Faith revisited

[Eliezer]

A simple question about faith...

Is faith an individual thing or collective for the human species?

For example: a physicist at a high energy research facility may have access to a lot more evidence and knowledge about subatomic particles than I do. He may have seen things I have not seen. So I am left believing in the testimony of this scientist and others like him. I may be capable of reading the research papers, but I don't have access to the facilities to observe them experiments being done so I cannot have the first hand knowledge that the researcher has. Evidence can be faked, testimonies falsified. The point is I am in a position that I have to simple choose to believe or not believe what these scientists are telling me. Is that faith for me because I don't have access to the "direct evidence" even though the question is a scientifically testable and provable question.

Just because someone else has direct evidence that is independently verifiable by others even though I can't verify the evidence is my choice to believe faith or not?

And if its not faith what is it?

Because it occurs to me that defining faith as being something that we cannot test via the scientific method is a disingenuous definition. All beliefs ought to be subject to the tests that we use to determine what we believe reality to be and how we determine truth. If lack of testability were a criteria then string theory would have to be consigned to the realm of faith because we lack (or lacked until very recently) the capacity to test any of it with current technology and resources.

[Hastur T. Fannon]

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Not another fucking "faith" thread


;)


Best of luck. I'll be in the corner, with the popcorn

[Eliezer]

Well, this is an attempt to help me understand when "belief" is faith as opposed to not faith.

Because we all operate believing things we don't "know". Often we say we know them, but we don't. We don't know that sirius b is x number of solar masses or x light years away. We believe that it is because we believe the source of our information, but we don't "know".

[Varaj]

Well, this is an attempt to help me understand when "belief" is faith as opposed to not faith.

Because we all operate believing things we don't "know". Often we say we know them, but we don't. We don't know that sirius b is x number of solar masses or x light years away. We believe that it is because we believe the source of our information, but we don't "know".

"Knowing" is hard. :)
Everybody does risk analysis on information sources to see how trusted it should be. We end up putting weighted trust values based on a goodly amount of things.
One of the things we tend to use is "could the belief be verified by a neutral third party"

Some information can be verified by a neutral third party, some cannot.

[Eliezer]

"Knowing" is hard. :)
Everybody does risk analysis on information sources to see how trusted it should be. We end up putting weighted trust values based on a goodly amount of things.
One of the things we tend to use is "could the belief be verified by a neutral third party"

Some information can be verified by a neutral third party, some cannot.

Yes, does verifiability by a trusted third party make my decision to believe something a non-faith belief or is it still faith?

[Varaj]

Yes, does verifiability by a trusted third party make my decision to believe something a non-faith belief or is it still faith?

It reduces the amount of faith. As the sigma of knowledge approaches infinity the value of faith approaches zero.

[Silverwolff]

As the sigma of knowledge approaches infinity the value of faith approaches zero.

Wow, I really like that! :D

Except, that when I think about it, infinity is pretty much non-approachable, as far as I can tell. :confused:

[Varaj]

Wow, I really like that! :D

Except, that when I think about it, infinity is pretty much non-approachable, as far as I can tell. :confused:

Sure you can: (k=1/v) as v approaches zero, k approaches infinity.

[Eliezer]

So if you define faith as the gap between belief and certainty that's a very broad sense of faith.

All things would require some level of faith, be it a very small amount or a large amount.

By that definition, belief in any particular world view is based upon some level of faith. Even strict materialism would be a faith based perception, albeit one may argue very successfully that it requires much less faith.

[Varaj]

So if you define faith as the gap between belief and certainty that's a very broad sense of faith.

All things would require some level of faith, be it a very small amount or a large amount.

By that definition, belief in any particular world view is based upon some level of faith. Even strict materialism would be a faith based perception, albeit one may argue very successfully that it requires much less faith.

Yup.

[Special K]

I don't really think its that broad a definition of faith, it seems pretty suitable to me. I think arrogant atheists like to tighten the definition to distinguish themselves from theists even though both positions require a certain amount of faith.

As an atheist I've come to terms with the fact that I also have no proof for the non-existence of God.

[Eliezer]

Well, would it be better to put thresholds?

Belief in something that has the current capacity for 3rd party verification would not be faith, but merely a reasoned belief.

Belief in something that is not capable of independent 3rd party verification or is faith

Belief in something that is contradicted by evidence capable of independent 3rd party verification is bone-headed stupid.