Thanks. There's a lot wrapped up in this notion of faith that has been left unsaid.

I just told you why: because your whole approach to this topic is absurd and bigoted. That's why you're being insulted. — Leontiskos

The problem is that you're just demonstrating that many Christians can't argue in good faith - they have to belittle and cajole and bully when challenged.

At least, I would think this if I were bigoted against Christians. :wink:

What I actually think is that you are trying the best you can to engage with this and with a view you don't or can't accept and this is what it looks like. As it happens, I'm trying the best I can to think this through as well.

So what are the take home messages here, apart from, 'Never start a land war in Asia?"

'Never start a land war in Asia?" — Tom Storm

:lol:

Did you take a look at the SEP article on Faith? Even a quick glance will show that the issue is far from settled, especially amongst the believers.

If one has a mental set such that one is convinced that one must hold to a specified belief no matter what, then of corse on cannot enter into a discussion on those issues "in good faith", as you said. That is, when one's back is against the wall, one cannot back down, and so must resort to insult and affront.

So what you have done here is not only to argue against the rationality of faith, but to demonstrate it by eliciting the responses above. This was never an open discussion, at least for some participants.

Consider this in relation to the recent chats hereabouts concerning liberalism.

Thoughts?

Did you take a look at the SEP article on Faith? Even a quick glance will show that the issue is far from settled, especially amongst the believers. — Banno

Yes, this is instructive. And corresponds to the fact that among my Christian friends there is a range of views about what faith is and whether people really have faith and whether it is reliable. My views are also formed by talking to Christians.

So what you have done here is not only to argue against the rationality of faith, but to demonstrate it by eliciting the responses above. This was never an open discussion, at least for some participants.

Consider this in relation to the recent chats hereabouts concerning liberalism.

Thoughts? — Banno

Indeed. I am quite interested in dogma and it seems particularly prevalent in religion and politics.

My friend, a Catholic priest called John, has often said (paraphrasing Dr Johnson, I think) that "Faith is the last bastion of the scoundrel.' He has spend decades fighting Catholic bulldogs on such views as, "I have it on faith that gays will burn in hell."

I probably should be clear that I would still count faith as a virtue. Sometimes we must make a leap. Or commitment to fragile, finite things — like love, freedom, or democratic life — knowing they can fail. We might still praise faith when it means trusting, hoping, or committing in uncertainty — not when it means believing without evidence about factual matters.

Anti-religious bigots are a dime a dozen. I am happy to oppose them on occasion. Your whole approach here is, "Religious faith is irrational. Prove me wrong." I almost never agree to those sorts of terms, given the question-begging nature of the challenge. That's why I pointed out the unseriousness of your a priori stance. So I guess you can just get back to me when you find a more objective source than Bertrand Russell, or when you at least have the intellectual seriousness to look for some objective sources.

Imagine if we treated anti-religious bigotry the same way we treat anti-homosexual bigotry? Banno would have been banned years ago.

I don't think 2.4 billion people are believing things without evidence. And we'd need to include other religions like 1.9 billion Muslims and 1.2 billion Hindus too. — Tom Storm

This is another example of your unseriousness. On the pejorative definition of faith_ath, anyone who believes something without evidence must be engaged in faith. This is silly, lexically speaking. On this view, for example, someone who has been hypnotized to believe something is engaged in faith; someone who appeals to their instincts is engaged in faith; and the victims of "inception" are also engaged in faith. This is all linguistic nonsense, of course. More generally, "faith" becomes a synonym for "stupidity," and the word loses all unique lexical value. It's a fancy form of name-calling which also bastardizes natural language.

---

My ethics professor had his doctorate in linguistics, not philosophy. At the time I found that odd, but I no longer do. Those who are careful with language are good philosophers, and those who are careless with language are bad philosophers. This is why those who study linguistics or philology are so often better philosophers than those who study philosophy. Those who do not respect language, and bend it to their whims, also tend towards sophistry and a kind of intellectual unseriousness and/or dishonesty.

I probably should be clear that I would still count faith as a virtue. Sometimes we must make a leap. Or commitment to fragile, finite things — like love, freedom, or democratic life — knowing they can fail. We might still praise faith when it means trusting, hoping, or committing in uncertainty — not when it means believing without evidence about factual matters. — Banno

Now that's a good point and I can't find anything to disagree with.

