Degrees of Faith?

I'm sure many people here, when trying to explain the conflict between science and religion, between the philosophy of doubt and tentative knowledge and that of faith and revealed truth, have come up against this counterargument."It is true that I may have faith in the Bible (God, church, etc.), but everyone has to have faith in something. For instance, you have faith in the scientific method (or empiricism, tentative knowledge, etc.). So pointing out that I have faith is not a criticism, since you are guilty of the same crime"My question is, what is the correct response to this type of argument.First off, let's define faith. I'd define it as "belief without regard to reason" with empiricism being encompassed within the term reason. This isn't to say that faith can't be reasonable, but just that it doesn't matter if it is or not: it will be believe no matter what.By that definition, is belief in the scientific methods ability to elucidate the truth considered a form of faith? If not, why?If it is, is it a more "reasonable" faith. Can faith be categorized in degrees of reasonableness? For instance, is a faith in Santa Clause less reasonable than a belief in a creator? Is a faith that our perceptions give us a more or less accurate picture of the world a more reasonable type of faith than a belief in a creator?Edited by JustinC, : empericism-->empiricism

How about a new Forum, "Is it Faith?""Faith and Belief" works also.

This is kindof stream of consciousness so sorry if I repeat and jump around from topic to topic a bit.I think one of the things scientists believe that may be considered a form of "faith," or atleast the most likely candidate, is their belief that if a model is predictably accurate, then that supports the models authenticity.The question hinges on whether there can be two equally predictive models for certain phenomena. I think this is a hard question to answer and I don't think the answer to obvious either way.Historically, there have been many forks in the road where one theory was taken up by the next generation and the other forgotten except by some in HPS. For instance, the phlogiston theory of combustion was forgotten in favor of oxygen, though there were problems with both. In phlogiston, it predicted the mass of an object should decrease, but when measurements were done it actually increased. At the time, there were those who wanted to incorperate the idea that phlogiston has negative mass. This idea seems absurd, but today the concept does actually exist in modern physics (of course, in a completely different theoretical framework and for different reasons).Now, who knows whether the phlogiston theory, if tweaked and nurtured, could have grown into a highly successful theory. I doubt it.The problem with the negative mass is that is was completely ad hoc, i.e., not an outcome of the present theory and only added to explain unkown phenomena. I think with enought complications and qualifications and complexities added to a model, if will be able to explain the phenomena at hand.Ah...but this isn't merely what science does. I doens't just look at a particular phenomena and explain in, it tries to make predictions about what we have yet to observe. And this is I think where the power of science and it's power to illuminate the truth shine. Sure, if you add enough cogs and wheels you can explain what we see, but if also explains what haven't yet scene, I see no other explanation for this other than it is approximately reality.Now this isn't to say ad hoc modifications have no place in science, (e.g. Planks quantizing light to relinquish the ultraviolet catastrophe), but their validity can only come about when it explains phenomena yet to be scene (e.g. photoelectric effect).Another cliche example is the the prediction that neptune existed based on anomolies in the orbert of uranus. The model predicted there must be a large mass there, and lo and behold, it was found. What may have been considered at first and ad hoc addition to the theory turns out to have been exactly correct.In conclusion, I think the scientific models ability to elucidate the truth in the form of making predictions of what we have yet to see. Making a predictive model of what we already know is the easy part. (Hell, the mayans could have just said that the Gods used a calculation similar to theirs when figuring out how to move the sky, and that would have been predictive of known phenomena, but any addition would have to be ad hoc).I don't think it is faith in sciences ability to elucidate the truth is faith.But is it built on faith, as well as every form of reasoning? More precisely, do we have faith in deductive logic? What reason can be given for the veractiy of:If A then B
A
BI know Wittgenstein would say something that it is in the relationship amongst the symbols, but I'm not very versed on him so maybe someone can take up this point.But a thing that bothers me is that eventually will we have to get to a point where we admit that we believe something purely on faith?Now even though this faith might also have to be involved in a Christian's faith, even prerequisite to it, does that make the counterargument in the opening post less powerful?Can faith maybe not be put in degrees, but in a heirarchy from fundamental to ...(can't think of the word I'm looking for, someone can insert what I mean). A fundamental faith would be one that is prerequisite to most or all worldviews.In this sense, if your world view is based on the more fundamental faiths, is your world view more reasonable than a persons who has to interject more faith based statements up in the heirachy?

