Faith and Confidence

The terms ‘faith’ and ‘confidence’ have overlapping but distinct meanings, with significant implications for cultural questions regarding the relation between science and religion. This short essay explores how assumptions about the meaning of faith and confidence are embedded in cultural values, in ways that are invisible to the holder until deconstructed.

In normal speech, if I say I am confident a claim is true, I can equally say it is a matter of faith. The philosopher David Hume gave the famous example of whether the sun will rise tomorrow morning. It seems much the same to say I have faith the sun will rise as I am confident the sun will rise. But this example illustrates a real difference in meaning. Faith, in its modern meaning, makes the claim of absolute 100% certainty that the sun will rise. Confidence, grounded in astronomical observation, does not exclude the seemingly irrelevant and impossible chances that tonight a massive unseen meteor will knock the earth off its orbit, or that aliens will vaporize our planet without warning. These ideas may seem silly, but they illustrate that scientific confidence is never a matter of absolute faith, and that we can never have absolute knowledge of the future. Even so, a shattered confidence is much the same as a shattered faith.

Faith, the inner sense of absolute confidence, is defined in the Bible as certainty of things that are not seen, implying an absolute loyalty to God. The original Greek term ‘pistis’ means ‘trust, loyalty, engagement, commitment’ and was translated into Latin as ‘fides’ or loyalty, and ‘credo’ or ‘gift of the heart’ (K. Armstrong, The Case for God, 2009, p90). This old idea of faith as loyalty has been warped and corrupted by Christian dogma from an originally valid concept into one that is now rightly held up for ridicule and contempt, precisely because of its false claim to confidence. Richard Dawkins exemplifies the modern scorn for faith through his observation that faith is to confidence as blindness is to vision. Relegation of faith to areas in which we have no evidence, such as the creation of the universe or life after death, then allows the confidence in ‘things unseen’ to sneak back to defy ‘things seen’ through blind loyalty to obsolete fantasy.

Looking to how the Bible discussed faith, key texts include the discussion of Abraham, of whom Paul says his faith was accounted as righteousness, and the parable of the mustard seed, which is small but is said to grow to a mighty tree, and is presented by Christ as an image of how unshakeable narrative confidence sets a foundation for institutional growth.

The story of Abraham is very weird. His eagerness to murder his own son Isaac in loyalty to voices he hears in his head is celebrated as the foundation act of the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, which indeed are known as the Abrahamic faiths. Modern repugnance at this display of criminal intent to murder sees Abraham’s plan as schizoid insanity and delusion, illustrating the schism between modernity and faith. The fact that this story is used as an exemplar of faith illustrates the disturbing, even pathological, dimension of faith as believing something that you know to be false. The story of Abraham sits at the foundation of belief in miracles and nonexistent entities, and of the celebrated Roman Catholic dogma of Tertullian ‘I believe because it is absurd’. The evil danger of the dogmatic stance can be seen in Voltaire’s riposte to Tertullian - ‘whoever believes absurdities permits atrocities’.

Faithful confidence is often misplaced. Unlike Adam and Noah, who are both now generally accepted as mythological invented identities, Abraham, Moses and Christ are commonly regarded as actual historical persons. In fact, there is no historical evidence whatsoever that Abraham, Moses and Jesus Christ ever walked the earth as real individuals. Suppressed but compelling evidence suggests that these Biblical figures are mythological inventions, converted by a process of ‘Chinese whispers’ and outright fraud into objects of faithful veneration as real people. Starting from Abrahamic loyalty, people can be convinced of anything. Forensic analysis of Eden and the Flood has led to general skepticism about the existence of Adam and Noah. Such analysis has simply not been applied, within popular culture, to the equally dubious stories of Abraham, the Gospel or the Exodus. Considered objectively, it is far more likely that Abraham and Sarah are corruptions of the Indian Gods Brahman and Sarasvati than separate real people. The analytic task of deconstruction of these mythological stories requires that we ask what social purpose was and is served by the narrative belief in their truth, and whether the etymological coincidence points to a real connection. Rigorous scholarly analysis of these stories remains socially and academically marginal, due to church fear of upsetting the pious.

