Misconception Faith vs. Reason

[rtwngAvngr]

So you ARE shitting on our desire to discuss things in-depth.

No I'm not. I just have a different writing style. A more effective one. Why do you continually use shit and desire in the same sentence?

You're right. I can't. I can point out your intention now is to merely disrupt until either someone responds to your post, the thread gets closed, or you get banned from the thread.

You're paranoid. My comments are just as valid as yours, and I have a right to post in any thread just as much as you do, despite your desires to the contrary.

Besides, you've validated my assumption.

What assumption did I validate?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

How can I lose when I "agree" with your proclaimed winner?

I don't know WHY you're a loser, I just see that you are.

 

[The ClayTaurus]

No I'm not. I just have a different writing style. A more effective one. Why do you continually use shit and desire in the same sentence?

Great. You have a different writing style. That still doesn't explain why you have to attack Loki and I for using more words. What's your point? That it's pointless? Ok we got it. Can we continue now?

You're paranoid. My comments are just as valid as yours, and I have a right to post in any thread just as much as you do, despite your desires to the contrary.

Your comments are entirely unrelated to the original topic of the thread. Your intentions are crystal clear. And you most certainly do not have the right to run around disrupting things because you're being left out of the actual discussion. That's called TROLLING.

What assumption did I validate?

Go back and figure it out.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

Great. You have a different writing style. That still doesn't explain why you have to attack Loki and I for using more words. What's your point? That it's pointless? Ok we got it.

You really need to toughen up. Plus, I had viable relevant comments. See post #190.

Can we continue now?

I don't know, are you able? If your reply buttons are broken I would consult darin.

Your comments are entirely unrelated to the original topic of the thread.

No they're not. See post #190, a concise summary of my position.

Your intentions are crystal clear.

Yes. My intention were to give an opinion on the topic. And comment on the nature of the other posts. That's allowed. Look into the concept of free speech.

And you most certainly do not have the right to run around disrupting things because you're being left out of the actual discussion. That's called TROLLING.

I wasn't disrupting anything. You just didn't appreciate my ability to summarize a thread. it's called resentment, you're soaking in it.

Go back and figure it out.

Why don't you just repeat it for our convenience.

 

[5stringJeff]

Clay and LOki, please feel free to carry on.

 

[Bullypulpit]

In what may be a vain attempt to bring the discussion back on topic, I offer the following.

Reason, and the scientific method, examine the relationships between events over time, which allows us to derive general principles from specific events. The key here is understanding that these relationships are not, in any way separate from the events. If we fail, or even refuse, to pay heed to the relationship between events over time, the result is that we are presented with, apparently, uncaused events unconnected to anything coming before or after. Thus we are faced with mysterious and uncaused events which are simply a failure to understand or observe the causal relationships to preceeding and following events.

Faith is the very embodiment of this separation of relationships and events and it ultimately leads us to unecessary and unwarranted epistemological confusion that only furthers the irrationality so many seem to take comfort in.

 

[LOki]

Reason, and the scientific method, examine the relationships between events over time, which allows us to derive general principles from specific events. The key here is understanding that these relationships are not, in any way separate from the events. If we fail, or even refuse, to pay heed to the relationship between events over time, the result is that we are presented with, apparently, uncaused events unconnected to anything coming before or after. Thus we are faced with mysterious and uncaused events which are simply a failure to understand or observe the causal relationships to preceeding and following events.

Despite the use here of (thus far) ambiguous terminology, and the presumption that scientific method is at issue, that may be unfair to The ClayTaurus, I'll concede that the spirit of your assertion here may be the implication of my position, but I'm not willing claim that it has been demonstrated yet.

Faith is the very embodiment of this separation of relationships and events and it ultimately leads us to unecessary and unwarranted epistemological confusion that only furthers the irrationality so many seem to take comfort in.

This may be an even stronger implication of my position, and thus, all the more so, will I not be willing to claim this has been demonstrated yet.

 

[LOki]

Post#190 is the ultimately unassailable argumentative shiznit!

Post#190 bombed.

It would render all certainty not based in faith to be necessarily without error, but that is not what I would consider an indictment of faith.

Why should certainty not based in faith bear the burden of being without error?

Cannot such (non-faith) certainty just be in error, or perhaps "bad," in the way faith in error is "bad." Isn't that more appropriate?

Is the statement, "I am uncertain." a faith based assertion because it is not conclusive? I don't think you can demonstrate that it is faith. <blockquote>"Dude, you are certain."
"No I'm not! I'm totally unsure!"
"No man, you are soooo totally sure."
"I have no idea at all."
"Oh, yes you do!"
"No I don't!"
"Since there is no conclusive evidence that you are uncertain, you must therefore be certain that your uncertainty is faith, which (as luck would have it for me thanks to my new definition) is certainty (because it is not established in conclusive evidence)."</blockquote>And if "I am uncertain." is "conclusive," can convictions of certainty based on *that* also be so "conclusive" that they no longer would be "faith" under your proposed definition?

