Do you have belief in faith?
It actually worries me that a great number of religious people are uneducated in their own language and have no understanding of the words they use. The two words that is constantly misused and the worst way are ‘faith’ and ‘belief’. They throw these words around as if they proves the existence of their deity stronger and as if their statements are facts.
So what do these two words actually mean?
belief that is not based on proof
Based on this dictionary description it is acknowledged that you have a belief in something, but it is not based on proof. It does not say it is bad to have faith, it just says your belief is not based on facts or even logic.
I am entitled to say I have faith in my ability to fly like Superman, but it does not mean I can as I have no proof of that ability.
confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof
Belief is similar to faith, as you are confident that what you think or say are true, but you do not have substantial proof that confirm that it is true or a fact. It is not wrong to have a belief; you just do not have or need proof that what you think or say are true or based on logic, facts or evidence.
I can say the same thing about my ability to fly like Superman; I can have belief in that, but it does not mean it is true.
Saying you have faith or belief in something is not evidence that it exist. Evidence needs to be based on facts:
a truth known by actual experience or observation; something known to be true
If something has not been observed or considered to be true it is not a fact and can not be used as evidence. The closest type of “evidence” faith and belief can produce is what is called anecdotal evidence:
Evidence in the form of an anecdote or hearsay is called anecdotal if there is doubt about its veracity; the evidence itself is considered untrustworthy
If you want to have belief or faith in some kind of deity, go right ahead, but do not claim it to be true. Saying you have faith or belief in something, you automatically admit that you have no proof that your deity exist and can not claim your deity exist just because you have faith or belief in that deity.
That is actually a logical fallacy. Claiming something exist because you use a word that actually means you have no proof of what you are claiming.
I like the classic example of “faith” or “trust” that involves a chair.
There is a chair standing in the middle of the room and I declare “That chair will hold me?” But, I have never sat in that chair before. So am I stating a fact or a belief or faith or what?
As you have articulated, I only “believe” that the chair will hold me. Now, I can have anecdotal evidence: “chairs are designed to hold people; the last 50 chairs I have sat in have not broken.” But, my belief can only turn into a fact when I have faith in my belief and sit in the chair.
I like what you say at the end about believing a deity to be true, because it can also be said in the chair analogy. If someone says they are sitting in the chair, that they believed and that now it is a fact, then that is fine for them.
But the only way for me to believe that the chair could hold me is after I sit in it. It may be a leap of faith to sit in the chair; but only then could I believe the chair to be true.
@bencrayton
Interesting example.
Not sure if it is an example I would use when talking about faith vs facts. You are right that you can not know if a chair will hold you until you sit in it, but regardless of that, it is still an object that can be observed by anyone. The existence of the chair is very hard to dispute.
If you say ‘inside this that box that is impossible to open there is a chair I believe will hold me if I sit on it’, it is much closer to what I am talking about. Almost like Schrödinger’s Cat; but with a twist that you can not open the box at all, so you can only assume there is a chair in there that you might be able to sit on.
Also I am unable to have ‘leap of faith’ as I find it illogical to “know” something without having empirical evidence.
I know that might sound boring, but I rather know something is actually true than pretend something is true because it is convenient to do so.
Yeah, that makes sense. A chair is tangible while God is, by most accounts, not.
On the other hand, a chair in a black-box does no good. And saying it can hold you may not even be faith because you are unable to “work out” or use your faith.
Maybe what we need is an invisible chair. “Hey look at me I am sitting in this invisible chair!” Now is that person really sitting in an invisible chair or do they just have really strong quadriceps?
You can get anecdotal evidence from others “yeah, man, the chair is real.” But you cannot declare it fact (true or false) unless you plop yourself down on it.
For me the chair exists. I know this because God’s word has not returned void. I guess this translates loosely into seeking God’s will and experiencing the promises given for doing so. Still though, I admit to doubts which raise the tension in my quadriceps.