The strategy of faith, defined as belief without evidence, can readily convert fiction into absolute inner certainty. The most dangerous modern example of such faithful confidence is the rise of Hitler, whose utter faith in himself dragged the German nation and the world into the extreme destruction of World War Two. The psychological propensity to believe lies is well illustrated by Goebbels’ observation that it is easier to sell a big lie than a small one. Today we continue to see this strategy of ‘the big lie’ used to promote the false doctrines of creationism. The agenda of creationism, modeled on Abraham’s willingness to kill his son, puts loyalty to authority above all other values. Creationist churches make acceptance of false claims a test of loyalty. Their real agenda of ensuring hierarchical control of a small community is concealed behind their overt assertion that belief in ludicrous claims, such as Eden, the virgin birth and heaven, is at the foundation of morality.

Reasonable worry about the risks of faith has produced a widespread modern view that faith is evil, a subhuman instinct that is akin to the emotional loyalty of a dog to its master. Such an assertion is received with horror by the faithful, who see faith as the highest value, at the foundation of virtue and morality. Only through faith, believers will argue, can we establish trusting communities that recognise a higher common purpose and sense of ethical meaning and direction. The question begged is whether a false faith is better than none. The scientific outlook, resolute in its atheism, suggests that community can be established on a foundation of evidence and reason, and that all religious symbols should be relegated to a merely aesthetic cultural status. On this widespread modern rational view, veneration and worship of symbolic religious images is a dangerous remnant of an obsolete cosmology, presenting high risk of setting a bad direction.

Believing things that are not true validates actions with harmful consequences, for example in the Nuremburg defence ‘I was only following orders’. Loyalty, trust and belonging prevent independent thought, and lead to acceptance of evil when mandated by tribal leaders.

However, science has not yet found a replacement for religious symbols and ritual, or an adequate answer to Chesterton’s wry observation that when people stop believing in something they don’t start believing in nothing, but are liable to start believing in anything. The tribal loyalty of faith remains essential to group evolution. Groups where obedience is enforced by doctrinal faith have often proved more successful than groups where free thinking encourages diversity. This traditional value of faithful obedience is the subject of radical doubt in the modern world, where freedom of critical intelligence is often seen as the basis of innovative transformation and economic growth.

The nub of creationist defiance of science is not actually their overt confidence that the universe is 6000 years old, but rather how this claim serves as a keystone for a comprehensive theory of human identity based on tribal loyalty. The citadel of fundamentalist Christianity is the claim that Jesus saves us through his blood, shed for sinners on the cross. The Genesis story is like an outer rampart of the castle, an absurdist defence that is impregnable precisely because of its irrationality. You can’t argue logically against people who reject logic as a method of argument.

The American mass preacher Billy Graham illustrates the fundamentalist mentality. He early on resolved never to allow any chink of doubt to influence his thought. Seeing scientific doubt as the path of Satan, Graham took Christ’s attack on Saint Peter for his lack of faith (“Get thee behind me Satan”) as the basis for his own sense of absolute faith. With this faith Billy Graham moved mountains, converting millions to evangelical faith, just as Jesus said the mustard seed would become a mighty tree. (Actually the mustard seed grows to a small shrub, but that is another matter). The problem here is that mountains can be moved in a way that fails to provide salvation. Given the falsity of the young earth creationist account, a skeptic can reasonably ask if Billy Graham’s faith was grounded on rock or on sand. The brittle anxiety of the aging congregations who were converted by Graham suggests that perhaps Graham’s absolute vision of faith was in fact a house built on sand. The creationist narrative vision falls on deaf ears among the young, with the obvious truth of evolution causing many to rightly regard creationists as fraudulent fantasists and objects of ridicule.

