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lemondiesel
Guest
Science comes from Philosophy
Philosophy is the result of curiosity of existence.
Science reveals faith.
Philosophy is the result of curiosity of existence.
Science reveals faith.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Our sets of beliefs are not all just different “flavors of Koolade.” Catholic beliefs are based on Truth. Catholic beliefs are Truth.
It isn’t “merely” faith. It is FAITH!!!
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Science, when used properly, leads to Truth. Faith leads to Truth. Truth cannot contradict Truth.
Politics only overshadows Truth to those who refuse to see.
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Leela
Guest
I agree. Some of our beliefs are better justified than others. That is why I have problems with the arguments such as those made in this thread that everything is just faith–it’s all just different flavors of Koolade–as though all we do is choose what to believe from among a number of equally dubious claims.
Science consistitutes our best attempts to agree on a single account of the world that best enables us to predict and control our environment. We don’t try to get agreement on such an account by appeals to faith but rather appeals to evidence and arguments (where such just means “whatever may help us get consensus.”)
The same emphasis on evidence and arguments is no doubt true about religion. No one likes to think that they have no good reason to believe what they believe, so faith used as a synonym for belief is just an admision that one has run out of things to say in support of her beliefs. Anyone who has had a conversation with a three year old saying “why, why, why…” knows that eventually we all exhaust our conversational resources no matter what we are talking about. Scientists run into the same exhaution. But why think that running out of good reasons is a virtue? Faith as an attempted trump card only gets played when usual justificatory practices fail. Why claim “faith” at this point as though it were a triumph instead of a failure? The difference here is that scientists know it is not a virtue, and in religion it should also be recognized as a failure of our current ability to justify our beliefs rather than as a triumph.
I don’t have any use for capital t-Truth to distinguish kinds of sentences that are true.
I’ll just add that religion and science may be able to stay out of one anothers way if religion is viewed as having no need to get broad agreement on the same account and as not having the goals of predicting and controling our environment.
If faith is supposed to mean something other than a failure to be able to justify a belief then perhaps it ought to be seen as an state of mind or an attitude of loyalty, trust, and hope over despair (remember the lilies of the field) rather than a mere synonym for belief when evidence fails.
What do you think?
Best,
Leela
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LittleSoldier
Guest
I guess I should let you know that I have a B.S. in biology, a B.A. in psychology, and an M.A. in research psychology methodology and advanced statistics. I understand scientific method and its limitations, one of which is that it can never provide proof.
So you are saying that I don’t have a good reason to believe in God but I want to and so I make up something called “faith” and by doing so I admit that I have run out of things to say in support of my belief? And this is based on my not wanting to believe I “have no good reason to believe what I believe”? Why would this even concern me? I’m not a three year old and I don’t think as one. Why would I believe in anything if I had no good reason to “believe what I believe”? Why would I ever believe that “running out of good reasons is a virtue”? Why would I attempt to use “faith as an ‘attempted’ trump card”? You are completely wrong. I am a scientist and I am rather put off by your tone here, although I don’t believe you are being consciously uncharitable.
First of all, I could write pages and pages and pages about how I base my faith in God. I certainly have not run out of things to say. But our posts are supposed to be brief, so I’m not going to do that. We are also not allowed to discuss personal revelation and I won’t. Please let me just say that I have my reasons for believing in God that I cannot discuss with you.
I was agnostic/atheist for a long, long time. I didn’t want to believe in God. I thought the whole idea was simplistic and illogical and that people were afraid of dying so they concocted this whole idea of God in order to ease their fears.
That was before I talked to someone who knew what he was talking about. That was before I examined my inner self realistically. I thought about this for a long time. I thought about infinity, the beginning of the universe, and the chances of me being here. I thought about our earth, everything in it, on it, and above it. I thought about the stars, the planets, other possible dimensions and/or universes.
My conclusion, based on my experiences, is that there is a God who is Truth and Love - an actual spirit who has created everything ex nihilo and who created me and loves me.
Science is certainly not the only way to look at natural phenomena and to attempt to base a belief in God on science alone is not going to work. However, I don’t mean that science is not extremely useful when paired with religion. Science helps us to understand God’s creations. Science can be used in an attempt to analyze the tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe and can lend credence to the divine characteristics of such. When used in this respect, science is being used to discover Truth which is also supported by faith in the Catholic Church.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
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What about philosophy? This is a discipline used to learn about our world. Is it subject to the limitations of science? Of course not. So why should faith and religion be? Personally, I would find this world to be very dull if everything needed to be studied and researched only within the realm of science. Painting, sculpture, poetry, novels, music - these are all ways of looking at the world. I don’t think you would say these should be subject to the constraints of scientific method. How could they be? How could faith be? How could religion be?
