posted
This is nothing new of course, but the other day as I watched an old X-Files (I'm a few years behind the curve on this series...I'm in the middle of season 3 through Netflix), I found myself thinking again about how sometimes "science" and "reason" are as much a matter of faith as any belief in a deity.
So a bunch of people are dying from massive doses of electricity. There is no point of contact, no outward sign of a lightening strike, but they say it must be a lightening strike because it's the only scientific explanation.
Wrong. It is an entirely unscientific explanation and an unreasonable explanation because it does not take into account all of the facts. It also ignores the scientific method, which asks us to state a hypothesis and then set about trying to disprove it. Instead, it is a matter of faith that in the world we know, things must work this way, and all evidence to the contrary must be ignored. This type of thing has happened often in the show.
It also happens in real life. In science, how often to people set about to prove rather than disprove their hypothesis? How often does perception obscure the reality and cause us to see what we want to see rather than what is actually there?
Anyway, I'm not sure where to go from here...it was just an observation. I guess I just sometimes wonder what, in my life, I am taking on faith though I think it is reasonable. I often sense that when we do these things, we are so convinced by their rightness that we can't understand just how wrong we are. What do I take for granted that simply isn't so because I haven't questioned it? Because my parents or teachers told me it was so?
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posted
I think it's a pretty common attitude to try to find how something new relates to something we already know. Coming up with a new explanation, testing it, modifying old models and theories that don't fit the picture anymore, that all takes a lot of work and a lot of time. Now, if instead of that you find out that the "new" thing is actually old_A+old_B, but you just hadn't made the connection yet, everything is suddenly solved. It would be quite tiring to expect something that seems new to actually be new each and every time and act according to this mode of thinking. Testing for the known first, while keeping an open mind, is simpler and more efficient. Of course, "keeping an open mind" is the hard part. At some point you have to realize that "it" most likely *is* a new thing and the logic thing to do is to switch your strategy from "combine old theories" to "design a new theory".
Another question is when do you go back to see if the old, "known" things are actually known, without having any new information making you think they aren't. In other words, do you really know what you think you know, when all the "evidence" so far suggests that you do?
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The X-Files is a pretty fun show. But using it to learn about the world and how scientists operate is as effective as well, learning it to learn how Christians operate. (What do you mean not all Christians are isolated inbreds/manipulated by the devil in the guise of pastor/easily fooled by healing scammers?)
The X-Files is also not our world, it is hard to see how contests like the Randi Challenge would last one minute there.
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quote:It also happens in real life. In science, how often to people set about to prove rather than disprove their hypothesis? How often does perception obscure the reality and cause us to see what we want to see rather than what is actually there?
Pretty often, but the key difference is that the science in principle is designed to detect false ideas and, when correctly applied, is fairly good at that. Your point is that people act like people, regardless of what they are doing. I agree.
Religion embraces the human attributes of wishful thinking, confirmation bias, etc. and is most successful when it does so.
Science tries to operate despite these attributes and works best when it is successful at doing so.
Also, X-Files - not real scientists doing real science.
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Christine, I agree with most of your post but I don't see a connection between it and your implication that science is a religion.
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I've found that many people are very very reluctant to admit the degree to which their beliefs of all sorts are based on faith in things they don't really know for sure. I've also found that people can get very upset at applying the word "religion" to belief systems centered around scientific assumptions.
The reason for this, I think, is that it challenges the way we are traditionally trained to think about the world. In modern America, we divide the world into objective facts and subjective beliefs, with religion in one corner and science in another. Personal judgement goes in one corner while expert opinion goes in the other. And we have a society that functions around those ideas.
But the division is mostly artificial. The scientific method itself when strictly applied is highly rational, but the way science is applied in real life is usually based upon faith - engineers trust scientists haven't lied, consumers trust doctors are giving them stuff that will really work, students trust things their teacher tells them whether or not they have any evidence of it beyond the teacher's word. People extrapolate into the past or future based on unproven assumptions that the world operates and always will operate exactly as current models say it should - and then base major decisions on that faith. The recent economic crash is a prime example of that, given how many people simply planned their life around assumptions like that housing prices would keep rising or that investment banks would not take risks so great that it could undermine the entirely economy. In practice, there isn't really a division between faith-based stuff and fact-based stuff. Everything is on a continuum and is based both on fact and faith, with some beliefs based more on fact than others. And it all influences everything else.