Christ’s parable of the house built on rock as a symbol of true faith brings us back to the starting question of the relation between confidence and faith. The modern outlook says we should only have confidence in claims that are supported by evidence, and that faith is an obsolete concept. My fear is that this rational outlook, despite its compelling inner logic, fails to engage with the deeply held instinctive psychological need for faith, and so, paradoxically, is inadequate to bring the scientific world view to mass assent.

The problem of climate change well illustrates the political and cultural implications of this philosophical distinction between faith and confidence. Climate scientists have complete confidence that CO2 emissions are producing dangerous global heating. However, following David Hume, science is generally unwilling to leap from this confidence grounded in observation into a new worldview, an encompassing faith.

James Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia theory of planetary biotic homeostasis, has criticized this cautious scientific attitude, observing that rejection of Gaian science is a result of prejudiced scientific assumptions, especially the widespread view that wholistic synthesis is intrinsically mystical and sloppy. Lovelock observes that such synthesis is direly needed; without a Gaian faith that is Churchillian in its call to action to remove anthropogenic carbon from the air, it seems likely that Gaia will spit out our species as a failed viral experiment. (The Vanishing Face of Gaia).

Gaia’s antibodies to our CO2 emissions are already being marshaled in the form of climate trends with extreme destructive power. This sense of Gaia as an entity has strong resonance with claims of faith. For example, climate change could reveal the truth in the apocalyptic prediction in Revelation 14 of a reduction of human population to 144,000 of the faithful with Christ on Mount Zion at the close of the age. Similarly, calling Noah a mythological character does not eliminate the kernel of truth in the story of the flood. As the gospel song Oh Mary Don’t You Weep puts it, “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, won’t be water but fire next time.” These images from popular faith of the flood and the second coming illustrate that Bible myths may lack literal empirical accuracy, but can speak to a deeper intuition, an accurate sense of meaning and direction for our planetary survival.

If these Biblical stories can be read in a way that is compatible with scientific observation, especially in relation to climate change, we may find a justifiable grounding for a confident faith. This sense of confident faith emerging from a scientific cosmology also helps to justify another rather mysterious Biblical idea, Saint Paul’s teaching that we are saved by grace through faith, and not by works. In this context, faith means a big narrative story providing a complete explanation, whereas ‘works’ are the actions we do as a result of our faith. Paul’s point is that unless the faith is true, the actions will be worthless. Without strategic vision, ie faith, practical effort achieves nothing. Scientifically, this means that without an encompassing vision of a path towards planetary evolution, any piecemeal steps we take to respond to perceived problems of climate change are unable to have real effect.

‘Confidence’, in its scientific usage, operates more at the level of practical effort (works) than strategic vision (faith). Vision requires more than confidence. Psychologically, vision demands a sense of narrative certainty, an absolute faith, in order to motivate and prioritise action. The deep challenge is how such certainty can be grounded in empirical observation. My view is that this problem can be answered by a return to the Bible, reading its ethical vision against an honest framework informed by modern knowledge. Faith in the basic accuracy of the scientific worldview provides a means to transform factual observation into a new theory of value, where our loyalty is to observation and reason, so our values may be based on facts.

Against such a new theory of value, the story of Jesus Christ can be read with new eyes, as a purely mythical account of the confrontation between good and evil. Whether or not Christ actually lived is irrelevant to the inner truth and greatness of his message, as a transforming call to make love the strategic foundation of human life. This message can be used to support a modern scientific worldview, and wrested away from the delusory fundamentalists who have successfully kept faith locked inside the boundaries of institutional control. A challenge to dogmatic control can enable religious vision to serve the real needs of human salvation, identified by scientific observation, through a real liberation of faith.
Robert Tulip, 23 February 2010

Thank you, Robert. Clear, concise, the proverbial nutshell. (Where do you get your time? Do you actually sleep?)

Excellent post Robert, thanks. Chris had mentioned a while back a 'nomination' feature next to posts, so that they could be nominated to be shown on the homepage. I didn't find it anywhere, but I'd nominate your post. I also enjoy discussing things with you, so I'll reply to a few parts. Perhaps we can get a discussion going.