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In conclusion, I think the scientific models ability to elucidate the truth in the form of making predictions of what we have yet to see.

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There are several mistakes in the spelling in the last post which I'm too lazy to fix, so I apologize.But with regard to my quoted text, if you ascribe a theory similar to that, where does that leave "just so" stories, or any historical narrative? I think it they can encompassed, but I'd like to hear others thoughts. Edited by JustinC, : No reason given.

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The sciptures say that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This to me means that it was never intended for Jesus to be a provable archaeological dig. It was never meant for the holy Spirit to be measured on some type of machine out of GhostBusters! It was never meant that science be the yardstick for every single aspect of human reasoning, soulfulness, and identity.

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I think this is kindof besides the point. I'm not saying that what science tells us is all there is to know about the world, but I'd say it is all we can know about the world. (Or, more technically, all we can approximate about the truth of the world).You may believe anything else you want to about the world, but there is no way to know whether what you believe in an accurate. It would be, therefore, faith. Maybe true, maybe not, but ultimately unknowable. This must be the case when you get conflicting accounts of the world based on "faith," unless you doubt the veracity or truthfulness of those who ascribe to a different faithful interpretation of the world than yourself.

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Our identity is better found in the realm of faith than as a simple chemical equation. Degrees of faith? A degree would imply a measurable amount. Faith either is or is not. There are no degrees.

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I'm not sure what to say. Do you agree with the argument presented in the opening? Are you saying, "I don't think scientists are guilty of the same "crime," i.e., faith, but saying I have faith is not a criticism because it is another means to the truth."Our identity is better found in the realm of faith than as a simple chemical equation. Degrees of faith? A degree would imply a measurable amount. Faith either is or is not. There are no degrees.

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Now the way the word faith was used in the counter argument and your question also doesn't fall under your definition. Your usage falls under the first definition in Message 9. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

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That is the question we're trying to elucidate. Is there an equivocation of terms in the counterargument? You are asserting that there is without argument.The question is, when going deep enough into our logic and reasoning is there a point where we have to accept something on faith, as defined by my definition?I proposed maybe it is faith to think that the scientific method can elucidate the truth. I reject this of course, but it was just an idea of the kind of thing I was trying to find, not the entire subject of this thread.Another I proposed was the idea that we have faith in logic, because by necessity you can't believe it based on reason since you'd have use logic to justify you're belief in logic.Another is do we have faith an absolute truth about the world.Saying that we are just "confident" about these seems unjustifiable until I see why you are confident about them.Now is there a point in our line of reasoning we're we have to accept something purely based on faith? And if so, in what ways is this different than a religious person's faith?One thing that might come up is that a religious person's faith might be "without regard to reason," but also "in spite of counterevidence." This type of argument may work against most or all of their claims, but when they necessarily define their faith so it cannot be attacked by counterevidence, is that faith still less reasonable than our faith in logic (supposing, of course, that you accept that logic might be considered a form of faith).To reiterate, is there a point where us secularists have to accept something purely on faith?

