Therefore, whether we stop putting carbon in the air, or continue to do so, prosperity can be expected to decline dramatically.
Therefore, improving metrics, which reflect increasing prosperity, can be expected to have no predictive power, even in the near term. — hypericin

None of us are prophets, and all we predict could be incorrect, but the data shows steady and clear signs of worldly improvement over long periods of time. Whether this trend could be disrupted for whatever reason is speculative and there's no reason not to take a optimistic approach instead of a pessimistic one, considering we have seen that over time that unpredicted ingenuity often finds resolutions to problems.

I would suggest you are fortunate enough to have never experienced major depression. For me, if I experienced just my worst state all the time, never mind 10x, and there was no hope of relief, I would absolutely end my life. — hypericin

I'm sorry to hear of your struggles, I truly am, but what you describe isn't evidence of a deteriorating world that would dissuade me from having children, but is evidence of a subjective response disproportionate to the external stresses. What you experience is not the result of the world worsening because, as I've stated, the world is not worsening. If the question is now whether it is moral to have children knowing that a certain percentage will suffer from a variety of illnesses and pain, I'd still answer that it is, mainly for two reasons: First, the level of pain you describe is aberrational, and second, I place an inherent value on life, despite the suffering it might entail. Even if you reject the second part of this, you are left with the fact that most do not suffer to the level you describe so much so that morality would dictate that we never risk having children for fear they'll overly suffer.

Imagine the worst depressive episode of your life. Multiply it by 10, and make it unremitting, over the course of your entire life. Such a life has no value: certainly none to the liver of that life. — hypericin

I just did your thought experiment, and I disagree.

But even should I agree that there is an imaginable life not worth living, those lives are few and far between, and based upon the trajectory of things, far fewer lives will be of the miserable type you seek to describe.

I am just wondering if the atheist won't be in problem here? What I am saying is that when arbitrarily taking givens, it would seem very hard as a hard-necked atheist to refute the whole of the new testament. Surely, there must be something worth keeping here even for the most radical? — JACT

I don't think an atheist would find a problem finding deeper meaning and wisdom when reading any literature, whether that piece of literature is one from the current New York Times bestseller list or whether it is the New Testament. The fact that the animals in Aesop's fables never existed and never engaged in all the behavior they're claimed to have been has no bearing on whether there is a moral behind each of those stories. The fact that a work is fiction does not mean it doesn't contain truths. That is, it's irrelevant whether there actually was a Jesus to the Atheist, but if the New Testament sheds some light on how humans ought behave, even if that work is entirely fiction, the book has important value.

Then how is it ok to impose this situation on any child, let alone your own? — hypericin

Even assuming suffering negates the value of life, which I don't, the world is improving over time: https://singularityhub.com/2016/06/27/why-the-world-is-better-than-you-think-in-10-powerful-charts/

"A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister." — T Clark

Judaism might be a cult under that definition.

At some level, "cult" is a subjective term, suggesting it's bad versus "religion" which doesn't carry the same connotation.

I regard a cult as an organization that affords special godlike powers to a single individual who abusively controls his followers, usually by extracting money, limiting contact with family members and close friends who are not followers, demanding free labor, requiring complete allegiance regarding all requests, and often involving requiring sex from anyone within the cult, sometimes with minors.

My problem with the Catholic Church was (and it probably still is occurring) the systemic pedophilia within the Church and the Church knowingly concealing it and allowing it to continue. I don't think that makes the Catholic Church a cult, but I do think it makes it an organization that actively rapes children and protects child rapists. In short, whether one wishes to consider it predominately a religion or a criminal enterprise is a subjective judgment based upon what you consider its most significant activity, but I'll give it a pass as to the cult allegation.

