I decided to write about faith in hopes of getting a discussion started. It's a rather lengthy post, I apologize. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

In most contexts, faith is equated to strength of belief in religion. Sometimes it is reflective of not only strength of belief, but also love, or loyalty, as if the these aspects are homogenized. The roots of this dual purpose may be in the distinction of religion in it's early years. Faith in one god is not equal to faith in another, there is a matter of loyalty. So to have faith in whatever god you worship, that faith also carries with it a degree of loyalty. You are swearing fealty to one god, and are atheistic towards the rest. 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.

In modern times, the dual purpose usage is still commonly found. This is exemplified by some people's faith in Jesus or God, or my faith in my brother. It's almost as if you're saying, at the same time, that you believe in someone and have loyalty for them, or are devoted to their cause. When used in this way, faith is a loaded word.

Some people think faith can be measured, as if you have less of it sometimes, and more of it at other times. When something happens that warms the heart, it can fill up your faith meter. Such incidents of restored faith often come in the form of emotional experiences, marked by the wonders of life or nature. It could be a picture, a story, or even a smiling baby peeking at you from the rear window of a vehicle. While this touches on the aspect of love/loyalty that some people equate with faith, it also refers to strength of belief. This can apply not only to religion, but humanist philosophies. A pantheist can be bolstered by experiencing the wonders of nature. Yet I think the pantheist in most cases avoids the word faith due to the common association with religion and theism.

When you strip away the loaded definition of the word, it better resembles how the dictionary defines it, as belief without evidence. In this case, the word mostly applies to belief in a world view. Each person has a running narrative of what they believe the universe to be, and how it functions. Although it's composed of many details, a world view is a unified perspective that draws together a myriad of ideas and experiences into an all encompassing cosmology. A world view is important to us, it's the ultimate reference for all our experiences. Faith can apply to different aspects of a world view as well. The less important an aspect is, the less we use faith as the term to signify our belief in it.

For some trivial facts we beleive, we may say we trust them or are confident they are true. Then there are things which we haven't really thought about, and have come to accept for one reason or another. Until we turn the spotlight of our analysis on such things, we aren't even aware we take them on faith. For the most part, such things have no bearing on our lives. In some cases, there are things we take on faith that do have a bearing on our lives. For example, the faith we each have that our senses are giving us accurate information about the environment. Such faith is simple, and at the far end of the complexity spectrum from faith in a world view.

The simple faith that we each have in our senses is justified. It's required in order to operate and go about our daily lives. For more complex objects of faith, the justification comes in varying degrees. It's not certain that the sun will rise tomorrow. However, the fact that it has risen every day for the last few billion years is enough of a track record to justify believing that it will rise again tomorrow. The matter is settled in our minds, and we need not think of it again. If we were to acknowledge the degrees of uncertainty that apply to so many facts of our universe, our brains would be full of ambivalence and ratios. It's mentally comforting to have our beliefs in 'digital' format, rather than 'analog'. Meaning, in the simplest sense, that a yes or a no takes up less brain space than a whole bunch of 'yes, buts'. To have an explanatory contingency applied to every single belief would cripple us with uncertainty and too much information. Faith is integral for reaching a definite conclusion and moving on. Needless to say, this doesn't apply to matters that are still open to debate within our minds. We're all sitting on the fence over some issue or another.

For each belief that faith applies, it should be justified. If we are to reach a conclusion and set the matter to rest, the belief should have evidence, or at least good reasoning, to support it. Some people say that belief in the conclusions of science requires just as much faith as religious belief. The line of argument may be that unless you perform the experiments yourself, you must take the conclusions on faith. This ignores the complexity of the issue. The bleeding edge of science is built on a pyramid of information, all of which is supported by simpler and simpler 'levels' of information, all the way down to the most fundamental; faith in our senses. In this sense, faith cannot be avoided. However, beyond this most basic level, the evidence builds an interwoven support structure that incrementally does away with uncertainty.