This makes me think of the difference between Obama and Bush. While Bush had certainty in his decisions, they were ultimately unfounded. I won't pretend to put myself in his shoes, but it seems he could have done a better job if he weren't so sure of his decisions. In that respect, I think making decisions with confidence, while holding onto a modicum of doubt, is better than certainty. If the scale shifts and doubt begins to hamper the decision making process, then your words are true. Such a delicate balance of confidence and humility is required of our leaders, and should be characteristics we're aware of when we vote. A leader who is too overcome by doubt when he should be confident is as bad as a leader who is inflexible in his vision. Vision should be amenable to change, rather than be inflexible.



I'm not sure how the psychological need for faith manifests itself. Is it necessarily a religious scratch that satiates the itch? Secular societies show that we can be progressive without religious faith. There are other ways to scratch the itch. My personal world view contains no certainty but for a resolute confidence that my senses mostly give me good information. Upon that cornerstone is built a world view where I can be happy. I am confident that life is worth living, from a philosophical perspective. The complexity of the human mind in nature is unique, and therefore precious. I help out in my community via charity events, coach wrestling, and am a moral citizen.

I am confident in the claims of science, since many of the claims I am curious about and read the background information in magazines and books. Faith doesn't play as much of a part in this aspect of my worldview. If there were a part of me that craves some faithful adherence, it is to the progress of humanity and the wonders of the universe. I understand there are questions science can't currently answer. Within the sphere of the scientific perspective, everything is able to be explained by the laws of nature. Just outside this sphere, the question arises on how the laws of nature came to be in the first place. The theist's obvious answer is a god. My answer is that we don't yet know. I believe any questions on morality will eventually be answered from the scientific perspective through evolutionary biology. However, so much of our behavior is falsely attributed to an evolutionary explanation that we must be skeptical until we understand ourselves better.

Perhaps the problem with the mass assent of the scientific worldview is that it in part goes against religious teachings. When seen this way, the problem isn't that we aren't scratching the itch of faith, but that our faith in the wrong thing is causing us to mistrust the right thing. In other words, our deeply held instinctive psychological need for faith is preventing us from bringing the scientific world view to mass assent. Religion has been grandfather claused into filling the void, and by the nature of faith, preempts us from trusting a better source of knowledge. I don't think it is a fault of science that it admits to some amount of uncertainty. I think it's the common populace who has the misunderstanding that certainty is something we should have.

What it would boil down to then are the reasons for faith versus confidence. In faith, we have certainty, where in confidence, there is always an amount of uncertainty. It would be up to the individual to figure out how to incorporate this uncertainty into their worldview. I am a testament to how that's possible, and I'm not the first nor the greatest. But as I've said, people have been spoiled into having answers with have certainty, so living without certainty leaves one feeling empty or exposed. Is certainty an unavoidable and necessary characteristic of the psychological need for faith? I'm curious about your sources on this subject. I would say that while we may need emotional certainty, or visceral certainty, we don't need intellectual certainty. The matter is still up for debate in my mind.

Great post, Robert. You are truly a gifted writer.

I never can quite get on board with your idea to "return to the Bible, reading its ethical vision against an honest framework informed by modern knowledge." I'm sure that some people find value in that, but the Bible is such that it is open to many different interpretations. As much as I like yours, I don't think we can depend that it will consistently be read that way. Arguably some interpretations of the Bible will inevitably not be as valuable and possibly even harmful to the individual.

Regarding the quoted passage, I think Dawkins says in The Extended Phenotype that evolution moves so slowly that we are probably ideally suited for life as it was 20,000 or 30,000 years ago. Yes, faith was probably advantageous for tribal existence at one time. But I don't know if faith should be promoted in modern day. There is probably a good reason why it is generally not.

Regardless, your essay is great food for thought. Thanks again.