She don't like her eggs all runny
She thinks crossin' her legs is funny
She looks down her nose at money
She gets it on like the Easter Bunny
She's my baby, I'm her honey
I'm never gonna let her go
He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays
I caught him once, and he was sniffin' my undies
He ain't too sharp, but he gets things done
Drinks his beer like it's oxygen
He's my baby, and I'm his honey
Never gonna let him go
In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
We're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin'
But big old hearts, a'dancin' in our eyes
She thinks all my jokes are corny
Convict movies make her horny
She likes ketchup on her scrambled eggs
Swears like a sailor when shaves her legs
She takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'
I'm never gonna let her go
He's got more balls than a big brass monkey
He's a wacked out weirdo, and a love bug junkie
Sly as a fox and crazy as a loon
Payday comes, and he's a'howlin' at the moon
He's my baby, I don't mean maybe
Never gonna let him go
In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
We're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin'
But big old hearts, dancin' in our eyes
In spite of ourselves
We'll end up a'sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds
Honey, we're the big door prize
A'we're gonna spite our noses
Right off of our faces
There won't be nothin'
But big old hearts, dancin' in our eyes
There won't be nothin'
But big old hearts, dancin' in our eyes
In spite of ourselves

I don't see anywhere me claiming to be immune or objective. As for figuring out why you believe what you do, it wasn't my intention. The part of my post you're quoting here simply claims that you followed expert advice in one case where it tallied with a popular social identity and yet reject it in another where it does not. I haven't really gone as far as to assess why. — Isaac

My point was that my position does not correlate with my social identity, nor does the data suggest that for any particular person it must. The data set simply states that certain types of people often do certain types of things, but your attempt to directly causally link them isn't based upon any data. Ergo, your suggestion I believe as I do due to social club doesn't hold.

Why? It takes five minutes to get a tattoo, but doing so is a lifestyle choice, so it's not the time. Why wouldn't getting a vaccine be a lifestyle choice? Not doing so certainly seems to be something people use to define themselves certainly no less than helmetless-biker, or solo-climber. You have faith in the medical establishment, you don't see it as a threat, so to you it's nothing. To others it defines them. That's the whole point. Your 'lifestyle choice' is that it's a nothing event. — Isaac

You're doing some torturous disservice to the phrase "lifestyle choice" if you're now using it to describe an adherence to evidence based science. But sure, if you mean some choose to be irrational and some not, and it's all a matter of which sort of life you want to live, then use the term however you want, but at least appreciate you're just creating a euphemism that means "irrational." When you say I'm in Club Rational and that's the reason I scoff at the mumblings of Club Irrational, I can live with that.

Getting a tattoo doesn't bother me because it doesn't affect the commons. People not getting vaccines puts us on the brink of another shut down and another requirement to wear masks.

As I said in my response to Benkei above, the great thing about vaccinations as a public health response is exactly that we don't need everyone to take them for it to work. With measles is high (95%), with polio only 80%, with Covid it might be two thirds of the population to get the R0 to less than 1. Making a lifestyle choice to not have a vaccine is fine — Isaac

Sure, if 95 people are needed to put out a raging fire and there are 100 in the room, you can sit it out and wait for everyone else to throw water on it and claim you're just as good as all those who helped out.
But, if more than 5 of you happen to choose not throw water on the fire, the 6+ of you can say "watching fires, not extinguishing fires, is my lifestyle choice, so stop being so judgey."

I'm with Isaac on this one. It strikes me as extremely unlikely that a significant proportion of the viral load in the atmosphere would be removed by the lungs of people not wearing masks. I looked, but couldn't find evidence either way on the web. My conclusion - the scenario described in Roger Gregoire's post is unsupported unless he can provide evidence. This isn't a matter of "logic." It's a matter of fact. As far as I can see, RG has his facts wrong. — T Clark

The evidence for masks is lacking, but not so for the vaccines. There is no argument as far as I can see that people shouldn't vaccinate. The masks are rearing their head again because of lack of vaccinated, and if they can't mandate the best choice (vaccinations), they'll mandate the distant second (masks). Masks are easy to enforce because they're visible.