The fear people have of this, I think, is that it leads to a slippery slope where anyone can assert anything they want and decide to take it on faith. My solution to that would be to place human judgement as the thing that ultimately gets to separate what we should trust and what we shouldn't. On the other hand, plenty of people seem to dislike that solution because of how notoriously fickle and unreliable human judgement can be... not to mention some people would prefer to be able to say their beliefs are based upon flawless expertise and unshakable logic, when challenged. Saying "I believe X because I personally judge X to be trustworthy" just doesn't have the same effect, since any disagreeing person can always say the same thing.
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quote:Originally posted by Christine: It also happens in real life. In science, how often to people set about to prove rather than disprove their hypothesis?
If the scientist making the proposal doesn't do a good enough job of trying to disprove his hypothesis, then others will do it for them.
And realisitically, when you submit a paper, the first thing you think of is "What are the reviewers going to critique me on? What points will they want me to shore up with more evidence?" So a sucessful scientist will have to take a stab at poking holes in his work, or s/he won't be published.
quote:How often does perception obscure the reality and cause us to see what we want to see rather than what is actually there?
Lots of times. Hence the utility of having multiple people all examine the same data, and hence the utility of encouraging people to criticize the work. It's contrary to human nature to apply these principles, but people can do it, and do all the time.
quote:Anyway, I'm not sure where to go from here...it was just an observation. I guess I just sometimes wonder what, in my life, I am taking on faith though I think it is reasonable.
Well, the best way we humans know of to find errors in our thinking is constant reality testing and critical thinking, espeicially listening to the critical thinking of other people.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I've found that many people are very very reluctant to admit the degree to which their beliefs of all sorts are based on faith in things they don't really know for sure. I've also found that people can get very upset at applying the word "religion" to belief systems centered around scientific assumptions.
You have to define what you mean by "faith" here.
If I consult astronomic information, I can tell you at what time and at what point on the horizon the sun will rise as seen from your house tomorrow. I'd call that pretty "fact-based"
But that requires me to have "faith" that the sun will rise, according to you. So doesn't that make it "faith-based"?
In which case, what conclusion is it possible for me to draw that's not "faith-based"?
I think your are deliberately equivocating on the meaning of "faith". If you wanted to use a sensible definition, I'd say that a "faith-based" conclusion is one where the facts and reasoning fail to justify the conclusion, whereas a "fact-based" is properly supported by the facts and reasoning. And by that definition, my sunrise prediction is indeed fact-based, as is everything in science, pretty much by definition.
Now, of course, "fact-based" doesn't mean "infallible", but that's because nothing humans can conclude is infallible. But sticking to conclusions which are adequately supported by facts and evidence works a great deal better than the alternative when it comes to being right.
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I'd define "faith" as that which allows a person to accept and act upon a belief that cannot be logically deduced completely from certain infallible facts. So yes, I think almost everything one believes, including the rising of the sun, requires some degree of faith - which is why I think the faith-based/fact-based distiniction is mostly artificial.
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quote:It also happens in real life. In science, how often to people set about to prove rather than disprove their hypothesis? How often does perception obscure the reality and cause us to see what we want to see rather than what is actually there?
Pretty often, but the key difference is that the science in principle is designed to detect false ideas and, when correctly applied, is fairly good at that. Your point is that people act like people, regardless of what they are doing. I agree.
Religion embraces the human attributes of wishful thinking, confirmation bias, etc. and is most successful when it does so.
Science tries to operate despite these attributes and works best when it is successful at doing so.
Also, X-Files - not real scientists doing real science.
I didn't mean to talk about the x-files here. It's just what I was watching when I thought about this. It is just one place where the word "science" is thrown around in such a way as to mean "things we know and understand" rather than to signify a process through which we come to know and understand things.
And I think you summarized my thoughts here better than I did -- it's not that the scientific method is somehow flawed. It is that humans are flawed and that by just being human, we introduce bias into the scientific equation.
So when I talk about science as a religion, I do not mean the scientific method. I mean the people (often not scientists in any real sense of the word) whose beliefs, in the name of science, constitute a matter of blind faith. Ironic, really.