To a person who knows absolutely nothing of science, there is still evidence for much of our scientific knowledge. This evidence comes in the form of technologies, which are the results of 'applied science'. It is reasonable to conclude that whatever our theory of electronics is(or the supporting quantum physics), it is very accurate as indicated by all the electronics in our world. The theory of relativity is crucial in GPS navigation, in the form of the equations used to calculate position. As for evolution, the bread on your shelf is evidence. We've cross bred many strains for resistance to such parasites as UG99, which is terrorizing the wheat crops in the Middle East even as I write this. Of course, for each of these theories, the evidence runs much deeper. The knowledge is easily accessible in the form of books.

This still begs the question of how much faith is required to accept the findings of science where there are no technologies as evidence. The first question, however, is how much do we care about any given individual theory? Research on Black Holes has no tangible impact on our lives. Without being a student of them, we're all more or less 'in the dark'. Faith is required to accept the findings of the researchers who are pushing the field. Yet, belief or non-belief in such tangential theories is inconsequential to our world views. The critical point to consider is that if we choose to investigate the matter, all the evidence we need to support belief in the theory is at our disposal.

For all the theories and fields of inquiry for which we're 'in the dark', we still have support for believing them by virtue of the scientific method. Anyone who wants support for believing in a scientific finding need only educate himself on how the scientific process works. For any given hypothesis, there are many scientists across the world brainstorming for ways to prove the hypothesis wrong. There's no such thing as proving a hypothesis 'correct', however, affirmation can come from countless repeated experiments. The key point to take from this is that any theory we have has had to have graduated from hypothesis status by not failing one single experiment for many years, and from many different scientists with differing agendas. The very least you can say about a theory is that it is highly accurate at explaining our world. This is true even if the theory is wrong. Consider Newton's equations for gravity. They are accurate, and still used today, but when needed, we have Einstein's theories of Relativity which are even more accurate. It's not correct to say that Newton is 'wrong', just that his explanations are less accurate than Einstein's. There may come a day when an even more accurate equation or set of equations are discovered. Still, they will not render Newton or Einstein 'wrong', they will merely render them 'less accurate'.

All this goes to show that even for a person not familiar with the scientific method, there is still support for believing in the findings of science. Due to the supportive reasoning and available evidence, there is less faith required for the findings of science than there is for religion. It is also worth mentioning that science is sensitive to it's own shortcomings. In recent years, the philosophy of science has continued to improve the 'best practices' behind the scientific method. A philosophy that has caught on in recent years is that the current method of hypothesis formation should be replaced by a system called 'question and models', which would do away with some of the problems presented by working with hypotheses. There are books on this subject if you're interested.

Nothing I've mentioned yet has touched on whether or not faith should entail absolute belief, or merely confident belief. The difference is the degree of uncertainty to attribute to any given belief. As I've said before, it's easier to believe fully or not at all, and lay the matter to rest. Yet, this is a tendency we should be wary of. It is a consequence of being human and possessing a brain that has evolved to be effective at survival, rather than being effective at finding the truth. The nature of our universe is that it is complex beyond our imagining. Just as a computer with a limited hard drive cannot store all the data of the universe(hypothetically speaking of course), we cannot manage to fit a flawless world view into our heads. Another point here is that nature is seamless, and yet we need to categorize and classify in order to understand. It's unfortunate that we must 'cut nature at the joints' in order to understand it.

Holding a degree of uncertainty on all intellectual matters is important for these reasons. To be certain is to immunize yourself from opposing evidence and reasoning. To be certain is to hold a position of intellectual arrogance. To be certain is comfortable, but not correct. I say we should be uncertain on all intellectual matters for a reason. There are times when we need to be confident of what we believe in order for survival. For example, if we're standing near a river and see what resembles a massive angry hippo, being uncertain that it's a hippo might lead you right into it's belly.

Still, the advice may sit too well with some people. Saying that we're uncertain of something implies that it may not be true. The only part some people will focus on is the idea that it 'may not be true', meanwhile ignoring the overwhelming odds in favor. The example of the sun rising tomorrow comes to mind. We can take this fact on faith, meanwhile maintaining a degree of uncertainty. It is not absolute, but it is close enough to put the matter to rest and move on. In any case, if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow we have bigger issues to worry about.