It's telling how readily 'expert' opinion is wielded and dropped depending on it's correlation with current social group ideology. Experts from public health tell you to mask and vaccinate - anyone who doesn't is an idiot. Experts from public health tell you that blaming the people themselves has no part in a public health response - fuck 'em, they don't know what they're talking about. — Isaac

So let's keep this philosophical. This explanation is a classic example of the psychology fallacy. https://effectiviology.com/psychologists-fallacy/

You are suggesting that you are immune from the tribal mentality of the groups you describe and that you have figured out why I'm believing as I am. You have no way of observing me objectively if our psychology (yours included) dictates our positions.

It's also obvious that those in favor of the vaccinations will have certain group characteristics in statistically higher percentages than those opposed to vaccines, but it is illogical to assume that any particular member of the group holds to any particular ideology. To do so is the flaw of stereotyping and is the definition of prejudging (i.e. prejudice in the non-prerogative sense). It might interest you to know that if a meeting is divided into an area with maskers and non-maskers, I'd most certainly be in the non-mask section. I also voted 100% Republican last election, except for the presidential race, which I abstained from. This is just to say that your psychoanalysis is incorrect, your grouping theory is incorrect as it relates to individuals, you are doing nothing but stereotyping, and you have no way of removing yourself from the rigid groups you've created in order to declare yourself objective.

I've also not suggested telling people they're idiots will help the situation, but I also don't think it will hurt. I don't live under the illusion I'm being listened to in any meaningful way. If I were a public health administrator, I'd probably talk to my marketing department and arrive at the best way to get my message across.

Even if it were true that masking protected the unvaccinated (which it isn't - masking protects the vaccinated too, some 15-35% of whom will not be adequately protected by the vaccine they took), are we to similarly resent protection for other lifestyle choices? Should we rail against treating the ailments of smokers, the overweight, those who don't exercise enough, those whole eat too much bacon...? — Isaac

This strikes me as an extreme conflation of categories. When did vaccinations participation become a "lifestyle choice"? I take lifestyle choices to be things like what we eat, our forms of recreation, and things that meaningfully affect our day to day lives. If you want to ride a motorcycle without a helmet to feel the wind through your hair and you ride to live and live to ride, that could be characterized as a lifestyle choice, even if it's extremely risky. Whether to spend 5 minutes getting a vaccine isn't a lifestyle choice. I'd call that "getting a vaccination."

At any rate, my question back to you is why do you single out the Covid vaccination as the single vaccine we can avoid and proclaim it's off limits, but as to measles and whooping cough you allow that we can impose these on our children? Why can't I proclaim those vaccines as "lifestyle choices" so that I can take those too outside the purview of societal control?

Precisely why I'm against vaccine passports. People make shit choices all the time. I have a stressful job and exercise too little. I'm even aware I should be doing more about the latter but don't give it priority. It's relatively stupid but it's not as if it makes me Satan. — Benkei

A couple of things to this. The first is as noted above that vaccine choices are not akin to choices not to exercise and to eat poorly. I think a more apt analogy is my requirement you wear a seatbelt when you drive. We can't create a slippery slope where we must declare every simple act of social responsibility a violation of individual rights such that we can ask nothing of our citizens. My question is why can the measles vaccine be required, but not Covid. Are you willing to do away with all vaccine requirements?

Second, I think your argument is a steelman, and if fails for the same reason as would a strawman. Both are hypothetical arguments that your opponent would never submit. As in the case of the strawman, it's an argument so weak it would never be made. In the case of the steelman, it's a contrived argument and would never be suggested. That is, the anti-Covid vaccine folks are not arguing that they have the right to be stupid. That might be the case with those who go hang gliding, ride motorcycles without helmets, or who rock climb, but not so with anti-vaxxers. So, perhaps if (and this is a very big if) the anti-vaxxers argued they knew they were idiots and they had the right to be, just like the guy filling his belly with donuts, I would respond as I did that the analogy is not apt. But that's not what they're arguing. They're arguing that the vaccines are dangerous, they don't work, and they are part of a government conspiracy to control a gullible public, etc. It's the difference between arguing that I have a right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet because it's my life to live as I see fit versus arguing I have a right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet because helmets are dangerous and cause brain injury.