Thanks Interbane. This material touches on the meaning of key terms that have been discussed in a few threads at Booktalk, so I agree it would be interesting to expand on any points of difference and agreement. At the moment I am getting to the end of The Case for God – What Religion Really Means by Karen Armstrong. She is a Christian theologian who Richard Dawkins has called an atheist. I find her line of reasoning very persuasive, in terms of my own efforts to reconcile Christianity and atheism. For me it is a matter of faith that science is basically accurate in providing a comprehensive explanation of reality. This excludes the concept of God as an entity, so the paradoxical implication is that Christianity needs to ally with atheism in order to become intellectually respectable. Armstrong also has an argument that is somewhat along this line, basically that atheism sets up a straw man by refusing to engage with more complex theological reasoning, which has always said that claiming to explain the nature of God is idolatrous. As far as I am concerned, Christians with integrity should welcome discussion with atheists, if they stand by Christ’s assertion to Pilate that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth. Creationism does not bear witness to truth. I agree, but a problem I see with Bush is that the foundation of his vision rested more on ideology and emotion than on evidence. If I can generalise and simplify as an outsider, it seems the ‘can-do’ outlook of the Republican Party has contempt for theory, whereas the Democratic Party’s focus on evidence, justification, equality, etc can slow down the decision making process. The dilemma is that on the one hand, he who hesitates is lost, but on the other hand, fools rush in where angels fear to tread (sorry about the duelling clichés). You are right that a balance of judgement is needed between humility and confidence. A useful Biblical image regarding vision and leadership is the statue of the king with head of gold and feet of clay, illustrating that a superficial appearance of confidence and quality can conceal structural faults. Your concept of “progressive” conceals all sorts of assumptions, about rights, equality, values, goals, etc. Historically, reference to the “progressive” forces of politics was a euphemism for communism, and look what that led to. It is often impossible to be certain that one path of action will have better consequences than another, but all things considered we still need to have some sort of faith in our own vision. Where I see the value of religion is in the sense of binding our temporal concerns to a vision of ultimate value. My view is that Christian theology can be restructured to provide such an ultimate vision of distilled wisdom, compatible with modern scientific knowledge. I don’t agree that biology will ever be sufficient to explain morality. In principle, science explains that the universe is matter in motion, that all effects have a natural cause, and there is no need for recourse to supernatural mythology to explain anything. This rational enlightened stance is compelling and coherent, but is it really adequate as a basis for ethics? The laws of physics are compatible with the Buddhist and Hindu doctrine of karma, defined as the law of cause and effect. However, this ultimate principled ideal is very far from actual human experience, where muddy waters make clear vision impossible. For example, the simple idea of karma as causality is warped into the moral myth of reincarnation in order to serve emotional needs. In economics, psychology and politics, decisions and opinions routinely rely on emotion and instinct (myth) rather than observation and reason (logic). So the real battles are fought at symbolic level between rival mythologies, rather than at logical level between rival facts.

As an example of how irrational factors can be decisive for public opinion, I was just reading about a new biography of Arthur Koestler, author of Darkness at Noon. The biography explains how Koestler’s book struck a telling symbolic blow in destroying the inner confidence of European communism, not just because of what he said but because of who he was and how he said it. Scientific facts sit within a complex cultural framework, and this framework has strong mythic features which affect the credibility of the worldviews of scientists. This is an example of how facts can be necessary to explain morality, but can never be sufficient.We do have a very large amount of scientific certainty, in astronomy, biology, physics, geography, history, etc, etc. My argument is that faith that conflicts with scientific certainty is bad by definition, but true faith is possible and necessary. Building a compelling modern narrative requires a central place for scientific knowledge. Such a narrative requires that we have to re-jig what we mean by faith, otherwise the scientific worldview will continue to exclude itself from the world of symbolic ritual and cultural meaning. While science ignores what you call ‘the void’ it allows false religion to fill it. Instead of saying faith is intrinsically blind, science should look to how its own findings can be the basis of a new form of faith.Faith is about a sense of belonging, providing a basis for loyalty and trust as we participate in a bigger shared story. People expect their leaders to have sound vision of what is certain and what is uncertain to enable confident action. My view, in the context of anthropogenic climate change as the greatest ever threat to our planet, is that global security requires a new debate about the boundaries of intellectual certainty. Things that are certain should be considered matters of faith, while things that are uncertain are matters of doubt. Claiming faith in things that are uncertain destroys the foundations of ethics, but this is a habitual failing of religion. It doesn’t mean that religion needs to be abandoned, only that it needs reform to become credible.

