Atheists have faith in things too.

EmptyForceOfChi said:
No but you can't be a hypocrite and put religious people down for having faith in god, when you have faith yourself in so many other aspects.


peace.
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The difference is that atheists have the courage to face up to being wrong and re-evaluate their beleifs based on new information.

and it is a big difference n'est pas?
 
SAM,

Faith is a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea
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This is true. The issue then centers round the basis of that belief, e.g. does it have support and/or is it credible.
 
Cris said:
SAM,

This is true. The issue then centers round the basis of that belief, e.g. does it have support and/or is it credible.
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I think the issue raised in the thread is that we all believe in things that are either not tested, not testable or both. From there we are relying on intution, or guesses at liklihood, or faith.
 
Cris said:
Faith can be used in two ways –

1. A conviction that something is true despite the absence of evidence (this is religious faith).

2. The acceptance that although some things are not certain I have seen the event often enough to know it is likely to occur again. This is a statistical phenomenon more accurately known as inductive logic.
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Which of these covers moral beliefs, the belief in other minds or belief in the continuity of self through time?
 
hypewaders said:
Faith in good does not require faith in god.
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No, but the sense of 'being right' in moral judgments is an act of faith. It cannot be defended by evidence. If believing in certain things on faith is bad, per se, or best to be avoided, or always foolish, then moral judgments are problematic.
 
"No, but the sense of 'being right' in moral judgments is an act of faith."

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" demonstrably, consistently brings good results; requires no leap of faith; is not problematic- What we like is self-evident, and there is abundant empirical evidence for the mutual benefit of good deeds to others, in accordance with that principle.
 
hypewaders said:
"No, but the sense of 'being right' in moral judgments is an act of faith."

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" demonstrably, consistently brings good results; requires no leap of faith; is not problematic- What we like is self-evident, and there is abundant empirical evidence for the mutual benefit of good deeds to others, in accordance with that principle.
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Your definition includes the term you are trying to define. Thus it is circular. Further it is not agreed upon which also points to the possibility that it is based on faith.
 
Simon Anders said:
No, but the sense of 'being right' in moral judgments is an act of faith. It cannot be defended by evidence. If believing in certain things on faith is bad, per se, or best to be avoided, or always foolish, then moral judgments are problematic.
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Moral judgements are an irrelevancy in this topic - a red herring.
Considering something "good" or "bad", according to our own moral compass, requires no "faith" as it is purely subjective.

There is no objective morality.
There is no objective notion of good and bad: one person's act of good is another's act of bad.


"Faith" as being discussed is belief in a claim of objective truth without objective evidence.

Some might say that believing faith that your friend will help you in your hour of need is "faith", but as has been stated this is inductive logic based on plenty of evidence (all your experiences of this friend, for example).

Religious "faith" is belief in a claim of objective truth (e.g. existence of God) without objective evidence.
 
EmptyForceOfChi said:
You have no proof that your partner has stayed faithful to you unless you keep him/her locked up in a cage. Yet you would have faith they are faithfull despite the fact that you have no evidence to back up that claim.
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Nonsense. My conclusion that they had been faithful would have been based upon years of observation of their charcater, actions and behavioural patterns. supplemented by insights into the extent of their honesty, their style of lying etc. While I could make an error in this regard, the chances of it would be pretty slim. So faith is not involved for me to any extent whatsoever.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
Wait a minute. Faith is belief in something without ANY evidence. What are you guys talking about?
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Not really. The OED defines "faith" as:

Confidence, reliance, trust (in the ability, goodness, etc., of a person; in the efficacy or worth of a thing; or in the truth of a statement or doctrine)
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You can have faith in something because it is supported by convincing evidence.
 
I'm sorry, I don't see where your definition implies any evidence. I have faith that this computer will not self-immolate while I am using it, thus I continue to use it. I have no evidence suggesting that it can't or won't self-immolate. I don't know of any other computers self-immolating, but I recognize that my knowledge is limited, and not something to base decisions on. Thus I base my actions on my faith.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
I'm sorry, I don't see where your definition implies any evidence.
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It doesn't imply that there has to be evidence, but it also doesn't imply that there can't be evidence. It simply say "confidence, reliance, trust." It doesn't matter what that confidence or trust is based on.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
I'm sorry, I don't see where your definition implies any evidence. I have faith that this computer will not self-immolate while I am using it, thus I continue to use it.
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Yes, but the computer is real, hence you can make comparisons to other computers, their historical background into self-immolating and any other data you wish to find. Big difference.
 
(Q) said:
Yes, but the computer is real, hence you can make comparisons to other computers, their historical background into self-immolating and any other data you wish to find. Big difference.
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Mr. Hamtastic doesn't seem to realize that the very fact that we have observed many computers and none/few of them have been observed to self-immolate is indeed evidence that a rondomly chosen computer probably won't self-immolate.
 
On the contrary, according to the fact that there is a 1 in ??? chance that a computer WILL self-immolate. The more computers that get used and this does not happen, the more likely this becomes, to include that it will be my computer that achieves this 1:1 possibility ratio of self-immolation eventually. Infinity is big and forever is a long time. In those terms, are you going to tell me that it is NOT possible that my computer will self-immolate?
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
On the contrary, according to the fact that there is a 1 in ??? chance that a computer WILL self-immolate. The more computers that get used and this does not happen, the more likely this becomes, to include that it will be my computer that achieves this 1:1 possibility ratio of self-immolation eventually. Infinity is big and forever is a long time. In those terms, are you going to tell me that it is NOT possible that my computer will self-immolate?
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I'm not sure what you are trying to get at here. No, of course it's not proof that your computer won't self-immolate. It's just evidence that it's very unlikely. Therefor it's reasonable for you to have confidence or reliance that you computer will not self-immolate. Your belief that your computer will not self-immolate is a reasonable belief that is based on evidence.
 
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