The first admits to one's own bad choices and asks to be left alone. The second is based on a lie, misinformation, gullibility, and it will likely result in others being drawn into that bad choice.

Hospitals are starting to mandate vaccination. Mine has, and we're discovering who was never vaccinated, so who was potentially exposing old people to Covid19 unnecessarily (while passing out Ativan). — frank

The one glimmer of hope is that the 65+ numbers are truly impressive, in some states at 100%, even Alabama at 84%. https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker

The reason for the masks (and eventual possible shutdowns) is to protect the unvaccinated. https://www.yahoo.com/news/nih-director-acknowledges-mask-mandates-141636429.html

That is, the very people hell bent on keeping the economy going and whining about masking are the cause of the interruptions with the economy and the cause for increased masking.

This isn't a right versus left battle. It's an irresponsible/ignorant versus responsible/informed battle, with the former wanting to protect their right to be irrational.

What excuses? Copy-paste them. — baker

Enough people couldn't have vaccinated early on, even if they wanted to, because there wasn't enough of the vaccine, and in many countries, there still isn't. Like India, where Delta is from — baker

Enough people couldn't have vaccinated early on, even if they wanted to, because there wasn't enough of the vaccine, and in many countries, there still isn't. Like India, where Delta is from — baker

I can't speak beyond the US, but vaccines have been available for all since April. You've also been able to walk in without an appointment for well over a month and get vaccinated for free. There is no excuse for anyone from California to New York to be caught up in this wave and get sick from Covid.

So sure, I have a different view of those in India, but that's not who I was referring to.

god. Millenia of philosophy down the drain. — baker

And yet you provide no philosophy at all, just a lament your excuses aren't taken seriously.

know men were dominant in ancient times but I never got the reason why female bodies are considered more coveted. — Maximum7

Because hairy hanging gonads aren't attractive to anyone. Let me summon a lady to confirm. @ArguingWAristotleTiff -- please weigh in here if you would.

I am in favor of vaccine passports. You can't immigrate to the US without all sorts of vaccinations. https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/laws-regs/vaccination-immigration/revised-vaccination-immigration-faq.html#newcriteria

You can't attend school without vaccinations.

What's so special about covid that it in particular violates our rights when it is required?

The primary difference between the measles vaccine and the covid vaccine is that the former was developed during a time when we believed in medical science and not in unsupported conspiracy theories. We'd be stuck with measles today if the vaccine were developed today.

When the matter became so politicized, so ideologized that the public opinion became "Vaccinated people are perfectly safe." — baker

The original data showed that the vaccines had an effective rate in the 90+%, J and J slightly lower. Had enough people vaccinated, covid as it existed then would have been eradicated.

The effectiveness change occurred with the Delta variant. The vaccine protects against its effects, but not from its spread.

The reintroduction of masks and threats of shut down are caused by the irrational decision of the anti-vax people, who have convinced themselves that their right to die of the delta variant is sacred. If I were permitted to let you die and not be forced to heroically exhaust common resources to treat you, I'd buy into your Randian libertarian wet dream and let God sort out your bad decisions. But we don't live by that ethic today. If today's ethics require I protect against Darwin, they require you play along too.

How sick are they getting from it? Are you less sick when vaccinated? Otherwise we can stop vaccinating altogether and combat the pandemic how they did it in the old days. — Benkei

Very few get significantly sick or are hospitalized. https://www.yahoo.com/news/eight-hundred-cases-seven-hospitalizations-and-no-deaths-the-provincetown-outbreak-shows-vaccines-work-125324207.html

This is a pandemic for the unvaccinated. It's just an annoyance for the vaccinated.

thought this over, and couldn't square up what the criteria of being True as an objective fact means.
Is there such a thing which stands as absolute truth beyond doubt? — Corvus

Whether truth can be known isn't the same question as to whether it can exist.

