What is faith? Really?

[Thinking Aloud]

What is faith, really?

It's a deeply held wishful thinking and hope that something for which there is no evidence is true. "Believers" may not be certain their belief is true, they may have doubts, but they desperately want it to be true to the extent of convincing themselves and trying very hard to refuse to doubt.

It doesn't need figures. If there's no evidence for something, and the lack of that something makes no difference whatsoever to the operation of the universe around us, it's not something that needs its probability quantifying.

[mistermack]

I had a chance to fuck Faith, once.

But I really wanted her sister Charity.

I ended up having Neither, in the end.

True story.

[mistermack]

What is faith, really?

It's a deeply held wishful thinking and hope that something for which there is no evidence is true. "Believers" may not be certain their belief is true, they may have doubts, but they desperately want it to be true to the extent of convincing themselves and trying very hard to refuse to doubt.

It doesn't need figures. If there's no evidence for something, and the lack of that something makes no difference whatsoever to the operation of the universe around us, it's not something that needs its probability quantifying.

No, that's perfectly fair.
It's just that I started this thread, after reading some figures, (can't remember where from) about the percentage of Americans who were believers. You very often get these figures bandied about.
Percentage of churchgoers, percentage of believers, percentage of other faiths and percentage of atheists.

We tend to accept them, but I'm just saying that they are as rubbish as what I'm suggesting. Probably worse, because they don't describe the strength of people's belief, or disbelief.

When there is a form to fill in, if there is a box for ''religion'' they might tick ''christian'' but that tells you absolutely nothing about what they actually believe. Many people who don't even believe in god might still tick that.

[Seth]

I had a chance to fuck Faith, once.

But I really wanted her sister Charity.

I ended up having Neither, in the end.

True story.

Pity you have no Hope. I knew Hope, she was smoking hot...

[JimC]

I had a chance to fuck Faith, once.

But I really wanted her sister Charity.

I ended up having Neither, in the end.

True story.

What was Neither like in the sack?

[mistermack]

I had a chance to fuck Faith, once.

But I really wanted her sister Charity.

I ended up having Neither, in the end.

True story.

What was Neither like in the sack?

Neither wasn't up to much. I should have had Faith, Faith would have been better than neither.

I should never have relied on Charity. I should have been prepared to do things for myself.

[Pappa]

Good graphic, Hermit.

Personally, I'm pretty close to being an absolute atheist. I accept that logically, I cannot clearly demonstrate that there is no god. However, neither can one demonstrate the non-existence of many other hypothetical things, but that does not mean I need to have even a shred of belief in them.

Simply, I have no need of the god hypothesis; it has neither personal meaning nor relevance in explaining the universe, so it can be totally ignored, except as a window into the alien landscape of believers...

Exactly how I feel about it. I think it's wrong to insist that my non-belief in god is comparable to someone else's belief in god. I don't believe in invisible pink unicorns either, but nobody would suppose that is a matter of faith.

[Svartalf]

But invisible pink unicorns thrive on belief, if you don't believe, you're killing them.

Think of the invisible pink unicorns !!

[Hermit]

I think it's wrong to insist that my non-belief in god is comparable to someone else's belief in god. I don't believe in invisible pink unicorns either, but nobody would suppose that is a matter of faith.

I think the consideration between gnosticism and agnosticism nails it. Surely, you don't absolutely deny the existence of the pink unicorn; you just withhold belief in one until there is at least a smidgen of evidence for its existence.

[JimC]

I think it's wrong to insist that my non-belief in god is comparable to someone else's belief in god. I don't believe in invisible pink unicorns either, but nobody would suppose that is a matter of faith.

I think the consideration between gnosticism and agnosticism nails it. Surely, you don't absolutely deny the existence of the pink unicorn; you just withhold belief in one until there is at least a smidgen of evidence for its existence.

Which will take until the heat death of the Universe...

[Animavore]

That's what Atheism suffers from, poverty of imagination. Like the three blind men examining an elephant by touch, Atheists proceed from a faulty premise. Really several faulty premises.

Are you suggesting gods are imaginary?

The first faulty premise is that in the absence of scientific validation, any claim to phenomena that occur outside the known physics of science must be classified as "supernatural." That premise is flawed because it assumes (again) perfect scientific knowledge, whereas the phenomena may in fact be perfectly natural and within the laws of physics but outside the understanding of the laws of physics that lie within the intellectual grasp of human beings today.

I don't know many people who would agree with the first part. There are phenomena which fall outside of known physics like "dark matter" which aren't classified as "supernatural". "Supernatural" is a term which is applied to phenomena which seem to violate the laws of physics. Also, history is full of phenomena once deemed supernatural which we now have known natural causes for (earthquakes, disease...). I'm not sure anyone here would argue against the proposition that there is stuff we can't yet explain through science.