As you can see, I have a boatload of logical problems with this necessary application of "conclusive" to the evidence that supports a certainty that is not based in faith.

Of course any certainty that contains error would be faith.

Why? Why must it be faith; and why must error be equated to faith?

But so also would certainty without error yet also without conclusive evidence or logic.

This does not yet connvince. Why is it necessary that conclusive evidence be the test for the existence of non-faith convictions? If some one says "I saw a leprechan with my own eyes; I spoke to him with my own mouth; and heard him with my own ears." His beleif in that leprechaun is not faith based by our current definition, and I think that is rightly so.

Absolutely agree up until the words "baseless in evidence."

Why? That is the natural conclusion derived from "conclusive" as I understand it's usage.

It appears that you may be trying to define away my assertion that "I don't know" and "I am uncertain" or "I am certain only to this degree" are validly applied in the place of convictions not established in evidence or valid logic. It also appears that you're attempting to assert that omniscience is the only source of non-faith belief, and I will only stipulate to this if you can demonstrate "conclusively" the existence of such omniscience.

Of course, we could agree to some limitations upon what "conclusive" encompasses.

Faith can be based upon evidence. Christian faith is based upon the evidence of the Bible.

Christian faith is based in faith in the Bible--particularly, and most emphatically, those portions of the Bible not verifiable in evidence or valid logic. This may not be the example you wish to use.

Whether you think said evidence is valid or not is a different discussion, but assuming (go with me here) that the Bible is valid evidence, then Christian faith most certainly is faith based on evidence, yet not conclusive evidence. Yes?

No. The Bible contains valid evidence (I'll stipulate to that without dickering over which portions meet "valid"), but the whole of the Bible does not constitute valid evidence, and Christian faith is derived entirely from the portions of the Bible that are NOT established in evidence or valid logic. Correct?

Perhaps we should re-examine the fine line that is the difference between "belief" and "faith?"

Sure. See further below.

Faith and absolute certainty do not co-exist.

They certainly do. Just ask RWA. Faith is certainty that is not established in evidence or valid logic. I perceive it to be unfair to concede, for the holders of faith, that such certainty is not absolute.

I think we can agree that the eventual elimination of faith is desireable, but that should not preclude us from using faith until that goal is reached. Where it gets murky is when people decide that they are ok accepting faith as their absolute certainty, when in reality the goal should be a constant strive to render it pointless.

Depite the implications of my position in this argument, I'm not willing to accept the concession that elimination of faith is at all desirable, or that faith should be rendered pointless--those are conclusions that have not been demonstrated. Consistent with this, I'm also not yet willing to stipulate to the usefulness of faith either.

Faith based on evidence dictates that the evidence exists. The validity, or conclusiveness, of the evidence is what is up for debate.

Per our agreed upon definition, faith is not based in evidence. The validity of evidence is not relevent to the issue where one's convictions are faith.

The crux of the biscuit is in the criteria one uses for stating certainty; evidence or not: belief (have we agreed on "reason"?) or faith. Likewise, beliefs based in evidence should not need to be "conclusive" to be considered evidence based beliefs.

I agree. The way you've worded this, it appears as though you think that I'm insinuating that faith and belief are oil and water: Faith is conviction in certainty for which no conclusive evidence is present, and belief is conviction in certainty for which conclusive evidence is present. And if you are, that is not my position. If anything, my position is that faith and belief completely overlap each other.

First, allow me to remind you that I have not agreed to this use of "conclusive" in the defintions. Not to say that I won't, but rather simply that I haven't, and I won't agree to conculsion based on such defintion until I have--I would expect no different from you.

With *that* out of the way, let me say that I am not insinuating that "faith and belief are oil and water." But I am holding to our agreed upon definition. It is becoming apparent to me (the suspicion has been growing through a few posts) that it might be more appropriate to consider faith to be a kind of belief...<blockquote>This reminds me of no1tovote4 wishing for terminology that distinguishes faith from conviction of certainty in the of the reality of some thing for which support in evidence, or valid logic, has been established. Perhaps it is unfair to just call it "belief." Perhaps distinguishing beliefs further is useful, despite my previous argument against it.