I stumbled upon this:

"[A]t that time the orthodoxy best described as linguistic philosophy, inspired by Wittgenstein, was crystallizing and seemed to me totally and utterly misguided. Wittgenstein's basic idea was that there is no general solution to issues other than the custom of the community. Communities are ultimate. He didn't put it this way, but that was what it amounted to. And this doesn't make sense in a world in which communities are not stable and are not clearly isolated from each other. Nevertheless, Wittgenstein managed to sell this idea, and it was enthusiastically adopted as an unquestionable revelation. It is very hard nowadays for people to understand what the atmosphere was like then. This was the Revelation. It wasn't doubted. But it was quite obvious to me it was wrong. It was obvious to me the moment I came across it, although initially, if your entire environment, and all the bright people in it, hold something to be true, you assume you must be wrong, not understanding it properly, and they must be right. And so I explored it further and finally came to the conclusion that I did understand it right, and it was rubbish, which indeed it is."

— Ernest Gellner, Interview with John Davis, 1991

Amen.

Why not more evidence? only a tiny portion of fossil-bearing rock has been, or can be investigated. Most of the fossil-bearing rock are too deeply buried under over-burden. — Bitter Crank

This is actually more complicated than that.

The complications arise from the earth being quite old at 5781 years (per the most accurate calculations, although there is some debate). The animals were created suddenly on the 6th day following creation followed by an immediate cessation of all creative activity on the 7th day.
Those remnants of day 6 would be deeply buried under almost 6000 years of dirt, leaves, and illegal dumpings. 1656 years after those events, a significant flood occurred, killing all but a few samples of each animal, and so each animal species had to start afresh. The mud, debris, and beer cans from that flood further buried the animals and now it's extremwly hard to locate them, although as evident from your example, with perseverance, they can find all sorts of things if they look long enough, including toothy German birds.

"In all but two states (and the special case of Ohio, which "targets only parental figures"),[1] incest is criminalized between consenting adults. In New Jersey and Rhode Island, incest between consenting adults (16 or over for Rhode Island, 18 or over for New Jersey) is not a criminal offense, though marriage is not allowed in either state."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_incest_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In%20New%20Jersey%20and%20Rhode,not%20allowed%20in%20either%20state.&text=Cases%20of%20parent%2Dadult%20child,usually%20uncovered%20by%20another%20parent.

If there really are cases of close family members consensually having sex, I don't see a reason to legally regulate it. Typically incest occurs as molestation, so perhaps it's too large a net to illegalize it per se as there might be some honest, loving mother fuckers caught up in the mix who are unnecessarily prosecuted.

If you should arrive home drunk and randy and you and sis start up a flirty little back and forth that ends up with you whaling away atop her, no judgment from me. It's gonna be weird looking across the table eating your Cheerios the next morning, but maybe it was worth it.

In the context of a community where there is the potential to walk to a destination or alternatively drive to a destinatio — Sha'aniah

How far do you need me to walk in this community? Do I have to walk 20 miles to get some bread or can I drive?

We're not even talking about the same thing (and we haven't been all along). So good luck with that. — 180 Proof

Belief systems are not "justified by faith" but are used (trusted) insofar as they work or function. — 180 Proof

If you're denying that you have faith in the truth of your statements, but you're instead only interested in the pragmatic application of your conclusions, you're not avoiding the problem of faith, you're just admitting that truth has no meaning outside of pragmatism. The theist response would be no different, as he too could claim his beliefs lead him to functional results. He just has different goals he wishes to achieve with his belief system. If he wishes to make life sacred, it would not serve him well to adopt your belief system.

It seems your better approach would be to say that religious views are wrong because they're wrong, not just because they don't work. Not working is only not working if it doesn't do what you want it to.

From the placebo taker's point of view, it was a true knowledge? From the doctors (the giver)'s point of view, it was false knowledge. But until the placebo taker is told that it was false, to him it is true. — Corvus

True is considered an objective fact, not the subjective feeling of the believer.

