Not sure what a "religious fact" would be? Do you have an example? — Olivier5

No idea. I have no religious beliefs. But you do. So I am wondering on what basis you hold these. Or do you run two sets of books?

I have religious beliefs? That must be a misunderstanding.

Ok. I thought I read you say that. No worries.

?

Okay so we agree that a fact is an accurate observation, then?

Okay so we agree that a fact is an accurate observation, then? — Olivier5

I don't know. I'm not a philosopher.

If you have a stomach ache, I can't observe that but it is still a fact. A person's emotional state is not always observable.

That cockroach under your floorboards is pregnant.

A fact is a truth-maker for at least one truth-claim.

‘Facts are like ships in bottles, carefully constructed to seem as though no-one was there to build them’ - Jemena Carmeles, historian of science.

Actually the OP question is badly phrased. It should be ‘what is fact’. The question ‘what is a fact?’ has an illimitable number of answers.

I don't believe half of what that cockroach says.

If you have a stomach ache, I can't observe that but it is still a fact. A — Tom Storm

It's a fact for me, because I can feel my pain, but it's not a fact for you, because for all you know, I could be pretending.

It's a fact for me, because I can feel my pain, but it's not a fact for you, because for all you know, I could be pretending. — Olivier5

Indeed. And therein lies the problem. It's experiential not observational.

It's experiential not observational. — Tom Storm

What's an observation, if not an experience?

But point taken: a fact has to be accurate and in order to be widely accepted as such, to be 'a statement that is known or proved to be true,' it needs to be objectively or intersubjectively verifiable ie observable by several people.

Facts cannot turn out the be false. — Banno

I get that this is a sort of dictionary meaning, but there is an alternative usage that's roughly "to the best of our knowledge and with very high confidence". It's what Samuel Arbesman writes about in The Half-Life of Facts.

For instance, humans have 46 chromosomes, but it used to be widely believed that we have 48. "Widely believed" is the way most of us would say it, I guess, but it doesn't quite convey how firmly established this belief was. It's what all the textbooks said. It was considered settled science. Researchers who found only 46, while doing something else, assumed without question that they had screwed up somewhere. Doubting that humans have 48 chromosomes was akin to doubting the periodic table.

Now of course we know there are 46, so now we say it's a fact that there are 46. But is it impossible that we're wrong? Honestly hard for me to say. I'd like to think so because now we know a mistake is possible in this area, so perhaps we upped our game in 1955 when we finally got it right. But the point remains that scientists before 1955 had a similar level of confidence about 48.

And it turns out you can measure the turnover of facts, as Arbesman has done, along the lines of how many years does it take for half of what's published in a field to be overturned? He's found some pretty stable patterns there, that out on the high end, with medicine, it may be less than 10 years, while on the low end, with fundamental physics, it might be more like 40 or 50.

His book, by the way, was only okay. Not philosophically sophisticated, but some pretty interesting case studies, and an interesting way of looking at progress in science.

How do you know it's true? That's an account to be given, imo - although there may be different means for different facts. — tim wood

aaha, you asked the second question. :grin:

How do you know your address? Presumably you remember it. And so on. — Banno

:lol: No I don't remember it. I look for an envelope that has my address on it.

I get that this is a sort of dictionary meaning, but there is an alternative usage that's roughly "to the best of our knowledge and with very high confidence". — Srap Tasmaner

But isn't that a bad way to use the word fact?

But it can soon become quite complex, as when new evidence renders the proposition obsolete. Maybe a new fact comes about in which we'd have to conclude that the WWII ended in 1946 because of some technicality concerning some document arises. — Manuel

Oh no, that could not be because I was born a little over 9 months after the end of the war and my birth certificate says that year was 1946. However, I read something about when we figured out the year of Jesus's birth and the beginning of our calendar, that was 4 years off the actual date. So when we were figuring with the Mayan calendar the beginning of the new age we could not be sure of the correct date for that moment of transition. For reasons like this, I don't think we should say science is truth and assume there is no doubt that what believe is true. My very old logic book, explains we should never be too sure of what we think we know, and in fact. Unlike religious beliefs, in science, there are rules for determining facts and a belief can be changed with new information. The difference is religion is mythology and science is validated facts.

I like to address everyone who addresses me, but I might look like an egomaniac if I do that with so many replies so I am condensing. Some of you got, I am getting at the problem of religious conflicts, and the democratic belief that reasoning is the way to resolve conflicts. We do not want religious wars and we do not want people treated badly for religious reasons, so when it comes to knowing God's truth, shouldn't we pay attention to what is a fact and what is not a fact?