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It's worth pointing out that using things we know and understand in our explanations is going to be correct almost all the time. It's really rather rare to come across a phenomenon that can't be explained using known science. At least outside the X files.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I'd define "faith" as that which allows a person to accept and act upon a belief that cannot be logically deduced completely from certain infallible facts. So yes, I think almost everything one believes, including the rising of the sun, requires some degree of faith - which is why I think the faith-based/fact-based distiniction is mostly artificial.
Ah. So can you name an infallible fact, upon which one can come to a "fact-based" decision?
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Science is a religion the same way a cupcake is a motor vehicle.
If you put wheels, a seat, and a motor on a cupcake you could drive around on it, but it's not really a car. If you stretch the definition of faith to include "everything" then yes, science involves a great deal of faith. It still isn't religion.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I'd define "faith" as that which allows a person to accept and act upon a belief that cannot be logically deduced completely from certain infallible facts. So yes, I think almost everything one believes, including the rising of the sun, requires some degree of faith - which is why I think the faith-based/fact-based distiniction is mostly artificial.
It's only artificial if the "degree of faith," as you put it, is similar. When we're talking about science versus... well... just about anything else, it is not. Period.
In other words, two things are not equivalent just because they both lie on a continuum.
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I agree with mightycow, KoM, mucus, swbarnes2.
Faith and belief are words I don't particularly like because so many people have so many convoluted definitions and connotations with them. However they also happen to be a good way to express varying levels of doubt without using a boatload of qualifiers in your sentence, and so they get used to do just that.
That said I agree that one must have faith in and believe in scientists and teachers and all that, but the important thing between this and religion is that if I suspect my teachers are lying to me I can go to the lab and put the chemicals together, or whatever else, and prove that what they told me is true. I could rip open a corpse and see a bunch of organs but I have a pretty darn good trust in... the world... that the organs would be there just like I think they will. I can test my faith and belief in teachers in ways I cannot do with god. If I am told "Jesus loves me" I say: "That seems doubtful. Most people don't love me. Why should Jesus love me? Do I have any reason to believe that Jesus loves me? Any reason not to? Do I feel it intellectually dishonest to assert that Jesus loves me? etc."
My faith in science is also aided by the fact that I can cite many instances in which science has cleared things up that the church(es) had, quite frankly, done a really terrible job of teaching the truth about. Even to the point of actively supporting things that are completely untrue. *cough* Intelligent Design *cough
anyway, science isn't terribly religious in my book, but it's pretty awesome.
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quote:Ah. So can you name an infallible fact, upon which one can come to a "fact-based" decision?
"There are at least some instances where 1=1" is a proposition that I'd consider infallible fact, from which I could deduce that "It is not true that 1 never equals 1." But my point is that such purely fact-based conclusions are extremely rare in practical life - usually one needs some degree of faith for almost any decision.
quote:It's only artificial if the "degree of faith," as you put it, is similar. When we're talking about science versus... well... just about anything else, it is not. Period.
Most uses of science require a great deal more faith than most other beliefs, because it typically involves predicting the future and asking laymen to trust the opinions of experts on issues they can't themselves understand. "I exist" requires considerably less faith. Looking outside and concluding "it's raining" requires considerably less faith. "I should stop at a red light" generally requires less faith. "I can safely get on this roller coaster that goes upside down because some experts I've never met say the laws of physics will prevent me from being killed" requires a fairly significant amount of faith.
quote:In other words, two things are not equivalent just because they both lie on a continuum.
That's true. But it's still a continuum, rather than two wholly separate categories.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: "I can safely get on this roller coaster that goes upside down because some experts I've never met say the laws of physics will prevent me from being killed" requires a fairly significant amount of faith.
Unless you sit and observe the roller coaster for a few minutes, and note that the dozens of people that are going on it are emerging unharmed.
This faith in science you're talking about seems to be more about understanding of the physical world. With science (or rain, or roller coaster physics), if you don't believe something, you can go and observe it, test it, experiment with it, discuss it, add the the body of knowledge surrounding it, and hopefully get something out of it. If I don't believe that something I read in a very old book really happened, there is very little I can do to verify that it happened.
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True, historical claims are a bit further down the continuum towards the faith end - for instance, if you simply read that the Nazis committed a holocaust, you'd have a hard time proving it happened without a great deal of effort (increasingly so as it moves further into the past.) Questions of the future or past tend to be harder to prove than questions about the present, I think.