The point here is that he knows about it in detail in the form of knowledge, although it is false knowledge. It is no longer beliefs. — Corvus

Assuming Knowledge = a Justified True Belief (K=JTB), the reason that a belief in the effectiveness of a placebo is not knowledge is because it's not True. The person had a justification (he was told by a scientist the pill would work) and he believed the person, but it wasn't true.

"Faith" does not 'justify' believing that "miracles" happen, only rationalizes that a belief in "miracles" does not require "justification" in "faith"-based contexts, or discourses. — 180 Proof

I guess the strawman is understandable because you couldn't know the beliefs I'm forming through faith. My faith is in a higher power, not whether certain miracles might have occurred. I don't really even think faith is the basis for a belief in miracles, but one would believe in miracles based upon empirical evidence like anything else. If you see a miracle, you'll believe in it. Miracles actually eliminate the need for faith. Moses didn't need to have faith. He saw the Red Sea part and manna fall from heaven, and then he spoke to God on Mt. Sinai. I'd say the same for Abraham. His faith isn't wasn't drove him to so believe in God that he was willing to sacrifice his son. His faith was strong because God spoke to him previously and allowed his 90 year old wife to become pregnant. If you see Jesus rise from the dead and you then believe him the son of God, I wouldn't call you faithful. I'd call you someone who has ample justification for a belief in God.

Do I think any of those things actually happened. No. None of them. Do I think them fiction? Of course. Do I think they are untrue, no. Truth is in what they mean, but not their literal meaning.

Not epistemic – justificatory – whatsoever, just tantrum-like babytalk, or as Witty said more nicely "ineffable". — 180 Proof

I take ineffable to mean something that cannot be adequately expressed in words, not "tantrum like baby-talk" which would indicate an emotionally laden immature inability to speak. For example, we may speak of the ineffable beauty of a sunset, but that would simply mean I cannot truly convey the experience to you. That ineffability, if you allow for it, and I'm not sure Witty places any significance on the unspeakable, might begin to come close to feelings of faith.

Certainly the natural sciences don’t address these questions , but I wouldn’t say the same for certain approaches within psychology, such as clinical psychology. — Joshs

You find meaning in your life through psychology texts?

Faith is the excuse a person gives when they don't have a good reason for a belief. The real problem with faith is there is nothing you can't justify with an appeal to faith. People have it on faith that there is no COVID 19; that some races are inferior to others; that women are not as smart as men, etc. And within a single religion - in Christianity - faith is used to justify the beliefs of members of the KKK and Desmond Tutu. Faith is not a reliable method of justification because it is content free. — Tom Storm

Again, not responsive to my post. Just not what I was talking about.

You also make a presumption that a faith based epistemology is being advocated for empirical claims. You're creating strawmen by defeating the argument that covid vaccines ought not be proven on the basis of faith. That is as absurd to one of faith as one of science.

Faith based reasoning is properly limited to how one ought live one's life in terms of meaning and value, questions science does not address. Different categories of questions require different methods of epistemology.

casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. ~F.N. — 180 Proof

My point wasn't that faith has value. It was that where K=JTB, faith is the J. You were arguing that faith was not T and therefore fails under a correspondence theory of truth. I'm saying that your K may be invalid if the J you used was faith, but it has no bearing on T. "The cat is on the mat" iff the cat is on the mat, regardless of whether I base that on faith or empirical evidence.

Yeah, and an unwarrant belief (e.g. faith) that asserts itself as warranted even though it's not (e.g. miracle) does not correspond to reality. — 180 Proof

Faith isn't the belief. Faith is the justification for the belief. I know the cat is on the mat if I have a justification for it, I believe it, and the cat is on the mat. If I have faith the cat is on the mat and it is on the mat, I don't "know" the cat is on the mat. I've just guessed right. However, if the cat is on the mat, the truth value of "the cat is on the mat" is that it is a true statement, regardless of my bullshit reason for saying I know it.