Thanks Geo. As we have previously discussed, I have some new ideas about how to read the Bible. Although I am very open to the claim that the passion story of Christ is a fictional myth, I do believe that it encapsulates the highest available enlightenment about the human condition, and so is grounded in historical reality. The vision of the clash between good and evil in the story of the cross and resurrection is in my view at the core of world politics, pointing to a vision of honesty and integrity as the basis of ideal action. My view also, which we have previously discussed but is quite complex to explain, in that the Bible is grounded in an accurate cyclic cosmology, with Biblical ideas of ‘the end of the age’ referring to actual astronomical observation. The reason I see a return to the Bible as the basis of ethics focuses on a reading of Matthew 25 and Matthew 5 as core texts. Matthew 25 contains both the parable of the talents, a validation of the capitalist theory of economic growth, and the Last Judgement, an explanation that works of mercy are the basis of salvation. Superficially these appear in conflict, but they have a deeper unity, reflecting the need for creation and distribution of wealth as the basis of peace and prosperity. While Matthew 25 remains the basis of a total vision of faith, it is hard to go wrong. Matthew 5, the Beatitudes, expands on this basic framework of faith by articulating the basic ethic of the last shall be first (Matt 19:30), with a list of the people blessed by God according to Jesus. This list seems to me to provide an excellent basis for moral theory. Great point. The clash between science and culture illustrates how scientists imagine that people can evolve into perfectly rational beings through force of logic, when in fact we remain driven by instincts, desires and passions. Even the great Dr Dawkins himself is not above prejudicial attitudes in his titanic battle over faith. As I see it, Dawkins comes to philosophy from an empirical framework, and makes a coherent case, but does not understand how his elitist vision fails to engage with people who lack his level of knowledge. The arrogance of the scientific worldview consists in imagining the world to be different from what it really is, shown by the common condescending scientific attitude towards cultural diversity. By accepting human limits, such as the popular need for faith, much more can be done to achieve practical results towards the valid goals indicated by scientific knowledge.

The question of whether our brains are hardwired for faith means that the question ‘Did Jesus Exist?’ is important as a way to help shift faith from an incredible to a credible basis. We can move towards a scientific dialogue about Christian faith once we acknowledge that the gospels do not provide sufficient grounds to prove the historical accuracy of their claims, and that Christ is no more historical than Adam. If we have to have faith, it should be true and not false. Such a discussion can help to start a more productive debate about the validity of the ethical message of the gospels.

You're joking, right?

Parable is not about faith it is about Jesus. Jesus is the rock.

The Wise Man Built His House

The wise man built his house upon the rock
The wise man built his house upon the rock
The wise man built his house upon the rock

And the rain came tumbling down

Oh, the rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up

And the wise man's house stood firm.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand
The foolish man built his house upon the sand

And the rain came tumbling down


Oh, the rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up
The rain came down
And the floods came up

And the foolish man's house went "splat!" [clap hands once]

So, build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
Build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ
And the blessings will come down

Oh, the blessings come down
As your prayers go up
The blessings come down
As your prayers go up
The blessings come down
As your prayer go up
So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ.
http://childbiblesongs.com/song-21-wise ... ouse.shtml



Perhaps you should actually read the Bible

Hebrews 11
17By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring[b] will be reckoned."[c] 19Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.



Gaia, really? and you say the Bible is faulty and God is irrational?

Welcome to the echo chamber.

Quote:





My word progressive didn't conceal assumptions. It was a generalization of those terms listed, rights, equality, values, but mainly societal happiness. Living in America where depression is ubiquitous, that's a missing ingredient. Whatever 'progression' meant historically, I assure you I wasn't referring to Communism. I can expand on the term even more if you like, but understand I mean it in a philosophical sense rather than political.