But, it should be noted that many ways in which we have faith in scientific ideas cannot be tested or verified by most people. If your doctor gives you a pill to take, unless you are scientist with a lot of time and equipment, you probably can't test if it will do what the doctor says it will do without taking it. Or, for those who were worried about the CERN collider being activated, they pretty much had to take on faith that scientists were correct that it would not destroy the planet. Even for the rollercoaster, it should be noted that there always has to be somebody who is the first to ride it.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: Most uses of science require a great deal more faith than most other beliefs, because it typically involves predicting the future and asking laymen to trust the opinions of experts on issues they can't themselves understand.
I think you mispelled "religion" there.
Science does not demand that anyone just accept what "experts" say on faith. The only assumption it makes is that the universe follows some set of consistent physical laws, such that the results we get from a given test today are the same results we got yesterday, and will be the same results we get tomorrow.
As other people have said repeatedly, if you aren't inclined to believe what a scientist tells you, you can always go and repeat their experiments to see if you produce the same results. Sure, it'll require significant time and monetary commitment to learn how to perform those experiments and get access to the required materials, but that doesn't change the fact that you are free to attempt to disprove any scientific finding.
You are, of course, free to flat-out disbelieve a scientific finding as well. Just don't be surprised when more rational people compare the zero evidence you offer with the reams of data and analysis that scientists provide, and inevitably decide to trust the latter.
quote:"I exist" requires considerably less faith. Looking outside and concluding "it's raining" requires considerably less faith. "I should stop at a red light" generally requires less faith. "I can safely get on this roller coaster that goes upside down because some experts I've never met say the laws of physics will prevent me from being killed" requires a fairly significant amount of faith.
Now you're the one making unnecessary distinctions. Looking outside to check for rain is, itself, a very simple scientific exercise. You have a question: "Is it raining?" Rather than just asking your mom/ a preacher/ the Flying Spaghetti Monster and taking their answer on faith, you go and collect some empirical evidence.
As in any scientific endeavour, there's a couple of ways to do this. You could check the local weather station (ah, but do you "have faith" in the anchorman?). You could look outside the window (ah, but maybe your window was replaced with a TV monitor while you weren't looking and it now just plays a rainy afternoon clip on repeat). You could walk outside and see if you get wet (ah, but maybe someone is drying laundry on the second floor balcony and the clothes are still drippy). Each of these tests has some level of unreliability built into it. But let's say you do them all. Each additional test you perform increases the likelihood that your ultimate conclusion ("It's raining") is correct. It will never prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that condensed water is falling from the sky. It will probably get you to the point where you're willing to state with confidence that rain is happening.
Same goes for your "high faith" proposition: the roller coaster. You don't need to just take the carnie's word that the thing is safe and that you won't fall off halfway through. You can watch the roller coaster go through a couple of runs and see if any of the screaming people die horribly. You can look up "roller coaster" on Wikipedia and learn how they are built. You can take a physics class and calculate for yourself the G-forces involved and whether a given loop-the-loop generates enough to keep passengers pressed to their seats.
(Slight digression: This is the part where Tresopax insists that the physics class is still "taking things on faith," since you're just accepting what the teacher claims to be true. Of course, any decent physics class will have a laboratory component, in which you are encouraged to see how the physical laws you learn about in lecture apply to reality. Hey, science rears its ugly head again!)
Anyway, once again each of these tests has its caveats. Wikipedia is notoriously unreliable. Maybe the people who didn't die happened to put Velcro on their butts. Your calculations might not be correct. But if you do all of these tests, and they all point towards the same answer, then as a reasonable person, you would probably conclude that the roller coaster is safe to ride.
Scientific research that you find in peer-reviewed journals works the same way. You start with a question you want to answer. You come up with a number of different ways to test it. You perform those tests. If they give you answers that support a particular model, then you conclude that the model is accurate.
Of course, there's always the problem of individual bias, which is why we have more than one scientist working on a given problem. But ultimately, it comes down to this question: what has the best track record?
I, and our entire modern technological/ industrial complex, would argue in favor of science.
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: ... If your doctor gives you a pill to take, unless you are scientist with a lot of time and equipment, you probably can't test if it will do what the doctor says it will do without taking it.
Learn to checkout PubMed or Google Scholar. I find it fairly educational and in some cases reassuring to read papers on some medical/dental treatments before I actually take them. A pretty decent number of papers have free full-text and that number expands if you have access through a university account.
The middle of some of the papers may be too technical for a lay-person but the abstract and conclusions are usually pretty good. Try to find review papers as a starting point.