"Faith" is nothing but an anti-anxiety placebo, at most, that does not add anything substantively epistemic to claims made on that basis. — 180 Proof

But you've never had faith, so how do you know this? I've never been anxiety ridden. I've always been super chill.: :cool:

If a belief cannot be warranted and yet is claimed to be true, assent to it is unwarranted, or indistinguishable in the circumstance from being false. It's patently false to claim a mere idea (i.e. unwarranted belief, opinion, fantasy, etc) is warranted when it is not. — 180 Proof

I'm not following this. A statement is true if it corresponds to reality. If I say the cat is on the mat purely as the result of faith, that statement is distinguished from a false statement if the cat is on the mat. A lucky guess is different from an unlucky guess is different from a justified belief.

I'd agree if you reject faith as a basis for justification, my belief is unwarranted, but whether my mojo is reliable is determined by which horse wins the race. That I killed it at the track doesn't mean my guesses were justifiable, but it does mean I formed truthful beliefs.

"False belief" (i.e. make-believe, delusion) is "faith" — 180 Proof

This doesn't follow. It would be the justification you challenge for the belief held. It could be the belief based upon faith happens to be true, so you wouldn't be laboring under a delusion. You would be coincidentally correct, holding an opinion based upon faith and not reason.

The distinction is important because the way you phrased it, all faith based beliefs would not be true, which would mean faith is a perfect epistemology for determining the false. If that were the case, it would be a fairly helpful tool.

We can also agree that bread alone is bad. "Faith" may be a viable suppliment, it's just not a necessary or indispensible one, and doesn't sustain either body or mind for very long compared to bread (& water). Reason, contemplation, aesthetics (e.g. literature, music), friendship, love, family, scientific inquiry, etc are viable alternatives to "faith" separately or in combinations. I've never had need of "faith" even, so far, in my darkest, most harrowing moments (which, raised and educated Catholic yet never relapsing to / overwhelmed by subconsciously "religious" imagery or feelings, has surprised me ). — 180 Proof

I'll agree that faith is not indispensable, nor is reason, contemplation and all else you itemize. There are those who survive off feeding tubes, so I'll agree that we can pare down the true necessities to not a whole lot. Your journey is your own and I don't care to change you. I say this because it's often assumed the faithful give a fuck about other's faith, likely owing itself to the political motivations of religious institutions that hold proselytizing in high regard. So keep that in mind when I ask if you've ever been of faith, not as someone who was dragged to church by a well intended parent, or as a dutiful son or young man carrying out his good citizenship, but as a true believer. We all wear superficial clothing as need be, but you referenced "relapsing," which would indicate you were and then were not and aren't likely to return. I'm just wondering if you ever were because that would interesting. There'd be a story there.

I also try to live by Hillel the Elder's golden rule. So what does "faith" have to do with any of that? — 180 Proof

Maybe they can stand alone, but Hillel the Elder was of great faith. A factoid for you is that he is called Hillel the elder and not Rabbi Hillel because he lived prior to 70 CE, the destruction of the 2nd Temple, meaning he was part of that generation that offered sacrifices and performed other Temple rituals prior to the rabbinical era that was ushered in after the fall of the Temple. So you can separate out perhaps Hillel's views from religious belief, but you can't separate out Hillel from his religion.

Evidence warranting assent to this statement is, I think, overwhelming: living by faith alone, a person will starve long before s/he'll starve from living by bread alone. — 180 Proof

Given that dichotomy, yes, it makes more sense to chase one's food than to pray for it. The bigger question is whether you will be starved (in the metaphorical sense) of anything if you have no faith. We can agree that faith alone is bad plan though.

↪180 Proof Placebos do require faith. Without it they don't work
— Janus
This one.
— 180 Proof

10/10
Let the faithless behold! That's made my day. :) — bert1

"Placebos require faith" I take in this context as tautological. The definition of a placebo is that which gains its effectiveness by a belief in its effectiveness.