Religious traditions themselves emphasise believing without seeing. For example, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe" — John 20:29. So pointing to the irrational structure of faith is not ignorance, but honest engagement with what religion itself sometimes claims.

The analysis over the last few pages shows that there is more involved in faith than just belief despite the evidence. But belief despite the evidence is a part of faith. Calling faith "irrational" isn't automatically an insult, since rational belief is belief proportioned to evidence. If a belief is maintained without sufficient evidence, there's perhaps little of concern. If a belief is maintained when the evidence indicates it is incorrect, then that’s an issue.

Another part of this might be a difference in the level of uncertainty with which one is comfortable. I'm happy to leave things undecided, an attribute that might well be common to agnostics. But I suppose if uncertainty causes discomfort, believing without evidence would be an aid to digestion.

It's curious that you keep making arguments against positions I do not hold.

It seems you are perhaps bigoted against atheists, perceiving them all as monstrous amalgamations of the worst traits of Dawkins and Hitchens.

Religious faith is irrational. Prove me wrong." — Leontiskos

I haven’t argued that, it’s far too totalising. I would say that many religious believers hold irrational beliefs, but so do many political adherents.

So I guess you can just get back to me when you find a more objective source than Bertrand Russell, or when you at least have the intellectual seriousness to look for some objective sources. — Leontiskos

I’m not seeking authority figures to follow; I leave that to zealots and fundamentalists.

On the pejorative definition of faith, anyone who believes something without evidence must be engaged in faith. — Leontiskos

That would be a bad argument. Try these. If you take it on faith that black people are inferior to white people, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that women are inferior to men, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that LGBTQ+ individuals are morally corrupt, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that people of another religion are damned, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that any group is inherently superior or inferior without evidence, you are holding an irrational belief. All of these views I regularly hear from theists.

Calling faith "irrational" isn't automatically an insult, since rational belief is belief proportioned to evidence. — Banno

I wouldn’t always call faith itself irrational, (and maybe my wording is lacking precision) but it’s often used to justify many of the irrational ideas listed above. I’ve spoken with numerous Muslims and Christians over the years who, when unable to find sound reasons for their beliefs (which are often bigotries), simply appeal to ‘faith.’

Are all expressions of faith wonky in precisely this way? I would think not. But it seems clear to me that faith can have many problematic uses.

it’s often used to justify many of the irrational ideas listed above. — Tom Storm

Yep. The sort of immorality spoken of earlier in this thread and elsewhere, exemplified by the Binding of Issac, is a case in point - where a blatantly wicked act is excused on grounds of faith.

Leon has put on the same performance previously, directed at myself, and at others. In the end, it's sad.

It seems you are perhaps bigoted against atheists, perceiving them all as monstrous amalgamations of the worst traits of Dawkins and Hitchens. — Tom Storm

Have I claimed that the central act of atheism is a form of irrationality? Of course not. You are reaching.

I would say that many religious believers hold irrational beliefs, but so do many political adherents. — Tom Storm

What does that have to do with anything? It has no logical bearing on the point I made.

I’m not seeking authority figures to follow; I leave that to zealots and fundamentalists. — Tom Storm

You have avoided objective arguments for the meaning of "faith" like the plague. That's not intellectually honest.

That would be a bad argument. — Tom Storm

That's how definitions work. If you define faith as belief without evidence then instances of belief without evidence are faith. I'm not sure how to make this any easier for you.

I wouldn’t always call faith itself irrational, — Tom Storm

So what do we mean with "irrational", here?

I can see three related but distinct meanings:

(a) If you thought about it rationally, you'd come to a different conclusion.
(b) Rational thought cannot help here; the subject matter is meaningfully decided in different ways
(c) Rational thought isn't involved in the genesis of the belief

For example, I think, if a Christian fideist would use the word "irrational", they might appeal to (b) above.

Thoughts?