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quote:But, it should be noted that many ways in which we have faith in scientific ideas cannot be tested or verified by most people.
The key difference between science and religion is that science, in principle, can be tested and verified. The fact that there are some aspects of scientific knowledge that require considerable expertise and resources to verify doesn't change that. I am willing to take a lot of what I learn from scientists on faith only because of this key difference.
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It seems to me that Tresopax does not understand the concept of degrees of belief. Of course you can never be 100% certain of anything. That does not mean there is no difference between a 50% chance and a 99.9999% chance. It is not reasonable or useful to use the same word to refer to both.
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quote:Ah. So can you name an infallible fact, upon which one can come to a "fact-based" decision?
"There are at least some instances where 1=1" is a proposition that I'd consider infallible fact, from which I could deduce that "It is not true that 1 never equals 1."
Why do I have to keep repeating myself?
There exists such instance, according to you...so why can't you name one?
quote:Most uses of science require a great deal more faith than most other beliefs
"The sun will rise tomorrow" is a scientific belief.
Can you name a few non-scientific beliefs which require less faith than that?
quote:"I can safely get on this roller coaster that goes upside down because some experts I've never met say the laws of physics will prevent me from being killed" requires a fairly significant amount of faith.
You know that there is a great deal more to it than just the unsupported opinion of experts. You can study the evidence of what happens on coasters when they go upside-down on loops.
Yes, you don't care about such evidence, beucase it's not infallible, but it is dishonest of you to not mention it in your argument when everyone else knows it is there.
quote:But it's still a continuum, rather than two wholly separate categories.
No, it's really not. There are beliefs which are adeuqately supported by the facts and reasoning, and beliefs which are not. That the sun will rise is adequately supported by the facts and reasoning. That Jesus loves you, and that you will live with him after you die is not. That's what makes the latter faith-based, and the former not.
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quote:Even to the point of actively supporting things that are completely untrue. *cough* Intelligent Design *cough
How can you scientifically prove that the universe was not brought into existence by a transcendent sentient being? You cannot- that question is fundamentally outside the realm of scientific inquiry.
I would also argue the fundamental assumptions of scientific inquiry is also based on faith- they are based on unprovable presuppositions. That the universe has standard mechanistic reasons for the way it works, and that it doesn't change from moment to moment. That we actually achieve true knowledge from experience, the ideas of empiricism are nothing that you can substantively prove.
Most of what empiricism says is completely rational and it allows itself to be tested and given some credence of evidence, but the fundamental assumptions of science are certainly a philosophical system which one either believes in or not.
I do not really question a whole lot the conclusions of the scientific community, because I believe that most scientists are for the most part fairly intellectually honest and are certainly too varied a group in order to come up with some master plan to hoodwink the population away from traditional religion. I don't find it that big of a deal to complement my religious beliefs with the results of science- in fact, I most oftentimes find my beliefs enhanced.
I do not, however, take issue with the idea of faith. I would argue that when a person has faith they are a more complete human being. Having a real and strong faith is the marriage of everything it means to be human- it requires the powers of the intellect, the visceral feelings of emotion, and the volitional powers of will.
Wow. I didn't mean to post that much.
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quote:Originally posted by Shawshank: How can you scientifically prove that the universe was not brought into existence by a transcendent sentient being? You cannot- that question is fundamentally outside the realm of scientific inquiry.
Just change the words from "was not" to "was" and you have an equally powerful argument. But how can you spiritually prove anything about the physical universe? Spiritual issues are issues of opinion, stories passed down through religious teachings, and can be discussed and debated, but not ever put through the ringer of experiment.
quote:Originally posted by Shawshank: I do not, however, take issue with the idea of faith. I would argue that when a person has faith they are a more complete human being. Having a real and strong faith is the marriage of everything it means to be human- it requires the powers of the intellect, the visceral feelings of emotion, and the volitional powers of will.
What do you mean my a real and strong faith? If you're talking about a faith in a creator, I take issue with that. My intellect, emotion, and will have all lead me to the conclusion that there is no creator. An in turn, this lack of faith has developed my intellect, emotions, and will. I am certainly not any less of a human being than you are. I may be different and not see the world in the same way but I am still human.
It scares me when you say that faith makes someone more human because that also implies that not having faith makes someone less human. And I don't like the path that is laid out when you start labeling someone "less human" based solely on their faith.
