Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Brent Meeker writes: > >>> This cannot be explained away by >>> "faith" in the sense that one can have faith in the gravity god or a >>> deist god (because no empirical finding counts for or against such >>> beliefs): rather, it comes down to a matter of simultaneously >>> believing x and not-x. >>> >> Seems like "faith" to me - belief without or contrary to evidence. What is >> the "x" you refer to? > > There is a subtle difference. It is possible to have faith in something > stupid > and still be consistent. For example, I could say that I have faith that God > will answer my prayers regardless of whether he has ever answered any > prayers before in the history of the world. However, I think most religious > people would say that they have "faith" that God will answer their prayers > because that it what God does and has done in the past. In so saying, they > are making an empirically verifiable claim, at least in theory. They can be > invited > to come up with a test to support their belief, which can be as stringent as > they > like; for example, they might allow only historical analysis because God > would > not comply with any experiment designed to test him. I suspect that no such > test would have any impact on their beliefs because at bottom they are just > based on blind faith, but given that they do not volunteer this to begin > with, it > shows them up as inconsistent and hypocritical. > > Stathis Papaioannou
OK. But I'd say that in fact almost no one believes something without any evidence, i.e. on *blind* faith. Religious faith is usually belief based on *selected* evidence; it is "faith" because it is contrary to the total evidence. Bruno seems to use "faith" somewhat differently: to mean what I would call a working hypothesis. Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