Quote: "Holding a degree of uncertainty on all intellectual matters is important for these reasons. To be certain is to immunize yourself from opposing evidence and reasoning. To be certain is to hold a position of intellectual arrogance. To be certain is comfortable, but not correct. I say we should be uncertain on all intellectual matters for a reason. There are times when we need to be confident of what we believe in order for survival. For example, if we're standing near a river and see what resembles a massive angry hippo, being uncertain that it's a hippo might lead you right into it's belly."

This includes a very important question: Is faith an intellectual matter? We humans seem to be spiritual by nature. Faith systems seem to exist in all human societies. But is faith an intellectual, emotional, or for that matter physical manifestation? Some would argue all three. I wonder.

The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions gives this definition of faith (in contrast to "normal" dictionaries): "The disposition of believers toward commitment and toward acceptance of religious claims. It has a distinct importance in Christianity because of Paul's insistence on justification by faith alone (Romans 4.5,9.30; Galatians 3 .2) and his inclusion of faith in the three paramount virtues (along with hope and love, I Corinthians 13.13). In this sense, faith can only be received from God as a gift of grace, and becomes the means through which belief is formed (fides qua creditur, 'faith by which it is believed'). Faith in this sense (in contrast to works which persuade or coerce God into offering rewards) was much emphasized by the Reformers. This is faith as fiducia, trust. But faith also becomes 'the Faith', the gradual accumulation through time of that which is believed by Christians, faith as assensus, assent (fides quae creditur, 'faith which is believed'); and although the Vincentian Canon has never actually obtained at any time, the Creeds, as well as the canons of the early ecumenical Councils, set parameters for the Christian faith in this sense. Faith in a far wider sense is necessary for human life and knowledge outside religion, since it is the basic acceptance that the universe is reliable, albeit unpredictable in many respects; indeed, F.R. Tennant regarded faith as the volitional element in all knowledge."

I am including this definition as a response to your question regarding faith as an intellectual matter.....even in this dictionary of religion, the editors had to concede that faith cannot be discussed as a solely religious matter in the usual sense.

Faith as a term is widely used. Sometimes it can be a loaded term. I think in the majority of cases, there is some emotion involved. Yet, regardless of our evolutionary ancestry, we are now intellectual creatures and I hope we will progress further towards that end, without sacrificing those things which make us human. Some researching believe that even intellectual matters are controlled by emotions. The "feeling of knowing" is considered an emotion by some. It's the sense of "correctness" when our minds land on a conclusion. As in the case of some other emotions, the "feeling of knowing" triggers our risk/reward system. Which means, it can be rewarding, and people can be addicted to the feeling of knowing. This type of person would the either the gullible type, or the inflexible know-it-all. Of course, the research is still in it's infancy. All this goes to show that the boundary between "intellectual" and "emotional" isn't clear cut and defined. It's an example of our human tendency to cut nature at the joints in order to understand it. We classify and categorize even the workings of our own brains.

A good book for further reading on the "feeling of knowing" is "On Being Certain", by Robert Burton.

In any case, the part you quoted Gary was only to show that there are times when we need to be certain in order to survive. The reasons are for another day. The example is a hungry hippo who wants human flesh rather than marbles. The question over the reality, or existence, of that hippo isn't really an intellectual matter. It involves the 'simple faith' of our trust in our senses. Being certain in such a case is a good thing. On the other hand, if you think it isn't a hippo, being uncertain is a good thing. Believing in false patterns is a survival advantage. It's a bias we should be aware of.

I had a religions teacher who used to talk about faith (he was a jesuit priest, so that didn't help anything) only in relation to religion. I used to bring up the idea that faith is in regards to any aspect of life, it isn't always blind faith, and it doesn't have any specific context that makes it applicable solely to religion and God. I have faith in the idea of Natural Evolution, it is a faith that is backed with fact and knowledge, but it is still faith. Faith can be in spirituality, humanity, science, or just about any walk of life. At least that is the way I have always seen it.

I agree. The same goes for "belief." Many people don't understand that beliefs aren't always religious. You can have beliefs about business, about the right way to educate children, belief in the knowledge of something. Religion seems to loom over everyone, and it does have a tendency to try to own certain aspects of language, which creates disparaging definitions when two people who do not share the same religious views and language try to talk about something.

