So "faith" could be defined in this context as: the beliefs regarding claims about the gods and related topics, which are not known with certainty to be true. [...] I have removed the term "religion" from the above definition of "faith" to avoid any circularity. — Samuel Lacrampe
I'm not an expert on medieval philosophy (it's my weakest area actually) but I think the Thomist view is that faith (even blind faith), as the vehicle of revelation, is a valid source of knowledge to tell you what is true, and that is strictly speaking sufficient for purposes of salvation and such, but reason is there to deepen your understanding of why it is true, and in doing so grow closer to God and greater in spirit.But if faith is always blind faith, and you should not go on faith alone and should also use reason, then why use faith at all and not just always use reason instead? The Thomists are not that bad at logic. — Samuel Lacrampe
the intersection of the cultural and personal frames of experience, the distance between past expressions and the needs of the present moment, involve a desire to embrace a disproportion between explanation and action. — Valentinus
I should note that the definition of "faith" I'm using here is not "believing something without being absolutely certain in it", but rather "putting forth an empty 'because' as a reason to believe something". On a critical rationalist epistemology (like mine), everything is believed for insufficient reason, because there cannot be sufficient reason to believe anything, there can only be sufficient reasons to disbelieve things. So everyone is epistemically free to believe whatever they want, until someone can show that what they believe is false; and conversely, everyone is free to disagree with what you believe, until you can show that disagreement with you is categorically false. Holding such tentative beliefs is not "faith" in the sense I mean it. Rather, appealing to faith is telling someone else that what you believe is right and disagreeing with it is wrong just because (because your gut tells you so, or everyone knows it, or this infallible book or person says so). It's making an epistemic move that calls for a reason to back it up, without any reason to back it up. — Pfhorrest
I should note that the definition of "faith" I'm using here is not "believing something without being absolutely certain in it", but rather "putting forth an empty 'because' as a reason to believe something" ... Rather, appealing to faith is telling someone else that what you believe is right and disagreeing with it is wrong just because (because your gut tells you so, or everyone knows it, or this infallible book or person says so). It's making an epistemic move that calls for a reason to back it up, without any reason to back it up. — Pfhorrest
On a critical rationalist epistemology (like mine), everything is believed for insufficient reason, because there cannot be sufficient reason to believe anything, there can only be sufficient reasons to disbelieve things. So everyone is epistemically free to believe whatever they want, until someone can show that what they believe is false; and conversely, everyone is free to disagree with what you believe, until you can show that disagreement with you is categorically false. Holding such tentative beliefs is not "faith" in the sense I mean it. — Pfhorrest
Kant explored limitations of knowledge in COPR and Husserl tried to construct a new ‘scientific’ discipline that had not direct concern (although it certainly had meaningful concern) for ‘objects’ other than as eidetic (immediate) phenomenon — I like sushi
Substantive post worthy of a separate thread so it doesn't get lost in this tangle. — Amity
should note that the definition of "faith" I'm using here is not "believing something without being absolutely certain in it", but rather "putting forth an empty 'because' as a reason to believe something". — Pfhorrest
I think the Thomist view is that faith (even blind faith), as the vehicle of revelation, is a valid source of knowledge to tell you what is true — Pfhorrest
It was a simple dichotomy, for purposes of illustration, not argumentation. However, to complicate the issue further, let's say that, "an atheist thinks of God as 'only' a concept", while a Theist thinks of God as the 'referent' of the concept. So the question boils down to whether there is Content for the Concept.Hi. Perhaps you are oversimplifying atheism here. I'm an 'atheist,' but I also think God is a concept of central importance. I'd say that an atheist thinks of God as 'only' a concept. A theist might instead separate their concept of God from God itself. — jellyfish
This is indeed the abstract philosopher's God. But, as a hypothesis, it explains a lot about "entanglement" and the ubiquitous role of Information in the world. As a popular religion, it would be impractical, since it doesn't "scratch an itch" that most people of the world have always had : someone to give us unconditional love and to defend us from evil. Instead, it merely puts the ointment of theory on "itches" that philosophers have always had : ultimate "why" questions.Fair enough, but this looks like a philosopher's 'God.' It's a piece of sculpture. It scratches an itch that most people don't have. — jellyfish
You just immediately answered your question. We cannot help but believe something or another. And a critical rationalist epistemology says sure, go ahead and believe whatever, at least until it's shown to be false, and then move on to whatever else seems the next best alternative. (This is in contrast to a justificationist, classical rationalist, epistemology, which says "don't believe anything until it is conclusively proven", which critical rationalists like me think would necessarily entail believing nothing at all ever, because nothing can be conclusively proven from the ground up).But, why believe anything at all? I think it's quite impossible not to believe anything — Wayfarer