What I see you saying is that if science does not provide the answers then we give up. That isn’t true of science! When science does not provide the answers we continue to research, over and over, and even though science can never provide proof, its method can show significant results which at the very least indicate Truth. Faith is belief in something that cannot be demonstrated by evidence (remember Thomas who doubted). If science can lead to Truth, the same Truth can be found using faith. Truth cannot contradict Truth and that is why the Church embraces science as a tool God gave us to use to examine the natural world around us.
BTW, it’s “Kool-Aid,” not “Koolade.” I thought you should know that.
I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you are trying to say here.
Oh, no no no no no! Religion and science should not stay out of one another’s way. Again you are placing the same restrictions on religion that you place on science. I wonder why you keep doing that. As I’ve stated before, religion does not have the same parameters as science. But both, if used properly, lead to non-contradictory Truth. My faith in God is just as valid as my belief in any theory studied and researched using scientific method. Also, the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus, as God. As such, we should be doing whatever we can to “get broad agreement on the same account.”
What about philosophy? This is a discipline used to learn about our world. Is it subject to the limitations of science? Of course not. So why should faith and religion be? Personally, I would find this world to be very dull if everything needed to be studied and researched only within the realm of science. Painting, sculpture, poetry, novels, music - these are all ways of looking at the world. I don’t think you would say these should be subject to the constraints of scientific method. How could they be? How could faith be? How could religion be?
I don’t think you understand faith at all and that bothers me. I think you are trying to discover Truth and that gives me hope for you. I haven’t used “faith” to “justify a belief” nor do I use it as any sort of attitude over despair or as a “mere synonym” for belief when evidence fails. Faith (and religion) are not restricted as science is.
What I see you saying is that if science does not provide the answers then we give up. That isn’t true of science! When science does not provide the answers we continue to research, over and over, and even though science can never provide proof, its method can show significant results which at the very least indicate Truth. Faith is belief in something that cannot be demonstrated by evidence (remember Thomas who doubted). If science can lead to Truth, the same Truth can be found using faith. Truth cannot contradict Truth and that is why the Church embraces science as a tool God gave us to use to examine the natural world around us.
BTW, it’s “Kool-Aid,” not “Koolade.” I thought you should know that.
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Leela
Guest
You seem to be taking me to be having a position far more hostile to yours than I am. I am not criticizing religion as a whole or belief in God or faith in general. I am criticizing a particular use of the word. When you say science can never provide proof, you seem to be equating “believing without proof” with “having faith”–as though faith was only an issue of certainty about matter of fact in any old context. I would think that a religious person would want to argue that faith is something more substantial, personal, and radical than just any run of the mill belief without proof or having to do with factual belief at all. I think believers ought to see it as an insult to faith to call any old belief that cannot be proven (and what can ever be proven to someone who wants to play the extreme skeptic?) faith.
As a side note on proof, consider that the practical goal of inquiry is never truth or proof at all but rather about assuaging our doubts. As soon as we stop doubting, inquiry ends whether we’ve settled upon a true belief or not. What we need to do is to distinguish between real doubting and the “fake doubt” (Pierce) of the Cartesian skeptic who pretends to be unsure about whether or not he is a brain in a vat.
The other bit of anti-skepticism I would add here is that we don’t need to be oblidged to provide justification for beliefs that no one can give us any good reason to doubt. So to your “science never proves anything” idea, I would say that we actually do have lots and lots of true beliefs (real knowledge) and we have science to thank for many of them.
Not at all. I asumed from the start that you believe that you have very good reasons to believe whatever you believe or else you would not believe what you believe. I am saying that when people justify their beliefs to others, they only appeal to faith (in the bad sense that I am criticizing) when they run out of arguments or can not answer counter arguments. Like calling science a matter of faith, this practice also ought to be seen by believers as diminishing faith and a poor use of the word.
As a thought to get you thinking about what faith means if not factual belief, consider that Satan and all the demons supposedly believe that God exists and believe without any doubt at all that Jesus really is God, yet that sort of factual belief with 100% certainty is still certainly not faith. So by the same token, why consider a person who merely believes that God exists and that Jesus really is God to be someone who has faith? Doesn’t faith have to be somethig more than simple belief? Can’t someone believe with a high degree of certainty and still dispair? I think faith is more like an affirming orientation towards the world or giving a big “yes” to life.
Best,
Leela
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LittleSoldier
Guest
“Anti-skepticism”?