My preacher nephew is glad when archeologists prove an event in the bible did happen, but he was not at all happy when a terribly bad time was revealed as a climate-caused event. I thought he would be happy about that proof, but no, he was mad because his belief system demands such things be the act of God, not nature. Okay, but he is glad when the ruins of a building prove an event in the bible happened. However, then I must point out, even though archeologists have evidence of Troy that does not prove the gods are real.

Help me on this. If we are going to make laws that affect everyone, and put people in penitentiaries to save their souls, and go to war because that is the will of God, shouldn't we have really good grounds for what we believe?

In science, 'fact' can only mean 'confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent. — T Clark

Yes, yes, and yes. How can anyone today believe a god walked in a garden with a man and a woman and this is the beginning of our history? If that story is accepted as factual, isn't there a problem with our thinking? Like before scientific thinking why wouldn't everyone believe that story? There was not a method for thinking that would clarify the story as a myth, not a fact. Democracy is about reasoning and that is only possible when our minds are prepared to think independently and scientifically, right?

Being true is what makes a statement a fact, assented to or not. — Banno

Eh?

As you note, a fact is a statement that is true. Any definition of "fact" has to take into account that what we believe is a fact may turn out not to be true when we have more information. — T Clark

So the true is tentative? And, "turns out not to be true" means something else is true? It becomes a hall of mirrors.

It would appear that facts are like the walls in a Japanese house, made of paper and functioning as walls only because the Japanese are discreet and well-behaved, except when they're not. Seeming, then, that there is no such thing as a fact but agreement make it so. True, on the other hand, is applicable to those ideas that are always universally and necessarily so. Under the usual rues of arithmetic, then, it is true that 2+2=4. It's a useful distinction to make, and as noted above, supported by the etymology.

Fact comes from Latin factum, neuter past participle of facere ‘do’. The original sense was ‘an act’, something done. Something you can't change, by implication, because it belongs to the past.

So originally, a fact is an act. How did it come to mean 'a true statement' or 'an accurate observation'? This semantic transition happened in the 17th century, precisely when empiricism established itself as one of the pillars of modern science. (The other pillar being rationalism) — Olivier5

But changes in usage are inexorable, usually to the side of increasing ignorance. Probably because ignorance is the easier way.

Facts cannot turn out the be false. — Banno

Determinism

the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. Some philosophers have taken determinism to imply that individual human beings have no free will and cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. — Oxford languages

But quantum physics has proven uncertainty. I think that is a fact that makes a previously accepted fact wrong.

What we believe here has social, religious, legal, and political ramifications. Those nations that centered on determinism were conservative and that hindered all forms of progress. I think the science and the results of the different beliefs prove we can determine our own future. However, all our decisions need to be based on the best reasoning possible because the human will has created a man-made reality and not all this is good.

How can anyone today believe — Athena

Most simply, because beliefs can serve purposes that facts and truth do not. To my way of thinking, a person gets a pass on his or her beliefs because they're a kind of private property. Of course, as you note, the problems come when believers want to impose on others. And this not confined to religion. It's on display in a nearby thread on abortion. And politics is riddled with it.

Here's a variety of it in action.
"I'm always right"
"I believe X."
"X is therefore a fact."
"X is therefore true."
"Therefore pay me."

A powerful argument, with so much wrong with it that it is hard to refute, and the Kelly-Annes of the world thrive feeding on it.

But changes in usage are inexorable, usually to the side of increasing ignorance. Probably because ignorance is the easier way. — tim wood

I have to stress- the word ignorance means to ignore something. I do not think people intentionally ignore facts that mean we will survive or we won't. We will go to war, or we will not. We will allow scientific exploration of cells and ending birth defects or we will not. However, they may not have the thinking skills to do the required thinking. Learning how to think scientifically is a learned thinking ability not one that comes naturally just because we have a brain.

We can not change the way people in Afghanistan live without changing how they are taught to think. Let us be very clear about this- Our concern needs to be withhow people learn to think, not what they learn to think.

Most simply, because beliefs can serve purposes that facts and truth do not. To my way of thinking, a person gets a pass on his or her beliefs because they're a kind of private property. Of course, as you note, the problems come when believers want to impose on others. And this not confined to religion. It's on display in a nearby thread on abortion. And politics is riddled with it.

Here's a variety of it in action.
"I'm always right"
"I believe X."
"X is therefore a fact."
"X is therefore true."
"Therefore pay me."

