Steve, Your post is too long for me to comment on it here.
Random anecdotal examples aside, my central point of "faith" as an
article of a validated model vs "Faith" as a more consciously adopted
element not backed up by the same type of validation seems pretty concise?
/-- Russ Abbott/
/_____________________________________________/
/ Professor, Computer Science/
/ California State University, Los Angeles/
/ My paper on how the Fed can fix the economy:
ssrn.com/abstract=1977688 <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1977688>/
/ Google voice: 747-/999-5105
Google+: plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/
<https://plus.google.com/114865618166480775623/>
/ vita: /sites.google.com/site/russabbott/
<http://sites.google.com/site/russabbott/>
CS Wiki <http://cs.calstatela.edu/wiki/> and the courses I teach
/_____________________________________________/
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 9:58 PM, ERIC P. CHARLES <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
But Russ... if you concede Tory's point, then I think you are
quite stuck.
There are many, many, many people for whom the everyday world
contains a divine being... and the everyday world is the everyday
world. There are people who train hard to see God surrounding
them, and there are people for whom it seems to come quite
naturally (which is not to say it didn't develop, just that it
came easily). For these people, by your definition, belief in God,
and belief that God will continue to be with them forever, are NOT
issues of faith.
Eric
P.S. I have no idea what Nick will say about "faith" vs. "belief"!
I think the concepts overlap pretty obviously, i.e., faith seems
like it should be a subclass of belief. On the other hand, one
could treat them as two different ways of talking about the same
sort of thing. If we can get past your odd claim that faith has to
be religious AND that religious things are not part of everyday
life, I would be very interested to know how you think the two
relate.
On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 12:41 AM, *Russ Abbott <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>>* wrote:
Nick,
As I understand your position the words "faith" and "belief"
are synonyms. I would prefer a definition for "faith" that
distinguishes it from "belief."
Tory,
Thanks for you comment on my posts. I'm glad you enjoy them.
My definition of faith makes use of the notion of the everyday
world. But I'm not saying that the everyday world is the same
for everyone. Your everyday world may be different from mine.
I'm just saying that believing that the world will continue to
conform to */_your_/ *sense of what the everyday world
is like is not faith; it's simple belief.
Eric,
I would take "having faith in something" in
the colloquial sense as different from "faith" in a religious
context, which is what I was focusing on.
/-- Russ /
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Victoria Hughes
<[email protected] <#139f6a3e427f43ce_>> wrote:
Russ wrote, in part-
Faith, I would say (in fact I did earlier)
is believing something that one wouldn't otherwise
believe without faith.
Believing that the everyday world is the everyday world
doesn't seem to me to require faith.
Russ, with all due respect for the enjoyment I get from
your posts, I find this suspiciously tautological.
Who are you to define for the rest of humanity (and other
sentient life forms) what 'the everyday world'
incorporates? Numerous 'for instance' cases can
immediately be made here. All you can do is define what
you believe for yourself. You cannot extrapolate what is
defensible for others to believe, from your own beliefs.
And this statement ' Faith is believing something that one
wouldn't believe without faith'. Hm and hm again.
Eagleman's new book Incognito
<http://www.amazon.com/Incognito-Secret-Lives-David-Eagleman/dp/0307389928/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348460523&sr=1-1&keywords=incognito+by+david+eagleman>
offers
fruitful information from recent neuroscience that may
interest others on this list. His ultimate sections bring
up hard questions about legal and ethical issues in the
face of the myriad 'zombie programs' that run most of our
behaviour. This looks like - but is not as simplistic as -
'yet another pop science book.'
A review David Eagleman's "Incognito" - Brainiac
<http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2011/06/david_eaglemans.html>
Tory
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps athttp://www.friam.org
------------
Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State University
Altoona, PA 16601
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