Now, I can’t expect you to sit in the chair too. I’m a random internet person so even my testimony should amount to little more than squat. I actually never thought of being a strict empiricist as being boring before, but I guess you would be in the eyes of someone more mystical.
I would still say, however, that you do not “know” a chair (back to talking about real, everyday chairs) will hold you until you sit in it, empirically test whether or not it will. While the chair is physical, you are still taking a “leap of faith” every time you sit in one.
If the next chair you sit in does not hold you, that does not mean that the laws of physics were suspended, but rather that your “leap” landed you on your backside.
@bencrayton
It is not until now when I have read the ‘chair’ example one more time and you have explained it a bit further that I see it has three great flaws in it.
1. The ability of the chair has more focus than the existence of the chair.
2. Theorising about the chairs ability to sit in it do not make it automatically exist.
3. As you are talking about a specific ability that a specific chair has, you have already chosen the chair, but not acknowledged the existence of it which is far more important than the ability.
You will have the same problem if you use a bicycle as an example.
I can theorise as much I want about if a bikes ability to take me from A to B. That is actually irrelevant until I recognise that certain bike is real.
What is so great about a chair and a bike is that it can be observed by anyone. Even if you are blind you can observe them. You can touch them and pick them up if you like. If they are in front of you, there is no doubt that they are real.
Their ability on the other hand is something else, but theorising about their ability do not make them real.
As another example.
If I take my bike out for a ride, which I have now established is real as I am actually riding it, and thinking about jumping a gap. Doing something like that, or sitting in a chair, is not a leap of faith (no pun intended). Nor do I take a leap of faith when I go to a new city, fly an aeroplane, drive a new car, upgrade my computer with new software and so on. Just because you encounter something new you do not venture into it based on a leap of faith.
And attaching the expression ‘leap of faith’ to almost anything new in life do not make the chair, or God, more real.
So what you are saying is;
1. You have to make a leap of faith to believe in God.
2. When you do something new and unfamiliar it is a leap of faith.
3. Therefore God exist.
It is similar to the logical fallacy;
1. Mum is wearing a read dress.
2. That is a read car.
3. Therefore mum is car.
Based on this we can actually assume that vampires exist, as we do know about their abilities and are able to theorise about them; therefore they exist.
What I am trying to say here is that the ability of something or outcome of a situation is actually not important. It has no meaning at all until you can prove the existence of it. And the burden of proof is on you, as you claim that the chair exist. Until you show me evidence and even let me touch and pick up that chair, I will not believe that chair exist. So the abilities if that chair is irrelevant.
If the chair is real and the bike is real; sitting in the chair or jumping that gap is not a leap of faith, I would call that action what most other people would call it, a chance or a risk.
Oh, sorry. I wasn’t trying to prove God exists. You gave the list of three axioms, and I only wanted to reach the second, that doing something new requires faith, because you are dealing, at least a little, with the unknown.
I think you are right that instead of pondering about whether the invisible chair will hold me, the right question would be to ask whether or not the chair even exists. Calling it invisible was born out of my biased perspective.
It is interesting, each Monday a group of friends and neighbors get together to talk about random things, and this week we talked about the philosophy of science. We focused (unfortunately) on the politicization of the scientific world, but also talked a little about deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning.
Only deductive reasoning is air-tight or logical. The other two, which we use everyday have a measure of guessing. If we employ conclusions that we arrive at inductively or abductively then we are necessarily taking a step of faith (I got to come up with non-religious sounding uses of the word faith).
I am not trying to prove God exists. I’ll leave that to you and your friends. I was just seeking acknowledgment that everyone, even the strict empiricist, trusts in facts that have not yet been proven true.
I actually sat on my bed two days ago and half of it fell to the floor. The boards underneath the mattress had shifted over the last few months. Needless to say, I was surprised. I trusted the bed to give me a relaxing night and was (temporarily) disappointed.
@bencrayton
Great comment! Enjoyed every sentence of it! :)