Contextualizing this in a non-analytic way where we are not just deciphering definitions, a different result emerges, however. In the typical medical context where one says a sugar pill is a placebo treatment for headaches, it may well be, but that isn't to suggest that mystical healing from a higher source comes to those who bow their head in faith. What it really means is that the healing properties of the body, which cure all ailment (as all medicine can do is act as a catalyst for the body's immune and healing abilities to take effect) are provoked by putting one's mental state in a position where it believes it will be cured. Since the mental state is considered to be a physical event in this context, it should come as no great surprise that one physical component of the human body can impact another. That is, it is not "faith" as some act where one interacts with the holy that causes our headache to go away. It is the physical effect of the brain acting upon the physical state of the rest of the body that does that and the placebo medication put our brain in that particular state.

Whether faith moves mountains where shovels cannot is a whole different sort of faith, having nothing to do with placebos. It is the belief my headache will come or it will go based upon a higher plan, but whatever way it should go, it will be for that higher purpose. That invokes the mystical, not mundane discussions about controlling for the placebo effect in scientific experiments.

I would take issue with the first sentence of the quote. I must have faith in the Covid vaccine to allow it to be administered. Lots of people have this faith. People who lack faith do not take the vaccine. There are people for whom no amount of evidence will instill faith and they will still refuse. So faith is necessary. But I am sure that this need for faith does not prove the vaccine's inefficacy. — Cuthbert

The first sentence was:

I

“If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished. — Corvus

I don't take this to refer to the faith required for someone to make a decision. When making a decision, some people rely upon faith, some upon gut instinct, some upon the advice of experts, and some upon careful deliberation, but that doesn't speak to truth values of statements. That speaks to idiosyncratic motivations of different sorts of people.

I take that first sentence to mean (using your example) that if our only evidence that the covid vaccine works is our faith in it working, then it likely doesn't. As to the truth value of the statement "the covid vaccine works," it is more likely true if there is scientific evidence supporting it. It is less likely true if the only support for its truth is faith. As the comment you cited points out, the more one relies upon faith for a belief that an assertion is true, the less likely the assertion is true.

Jefferson apparently had more ideas in his head than he knew what to do with. — Bitter Crank

It seems your beef with our late founding father was his lack of sense of style and impractical design features. I say maybe you judge him too harshly on those side ventures, and you look more closely at his areas of expertise, like politics and philosophy.

Frederick Wiseman has made a series of films like those you describe: His camera observes people going about their day in various institutions--mental hospital, emergency room, welfare office, high school and numerous other places. There's no narration, no comment, no interpretation provided. The films are a history, not the history. — Bitter Crank

I've thought about this as well, and, even when there's just a recitation of the facts, there is still the decision as to what to report. If I named a film "America" and filmed a working class family, a poor inner city family, an affluent suburban family, a newly married couple, a single mother, or a returning marine, etc., each would tell a very different account of America. And of course, what they showed throughout these people's days would affect one's opinion of what American was about. What the film maker chooses to show is an editorial decision.

And the interesting thing is that regardless of what the film maker shows, all of it will be factual, but the myth that is advanced would be purposeful and subject to the intention of the historian. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, but I do disagree with those who claim that really Thomas Jefferson was not all he's been said to be. Those people aren't correcting history and myth busting. They're just replacing the old myth with their new one. If they are able to do that, that signals only a shift in politics, not an evolution toward more accurate truth.

The other interesting thing is that if the myth is the focus as opposed to the facts, we need not focus on the black and white facts as much as what the story intends to tell. By example, we needn't worry if there were actually a tortoise and a hare, but we need to concern ourselves with what the message that the story is trying to convey. This mindset might also allow us to reconsider other ancient myths we jettisoned as nonsense and outdated due their literal inaccuracies, the Bible being an example. If the objection to a historical account is that the content is fiction and that objection is considered irrelevant under this analysis, that changes the landscape of the debate into one of "what happened?" to "what is important?"