After listening to Paul Davies speak at the Beyond Belief symposium, I'd like to come back to this issue with, hopefully, a little clearer understanding of the issue.First off, I want to reiterate the definition of faith i'm using, which is "belief without regard to reason." Now, I think some previous posts got a little off topic because they were interpreting reason as synonomous with cause. I'm not saying that there isn't a cause for our beliefs, whether genetic or environmental; that claim would almost certainly be false.By reason I'm basically saying "deductive, inductive, or the empirical." This of course, opens the whole can of worms of inductive logic, which might end up being the point of this thread: do we have faith in inductive logics ability to elucidate the truth? I don't want that question to be the sole focus, though. Any potential faith statement which can be thought of will do.Now, Paul Davies aptly puts the idea I'm trying to get at in an analogy:A lecturer is giving a talk about how the universe works, and a man raises his hand and says,"Sir, what you are saying is wrong. I know how the world works. The earth is seated on the back of an elephant which is standing on the back of a turtle"The lecturer replies, "Ah...but what is the turtle standing on?"To which the man replies, "You can't fool me, sir. It's turtles all the way down"Now, in this analogy, as I interpret it, the world is the truth, and the elephant is our world view or our conception of truth. The turtles are our justification of the world view.Now, unless you accept there is an infinite regress of justification, meta-justication, ad infinitum, evenetually you are going to have to bottom out somewhere and say, "I cannot justify this statement." Or, in the spirit of the metaphor, there has to be a levitating super-turtle.Now, a contender for where secularists, in fact most worldviews, bottom out may be logic, since you can't use logic to justify logic. The only way out of this might be to say that we can justify logic using empericism. In other words, logic is just a matter of fact observation about certain relationships amongst symbol. But then can we justify our observation as being accurate?So, as Davies says, you get to the point where different world views are pointing at others levitating superturtles and laughing at their absurdity, but they fail to see they are standing on their own levitating superturtle.His "idea of an idea," or metaphysical research program, is that maybe there can be a loop of justification that doesn't need to appeal to a levitating superturtle. As an example (not his)can the empirical justify the logical and vice versa? Or, his example, can the universe justify its own explanation?To recap:1.)Do secularists bottom out?2.) Is this bottoming out less troubling than a theist bottoming out with a transcendental god? Why?3.)Is a loop of justification tenable?I'd also recommend people to watch Paul Davies' in Session 5 of Beyond Belief.Edited by JustinC, : No reason given.

bump, any thoughts on the previous?

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Can you give a more specific example of the secular dilemma you envision?

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RAZD's definition more accurately reflects my sentiments, so I have no problem using it.It seems to me that one's worldview is only as strong as its weakest link. We say that religious people are in error because they accept dogma based on faith.But do we accept things on faith.For example, do we accept logic based on faith?

Sorry for not consistently engaging this thread. I get spurts of ambition followed by long periods apathy about this topic. But i'm reading Sam Harris' "The End of Faith" and I think he articulates my thoughts more clearly than I am capable, so if it's allowed within forum guidelines I'm going to post verbatim that paragraphs that I think are pertinent. I may have been equating intuition with faith in my previous posts; i'm not too sure. Is intuition a valid justification for a belief? If not, then I'd say that belief based solely on intuition would be a form of faith.That's all just semantics. I agree that even though, using my definition of faith, science and religion can both be called "faith-based," I don't think the point is that forceful or profound. That is, I do agree that the secular rational view is more than just an equal alternative to a religous view when discussing matters about how the world really is.My question, to reiterate the opening post, what makes our faith-based statements, or First Principles if you think "faith" is obfuscating the subject, more reasonable than a theists? Do we keep them to a minimum and only accept the ones we use to manipulate our world, or something to that effect?

Faith: belief without good justificationCan you justify logic or empiricism without resorting to a circular argument(i.e, you can't use logic to justify logic).Don't we have to hit rock bottom somewhere in our expanatory framework? Then, wouldn't that be a "belief without a good justification?"Like I said, I'm really not trying put forth an equivalence of science and religion or reason and faith, I'm just asking how to better articulate the distinction. That is, I obviously believe that a belief in transubstantiation is more irrational than a belief in an objective, ultimately knowable, world. But why?Some suggestions:1.) Many faith-based statements of religion are superfluous in explanatory power2.) Many go against other evidence3.) The "leaps of faith" we make our ones that we have to make in everyday life. That is, we make no more pressupossitions than any rational person makes everyday when going about their daily business. Edited by JustinC, : No reason given.