In any case, wouldn't saying that we need to have some sort of faith in our vision also be an assumption?



No, not yet. In any case, that would be going from an 'is' to an 'ought'. I believe we will come to the best possible basis for ethics by philosophy informed by evolutionary biology.

Where is the authority the bible claims on morality? A good example is something you say from time to time, that the meek shall inherit the earth. While this sounds excellent, we know that it is only partially true. A part of the connotation of meekness is humility. We know that an ingredient for some of the best fortune 500 CEO's is humility, but alone it is not enough. There is a mixture that is required. Meekness alone is a characteristic that allows other people to run all over you. The meek are eaten in the animal world. If you hold onto this saying from the bible in spite of how the characteristic actually fairs in the real world, then you are holding this saying as a priori true before checking it against reality. This exposes a faith in antiquated wisdom that is an excellent example of how we can be held back from refining our wisdom into something better.



The best wisdom I've gained has been from science books, on the topic of our instincts, desires, and passions. While the process of science is logic and reasoning, that doesn't mean that it's only topic must be the same as it's process. Science informs us tremendously in these areas. It was in a science journal that I read about humility in our leaders. This is excellent information, and can be informed upon even more with the application of philosophy. If you want to have faith in something, have faith in the conclusions of philosophy(the philosophy of ethics and morality perhaps), which is informed by science.



I read Robert's paragraph pedantically and found no fault between what he says and what you posted from the bible. Are you sure whatever you're seeing isn't simply a matter of your own perspective?

Gaia, really? and you say the Bible is faulty and God is irrational?

Welcome to the echo chamber.

I'm glad to see you agree with Dawkins on something: "Dawkins claimed "there was no way for evolution by natural selection to lead to altruism on a Global scale".

No more than RT is. His belief is a stew of science, pantheism, nature worship, and astrology. It has been said, when you believe in everything, you believe in nothing.


Gaia, really? and you say the Bible is faulty and God is irrational?

Welcome to the echo chamber.

deleted

Eh? No more than RT is what? I'm not following how this has any bearing on RT's mention of Abraham. He made a post regarding Abraham, which followed logically from the passage. You said he should read the bible, but why? There was nothing wrong with his post. I thought it was simply a differing perspective that caused you to see fault, which means there is no fault, but merely an alternative perspective. Why would this prompt a criticism of his beliefs? They are more reasonable than denying the facts of our environment, such as the age of our Earth and the evolution of life.

Hi Stahrwe, many thanks for joining this discussion. I don’t quite get your point here. Matthew 7:24 says “everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock”. Fundamentalist Christianity has distorted this teaching by saying Jesus is the rock, understood as the redeeming blood of the cross that saves through doctrinal belief alone. The parable directly condemns hypocrisy, and is a call for true faith. Thanks for this quote from Hebrews 11:19, which I’ve hotlinked as it is also the source for key Christian ideas about the nature of faith. Most people nowadays would consider Abraham’s “reasoning” here to be somewhat dubious. Try that in a court of law – ‘your honour, I murdered my son because I reasoned (like Abraham) that God could raise the dead”. If it was good enough for Abraham it should be good enough for any murderer.The Gaia theory that life on planet earth functions as a single organism is controversial but scientifically cogent, providing an evidentiary basis for understanding how our lives relate to the complex whole that surrounds us. Gaia theory is vastly superior to Christian fundamentalism, which promotes many claims that are entirely false. I don’t think I used the word “faulty” to describe the Bible, so I would rather that if you claim I said something then it should be something I actually said. I would never say God is irrational, although of course the major forms of belief in God are highly irrational, making many claims that have been proven to be false.

You neglected to include the verses leading up to what you quoted.

15"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'





Thanks for this quote from Hebrews 11:19, which I’ve hotlinked as it is also the source for key Christian ideas about the nature of faith. Most people nowadays would consider Abraham’s “reasoning” here to be somewhat dubious.[/quote]

That is the problem, people are overlooking waht the Bible says in favor of what they wish it said.


