Why Atheists Get the Idea of "Faith" Wrong

[Unknown Soldier]

Atheists tend to see the idea of faith as weak, irrational, and the product of religion only while many of the religious think faith is quite sensible, universal and strong. I think that on this issue I must side with the religious. Faith doesn't need to be "blind," lacking in logic and evidence but can just as easily be supported be supported by sound thinking. Faith is essentially the trust or confidence we place in a conclusion. As such, it is not necessarily religious. So, for example consider a climatologist who has studied the melting ice in Antarctica. She gathers a lot of data regarding the reduction of ice there and compares it to the increased CO2 in the atmosphere over the past decades. Based on the evidence available to her she concludes that yes, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is causing the ice to melt in Antarctica. The confidence she places in that conclusion is her faith.

So we all have a certain level of faith, and there's nothing wrong with that. Having logic and evidence isn't enough. At some point we need to put our brains in gear and judge if it's enough to trust our ability to see the truth. That's faith, and it's unfortunate that many atheists have made it "the new f-word."

 

[bilby]

Based on the evidence available to her she concludes that yes, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is causing the ice to melt in Antarctica. The confidence she places in that conclusion is her faith.

No, that's her knowledge.

Faith is different from knowledge in that it is explicitly belief without evidence.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - Hebrews 11-1

 

[steve_bank]

Religious faith - Believing in a god or gods with supernatural powers without any repeatable experimental proof. Personal proof is subjective interpretation of experiment.

Scientific faith- After repeated experiment and testing of a theory a beleif that under specified boundaries the the same inputs will always result in the same outputs.

Personal faith - A trust in friends or family based on experience

And so on and so forth.

Scientific incidence and deduction based on established science is not faith as infered in the op. Theists on the forum have argued that both science and religion are based on a faith, thefore religious belief is as valid as science. IOW cretinism is a valid conclusion as good as science.

We study our sun and from that we can deduce the composition of distant stars through inference and observation. We can not directly measure the distance of distant stars and we estimate the distance using parallax to a limit, and other techniques beyond that. Is that a 'faith'?

Knowing the speed of light we can esimate the distance to the moon by bouningy a laser pulse off a relector on the moon and measuring the time delay. Is that a 'faith'? Hardly, at least nt the same knd of faih as believing in the bible god.



Once again the word atheist is used broadly for a large group of diverse people with many beliefs. One can be atheist but believe in the supernatural.

A recent survey shows 98.2% of theists prefer Coke over Pepsi, and 89.5% of atheists prefer Pepsi over Coke.

On this one I side with the theists.....

 

[ideologyhunter]

If theists had facts and durable lines of argumentation, they wouldn't need the word faith. And they wouldn't have to add it, as the extra ingredient we supposedly need to join them.
You can have faith in absolutely anything. Christianity. Islam. Lucky numbers. Ghosts. There is no proposition you can't take on faith. It's a terrible way to pretend to acquire knowledge.

 

[DBT]

Faith, by its nature and definition, is blind. Nor is faith to be confused with confidence or trust.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Religious faith - Believing in a god or gods with supernatural powers without any repeatable experimental proof. Personal proof is subjective interpretation of experiment.

Not all faith is "religious" faith as I explained in the OP. We all have faith whether we are religious or not.

Scientific faith- After repeated experiment and testing of a theory a beleif that under specified boundaries the the same inputs will always result in the same outputs.

That's what we logicians call "inductive logic." Faith in a conclusion should follow directly from any inductive probability exceeding 50 percent.

Scientific incidence and deduction based on established science is not faith as infered in the op.

Again, faith in the context of science is inductive logic.

Theists on the forum have argued that both science and religion are based on a faith, thefore religious belief is as valid as science. IOW cretinism is a valid conclusion as good as science.

Obviously I don't conclude that all faiths are created equal. An inductive probability falls into the 0 < p < 1 range, so what is based on faith can vary tremendously regarding its truth.

We study our sun and from that we can deduce the composition of distant stars through inference and observation. We can not directly measure the distance of distant stars and we estimate the distance using parallax to a limit, and other techniques beyond that. Is that a 'faith'?

No. Faith is that extra step that you and so many other atheists leave out of the process. Scientists use statistical analysis to check to see how likely their conclusions are to be true. How confident they are in their conclusions is where faith comes in.