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Shawshank: ID, as advocated by the numerous advocacy groups calling for it, is the assertion that the evolution of organisms has been guided by a far more powerful being and that the existence of this guidance can be proved using science. IOW, ID is definitely ridiculous, for exactly the reason you outlined.
Even if we modify what you said to be talking about the ways new types of organisms come into existence (instead of the universe, which isn't what ID relates to), it would still be more appropriate to categorize it as theistic evolution.
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quote:Just change the words from "was not" to "was" and you have an equally powerful argument
I'm not going to disagree with you there (at least in the terms of the syntax of the sentence) I was responding to what Starsnuffer was saying. I would however say, that in my life with my experiences- the Christian faith (and I'm assuming others, but I'm not as clear on their doctrines as I am my own) would also say that we receive knowledge directly revealed to ourselves by God. Thus, our beliefs are not just affirmed by religious teachings, but by direct interaction with God.
quote: It scares me when you say that faith makes someone more human because that also implies that not having faith makes someone less human. And I don't like the path that is laid out when you start labeling someone "less human" based solely on their faith.
Perhaps more or less human isn't the best term for what I was trying to say. That would necessitate a more ontological change, and I might not want to go that far. I'll revise it to say that it is fullest of human experiences.
I also would say that the issue of faith is probably more generic than faith in a creator. That simply having faith in something is better than not having faith (even if that faith is a lack of something). So in that regard- I do not know if one can be human if they have no faith in anything- I don't know any human being who has no faith at all (not even faith in a not-something).
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quote:I do not, however, take issue with the idea of faith. I would argue that when a person has faith they are a more complete human being.
It seems to follow that those who do not have faith are less complete human beings. Are you certain you wish to make this assertion? Or are you going to say, with Tres, that everyone has faith in something, thus making your initial statement meaningless?
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quote:Originally posted by Shawshank: I would however say, that in my life with my experiences- the Christian faith...would also say that we receive knowledge directly revealed to ourselves by God. Thus, our beliefs are not just affirmed by religious teachings, but by direct interaction with God.
That's what everyone says, and they all claim that God told them different things, and God never tells anyone anything useful, like "Here's the organic chemistry steps to make the next knockout TB drug".
quote:I'll revise it to say that it is fullest of human experiences.
Susan Smith had faith too. As did the 9/11 hijackers, so you'll pardon me if I am very, very wary of being at the receiving end of the actions prompted by "that fullest of human experiences". Sometimes it turns out well, but by and large, people's faith tells them to do what they were going to do anyway, they just become more sure that what they were doing is a good idea, and much less able to be reasoned out of terrible ideas.
quote:That simply having faith in something is better than not having faith (even if that faith is a lack of something).
How can faith be a lack of something?
And why is having faith that the Cubs will win the World series in my lifetime such a wonderful virtue? Why is having faith that a constant habit of running red lights will never get anyone into trouble such a wonderful virtue?
I'm sorry, but if your neighobor's faith in something preposterous cause a serious hurt to you or your family, I don't think you'd be excusing his behavior with "well, at least he believes something, unlike my atheist neighbor down the street".
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quote:How can you scientifically prove that the universe was not brought into existence by a transcendent sentient being? You cannot- that question is fundamentally outside the realm of scientific inquiry.
Well, proving a negative isn't possible, but that doesn't mean the question is outside the realm of scientific inquiry.
Asking whether a "transcendent sentient" being created the universe is very broad. There are many possible beings. If we're dealing more specifically with various entities, however, we can reasonably ask what kind of universe that being would create. Then, we can empirically check our universe to see if it matches the hypothetical. If the two do not jibe, we have evidence against the hypothesis "being X created our universe". Whether or not the evidence is convincing to you doesn't really matter. The question is not outside the realm of science.
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Here's an example of a faith-based statement that is universally accepted: mathematical postulates. They simply can't be proven. Nobel Prize for whoever can, but there's no way you can show that a line can always be drawn between any two points known to mathematics. But taking postulates for truth has led us to learn much about geometry, calculus, and other practical mathematical branches that are reliably true enough to base so much of our society on. Bridges, architecture, flight, you name it, lend themselves to geometric theorems, which are completely dependent on faith-based assumptions.
