed because it comes loaded with the assumption that any steps of logic are bad. I would use the metaphor of food. Everyone needs some, it's healthy and appropriate and quite necessary for our continued survival. But there are some people who gorge themselves and become obese.

If a doctor says to a fat person "It would be wise for you to stop gorging yourself" the patient won't accost him while he's eating his ham sandwich screaming "hypocrite!"

I view assumptions/logic steps in much the same light.

On the contrary I am inclined to believe it isn't and with sufficient research by neurologists and psychologists and perhaps some other ologists I might one day upgrade that belief status to knowledge status.

First of all, let's define what we mean by special? You believe that love is somehow magical?

But until then and even after I will willfully ignore such an unpalatable truth.

If you are willfully ignoring something you suspect is true because you don't like it then you are indeed not in a position to criticise religious believers. You're not obese but you're definitely putting away too many pies.

Which brings me back to my original point. How can I appeal to believers to look to science for answers if I exercise a degree of selectiveness myself?

There's little that will appeal to believers. They have their reasons for believing and they're rarely grounded in any sort of logic or rationality. I've turned a few fence sitters with the whole "Hey Science is the reason we can, y'know, fly into space and cure diseases and make mobile phones go. Priests don't do that stuff" argument. I've also gotten a good number of "Catholics" to realise they're not Catholics and often not even Christians through pure ridicule of the Bible and their teachings.

And, uh, your main concern about being hypocritical would be easily solved by ceasing to be a hypocrite re: "love".

lugha

Zillah wrote: »

Your tax evasion metaphor is flawed because it comes loaded with the assumption that any steps of logic are bad. I would use the metaphor of food. Everyone needs some, it's healthy and appropriate and quite necessary for our continued survival.

Steps of logic, far from being bad are the ideal. It is the missing steps or the logical gaps that are bad. I assume this is what you mean? But I cannot accept your food analogy. Too little or too much food is undesirable. Some leaps of logic may be necessary but I cannot see how any are desirable.

Zillah wrote: »

If you are willfully ignoring something you suspect is true because you don't like it then you are indeed not in a position to criticise religious believers.

I say me but of course I mean you! And everybody else. We all built a model of the world where we elevate our emotional experiences love, joy, wonder, fear etc. to be more than the chemical reactions that they undoubtedly are. And we are a bit more subtle that my willful ignorance reference would suggest. Of course I and many others would accept the best scientific explanation of any phenomena but in the case of emotions, I think we might at best acknowledge the truth intellectually but not actually embrace it. Much as we know a movie or a book is not real but we nevertheless suspend reality, albeit temporarily. We all (implicitly) assert axioms which enable us to make sense of our existence. Believers might argue that they need to assert one additional axiom to make sense of theirs. We can argue that such an axiom is at best unnecessary, but any of us who interpret out emotional experiences in the conventional way and who assert that we are not the sole conscious entity cannot make a case for no axioms at all. I guess you would put all of this in your "I behave as if" category. But isn't this the same place believers would put their view that there is a God?

Zillah

lugha wrote: »

Steps of logic, far from being bad are the ideal. It is the missing steps or the logical gaps that are bad. I assume this is what you mean? But I cannot accept your food analogy. Too little or too much food is undesirable. Some leaps of logic may be necessary but I cannot see how any are desirable.

You're making a fairly arbitrary division between steps and leaps. Every step in a logical chain of thought requires a little bit of what you're referring to as faith. Some steps are bigger than others. Some steps are so large as to be laughable, ie, The Universe was created and maintained by an omnipotent entity outside space, time and causality. I reserve the use of the word faith for these very large jumps of logic, otherwise the word becomes meaningless.

I say me but of course I mean you! And everybody else. We all built a model of the world where we elevate our emotional experiences love, joy, wonder, fear etc. to be more than the chemical reactions that they undoubtedly are. And we are a bit more subtle that my willful ignorance reference would suggest. Of course I and many others would accept the best scientific explanation of any phenomena but in the case of emotions, I think we might at best acknowledge the truth intellectually but not actually embrace it.

You seem to have some strange notions that you're assuming are universal. I do not ascribe any special status to my feelings. I know they are a result of electro chemical processes in my brain. I don't think they're magic, or come from a soul. They're very important to me, because I feel them, but that doesn't mean I believe anything special is going on. Once again, in what way do you think your feelings are special?

Much as we know a movie or a book is not real but we nevertheless suspend reality, albeit temporarily. We all (implicitly) assert axioms which enable us to make sense of our existence. Believers might argue that they need to assert one additional axiom to make sense of theirs. We can argue that such an axiom is at best unnecessary, but any of us who interpret out emotional experiences in the conventional way and who assert that we are not the sole conscious entity cannot make a case for no axioms at all. I guess you would put all of this in your "I behave as if" category. But isn't this the same place believers would put their view that there is a God?

You seem to be essentially arguing that reality is unknowable and therefore anything and everything we make up is valid. Which is, to say the least, redundant thinking. It might work as a philosophical word game but I work from a naturalist mentality so forgive me if I find blatant manufacturing of truth to be beneath my consideration. Occam's Razor has shown itself to be worth our consideration, however.