Knowing the speed of light we can esimate the distance to the moon by bouningy a laser pulse off a relector on the moon and measuring the time delay. Is that a 'faith'? Hardly, at least nt the same knd of faih as believing in the bible god.

How likely is your distance measurement to be correct? Any Bozo can shine lights on something and then claim some distance measurement is correct. Without faith, we mindlessly accept conclusions based on any evidence and any reasoning.

Once again the word atheist is used broadly for a large group of diverse people with many beliefs. One can be atheist but believe in the supernatural.

A recent survey shows 98.2% of theists prefer Coke over Pepsi, and 89.5% of atheists prefer Pepsi over Coke.

On this one I side with the theists.....

I don't see any relevance in this.

 

[SIB]

Well, to me, believing in something more makes more sense then then believing in the reverse. That's what what the science points to anyway. But hey, what science points too over riding what what people feel mean anyway?

 

[steve_bank]

Soldier

So, for example consider a climatologist who has studied the melting ice in Antarctica. She gathers a lot of data regarding the reduction of ice there and compares it to the increased CO2 in the atmosphere over the past decades. Based on the evidence available to her she concludes that yes, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is causing the ice to melt in Antarctica. The confidence she places in that conclusion is her faith.

So we all have a certain level of faith,

Again you are using the word faith which like a lot of language is contextual especially religion and philosophy .

Religious faith in a god is not the same as trusting established science. The quetion is the basis of a faith or trust in something.

You are on a takeoff role in a jet. Putting aside equipment failure or plot error on what basis do have faith the plane will actually take off and fly as long as there are no pilot errors or equipment problems?

1. God wills it.
2. I have flown a lot ad trust by experience.
3. I know some science.
4. There are no known cases of a plane which stopped flying for no cause.
5. Planes fly because they do.


For me it is a combination of 2,3,and 4.

As to inductive logic it is common in engineering.

A system fails. You can start at the failure and work backwards to a concision of a cause. Or you can start with a set of assumed causes and work towards the conslsion of the ecvent.

In practice it is rarely exclusively inductive or deductive, it is a combination of the two. Logic is a tool, the results of logic has to be expressed as a testable equation or model, which is the proof.

Logic alone is never proof in science.

Icontrast in religion logical arguments are given as proof of god and the supernatural. which are not testable, objectively.

1. You find a watch and nver saw one before You assume soebody created it.
2. We see the workd and assume somebody must have created tit.
3. Therefore god exists.

The Watchmaker Argument.

The universe can not possibly exist without a god, therefore god exists. The Teleological Argument.

Logic without quantifiable science is religion and philosophy.

Religion and philosophy have social value, but are not the same as science.

The problem is when philosophy and religion ate taken as physical reality.


I don't know why you make an argument on science faith with measurement errors. There is no such thing as an absolute measurement with no uncertainty. From my first physics 101 lab, a number without an error bounds is meaningless and useless.

 

[Shadowy Man]

We disagree on the definition of the word “faith”. By conflating religious faith with trust in science you undermine the distinction between the two. As a scientist, I don’t use the word “faith” anymore in scientific contexts, only “trust” because of this.

If we don’t appreciate the shades of meanings of words then we can no longer appreciate the subtle distinctions in thought that underpin these words.

 

[DBT]

Faith as a belief held without the support of evidence may apply to anything - politics, all politicians have your best interest at heart, ideology, religion.....your sports team are definitely going to win, your next lotto ticket is a guaranteed to win, etc...faith in the truth of one's belief, whatever it happens to be.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

Faith and trust are two distinct things. Faith is a belief in something, even though have no evidence, or even in defiance of the evidence.
Trust is based on repeated experience or reproducible evidence.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

If theists had facts and durable lines of argumentation, they wouldn't need the word faith.

Many Christian apologists think they do have facts and arguments but need faith nevertheless. Faith, understood according to the definition used by theologians, is a necessary part of logical thought. Like I have explained faith is basically inductive logic. You gather evidence, check that evidence for properties you want to study, form a conclusion, and then decide how likely your conclusion is to be right.

And they wouldn't have to add it, as the extra ingredient we supposedly need to join them.

If you've ever done any hypothesis testing, then you've applied faith. You can skip testing your conclusion, but then you wouldn't know how probable your conclusion is.

You can have faith in absolutely anything. Christianity. Islam. Lucky numbers. Ghosts.

You can have faith in science too, and it's good if you do.