The second faulty premise is that God(s) don't exist because there is no credible evidence that they do. This is of course merely a burden of proof fallacy. And yes, I'm aware of the typical Atheist prevarication of saying that Atheists don't believe gods don't exist, they are just withholding judgment until the evidence is all in. This of course is just a convenient rhetorical evasion.

It's not a rhetorical evasion. I've never seen, felt or conversed with a god or witnessed or experienced a miracle. Sue me.
Religious people, on the other hand, claim they have. The characters in the Bible have wrestled with God. Spoken with God through a burning bush. One was even the son of God. They witnessed great miracles like canes being turned into snakes. The Red Sea being parted. People being raised from the dead.
This is the exact same standard of evidence I expect for myself and no less. I'm not going to believe something just on someone's say so.
And speaking of the burden of proof - There are countless gods out there. There are gods extinct, extant and yet to be invented. There may be many, many more out there in the universe. By shifting the burden of proof on the atheist you are expecting them to disprove each and every single one of them in an effort to justify not believing in any. This is an incredibly enormous burden enough to crush anyone.
No. That won't do. Let the believers show their evidence and it's up to people (not just atheists, but people from other religions) to decide whether they accept it. Whether they want to buy into it. Or whether they want to look elsewhere. Ideas are a market place.

Atheists insist that science is the metric, while the faithful do not try to hold God to the rules of knownphysics in examining God's interactions with the universe.

Atheism and scienceism are not synonymous, though people who buy into scienceism are usually atheists. You can be a non-believer and still believe stuff like homeopathy, angels, chi, telepathy, bi-location and other stuff outside the metric of science.
I've just described a friend of mine.
As for examining any gods' interaction with the universe, I'm not even sure how I would go about doing that. I'd have to pick a god first out of the many I suppose, and then, I dunno, look for signs or something

And the other faulty premise is the "I ain't seen no evidence" Atheist claim.

Three things are possible with respect to this premise: First, there may be no evidence; second, there may be evidence that the Atheist is unaware of; and third there may be evidence that the Atheist is aware of but that the Atheist dismisses because it does not meet the Atheist's standards of review.

It's not a faulty premise to say "I ain't seen no evidence". It's not even a premise. It's a statement of a person's personal experience. I'm 35 and I have yet to see any evidence. Not for want of trying. I wasn't always an atheist.
I don't know anyone who would disagree that there could be evidence they haven't seen yet. And if there is evidence I have seen it would probably be more the case I didn't even recognise it than I dismissed it.

God, if God exists as is claimed by the faithful, being omnipotent and omniscient, would certainly be capable of denying evidence that might compel an Atheist to believe if that is God's desire, even while simultaneously showing compelling evidence that the faithful believe to them. Evidence of this sort of behavior is seen frequently in Catholic records, where visions and miracles are granted only to some people and not to everyone.

Why God might choose to act in this way is unknown, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility.

Apparently God hardened the Pharaoh's heart so he wouldn't believe.
It's also possible that Satan is tricking everyone into believing in the wrong god, or believing in god incorrectly, or that there even is a god. I don't think it's really helpful to talk about what is 'possible'. It's a bit of a red-herring.

[Animavore]

There's an expression that "faith is believing what you know ain't so". Once you know something you no longer have faith. You have knowledge. If we believe the Bible, Jesus or his disciples didn't have faith. Moses didn't have faith. Gideon didn't have faith. Adam and Eve didn't have faith. They had direct knowledge. They'd seen, heard and even been God.

Joseph Smith didn't have faith. He got gold plates directly off an angel. Muhammed didn't have faith. He had direct contact. Hell even Pat Robertson has a direct link. Claude Vorilhon was visited by aliens. Sun Myung Moon is a the Messiah himself.

Fine. I'll have what they're having, please.

[piscator]

[Mick]

Faith is a form of trust. The basis for this trust is rational in light of posterior evidence. For example, a child trusts his mother about this or that unobserved thing or event, since he has seen that she is good, reliable and trustworthy. This trust would be a form of faith.

[JimC]

Faith is a form of trust. The basis for this trust is rational in light of posterior evidence. For example, a child trusts his mother about this or that unobserved thing or event, since he has seen that she is good, reliable and trustworthy. This trust would be a form of faith.

Except it is based on a social interaction with a real, present human being, and is nothing more than an estimate of the probability of certain future events. Humans have evolved to be pretty good at judging issues of trust involving other humans.

Faith in the existence of supernatural beings is a very different phenomenon, although its roots are also to be found in human nature; we love to generalise, and to attribute agency where none in fact exists, because, in the hunter-gather state, it paid off more often than it didn't.

Deep down, faith is an emotive and irrational state of mind, one almost akin to falling in love. Over the years, it has ben enfolded with the trappings of literature, high art and failed attempts to place it as compatible with a rational appreciation of the observable universe.

I think I shall conclude with a poem by Matthew Arnold:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.