It is not my idea that science never proves anything. I did not use those words. What I stated was that “I understand scientific method and its limitations, one of which is that it can never provide proof.”Are you denying this? Are you aware that any obtained results from research conducted using scientific method can be attributed to chance a certain percentage of time, depending upon the level of significance used? There is always a possibility that the obtained results are due to chance. Always.
Do we ever stop doubting about results obtained via scientific method? If those results can be due to chance, we should never stop doubting but insist upon discussing, refining our methods, and repeating the research with modifications in order to see if we can obtain comparable, supporting evidence.
You have some strange ideas about why people inquire. I’ve never run across anyone before who believed inquiry was used to “assuage our doubts.” I’ve always thought (and been taught) that the goal of science is to discover Truth, as is the goal of philosophy and theology.
I’ve already stated:
Catholic beliefs are based on Truth. Catholic beliefs are Truth.
It isn’t “merely” faith. It is FAITH!!!
Surely this is an indication that I think that “faith is something more substantial, personal, and radical than just any run of the mill belief without proof.” Don’t ya think?
“Any old context”? “Any old belief”? “Run of the mill belief”? “Believers ought to see it as an insult to faith to call any old belief that cannot be proven faith?” No, you’re not hostile. Not at all.
This is what you stated in post #163:
This is my response:
I obviously believe in God and your religious affiliation is stated as “None.” You stated that “no one likes to think they have no good reason to believe what they believe.” Naturally I took this to refer to belief in God. In other words, you are stating that I don’t have a good reason to believe in God. Then you went on to state that when this occurs, “faith is used as a synonym for belief which is an admission that one has run out of things to say in support of her beliefs.” Naturally I took this to mean that I use “faith as a synonym for belief which is an admission that I have run out of things to say in support of my belief.”
Now you are saying you never said that? OK, let me try again. You are saying that when people try to justify their beliefs to others they use faith when they really have run out of reasons to believe in what they believe?
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LittleSoldier
Guest
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Of course someone can believe with a high degree of certainty and still despair. But I doubt that a person who has a high degree of certainty about the existence of God and His Love despairs about that. That person’s despair is caused by something else, not his/her belief in God.
What I see you doing (and I do understand that I am not an expert on you) is assigning motives to religious people. You really can’t climb into their heads, you know. What is going on inside them is not visible to you. I question why you question their use of the word “faith.” I don’t believe you are correct in your assessment of the motivation of people who believe in God. In fact, I’m sure you’re not, as I am a religious person myself and I certainly don’t attempt to justify my faith in God by using the word “faith” because I don’t have any evidence to back me up.
I’m going to wait to respond to your comments on this post until you have commented on the rest of my response to your first post. I hope that’s OK.
Um, I am very confused by your comments. I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to communicate to me. A person who “merely believes that God exists”? How can a person merely believe that God exists? If a person believes that God exists, that is faith. Excuse me, that is FAITH!!!
Of course someone can believe with a high degree of certainty and still despair. But I doubt that a person who has a high degree of certainty about the existence of God and His Love despairs about that. That person’s despair is caused by something else, not his/her belief in God.
What I see you doing (and I do understand that I am not an expert on you) is assigning motives to religious people. You really can’t climb into their heads, you know. What is going on inside them is not visible to you. I question why you question their use of the word “faith.” I don’t believe you are correct in your assessment of the motivation of people who believe in God. In fact, I’m sure you’re not, as I am a religious person myself and I certainly don’t attempt to justify my faith in God by using the word “faith” because I don’t have any evidence to back me up.
I’m going to wait to respond to your comments on this post until you have commented on the rest of my response to your first post. I hope that’s OK.
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lemondiesel
Guest
When you say faith leads to truth, are you saying once we become “one” with this God, we will know truth?
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Yes, although I’m not sure if you mean in this life on earth or in our eternal lives in God. When we become one with God we will know Truth and Love, for God is Truth and Love. When we follow Jesus we are led to Truth. I know we can’t understand all Truth when we are here on earth and I don’t know what happens when we die, but I do know that God is Truth and everything He does is done in Love.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. [John 14:6, NAB]
Whoever is without love does not know God, for** God is love.** [1 John 4:8, NAB]
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
[2465] The Old Testament attests that God is the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His Law is truth. His “faithfulness endures to all generations.” Since God is “true,” the members of his people are called to live in the truth.