There is no proposition you can't take on faith. It's a terrible way to pretend to acquire knowledge.

Faith is actually a great way to be assured that you know what you think you know. So you have no faith in your conclusions?

 

[ideologyhunter]

If theists had facts and durable lines of argumentation, they wouldn't need the word faith.

Many Christian apologists think they do have facts and arguments but need faith nevertheless. Faith, understood according to the definition used by theologians, is a necessary part of logical thought. Like I have explained faith is basically inductive logic. You gather evidence, check that evidence for properties you want to study, form a conclusion, and then decide how likely your conclusion is to be right.

And they wouldn't have to add it, as the extra ingredient we supposedly need to join them.

If you've ever done any hypothesis testing, then you've applied faith. You can skip testing your conclusion, but then you wouldn't know how probable your conclusion is.

You can have faith in absolutely anything. Christianity. Islam. Lucky numbers. Ghosts.

You can have faith in science too, and it's good if you do.

There is no proposition you can't take on faith. It's a terrible way to pretend to acquire knowledge.

Faith is actually a great way to be assured that you know what you think you know. So you have no faith in your conclusions?

As has been said above, you are using 'faith' to apply to both the confirmation of empirical matters and to a belief in an invisible, intangible world -- a world that may include various intangible deities, saviors, spirits, saints, demons, angels, etc.
As for faith -- religious faith, if you like -- being a terrible way to pretend to acquire knowledge, all you have to do is imagine a round table consisting of a Buddhist monk, a Jehovah's Witness elder, a nun, an LDS missionary, an imam, a Satanist, and one of Blatavsky's theosophists. Whose faith is justified or persuasive? Any of 'em? Isn't there a common denominator there, of baseless belief? Again, there is no proposition whatever that you can't take on faith.

 

[steve_bank]

I think us''atheists' get it right.

A great many Christians and others are living as if we are ignorant superstitious people from 2000 years ago.

Believing humans ran aroundd with T Rex. Believing two of every suface critter went on the Ark.

At best what you can say is that the wacky extremes of religion are no better or worse than the wacky extremes of the non religious.

We all have coping mechanism and rituals, nothing profound in that. It is obvious.

Thanks t modern technology people walk around listening to music 24/7 tuning out the world around them.

Fictional escapes like LOTR and Star Trek.

I had a conversation with a extreme Cortez progressive in my building who thinks Star Trek is a model o fa just capitalist free future. I reminded him ST is a fiction fantasy, and we have not talked since.

As religion fades pop culture produces alternatives to have faith in.

There is an old album cover from the 60s that show grafitti 'Clapton Is God'. I think it was John Mayall's Blues Breakers.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

We disagree on the definition of the word “faith”. By conflating religious faith with trust in science you undermine the distinction between the two.

Since you know that the religious generally don't understand "faith" as blind acceptance of dogma, then why misrepresent it that way? It's simply unfair and dishonest to do so. So the distinction you draw between religious faith and faith in science is a strawman.

As a scientist, I don’t use the word “faith” anymore in scientific contexts, only “trust” because of this.

That's fine, but it's important to know that the religious concept of faith is basically the same as the faith in science.

If we don’t appreciate the shades of meanings of words then we can no longer appreciate the subtle distinctions in thought that underpin these words.

Agreed! So make sure you understand what the religious mean by faith. Here's what the Catholics have to say:

"We believe", says the Vatican Council (III, iii), "that revelation is true, not indeed because the intrinsic truth of the mysteries is clearly seen by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Who reveals them, for He can neither deceive nor be deceived." The Vatican Council says, "in addition to the internal assistance of His Holy Spirit, it has pleased God to give us certain external proofs of His revelation, viz. certain Divine facts, especially miracles and prophecies, for since these latter clearly manifest God's omnipotence and infinite knowledge, they afford most certain proofs of His revelation and are suited to the capacity of all." Hence Thomas Aquinas writes: "A man would not believe unless he saw the things he had to believe, either by the evidence of miracles or of something similar"

I'm no bigger a fan of religion than you are, but I am a fan of truth and fairness.

 

[Tigers!]

Based on the evidence available to her she concludes that yes, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is causing the ice to melt in Antarctica. The confidence she places in that conclusion is her faith.

No, that's her knowledge.