In the movie Serenity (yes, I know, what does sci-fi have to do with this but I have a point), a character who is a devout equivalent to a priest/monk is advising the hero, an ex soldier turned petty criminal with strangely benevolent morals, that the only way to get out of the predicament he and his crew are in (I won't give away the plot for those who haven't seen it) is to "believe." The hero answers, "I enjoy your counsel, Shepherd, but I ain't looking for help from on high. That's a long wait for a train that don't come."
The Shepherd then says, "When I talk about belief, why do you always assume I'm talking about God?"
He then explains that the assassin following the hero and his crew believes hard that what he is doing is "the right thing to do," and that he will kill for that belief and never ask why. Later, when the Shepherd is dying because the assassin attacked his home, his last words to the hero are: "I don't care what you believe, just believe." And the hero, eventually, finds what he needs to believe in, and it does, in fact, save the day.

My point is that belief in something that keeps a person going is just as strong or important as belief in something religious. The same goes for faith. To quote another movie, Kevin Smith's Dogma, on her way back to heaven, Selma Hayek as "The Muse" tells the heroine (who is supposedly a descendent of Christ's family), that "It doesn't matter what you have faith in, as long as you have faith." That faith can be faith in one's family, in one's self, in school, in a book, anything that gives life meaning and keeps them going. It is wrong for religion to claim ownership of ideas that are fundamental human needs. Everyone has faith in something, even if it is the non-existance of something, like having faith that there aren't ghosts or is no boogeyman or faith that your doctors can heal you when you are hurt.

Faith does not equal religion.

I have three dogs, all three very intelligent. They have faith in me, 100%, no matter what I do or would do. If something is wrong with one of them, they know that I will remedy the situation. Even if I have never done one particular action that they expect (I'm referring to a situation when one of them was choking on a piece of wood caught in her throat. The 2 other dogs came to get me; they had faith in me and my doing the proper thing to save Clover--which entailed my pulling it out of her throat and getting accidentally bit in the process). Sorry about the tangent, but my point is that I do not believe that faith is an exclusively human property.

That is an excellent perspective. Thank you for sharing that. As a non-pet owner, I would never have thought of this, but now that you point it out, I have definitely seen this happen with people who do own pets. It also makes me think of a situation my father and his secretary find themselves in:

One time when a squirrel came up to the office door, my father's secretary fed the squirrel a peanut. Every day after that, that squirrel (and I think a few others, over time) has come to the door and sat still there until it was noticed and the secretary fed it. Now, my father deliberately buys unsalted peanuts every time he buys groceries and every day they feed the squirrel(s). This habit is so ingrained that sometimes the only food left in my parents' house are the nuts for the squirrel, because my father will always make sure the squirrel is fed but often doesn't notice when his own food has run out. This has been going on for at least two years now.

Both my father and his secretary have faith that the squirrels will show up, waiting for food, as much as the squirrels have faith that the nuts will be given to them. I never thought of this instance as a matter of faith before, but now that you have put it in that light, I see that it really is.

Thanks, oblivion.

Thanks Bleachededen. The problem here is precisely that it does matter what you have faith in.

You can have faith in something that is true or something that is false. Science is true while creationism is false. Having faith in falsehood is precisely what Jesus attacked in his parable of the house built on rock (truth) and the house built on sand (error). False belief has harmful social consequences. True belief has good consequences. This difference may take a long time to manifest, but truth will always eventually win over falsehood.

It reminds me of the Vietnam War book 'A Bright Shining Lie', which examines false beliefs that the US Government is still struggling to deal with.

I've commented more on faith on the thread faith-and-confidence-t7898.html (I notice Interbane's first post here has repeated a point I made in that thread "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.")

I've always had an insatiable curiosity about epistemology. It's such a slippery subject and it always makes me feel fuzzy minded. I think that's why I enjoy it so much.