Robert, If you knew God existed, without doubt, how far would you follow Him?






Is Gaia sentient?

Good point Stahrwe, and it opens the question of how we detect whether prophecy is true or false. You say, start from Biblical inerrancy, and explain any scientific evidence against the preconceived theory of reality derived from the claim that the Bible is absolutely true. I say, start from scientific evidence and observation, derive predictions that match experience, and then seek to reconcile these predictions with mythic sources, such as the Bible. You can’t call a scientific approach a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and if you want to then you need to engage with real evidence. In terms of Jesus’ imagery, science is the good tree and creationism is the bad tree.Your point here seems to be that the claim in Hebrews that Abraham was rational must be true. Abraham is a myth, and his method of faith is a major source of human alienation, justifying delusory and ignorant beliefs. However, the Bible points towards a higher truth beyond the perceptions of the faithful. We can only start to explore such a higher truth if we first critique how current faith is in error. Adam and Noah have been displaced to the mythic realm in popular belief, and we won’t really make progress on using the Bible as an ethical source until Abraham, Moses and Jesus are recognised, and so properly valued, as fictional figures of human imagination, formed by the effort to make contact with the eternal. My studies of philosophy have led me to a complete faith in science. The concept of a personal God, understood as a spiritual entity, is in conflict with scientific observation. However, your question is fair, in that we need a narrative construct of God to form a sense of meaning and purpose in the universe. I interpret the Christian Trinity in purely natural terms, seeing God the Father as the whole universe, God the Son (Jesus Christ) as the incarnation of Gaia, and God the Holy Spirit as the resonance between our planet and the universe, emerging in human language as truth. Another compatible way to describe the trinity is as nature, logic and truth. Logic (Christ the Logos) enables perception of the truth (Spirit) of nature (God).

My reading of the Bible seeks to reconcile the text against this scientific Trinitarian framework. Jesus rings a loud alarm bell about the gap between fallen human logic and the ultimate truth of nature. Following this message of Christ means giving priority to a reconciliation between human culture and the natural ecology of the planet. Otherwise humanity is destined for extinction.My view is that planet earth has long term cyclic patterns which form the basis of the structure of life.

It is rather like the science of cymatics – see quote below from http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/history.html

Gaia, seen as the resonant energy of the Earth, creates patterns, from plate tectonics through to the noosphere – the realm of human consciousness. Everything we do is a reflection, conscious or unconscious, of deep slow patterns of our planet. I have explained how I see some of these patterns in my essay The Gas Giant Planets, The Great Year and the Holy City.

Your term ‘sentient’ is complex and loaded. I think of sentience as the ability to form conscious intentions. In this sense, Gaia is only sentient in so far as it contains things that form conscious intentions, ie life. All life is conscious at some level, obeying the blind purpose of replication. Humans have the unique ability and duty to make this purpose articulate, by investigating and explaining what paths are best to sustain life on Gaia.

My prayers are with the people of Chile.

Unfortunately, you are incorrect. A prophecy is neither true nor false any more than the assassination of Abraham Lincon is ture or false. It either occured or it didn't. A prophecy either happens or it doesn't. If a person claims to be a prophet of God and the prophecy fails to happen, that person is a false prophet and must be stoned to death.


That is the problem, people are overlooking waht the Bible says in favor of what they wish it said



Wow, you claim a person whose life is chronicled in great detail from a point, by people who place great importance in being truthful is really a myth and the truth is really some hidden treasure to be searched out by some fantastical power. And you call me delusional?

Robert, If you knew God existed, without doubt, how far would you follow Him?
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I don't see how studying philosophy can lead to complete faith in science. At least not faith as such. I suggest that you writing about faith is like someone who has never riden a bicycle writing a paper on how to ride a bicycle.

BTW, you never answered the question. Would you follow God.

Is Gaia sentient?
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Don't avoid the quetion just because it might be loaded lest you be accused of equivocating.

I guess your answer is yes.