I was simply asking that we consider evidence in regard to the difference between faith and belief. — Tom Storm

I took a glance at the SEP entry on the epistemology of religion. I haven't read far, but it certainly opens with a discussion of the relevance of evidence to religious faith:

Evidentialism implies that full religious belief is justified only if there is conclusive evidence for it. It follows that if the arguments for there being a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified in having a full belief that there is a God. And the same holds for other religious beliefs, such as the belief that God is not just good in a utilitarian fashion but loving, or the belief that there is an afterlife. Likewise it would be unjustified to believe even with less than full confidence that, say, Krishna is divine or that Mohammed is the last and most authoritative of the prophets, unless a good case can be made for these claims from the evidence.

Evidentialism, then, sets rather high standards for justification, standards that the majority do not, it would seem, meet when it comes to religious beliefs, where many rely on “faith”, which is more like the forecaster’s hunch about the weather than the argument from past climate records. Many others take some body of scripture, such as the Bible or the Koran as of special authority, contrary to the evidentialist treatment of these as just like any other books making various claims. Are these standards too high?

I wouldn’t always call faith itself irrational,
— Tom Storm

So what do we mean with "irrational", here? — Dawnstorm

As per my examples.

Try these. If you take it on faith that black people are inferior to white people, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that women are inferior to men, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that LGBTQ+ individuals are morally corrupt, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that people of another religion are damned, you are holding an irrational belief. If you take it on faith that any group is inherently superior or inferior without evidence, you are holding an irrational belief. All of these views I regularly hear from theists. — Tom Storm

For example, I think, if a Christian fideist would use the word "irrational", they might appeal to (b) above. — Dawnstorm

Well it would depend how it's being used.



Thanks, this discussion has gone all over the shop. My original problem with faith was those who use the word to describe a reasonable confidence that a plane will fly when we have empirical grounds not to doubt this.

But I don't think there's anything I need to add to this one for now.

Let’s see what Wittgenstein has to say about reason and religious faith.

239. I believe that every human being has two human parents; but Catholics believe that Jesus only had a human mother. And other people might believe that there are human beings with no parents, and give no credence to all the contrary evidence. Catholics believe as well that in certain circumstances a wafer completely changes its nature, and at the same time that all evidence proves
the contrary. And so if Moore said "I know that this is wine and not blood", Catholics would contradict him. (On Certainty)

 In a religious discourse we use such expressions as: “I believe that so and so will happen,” and use them differently to the way in which we use them in science. Although, there is a great temptation to think we do. Because we do talk of evidence, and do talk of evidence by experience.

Father O’Hara is one of those people who make it a question of science. Here we have people who treat this evidence in a different way. They base things on evidence which taken in one way would seem exceedingly flimsy. They base enormous things on this evidence. Am I to say they are unreasonable? I wouldn’t call them unreasonable. I would say, they are certainly not reasonable, that’s obvious. “Unreasonable’ implies, with everyone, rebuke. I want to say: they don’t treat this as a matter of reasonability. Anyone who reads the Epistles will find it said: not only that it is not reasonable, but that it is folly. Not only is it not reasonable, but it doesn’t pretend to be. What seems to me ludicrous about O’Hara is his making it appear to be reasonable.

We come to an island and we find beliefs there, and certain beliefs we are inclined to call religious. They have sentences, and there are also religious statements. These statements would not just differ in respect to what they
are about. Entirely different connections would make them into religious beliefs, and there can easily be imagined transitions where we wouldn’t know for our life whether to call them religious beliefs or scientific beliefs. You may say they reason wrongly. In certain cases you would say they reason wrongly, meaning they contradict us. In other cases you would say they don’t reason at all, or “It’s an entirely different kind of reasoning.” The first, you would say in the case in which they reason in a similar way to us, and make something corresponding to our blunders, Whether a thing is a blunder or not—it is a blunder in a particular system. Just as something is a blunder in a particular game and not in another. You could also say that where we are reasonable, they are not reasonable—meaning they don’t use ‘reason’ here.

I would definitely call O’Hara unreasonable. I would say, if
this is religious belief, then it’s all superstition. But I would ridicule it, not by saying it is based on insufficient evidence. I would say: here is a man who is cheating himself. You can say: this man is ridiculous because he believes, and bases it on weak reasons. (Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief)

- That's actually a much more serious appraisal than anything Tom Storm has attempted in this thread, and so it is at least a step in the right direction.