That said, some religious faith-based postulates, which cannot be proven, have led to great things in our society, such as cultural appreciation for morality, the spiritual security of many an individual (I won't be so naive as to say a number of multiples; I don't know how many people are genuinely saved), and the unity of peoples. From faith, we derive truths about the world that seem to work. It works well enough for me to conclude that something about a few of the faiths religion offers are legitimate axioms for truth.
I'd expect someone would probably ask for evidence. Fine, here's some.
We'll start with a fundamental assumption of my faith:
Love is sacrifice.
I cannot prove that love is sacrifice. I can only say that whenever I see love, I also see sacrifice. I cannot show why one causes the other, or if they are actually one and the same.
We'll take a definition of sacrifice for our next given:
Sacrifice is giving something up.
The next given is really a mathematical postulate, reworded into something more philosophical:
Giving something up leaves you with less than before.
If love = sacrifice, and sacrifice = subtraction, therefore love = subtraction from the self. This is justified by yet another fundamental logical postulate: the law of syllogisms. It's just one of those "duh" postulates that have never been contradicted.
Take this new religious theorem and introduce another faith-based postulate:
Sacrifice atones for evil.
Therefore, love atones for evil, by the law of syllogisms. This is a basic principle of Christianity, which reminds and emphasizes my original axiom, whereas biblical Judaism, from which Christianity stems, affirms the "sacrifice atones for evil" postulate. By this theorem, if Jesus had pure love for the people of the earth, the resulting sacrifice cleanses mankind. This is a common theme in the New Testament.
Of course the postulates can be considered faulty if the theorems derived from them are not supported by real world evidence. But love does atone for evil. Whether one is loving or is being loved, evil weakens.
What kind of example do you need for evidence? I myself feel that my learning to be empathetic, and by extension sympathetic, is what enlightened me to cast off arrogance and despair (both of which can be proven evil using the religious postulate "An action is evil if and only if it is done to try to make oneself better than another, especially God." and the original axiom). I am familiar with a man who, when I first met him, was power-hungry and aggressive, who revealed that he had a very rough existence largely devoid of love. I am still amazed at how well I was able to oppose his evil actions and still love him. After about a year, he returned a much more patient and loving person. He had spent some time in therapy, but he had been in therapy even before I met him. What was different the year I first knew him was that there was a community that respected and loved him, that treated him as an equal, even humbled themselves before him.
Of course what I say couldn't possibly be satisfactory to prove that religion has any merits. Any broad statements and assumptions I seem to make are the result of similar deduction from mathematical or other uncontradicted axioms, culminating from my own experiences and those before me.
I think it can be done; proving that God exists. Just not in a lifetime. Our subconsciouses can sometimes do logic faster than our conscious mind (I've had this experience, much to my delight, in geometry class, where I could see what the answer would be before I had finished a proof), and these intuitive leaps are the closest things that bring us to a true understanding of God in a lifetime. But here's the thing: homo sapiens are pretty good at standing on the shoulders of giants. There are hundreds of postulates stipulated by religion, whether it be Christianity, most of whose postulates are consistently supported enough for me to trust in Christ, or other religions, whose accuracy I find mixed. Theologians, spiritual men and women, and scholars have built up theorems and assumed postulates throughout history, building up to the religion we see today.
Like mathematics, the original pioneers of religion built up their field little by little by wondering and experimenting. Their accuracy may not have been 100%. But insofar as the most basic postulates are concerned, many of the complex theorems that can be derived from these axioms are sufficiently uncontradicted to hold that there is truth to be found in religion. I could fill a book with conclusions I have come to about the postulates and axioms testified by Christianity and Judaism. The full network of logic that justifies my religion is too complex to discover in a lifetime, which is why I do not depend on just pondering to learn about God, but study the history of the Church and its documents as well. If anyone wants to try to disprove a religion using mathematical logic stemmed from religious postulates, be my guest. I have enough faith in God by now to be confident that the basic theology of Christianity will hold its own.
To just sum up, the logic that was developed for mathematics is really the only way one can "prove" or "disprove" anything, but even that is dependent on fully unprovable axioms. Religion works much in the way mathematics does, with unprovable axioms that are supported by the accuracy of the theorems derived from them.
Posts: 1029 | Registered: Apr 2007
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Mathematical postulates aren't anything that needs to be proven. Quite the opposite, in fact -- they are assumptions.
Absolutely no faith is needed to say "if we assume the following set of things is true, what else must be true?"