A powerful argument, with so much wrong with it that it is hard to refute, and the Kelly-Annes of the world thrive feeding on in it. — tim wood

THAT IS EXACTLY WHY I STARTED THIS THREAD. THANK YOU :love:

How can anyone today believe a god walked in a garden with a man and a woman and this is the beginning of our history? If that story is accepted as factual, isn't there a problem with our thinking? Like before scientific thinking why wouldn't everyone believe that story? There was not a method for thinking that would clarify the story as a myth, not a fact. Democracy is about reasoning and that is only possible when our minds are prepared to think independently and scientifically, right? — Athena

The sentiment is nice, but thinking along these lines is muddled. All we have is extent stuff - the eternally present now. What we have is theories about how things were and how things will be based upon what is now. Some people are OK with patterns not holding and some people insist that there are “laws” out there that make things in the past behave like things in the present or such that things in the present give an indication of what happened in the past or will in the future. Asking why/how people believe what they believe (if it is true that the world revolves around the sun, why wouldn’t everyone 10,000 years ago have believed that?) sounds a bit like a reasonable challenge to the “truth” of some claim, but people can be (and are) wrong about big and little things.

The religious folk you are likely talking about are not engaged in arguments about religious belief from extent stuff as interpreted through their paradigm, but about personal revelation that made them believe some lot of stuff is/was “true.” Different groups have some modifications to this general line of thinking, but ultimately what is grounding their paradigm is of a different sort than the stuff that grounds a good theory about the fate of the mammoth.

Descriptions of the world and how it functions (the sorts of things that presumably make up the corpus of what you call scientific thinking) do not address the existential questions that people seem to be discussing when talking about why things should be done (like living or dying). Imagination (whether based in current states of affairs or otherwise) is what permits people to envision the past and work towards the future, both of which are counterfactuals.

A functioning democracy is about functioning, not about adherence to some ideology or another. If a functioning democracy is one that allows for relatively peaceful (i.e. not subject to group violence) existence, then the measure is the extent to which it does that, not how that peace is achieved.

I have to stress- the word ignorance means to ignore something. — Athena

Citation, please. I can't find that.
This just one entry;
"ignorance (n.)
1200, "lack of wisdom or knowledge," from Old French ignorance (12c.), from Latin ignorantia "want of knowledge"

To ignore is an action. It appears that ignorance is at best a passion, or unawareness. But I agree that an ignorant person can indeed ignore.

A functioning democracy is about functioning, not about adherence to some ideology or another. If a functioning democracy is one that allows for relatively peaceful (i.e. not subject to group violence) existence, then the measure is the extent to which it does that, not how that peace is achieved. — Ennui Elucidator

Almost an excellent expression. But with a flaw that prevents its passing. North Korea, near as I can tell, functions reasonably peacefully, is "relatively peaceful." Democracy?

Both a boat and goose float, yet one is not the other. Democracy is not the only form of government that can lead to peace.


Also, I was not claiming that peace is the measure of the functioning government, but that it is an example of a measure that one can use to make a judgment. This has philosophical implications, but was made in a political context - participants in a democracy need not make everyone agree about everything unless that is one of the goals of democracy.

:100:
With the addendum that democracy is about more than just being peaceful.

But isn't that a bad way to use the word fact? — Yohan

It isn't obviously something you have a choice about. Right now, you and I both believe some things are Facts, with a capital F, that will turn out to have been facts, with a small F.

Just consider the insistence of neuroscientists that your memories are reconstructions, practically confabulations. There are things you believe about your own life, your own experiences, that are not true. You remember lending Banno a book he never returned, but it was actually me you lent it to. You remember your mom wearing a blue dress at your graduation, but it was green, you're thinking of the blue dress she bought for your brother's wedding. You don't know which of your own memories are facts. How many times have you gotten a quote from a book or a movie just slightly, or a lot more than slightly, wrong?

In that very paragraph, I use "true", "actually", "know" and even "was" to make the point. We have no other vocabulary for saying that we cannot know our beliefs to be true.

And no, we cannot use "It used to be a fact that ..." to mean "We all used to believe with high confidence that ..." (On the implicature accompanying "used to", there's Mitch Hedberg: "I used to do drugs. I still do but I used to too.")

There are a lot of quirks to "fact" and "fact that" I guess we could get into.

I wasn't speaking about science when I gave my example about WWII, so I'm not sure I follow what you're saying in this part. It wasn't a scientific fact, but a historical one.

Faith is faith because it is based on belief alone, with little to no attention to facts. Science and religion in this sense are not compatible when describing the same situations. Sure, science is not sure proof, but nothing is. It's just that science is the best tool we have for ascertaining facts about the world.

Absent good evidence, we need good reasons to belief so and so. Philosophy can help us here. But if you want to speak about facts and how they relate to religion, I don't think one will get very far.