On Faith & Reason

[Michael Hardner]

And thus faith is personal, reason is public.

Funny - I was thinking the opposite.

Faith is belief in what somebody else tells you - hence external - and reason is belief in your own thinking.

[Shwa]

Funny - I was thinking the opposite.

Faith is belief in what somebody else tells you - hence external - and reason is belief in your own thinking.

No, your 'belief without proof' is faith and is a completely internal function. Something spoken in public comes under increasing scrutiny and demands reason or reasonableness. In fact, more and more people are going out of their way to scrub faith out in the public domain.

[GostHacked]

If your friend told you that the world wasn't going to end tomorrow, and it didn't... then what ?

Then I'd say he was right. But if he always said it would end, and it did not then I cannot have faith in that.

Trying to relate what you said into what made the medicine men and shaman so popular thousands of years ago.

My interpretation of faith is a little different from many. My faith comes about because something has proven itself as such. I have faith in tangible real things. I don't have faith in the supernatural.

[Michael Hardner]

No, your 'belief without proof' is faith and is a completely internal function. Something spoken in public comes under increasing scrutiny and demands reason or reasonableness. In fact, more and more people are going out of their way to scrub faith out in the public domain.

Let's go further with this.

When the medicine man, the priest or the shaman explained the workings of the universe in a tacit request for faith in his gods and his ideas, was there any necessity for him to do it in private vs in public ?

I don't think he could be challenged publicly either, but I'm thinking out loud here (or in type) ...

Maybe there isn't so much a private/public aspect to faith and reason either: after all, the decision to trust or not to trust always happens personally.

What do you think ?

[Shwa]

What do you think ?

In your medicine man/shaman example, what actual society are you referring to?

I am only asking because it is a thought that requires scrutiny.

[Michael Hardner]

In your medicine man/shaman example, what actual society are you referring to?

I am only asking because it is a thought that requires scrutiny.

When considering this question, I tend to consider a few key time periods:

1. The dawn of the great cities of Mesopotamia. At this point in history, the central priests were the civic leaders as well as the conduit to the gods.

2. Pre-reformation Europe. This was the next big challenge to the church orthodoxy.

[Shwa]

When considering this question, I tend to consider a few key time periods:

1. The dawn of the great cities of Mesopotamia. At this point in history, the central priests were the civic leaders as well as the conduit to the gods.

2. Pre-reformation Europe. This was the next big challenge to the church orthodoxy.

In both cases you are not talking about what would be commonly referred to as a medicine man/shaman. Besides, neither addresses the question as a whole. So any conclusion you arrive at with those two examples would only refer to those two examples and practically tell us nothing about ourselves. You would need to build some sort of case to show how those two examples relate to the question we have now.

Reason requires details. Faith glosses them over.

[Guest Manny]

Funny - I was thinking the opposite.

Faith is belief in what somebody else tells you - hence external - and reason is belief in your own thinking.

It's more than that because reason is something that can be proven by science or by analysing it. Belief in your own thinking could be anything you want. Some things people believe in is sheer fantasy, but they are convinced of it. That's not reason, that's faith.

So neither of these statements is right. You are missing the point. Back to "school" for you

[Michael Hardner]

Reason requires details. Faith glosses them over.

Yes. Or maybe faith also solves the problem of details - the priest/shaman/dude just says 'trust me on this'.

It's more than that because reason is something that can be proven by science or by analysing it. Belief in your own thinking could be anything you want. Some things people believe in is sheer fantasy, but they are convinced of it. That's not reason, that's faith.

So neither of these statements is right. You are missing the point. Back to "school" for you

I think that even science requires some faith, as we can't hope to reason those facts on our own.

[Shwa]

Yes. Or maybe faith also solves the problem of details - the priest/shaman/dude just says 'trust me on this'.

When I say "details" I don't mean the effort at obtaining them.

Here is an excellent movie illustrating the paradigm: Agora.

It is a historical drama of course, but a good one. I would tell you the details, but have faith that Wikipedia is accurate enough.

[Michael Hardner]

It sounds like that film illustrates a classic religion vs science battle.

I guess we would have to see it to understand who was challenged to make the choice between faith and reason.

[Shwa]

It sounds like that film illustrates a classic religion vs science battle.

I guess we would have to see it to understand who was challenged to make the choice between faith and reason.

No actually, it is more of a classic ((religion verus science) versus new science) kind of thing with a death at the end. You know, it is much easier to label someone a heretic and burn them at the stake than to examine all the details and have an article of faith proven wrong.

[Bonam]

I think that even science requires some faith, as we can't hope to reason those facts on our own.

That's precisely where you're wrong, though. Any science that one has an interest in, that is relevant to one's life, one can go and look up. One can read the literature on it, understand what the conclusions are, what evidence they are based on, how that evidence was gathered, how it was analyzed, etc. And, depending on the nature of the subject, one can go and attempt to duplicate the results.

Sometimes doing so might take a lot of time to understand. But it is capable of being understood from the ground up. There is no mysticism, no divination, no knowledge that comes from unknowable sources.

Science is not supposed to be believed on faith. That some people do so is not the fault of the scientist.

When it comes to science that takes specialized expensive equipment to study, such as the forefronts of physics... guess what, you don't have to take it on faith, because you don't have to know about it at all. No one is forcing people to adhere to the faith in the Higg's Boson and burning unbelievers.

[Michael Hardner]

That's precisely where you're wrong, though. Any science that one has an interest in, that is relevant to one's life, one can go and look up. One can read the literature on it, understand what the conclusions are, what evidence they are based on, how that evidence was gathered, how it was analyzed, etc. And, depending on the nature of the subject, one can go and attempt to duplicate the results.

But you can only understand it to a certain degree. You still have to believe in people.

With physics, you can't expect to understand the concepts. Even with Climate Change, an undergrad degree isn't enough to fully understand the debates.

Sometimes doing so might take a lot of time to understand. But it is capable of being understood from the ground up. There is no mysticism, no divination, no knowledge that comes from unknowable sources.

Mysticism, divination, and so on is a cultural invention... or development if you will... that was developed by pre-scientists who were given the faith of the people.

When I read the thoughts of religious people, all I can glean from them that is different from my perspective, is that they just don't trust people that they don't know. They trust what their elders told them.

[Bonam]

But you can only understand it to a certain degree. You still have to believe in people.

With physics, you can't expect to understand the concepts.

I most certainly can. And where I don't, I don't place any faith in the theories. I would be a fool to design something based on physics I don't understand.

Even with Climate Change, an undergrad degree isn't enough to fully understand the debates.

You don't need an undergrad degree, you just need to spend some time reading and learning if your goal is to "understand the debates".

[Michael Hardner]

I most certainly can. And where I don't, I don't place any faith in the theories. I would be a fool to design something based on physics I don't understand.

Ok, well clearly you're brilliant. The rest of us have to put faith in somebody.

You don't need an undergrad degree, you just need to spend some time reading and learning if your goal is to "understand the debates".

I have a degree in Math, and I can't understand some of the disagreements around linear regression in Climate Change. Maybe you can explain them to me.