We all have faith!

/hmmm... I see that as being religious 'belief' rather than faith.

indeed but once you are faithful, it is beyond question, accepted and simply a matter of fact. the playing field itself changes. that which is outside that faith is no longer a consideration, regardless of further input. of course this has little bearing on the half life of cesium, but it has huge impact on the matters of mind, which directly effect reality.

/Perhaps the tangible, predicted, and expected results of applied
logic are the proof of logic?

Proof enough for me too, but if you make a different set of assumptions, or come to the table with a different set of initial conditions, your whole set of proofs isn't necessarily applicable anymore.

There is no requirement that people acknowledge logic unless nature calls their bluff.
 
indeed but once you are faithful, it is beyond question, accepted and simply a matter of fact. the playing field itself changes. that which is outside that faith is no longer a consideration, regardless of further input. of course this has little bearing on the half life of cesium, but it has huge impact on the matters of mind, which directly effect reality.
Click to expand...

So, what we just asserted here is:

1) Belief is first established (acceptance)
2) Faith is then established (unconditional trust)
3) Expectations are then established (whats to expect)

Now lets take the good ol' fashioned example of pitchin' a fat
turd in ye' ol porcelin bowl.

1) I don't believe I am going to take a dump. I know I will
(although not necessarily when).
2) I don't invest trust in order for the event to occur.
3) I expect to drop a fatty once or twice a day.

Crapping is an product of logic and most of us have to
acknowledge it every day. It's expected. I will give you this
however. People certainly don't have to acknowledge all logic
(unless of course nature calls their bluff as you put)... but that
goes beyond the original point which is we are beings of
expectation regardless of what led to the expectation (which
is not necessarily faith).
 
1) I don't believe I am going to take a dump. I know I will
(although not necessarily when).
2) I don't invest trust in order for the event to occur.
3) I expect to drop a fatty once or twice a day.
Click to expand...

Yes but what if monkeys fly out of your ass? :)

What if you die before shitting? Then your expectation wasn't met. What if you are in a huge accident and end up with a colostamy bag?

My point is obviously a technicality, but an important one IMO. It's basically statistics. Your experience is a representative sample of a population which you cannot know. If I run an experiment a googleplex times with the same result, can I say to 100% confidence that the next iteration of the experient will yield the same result? What if I get the same result on paper, yet my interpretation of how it fits into the larger picture changes?

Given that you cannot absolutely predict the future (you can however with a very high degree of confidence), I find it an 'act of faith' to take action based on one's expectation. Certainly it is reasonable to do so (hence faith in reason, faith in self)... but your perception could mislead you, leading to eronious conclusions valid to your frame of reference only. The proclamation to self (even if unconscious) that "this is valid" or "this will should lead to an expected result", is an act of faith based on what you subjectively deem reasonable. Your faith in the accuracy of your input allows you to process the data such that you can form contructs that allow the continuation of this process.

So really I suppose it seems I'm almost arguing semantics.. but to me it is a logical necessity of subjectivity that faith can be unconscious. I mean, when I think about it, just the definition of faith implies directly tha tit can be unconscious. Afterall, once I've become faithful, by definition I cannot question my faith eh? Can you say with 100% accuracy you haven't done this with your personal investment in logic and reason?

Meh. I'm spent.
 
BigBlueHead wrote
The difference between faith and expectation is not semantics; expectation is a conclusion of inductive logic, that because we observe that something has happened before, we believe that it will happen again. In the context of religion, faith is often a belief that something will happen or is happening, with no evidence to support that belief.
Click to expand...
I can see your point of view, BigBlueHead, and I agree with one of your sentences but not with the other.

Using your own words, “we believe that it will happen again,” is the point in time when trust has extended on whatever is concluded from inductive logic. At that point, faith in the conclusion has come alive. After that, and following the next time around, you will expect the same thing to occur as in the beginning because you have faith in the conclusion from the inductive logic. Trust will be extended on whatever it is, with the expectation nothing has changed since the first time. And when it happens like the first time, faith in your conclusion becomes stronger and becomes second nature. From then on trust will be extended immediately on whatever it is, expecting the same thing to happen as the first.
But a question may arise, what happens after extending trust on whatever it is that it fails to meet the expectations of the conclusion from someone’s inductive logic?
IMO, two things may happen. One, the faith in the conclusion ends, dies, is shattered, or stops completely. It would be wise to re-think the inductive logic that led to the conclusion to see if the expectations were reasonable, but, depending on whatever the item is, the person may never want to do that. Faith or trust in individuals that fail, whether personal or business, is a strong example of this category.
Or two, the person may still have faith in his/her conclusion because the inductive logic was reasonable. The conclusion may be skewed, so axioms or postulates are added to cover the explanation on the incident that failed (hopefully the failed incident did not result in the death of the person). The faith in the conclusion from inductive logic is still intact but stipulations are now attached to it.
In essence, I agree with you on the first sentence. Faith grows from the conclusion from something that is observable or happened before. But in regards to ‘religious belief’, why can’t you do the same thing? Why make the assumption that ‘religious belief’ is unsupported? If faith grows from the conclusion of inductive logic, why can’t you apply the same strategy on a ‘religious belief’? “Blind faith” is accepting someone’s word without investigation. Are you emphasizing that point in regards to ‘religious belief’? If you are, then I will have to disagree with your last sentence.