Anyone here watch Lost? All throughout the series faith is a central theme. In the first season, the characters must have faith in pushing the 'button'. There are other examples, I remember thinking of them back when I'd watched it. I can't seem to think of them now.


bleachededen wrote:


I agree with Robert on this point. Religion touts faith as a virtue. I don't think it is. As with the example of the three dogs, and also my hippo example, I think faith has a lot to do with survival. Having evolved so far, I think our capacity and tendency to have faith is actually a bias and an impediment to progress. Yet, we can't stop being human. If it's a tendency for us to have faith(whatever that means, and if it's even true), then we should at least be aware of it and harness it. Faith without prior reasoning can lead us astray.

I didn't use this quote to assume that faith in anything, even falsehoods, is a good thing. I think it makes more sense within the context of the movie, and may actually mean something different to me than what others seem to think about it. Considering the movie was about religion (but not in a preachy way), I took this quote (given at the end of the movie) to mean that it's not important for the heroine to have faith in God, but to have faith in herself, which is shown to be flagging at the beginning of the movie. I suppose this is a very narrow personal reading on my part, and that it probably more likely is telling her to have faith in God, even without the "dogma" that goes with religion. I suppose everyone could have their own interpretation of this quote, but in no way did I intend to say that blind faith or faith in falsehoods is to be desired.

Some of these examples fit more with confidence than with faith.

The example of the squirrels coming for the nuts is an instance of confidence. Based on what you know about squirrels (they like nuts, and sometimes can be hand fed) someone tried to feed one a nut. The squirrel indeed does like nuts and finds the risk to reward ratio acceptable to get the nuts from the person. This is almost pavlovian, not a mythical thing that requires faith.

Faith is required when the evidence is limited, nonexistent, or runs against a thing being believed.
confidence is for those things which you anticipate based on past experience with substantial evidence to indicate that they are true, or can be expected to happen again, such as sun rises and feeding squirrels.

Faith is not a virtue. Faith is what is required to hold onto a concept though evidence undermines that concept. It is the rejection of investigation for revelation. It is the rejection of "saw it for yourself" for "i heard it from a guy".

Faith's primary use is to blunt the sting of the truth so that you can hold your footing long enough to ignore the reality of a thing. It lets you hold onto a fallacy until you can rationalize away the (often prodigious) evidence against your favorite fairy-tale.

It lets you hear the words of non-believers and take it on the chin, rather than be swept down the corrupt path of intellectuality. Then you can hunch your shoulders and seep into a corner, tenderly stroking the hair of your precious, whispering, "Don't listen to the bad man, my precious. He doesn't see because he is a sinner."

Faith is willful ignorance. The worst kind of ignorance.

Again, thank you for your perspective. I should have read your post on faith and confidence more closely, as I agree with you completely that what you have described as faith being willful ignorance is the worst kind of ignorance. I was confusing faith and confidence in my squirrel story, but never intentionally. I, among others, of course, have misused the word "faith" for many different things, because what I think of as the things that I personally have "faith" in is not the blind, willful ignorance you have described and that religion requires. It is simply a matter of using the wrong word.

I've never been able to have that blind faith in anything, even science, because I always ask questions and can't give up my intellectualism to save my life (even at times when I thought it would). I do hold on to certain superstitions, but even there I still know that I am being irrational and therefore do not let my life be governed by them. I do have some irrational fears, but that is a completely different topic and I won't drag us off somewhere else.

But again, Johnson, thank you for your view and again, I apologize to you and everyone else for misunderstanding faith and confidence. You learn something new every day.

As was said above, faith is belief without proof. That is a long way from "willful ignorance." It is often associated with love. If you love someone you have faith in their worthiness. It is certainly possible to acknowledge evidence that argues against something belied in and still have faith that it is true. Just as it is possible to have evidence both for and against something. Evidence is an element of proof but not necessarily sufficient to draw a conclusion. Again, there may very well be evidence that supports as well as refutes the truth of the thing believed in.

To be willfully ignorant would be to refuse to learn/experience any evidence that tends to deny the truth. That may be the case for some people who are afraid the evidence will prove their faith is misplaced. It is not the case for everyone who has faith.

Back to dogs: they do indeed have blind ignorance, thinking I am a type of god, giving them food which just appears regularly in their bowls, saving them for choking to death, knowing they have to go outside before they really know it themselves, etc. For dogs this is acceptable, even intelligent ones. Not for people. (Apologies as I was not being very coherent).