FWIW I'm not talking about Christianity specifically, at all.But you can't say that the Christian religion has an 'empty "because"'. — Wayfarer
You seem to be using "reason" here in a sense meaning "purpose". I disagree that rationalism deprives life of purpose, but that's besides the point, because we're not talking about reason as in purpose, we're talking about reason as in evidence.The very thing that the Christian faith provides, is reason, in the grandest possible sense - a reason for being, a reason for striving towards understanding, and a reason for believing. And conversely, one of the casualties of Enlightenment rationalism, is reason herself - not in the scientific sense of 'instrumental reason', but the sense that we have no reason to exist, that we're the accidental outcome of the collocation of atoms, to quote Russell. Enlightenment rationalism actually brackets out 'reason' in that larger sense, in favour of 'verifiability'. — Wayfarer
I think that's pretty right, but it's not so much a matter of 'telling' as of 'demonstrating'. Actually in all religious epistemologies, the question of warrant for belief is, or ought to be, of central importance. Obviously in any revealed religion, there is an acceptance that something has been revealed which would not otherwise be known; but again Enlightenment rationalism starts by saying, well let's sweep all the traditional accounts off the table, and start again with what can be demonstrated in the laboratory, that anyone can see and agree to. Then the 'burden of proof' is put on the believer, having first removed all much of what he or she would have considered evidence for their belief in the first place. — Wayfarer
So the question boils down to whether there is Content for the Concept. — Gnomon
In my view, there is no concrete humanoid person out there playing the role of God. No "teapot circling Mars". Instead, since the real material world ultimately consists of immaterial Information (e.g. mathematics), G*D is not just out-there in eternity-infinity, but in every particle of space-time. — Gnomon
This is indeed the abstract philosopher's God. But, as a hypothesis, it explains a lot about "entanglement" and the ubiquitous role of Information in the world. As a popular religion, it would be impractical, since it doesn't "scratch an itch" that most people of the world have always had : someone to give us unconditional love and to defend us from evil. Instead, it merely puts the ointment of theory on "itches" that philosophers have always had : ultimate "why" questions. — Gnomon
Well instead, woody, consider God is the ur-Placebo.
— 180 Proof
As palliative, sure. But if in some cases a palliative happens to be curative too, then it's not just palliative, is it. A problem, yes? — tim wood
A placebo that's "curative" is not a placebo, it's medicine — 180 Proof
they definitely count as evidence for a physicalist interpretation, or model, of the human brain-CNS (which is a survival - environmental perception-behaviour coordination - engine and only tangentally (if ever) a "truth engine") in my book. :wink: — 180 Proof
point of them, ... is to plainly suggest 'mind over matter'. The fact that they work at all is inconvenient for materialism. — Wayfarer
You seem to be using "reason" here in a sense meaning "purpose". I disagree that rationalism deprives life of purpose, but that's besides the point, because we're not talking about reason as in purpose, we're talking about reason as in evidence. — Pfhorrest
That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms... -all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.
When it comes to public knowledge, public claims asserted to other people as though everyone should agree with them, then the reasons (see above for disambiguation of that word) we give to those other people should be reasons available to them, which is why we appeal to what "anyone can see and agree to". Otherwise, we'd just be demanding that others take our word for it, on faith -- which is, I'm claiming, the defining characteristic of religion, and what distinguishes it from other forms of belief. — Pfhorrest
So why don't placebos work on people with Alzheimer's Disease? — Isaac
Don't know, but it's also not relevant to the point; it's the fact that they work at all which undermines the model of 'bottom-up' causality. — Wayfarer
Pay attention, Wayf! For tim wood's sake I've already moved on from placebo analogy to fetish analogy. Surely a rattle shaker like you has got some glossolalia to say now about me co-opting 'fetishes' as a prop for my materialist critique of (your) woo ... — 180 Proof
God: Is that which nothing greater can exist; where "greater" means the most "powerful" in the sense of abilities. — Samuel Lacrampe
I interpret your comment as saying that it is not a proper definition of god; is that right? Would you have a counterexample, in which the term "god" in the common language does not fit this definition? I would imagine that even for pantheistic religions, which belief is that all that exists is god, still fits under this definition.Ridding Anselm's notion of inconsistency is a work of ages... — Banno
Supposing your armchair is indeed the perfect armchair, it still does not fit the definition of god I have given, because it is not perfect in every way. "4" is the perfect answer to the question "what is 2+2?". This does not make it god either.in the meantime I can at least relax in my favourite armchair (or God, as I call it). The armchair than which no greater armchair can exist. — Isaac
Right back at you I'm afraid. Merely saying this doesn't make it so. There are many arguments that defend the objects of faith (I'm thinking particularly of the christian faith). The people doing so are called "apologetics", and they are still kicking to this day.Just because Tom Aquinas says it doesn't make it so. All of these arguments are easily deconstructed these days: probability and reason cannot prove the contents of faith. — uncanni
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