CrunchyCat wrote
So, what we just asserted here is:

1) Belief is first established (acceptance)
2) Faith is then established (unconditional trust)
3) Expectations are then established (whats to expect)

Now lets take the good ol' fashioned example of pitchin' a fat
turd in ye' ol porcelin bowl.

1) I don't believe I am going to take a dump. I know I will
(although not necessarily when).
2) I don't invest trust in order for the event to occur.
3) I expect to drop a fatty once or twice a day.

Crapping is an product of logic and most of us have to
acknowledge it every day. It's expected. I will give you this
however. People certainly don't have to acknowledge all logic
(unless of course nature calls their bluff as you put)... but that
goes beyond the original point which is we are beings of
expectation regardless of what led to the expectation (which
is not necessarily faith).
Click to expand...
Although amusing to read, CrunchyCat, I will have to disagree with your statement. Crapping is not a product of logic but a by-product of eating. If you eat, you know at some point you will crap (what goes in must come out :) ). Therefore the logic of eating is to live. Crapping is just the end product (excuse the pun) of eating. If you don’t want to live you don’t have to eat, but then you may not crap. But then you need some degree of faith in the food you eat, hoping it does not contain any toxins, like salmonella and botulism, or someone’s spittle. And you have to extend some trust in the person who prepared the food.

I think a different example would help to illustrate your point of view. :)
 
Question of the day

1) I don't believe I am going to take a dump. I know I will
(although not necessarily when).
2) I don't invest trust in order for the event to occur.
3) I expect to drop a fatty once or twice a day.
Click to expand...
Should we take this to mean you've never had that occasion that you sit yourself upon the throne and squeeze out only air?

Of course, that could be a matter of diet. It's more than mere folklore from my college days. I remember we got a friend of mine a big book of dumps; I wish I could remember who wrote it. (How odd is that, eleven years down the line?) Because even it discussed the "phantom dump."

I mean, I can't believe I would ever have had cause to use it as a reference ... damn.
 
Originally posted by mountainhare
Let's face it, all you atheists, you all have faith in almost everything.

For example: You have FAITH that a chair is built correctly. It may look perfectly fine, but once you sit in that chair, you might discover the hard way that it was built wrong.
You had only faith that it would support you!

Or look at a computer. Before you turn it on, it may look fine. But when you try to turn it on, you'll discover that it has a virus and is all screwed up. From the outside, it looked like any working computer. And you had faith that when you turned it on, it would work like a working computer. But you did not KNOW if it would work. The only way to KNOW if it would work, is to turn it on.

So, if you have faith in everyday things like this, why do you find it so hard to have faith in the Bible, and God?
Click to expand...

Isn't that a different type of faith? Faith in everyday occurrences, and in logic and reason is different from having faith in celestial beings...
 
" ...We must here make a distinction between belief and faith, because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief" or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on condition that it fits in his his preconcieved ideas and wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception."

Alan Watts,
The Wisdom of Insecurity, 1951
 
Really, all you have to ask yourself is whether you believe in life or not. I think it would be hard for anyone to say they don't believe in life, cause we are all living. It doesn't matter if you believe is god or not, as long as you believe in life, you will have a life similar to the ones that believes in god, as god is life and you can still influence the world with only your belief in life.
 
What if we just live with no belief. You can only believe in ideas and concepts. Life is not an idea or concept, therefore it is impossible to believe it. When we see something amazing, we say it is unbelieveable. What could be more amazing than God? Therefore God is inherently unbelieveable. If you believe in God, what you are really believing is a limited, finite, artificial idea, a symbol, an idol.
 