We could let belief be:
<blockquote>BELIEF:
"Conviction of certainty in the of the reality of some thing."</blockquote>We can keep<blockquote>FAITH:
"Conviction of certainty in the of the reality of some thing for which no support in evidence, or valid logic, has been established."</blockquote>And we can add to our terminology<blockquote>?????????:
"Conviction of certainty in the of the reality of some thing for which support in evidence, or valid logic, has been established."</blockquote></blockquote>I don not think ????????? should be reason. I think reason is more appropriately applied to the act of logical manipulation of knowledge to gain greater knowledge through cross referencing and cross application of data. I think beiliefs that are faith can be used in expressions of reason--that within the use of reason, faith can be used as foundational premisis.

How about we let "Rationality" = ?????????, such that in the above,<blockquote>RATIONALITY:
"Conviction of certainty in the of the reality of some thing for which support in evidence, or valid logic, has been established."</blockquote>[--------BELIEFS-------]
[-FAITH / RATIONALITY-]

Including the word conclusive would effectively say: Absolute certainty is always desireable and preferable, but when/where absolute certainty is not possible/is not yet attained, faith exists.

Reference above discussion of "omniscience."

 

[Eightball]

How about a nice big group hug.

 

[Mr.Conley]

Wow... I kinda wish that I'd paid attention to this thread now...

 

[Bullypulpit]

Let's look at two types of reasoning and the processes involved.

We have deductive or, <i>a priori</i>, reasoning. This takes us from a stated general premis to a specific and formally valid conclusion. These conclusions are regarded as being fully certain, but no new information comes into the process. If a given premise is flawed the conclusion reached will also be flawed. Also, with a given premise, depending upon the quality of the supporting information and how it is manipulated, a formally valid conclusion can be reached. This conclusion, however, can be either true or false, thus providing us with no genuinely useful conclusion.

Inductive or, <i>a posteriori</i>, reasoning involves the observation of relations between events over time. This process allows us to derive general principals from specific events. It is also self-correcting as new experience and knowledge leads us to new inferences which change, ore even invalidate, previous conclusions. The catch here is not to separate the relationships from events. When this occurs, we see seemingly uncaused events, divorced from whatever context they may have arisen in and such epistemological confusion is simply groundless.

Inductive reasoning is often considered to be circular. Given the experience of thousands of events, it simply isn't possible to assume that the next one will be similar. The only arena in which this criticism might be valid is in the context of essentialist philosophies which regard entities as the separate objects of experience where any relations between them are seen as mere mental fabrications. But by repudiating this view and recognizing that relations between events are often seen through experience, these relations serve as guide to possible future experiences.

Deductive reasoning can provide us with conclusions of utter certainty about our experiences, but fail to take into account the context in which those experiences occur. It also fails to take into account new experiences which may negate the initial premise, in which case the conclusions can be utterly wrong. Inductive reasoning lacks the absolute certainty of deductive reasoning, but gives us insight into the changing nature of our experiences as it takes into account the context in which those experiences arise, thus giving us a reasonable degree of certainty regarding the conclusions it arrives at.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

So who believes loki has no faith in science?

 

[LOki]

So who believes loki has no faith in science?

As if the answer to this question is at all relevent, but yes, let's identify every idiot for what they are by having them answer this question as if it were relevent. Let's have them anwer as if such a poll could actually demonstrate whether I have faith in "science" (whatever the fuck that might be in your minimal and misrepresentative mind) or not.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

As if the answer to this question is at all relevent, but yes, let's identify every idiot for what they are by having them answer this question as if it were relevent. Let's have them anwer as if such a poll could actually demonstrate whether I have faith in "science" (whatever the fuck that might be in your minimal and misrepresentative mind) or not.

Your extreme overreaction indicates your paucity of intellect.

 

[dilloduck]

So who believes loki has no faith in science?

I know this has turned into quite the semantic war but science and reason seem important to him. He certainly is a disciple of the method.

 

[LOki]

Your extreme overreaction indicates your paucity of intellect.

The fatuous hallmark of your medacious self-absorbtion is manifest in this emulous propaganda.

You should take it easy fellah, you might sprain something.

I know this has turned into quite the semantic war but science and reason seem important to him. He certainly is a disciple of the method.

Predictable LOLs.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

The fatuous hallmark of your medacious self-absorbtion is manifest in this emulous propaganda.

You should take it easy fellah, you might sprain something.
Predictable LOLs.

You still don't get it, you're just as close minded and cocksure as the most bigoted zealot.

 

[LOki]

You still don't get it, you're just as close minded and cocksure as the most bigoted zealot.

This assertion from you, regarding me, is clearly unfounded; hence you, clearly, must be speaking of yourself.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

This assertion from you, regarding me, is clearly unfounded; hence you, clearly, must be speaking of yourself.

You're sooo this guy.

 

[no1tovote4]

You're sooo this guy.

Your clearly right handed, thus you would put the unpoisoned cup near your right hand! But you are clearly very intelligent and know I would know that, so you wouldn't! But then you'd think I would think of that and place it near yourself! What's that over there?!!!