Nevertheless, Wittgenstein is a lousy linguist, usually pulling things out of thin air. Pieper is an example of someone who is much more attentive to natural language.

1) is faith an emotion or a thought? What if it is neither — Gregory

A thought.

The most important, the most consequential, is faith in yourself. Believing that you can do it - whatever it is.

Interesting excerpt, thanks.

239. I believe that every human being has two human parents; but Catholics believe that Jesus only had a human mother. And other people might believe that there are human beings with no parents, and give no credence to all the contrary evidence. Catholics believe as well that in certain circumstances a wafer completely changes its nature, and at the same time that all evidence proves
the contrary. And so if Moore said "I know that this is wine and not blood", Catholics would contradict him. (On Certainty)

Yep. Here's 240:

240. What is the belief that all human beings have parents based on? On experience. And how can I base this sure belief on my experience? Well, I base it not only on the fact that I have known the parents of certain people but on everything that I have learnt about the sexual life of human beings and their anatomy and physiology: also on what I have heard and seen of animals. But then is that really a proof?

241. Isn't this an hypothesis, which, as I believe, is again and again completely confirmed? — On Certainty

Faith, again, is epitomised by belief continuing when the other things you know and the have heard and seen show your belief to be wrong. It's when the belief is challenged that the faithful continue in that belief.

(addenda: This is where things held on faith differ from basic or hinge beliefs. A hinge is consistent with one's other beliefs. )

Father O’Hara

Father O'Hara was a priest who participated in a Symposium on Science and Religion in 1930, who apparently argued for Catholic Doctrine on scientific grounds - that is, that science shows certain Catholic teachings to be physically provable. This Wittgenstein characterised as "superstitious", an odd choice of wording. I gather he is thinking of the "reasoning" behind, say, accepting that a horseshoe brings good luck, as one has not had bad luck since hanging it on the wall - a combination of confirmation bias and poor sampling. The reasons for the belief are misguided. For Wittgenstein, this source of belief seems to have lacked sincerity.

This is contrasted with the "Lev", who believes quite sincerely, and regardless of what occurs. Here, arguably, Wittgenstein understood the belief of the Lev to be incommensurable to those of an Oxford Scholar, that there were few if any grounds on which one might claim that a conversation between Lev and Philosopher shared some common ground.

This again brings out the issue of the commensurability of language games, no small issue. My own view follows Davidson here, that we must always have sufficient common ground for some degree of commensurability, in order to understand each other at all.

But this is a whole other area.

There's a good read at Wittgenstein on the Gulf Between Believers and Non-Believers

then this belief is mixed up with trust in an external authority and thusly is faith-based — Bob Ross

See, you're doing it again. If it is mixed up with trust in authority it may be somewhat faith-based., whereas a belief which is entirely following an authority with no evidence to support such following is simply faith-based. Your thinking on this lacks nuance.

See, you're doing it again. If it is mixed up with trust in authority it may be somewhat faith-based., whereas a belief which is entirely following an authority with no evidence to support such following is simply faith-based. — Janus

This is real argument, which is great. This is what this thread needs much more of.

Much of what we call our knowledge consists in beliefs which are culturally accepted as facts so there is an element of faith of course. The assumption is that if had the time we could check the sources of such facts ourselves, that we have good reason to accept the findings and observations of experts, of scientists and scholars, and thus have good reason to believe in their truth. So there is also reasoning to the most plausible conclusion in play and such knowledge is not merely faith-based.

In matters where there is no possibility of seeing for oneself the beliefs are entirely faith-based. — Janus

I don't think this is linguistically correct, though.

You give two separate conditions:

1. The belief that "if we had the time we could [directly verify the claim]."
2. The possibility of seeing for oneself.

You are basically claiming that if (1) or (2) are present then less faith or belief is involved. There is no real problem with any of this, philosophically or logically. But there is also nothing necessary about it, philosophically or logically. Linguistically an act of faith or belief does not exclude (1) or (2), nor does either condition "water down" the faith-component of some assent.

Suppose you stop at a gas station to ask for directions to the beach. The cashier gives you directions, you believe her, and you get back into your car to drive to the beach.