Originally posted by Hevene
Really, all you have to ask yourself is whether you believe in life or not. I think it would be hard for anyone to say they don't believe in life, cause we are all living. It doesn't matter if you believe is god or not, as long as you believe in life, you will have a life similar to the ones that believes in god, as god is life and you can still influence the world with only your belief in life.
----------
M*W: I agree with you! Life is the greatest gift we could have. It doesn't matter who one's higher power is. The fact that we have been given life (one's lifeforce), is proof of that one's Creator dwells within. Even atheists have this life force whether they believe in a higher power or not. We cannot prove what is. We can only prove what isn't. (That's because we already know what IS). The lifeforce that dwells within the human race is how I see God, and I believe in life.
Click to expand...
 
Nice post mountainhare. That's what gets me: people think it's so ludicrous to beleive, but it really does make more sense than anything else. Darwinians (and Darwin himself) are clearly anti-christal and they must represent all that is evil in the world! How can they just toss aside the soul as if it doesn't exist? All humans know it is there, and for anyone to deny it is just worrying. One of the only ways the soul can be denied is if the body and the soul have become so entwined that they are hard to seperate; thus we have a cold godless theory of evolution.
 
Originally posted by mountainhare
Let's face it, all you atheists, you all have faith in almost everything.

For example: You have FAITH that a chair is built correctly. It may look perfectly fine, but once you sit in that chair, you might discover the hard way that it was built wrong.
You had only faith that it would support you!

Or look at a computer. Before you turn it on, it may look fine. But when you try to turn it on, you'll discover that it has a virus and is all screwed up. From the outside, it looked like any working computer. And you had faith that when you turned it on, it would work like a working computer. But you did not KNOW if it would work. The only way to KNOW if it would work, is to turn it on.

So, if you have faith in everyday things like this, why do you find it so hard to have faith in the Bible, and God?
Click to expand...
b/c we see no evidence of gods existence!
did god create your computer?NO,people did,so we have no faith in its working,but rather KNOWLEDGE that it will do what we designed it to do;)
 
Originally posted by Medicine Women
The lifeforce that dwells within the human race is how I see God, and I believe in life.
Click to expand...

Beautifully put and thank you for that.

Originally posted by spidergoat
What if we just live with no belief. You can only believe in ideas and concepts. Life is not an idea or concept, therefore it is impossible to believe it. When we see something amazing, we say it is unbelieveable. What could be more amazing than God? Therefore God is inherently unbelieveable. If you believe in God, what you are really believing is a limited, finite, artificial idea, a symbol, an idol.
Click to expand...

We cannot live a life without beliefs. It is our beliefs that created every action of ours. When you say "unbelievable", it does not mean god is unbelievable, but rather a reflection of our limited understanding.
 
Welp, after reading all these posts I am pretty convinced that
we're not all defining 'faith' and 'belief' the same way. Because
it's made in a religious context, I am defining these items as follows:

Faith: Unconditional trust in something.
Belief: Acceptance of something as true (no proof required).

I don't think that atheists live their lives with faith. I expect
that my car will start in the morning; however, expectations
are broken (a fact of life) and maybe it won't start (and Tiassa,
that phantom turd would simply be a breaking of expectations).

Some assert they have an unconditional trust in logic (i.e. 'faith');
however, my view on this is that logic is a primitive. Without it,
the concept of trust may not even be derivable; hence, to say
I trust something which is really a dependency of trust seems
incorrect. Just a thought.
 
Taking your lead, CrunchyCat, I think it is proper to define what we each consider what ‘belief’ and ‘faith’ are in regards to normal everyday living and not necessarily with religious connotations. Maybe in doing so we can notice a common ground, or some marked differences.

Belief: A conviction that a certain thing is true; an expectation.

Faith: A willingness to act on or rely upon that conviction with complete trust and confidence.

Example: Suppose you planned a trip to another continent. You do some research to find the best time, the best value, and the best airline for the trip. From all logical reasoning and choice, you believe the selection of a particular airline will meet your expectations. And so you act on that belief by booking the flight, reserving the seat, and, when the time comes, boarding the plane. At that point as you sit in the plane you have taken a “leap of faith” and gone into the unknown. You don’t know who the maintenance workers are or if they kept the plane well maintained. You don’t know who are the members of the flight crew and if they will be pleasant to you and meet your needs (plus you don’t know who the passengers are, especially those seated near you). And you don’t know who the pilot is and whether he can handle any extreme situation. Your life is in the hands of people you have never met, yet with complete trust and confidence you know that statistics show air travel is the safest way to travel. You have faith in the abilities of the people you have never met and expect a pleasant flight.

Although the example may be extreme the idea that started this thread is the same. When it comes to daily living, we place our lives in the hands of the abilities from others. And since we are willing to extend trust to people we have never met, then faith is active in everyday living no matter who we are. It may be second nature or unnoticeable, but faith is active, even in the mundane act of starting a car.
 
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