Degrees of Faith?

You could also define faith as the Bible defines it in Hebrews 11.1. "Faith...the evidence of things not seen". For "not seen" you would do well to insert "not touched, tasted, not smelled, not heard". Not empirical in other words."Faith..the evidence of things not empirically evidenced"You now have a problem. Faith is described as being the same as evidence. And since it is, "belief" in what it evidences is as reasonable as is "belief" in anything that is evidenced. I'm not sure whether saying "I believe I am sitting in a chair" should be described as a belief however. The normal terminology is to say "I know I am sitting in a chair - I have evidence of the class which permits knowing such things"The problem is this. There is nothing at all to suggest that non-empirical evidence does not exist. Given that, does the problem lie in there being no non-empirical evidence. Or does it lie in you not being able to detect it (unless you have non-empirical evidence detectors plugged in).When a bunch of people point the finger anywhere but at themselves common sense says you should suspect the people. Not the evidenceThat's my bit promoting agnostism for now

I thought is was you who was playing semantics. You picked up a book called "the dictionary". You are smart enough that I don't have to point out the problem here. Look to answer #1 if in doubt. Depends on which Bible you chose...I write by way of expressing concern. I've read the news. God bless.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

You are almost right to say its circular. But then again all evidence runs us in the same circle - the only think breaking us out of it is our own assumptions. I'm on this same thing on another site discussing Ricard Dawkins new book, The God Delusion. The book defines faith along the same lines as JustinC then sets about 'demolishing' the religious.- we assume the difference between our internal thoughts and what arrives at us by sense data is actually different. We assume what we perceive as sense data is actually relfecting an external-to-us reality. There is no way to verify this but we do so in order not to be solipsists. That we do so automatically doesn't make any difference. Sense data arrives through (we assume) various channels; sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch.- I do the same thing with another sense data as we all do with the above sense data. I assume it reflects an external reality simply because it has the same attribute as other sense data to whit: I perceive it as reflecting an external reality- whilst all our sense data is considered authoritive (ie: there is nothing else we can rely on but it) it is not necessarily reliable. How does one verify the accuracy (if any) with which our sense data reflects the true reality we have presumed it reflects. Patently we cannot rely on the fact that others sense data and our own shares remarkable commonality. All that their sharing our own tells us is that they share the same level of correlation w.r.t. perceiving the reality as we do. It may be that we are all on a 45% correlation. It could be that we are on 80% correlation. How could we tell where we are? How much could we be missing?- At worst I am in no worse a position that you. I sense something you do not, but could not tell whether my correlation reflects the true reality to a greater or lesser extent than your own - even though other people share the perception that I share. There is however a a not-insignificant factor on my own side - one that you do not have as you wonder about your own level of correlation. When asked the question "How do you know its God there and not another god playing tricks on you" I can respond as follows- whereas everyone is left to their own powers in deciding what level of correlation they sit at (making all arguments circular, relying as they do on assumptions) I am not. God is capable of making me know that it is him and no other. If I know its him its not because I have managed to break out of the circle - its because he has no problem breaking into it.This latter argument will no doubt receive some incoming. Fair enough and it is not my intention to argue it beyond here. The main point is there is no way for anyone to break themselves out of the circle. At worst, the evidence I have arises from an assumption that sense data reflects the external reality accurately. I do no different than anyone else in that regard. Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.