Faith is different from knowledge in that it is explicitly belief without evidence.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - Hebrews 11-1

Fascinating to see how the definition of faith has changed over time
Change in the definition of the word faith

 

[Ford]

Based on the evidence available to her she concludes that yes, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is causing the ice to melt in Antarctica. The confidence she places in that conclusion is her faith.

No, that's her knowledge.

Faith is different from knowledge in that it is explicitly belief without evidence.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - Hebrews 11-1

This.

As I careen closer and closer to the end of my life (hopefully not too soon), I've been thinking about all the confident religions who say that once you're dead, there's something that comes after. Your "soul" continues to exist in another place. If you followed the teachings of your religion, that next place would be better. You'd get all or at least some of the things that eluded you in life. It sounds nice, and I'd like to believe it is true.

The evidence says otherwise. Nobody in the history of humankind has ever returned from "the other side" with any proof of this afterlife...the blissful eternal one or the slightly better one or even the one that says you get another go at life in a new body. There's no evidence that your consciousness or "soul" continues to exist after all your brain activity shuts down. Not only that, but literally everything else in the universe dies. From the shortest-lived mayfly to the oldest tree to the stars and (so far as we understand things) the universe itself.

Do I hope that when I shuffle off this mortal coil I get to see my dad again, my cat I had as a child, and the dog I had for so many years? Sure. That would be great. But that's just hope. A lot of people I know have "faith" that this will happen to them, but...that's really just hope.

I am absolutely, 100 percent certain that I will eventually die. That's not faith. That has been tested empirically for (if you count me as a modern human) a couple hundred thousand years. Every time. Without fail.

 

[bilby]

Based on the evidence available to her she concludes that yes, rising levels of atmospheric CO2 is causing the ice to melt in Antarctica. The confidence she places in that conclusion is her faith.

No, that's her knowledge.

Faith is different from knowledge in that it is explicitly belief without evidence.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - Hebrews 11-1

Fascinating to see how the definition of faith has changed over time
Change in the definition of the word faith

Indeed. But throughout the time span covered by that article, the key plank is trust.

Faith implies trusting a source to be correct or true; In the case of Christianity, this means trusting the Bible, or the church hierarchy, when they say that they are passing on the word of God.

This is in stark contrast to the fundamental principle of scientific inquiry, that you should trust nobody. Of course, there's too much knowledge out there for anyone to actually take nothing at all "on faith", but the strength of science is in the requirement that literally everything can be questioned, tested, and verified personally by anyone who has a sufficient interest to do so.

That's simply not true of religious doctrines, which eventually require one to take the word of someone else (possibly someone long dead), on matters that are closed to personal verification.

I believe that the First Law of Thermodynamics is correct; But there's absolutely nothing to stop me from attempting to prove it wrong. Trying to build a perpetual motion machine isn't going to get me excommunicated by the Pope of Science, nor branded a heretic by the scientific community. At worst, they will simply point out that my efforts will likely end in failure, and advise me not to waste my time on this doomed project.

Of course, success in such a project would be richly rewarded, with various prizes and certain fame. And within a very brief time, almost everyone would agree that perpetual motion is possible, and all the textbooks would have to be revised to accommodate this fact - because success in science implies not just building such a machine, or developing and testing such a theory, but also providing the method by which others can independently reproduce the same result.

"Nullius in Verba", as they say at the Royal Society.

 

[DBT]

Trust is not the same as faith because trust is built or destroyed on direct experience with people or things, which is evidence. Faith on the other hand does not require evidence in order to believe that something is true.

 

[Shadowy Man]

We disagree on the definition of the word “faith”. By conflating religious faith with trust in science you undermine the distinction between the two.

Since you know that the religious generally don't understand "faith" as blind acceptance of dogma, then why misrepresent it that way? It's simply unfair and dishonest to do so. So the distinction you draw between religious faith and faith in science is a strawman.

As a scientist, I don’t use the word “faith” anymore in scientific contexts, only “trust” because of this.

That's fine, but it's important to know that the religious concept of faith is basically the same as the faith in science.

Well, since I don’t have faith in science it’s unclear to me what to make of your statement.

If we want to use the word colloquially and so generally that it covers both religious faith and my feelings toward science then it starts to become a meaningless word.

I can foozle science very much but if you disagree with what I mean by “foozle” is it really helping you understand my feelings?

If faith in religious usage were the same as for science then I suppose I would be a religious scientist. Yet I’m not.