That math occasionally has applications to things in the real world is just a nice (and planned) coincidence.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Juxtapose: ... proving a negative isn't possible...
This is not true.
Strictly speaking, using formal logic, you're right. I meant it more in the "you can't provide evidence for the nonexistent" sense. Does that work better for you?
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I think the important distinction that many people are missing here is that Science requires trust where Religion requires faith.
Religion requires faith because you cannot actually show someone or see for yourself many of the claims made by religion.
Science frequently requires almost no faith at all, merely trust in the fact that many people have already done the work you could do yourself.
I don't have faith in my doctor, but I do trust her to give me the proper pills. I do not allow her to take my life and health into her hands because I get a glowing feeling in my soul when I am around her, but because she has established credentials, has completed rigorous study, and has a solid track record of making me well in the past.
At the same time, I can't trust what a religious person tells me about God, because they don't really know either. I can have faith in the beliefs they espouse, in the same way that they themselves have faith in those beliefs, but neither of us really knows in any concrete way.
quote:At the same time, I can't trust what a religious person tells me about God, because they don't really know either.
This in an incorrect and unsafe assumption. You have not experienced what others have, and as such you do not know if their conclusions are good ones. You are correct that you cannot trust in their beliefs just because they are confident or even absolutely certain of them. To assume there are not people out there who know about God is pretty presumptuous.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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No, BlackBlade, it isn't. My experience is just as good as yours; to say that I cannot trust it, that is the presumption.
What is more, the same argument applies with exactly equal force to yourself. How do you know that the Hindus are wrong? To say that there are not people out there who know truths about how to achieve nirvana, why... that's presumptuous.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: No, BlackBlade, it isn't. My experience is just as good as yours; to say that I cannot trust it, that is the presumption.
What is more, the same argument applies with exactly equal force to yourself. How do you know that the Hindus are wrong? To say that there are not people out there who know truths about how to achieve nirvana, why... that's presumptuous.
You're misunderstanding me. What you're saying is how I interpreted Mighty Cow's words. I said earlier you shouldn't trust my experiences no matter how certain *I* am in them. But to suggest that nobody knows there is a God is not something anyone can rightly say, even if they had been alive for millions of years.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: But to suggest that nobody knows there is a God is not something anyone can rightly say, even if they had been alive for millions of years.
I think it can be said, pretty safely, that it doesn't appear as if anyone knows if there is a god or not. Not in any way that can be shown demonstrably to others, that is. Or if someone out there does, they don't care to share their knowledge with anyone else.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:I think it can be said, pretty safely, that it doesn't appear as if anyone knows if there is a god or not. Not in any way that can be shown demonstrably to others, that is.
There's a big difference between, "There is no God," and "There is no God that can be commanded to appear to others."
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:There's a big difference between, "There is no God," and "There is no God that can be commanded to appear to others."
And there's a big difference between the latter and "there is no God whose existence can be reliably demonstrated in any way."
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:There's a big difference between, "There is no God," and "There is no God that can be commanded to appear to others."
And there's a big difference between the latter and "there is no God whose existence can be reliably demonstrated in any way."
That is true Tom, but I'm not quite sure what you are getting at. I suspect you are trying to say that there is no process that upon completion always yields the result of God being made manifest.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:I think it can be said, pretty safely, that it doesn't appear as if anyone knows if there is a god or not. Not in any way that can be shown demonstrably to others, that is.
There's a big difference between, "There is no God," and "There is no God that can be commanded to appear to others."
I don't think there is, actually.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Well, "there is no God that can be commanded to appear to others" leaves open the possibility of deceitful or mischievous gods.
I'm pretty convinced that if I'm wrong and SOME "supernatural" being exits, Loki (or something similar) is the most likely bet.
Posts: 2907 | Registered: Nov 2005
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C3PO, you gave a very thorough explanation of why you do what you do but the issue I have with it being called an article of faith, or having any religious affiliation is the fact that it is not inherently religious.
The idea that that god might exist because some people think he exists is a stupid argument. Where is the reason to feel their thoughts regarding god's existence are correct? If they think something it SHOULD be for a reason. If they can't produce a reason, they do not receive my belief. Internal feelings are often cited as this sort of reason to believe. These feelings are often incorrect and so I place a great deal of skepticism of claims to reality on claims based on personal opinion.
Posts: 655 | Registered: May 2005
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