But now consider two possibilities, both premised on the fact that there were local maps available for sale in the gas station:

A. You do not notice the maps for sale
B. You do notice the maps for sale.

According to your thesis, even if you do not buy or consult a map, your assent to the cashier's directions is still less faith-based on (B) than on (A). This is because on (B) conditions (1) and (2) are true.

But I don't think that's actually correct. When you get back into the car and use the cashier's directions to drive to the beach, your act is faith-based whether (A) or (B) is true, and I don't see that (A) would make it more faith-based. Someone could equally argue the opposite, namely that (B) would make it more faith-based (because there is a more explicit decision in favor of trust). So again, philosophically we can argue these fine points, but linguistically the faith-based nature of the act isn't affected or altered by (B).

(The atheist will want to make a lot of hay out of (2), but that focus is extra-linguistic. It is a philosophically investigable issue, but it is not an outcome of the natural language analysis.)

Linguistically an act of faith or belief does not exclude (1) or (2), nor does either condition "water down" the faith-component of some assent. — Leontiskos

I don't see that we are talking about linguistics, but rather about the logics of different kinds of faith. If we have good reason to think that the authority we are trusting is presenting facts which are based on actual observation and evidence, not mere opinion, then our trusting of such an authority is not merely faith-based but is also a matter of rational inference.

If we have no good reason to think the authority we are trusting is presenting facts which are based on actual observation and evidence then our trusting of that authority would not be merely faith-based. As I see it this puts trusting in authority on a continuum between pure faith or blind faith and faith accompanied by ever-stronger rational support.

This is the basic difference between faith in science and faith in religion. By the way I'm not saying faith in religion is wrong; it is fine for some people, for those who are in need of it for whatever reason, and is no problem provided it is not misunderstood as being fact. To misunderstood articles of faith as facts is the essence of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is dangerous because it is totally irrational.

I don't see that we are talking about linguistics, but rather about logic. — Janus

The meaning of a word is a matter of linguistics, not logic.

If we have good reason to think that the authority we are trusting is presenting facts which are based on actual observation and evidence, not mere opinion, then our trusting of such an authority is not merely faith-based but is also a matter of rational inference. — Janus

No one believes authorities who they do not believe are credible. Once you recognize this you begin to see why acts of faith are not without evidence (i.e. you begin to consider motives of credibility).

If we have no good reason to think the authority we are trusting is presenting facts which are based on actual observation and evidence then our trusting of that authority would not be merely faith-based. — Janus

Typo?

If we have no good reason to think someone is credible then we do not believe them, and we do not take them to be an authority.

This is the basic difference between faith in science and faith in religion. — Janus

What is the basic difference?

Faith and trust are different things, no?

Sure, trust is a part of faith, but not the whole.

So, what's the bit extra?

I've given my account: that faith continues where trust it is not justified.

Faith and trust can be synonymous, I think. The same word may have different interpretations or associations. I don't think it matters that much what words we use in pointing out that there is a difference between rational faith and blind faith. That said I'm also fine with using your locution, which is perhaps less prone to confusing some people, and obscuring the difference.

No one believes authorities who they do not believe are credible. Once you recognize this you begin to see why acts of faith are not without evidence (i.e. you begin to consider motives of credibility). — Leontiskos

We all know what the words evidence and faith mean. The question is as to whether one has a rational view of what constitutes evidence. I cannot see any reason to believe that mere scripture, for example, constitutes even historical, let alone say ontological evidence for anything.

Take as example the miracles figures such as Gautama and Christ are believed by some to have performed. The fact that it is said in a scripture that they were performed is not evidence that they were in fact performed.

We all know what the words evidence and faith mean. — Janus

Lol - I take it that you haven't been following this thread very closely.

I made all sorts of unaddressed points in my last two posts to you. Feel free to go back and address some of them. Here is the most pointed:

What is the basic difference? — Leontiskos

The basic difference is that evidence is observation-based or reason-based whereas faith need not be.

So you are saying, "The basic difference between faith in science and faith in religion is that evidence is observation-based or reason-based whereas faith need not be."

I'm not following that. I would encourage you to take your time in setting this out. The reason I brought up Pieper was to encourage people to take more time and effort with this topic.

I took you to be asking the difference between evidence and faith. If you are asking the difference between science and religion, then I would say science is predominantly evidence-based and religion is wholly faith based