[2466] In Jesus Christ, the whole of God’s truth has been made manifest. “Full of grace and truth,” he came as the “light of the world,” he is the Truth. "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness."The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know “the truth [that] will make you free” and that sanctifies.To follow Jesus is to live in “the Spirit of truth,” whom the Father sends in his name and who leads “into all the truth.” To his disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes or No.’”
[all bolding added]
I hope this answers your question.
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lemondiesel
Guest
I will use more Bible verses.Yes, although I’m not sure if you mean in this life on earth or in our eternal lives in God. When we become one with God we will know Truth and Love, for God is Truth and Love. When we follow Jesus we are led to Truth. I know we can’t understand all Truth when we are here on earth and I don’t know what happens when we die, but I do know that God is Truth and everything He does is done in Love.
Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life. [John 14:6, NAB]
Whoever is without love does not know God, for** God is love.** [1 John 4:8, NAB]
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
[2465] The Old Testament attests that God is the source of all truth. His Word is truth. His Law is truth. His “faithfulness endures to all generations.” Since God is “true,” the members of his people are called to live in the truth.
[2466] In Jesus Christ, the whole of God’s truth has been made manifest. “Full of grace and truth,” he came as the “light of the world,” he is the Truth. "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness."The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know “the truth [that] will make you free” and that sanctifies.To follow Jesus is to live in “the Spirit of truth,” whom the Father sends in his name and who leads “into all the truth.” To his disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes or No.’”
[all bolding added]
I hope this answers your question.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16)
God does not have an only Son, because we all “One” with this “God.” When he gave us his only Son, he gave us himself, which means that before the Father, there was the Son. The Son created everything (which the Bible tells you) and if you believe in morality and Laws of Nature, you believe in the “Son.”
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)
Following the Laws of the Universe (grace) gives us faith, because everything was created by “something.”
“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” (John 14:6)
God is the Laws, the non conceivable, and the creation. We will not know the true Father unless its through the Son, which is understanding the connection of all, and the universal Laws.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Those are beautiful verses (thank you for providing the complete passage of John 14:6). I’m trying to read the bible but I’ve been stuck at Noe (it’s the Douay-Rheims edition) for about six months now. It’s time for me to start reading again.
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lemondiesel
Guest
Great to hear. I found it very helpful to find a Bible that has Hebrew text in one column with English translations in a column next to it, allowing you to compare and possibly find translation errors.
I pat you on the back sir for understanding universal Laws. As I have studied these for awhile, and only recently became ‘religious’ I have always found them to be guiding towards Truth.
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Leela
Guest
I don’t think that is true of all scientific studies, but random sampling variability or the random assignment of subject to treatments is always a possible explanation for your data when you happen to be conducting a study based on sampling or a randomized experiment. But all this is neither here nor there. Regardless of whether or not statistical methods are used, at some point you can have strong enough evidence (statistical or otherwise) that you cease to have any real doubts. The result has been “proven” to you at that point. For example, I bet you don’t have any real doubts about the claim that the earth is roundish or that the earth revolves around the sun. You can play the extreme skeptic and say that these facts have not been adequately proven, but I would say that you would be being disingenuous in saying so (pretending to doubt something that you do not doubt).“Anti-skepticism”?
Are you denying this? Are you aware that any obtained results from research conducted using scientific method can be attributed to chance a certain percentage of time, depending upon the level of significance used? There is always a possibility that the obtained results are due to chance. Always.
At the same time, all such proven results are still capable of being doubted at some later time and may even later be proven to be false. “Proof” is a matter of a particular epistemic context.
We should always question our beliefs, but it is not actually possible to take the age old philosophical starting point of “question everything!” We simply can’t doubt all our beliefs at once. We would have no where to stand–nothing to compare our beliefs to and no standards for justification. But we can hold any one of our beliefs in question while standing on our other beliefs. There is no belief that cannot be held in doubt when we have reason to doubt it.
The question of why we inquire is simple–to make our lives better. What I was talking about is the practical goal of inquiry. When attempting to answer a question, when do we stop inquiring? Our impulse is to say “when we have found the truth” but the truth can’t be a practical goal of inquiry because we would never know when we found it or if we have gotten closer to it unless we already had it to begin with.
All the capitals and explanation points in the world will not make it any clearer for me what you mean by “faith” and “FAITH!!!”
Yes, they use the word faith when they run out of ways to justify there belief to other other people. This does not mean that they don’t have good reason for their beliefs. People surely believe that their beliefs are justified.
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Leela
Guest
Satan believes that God exists. Does Satan then have “FAITH!!!”?
You believe that Satan exists. Does that mean that you have faith in Satan?
Surely faith does not just mean belief.
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LittleSoldier
Guest
Thank you for your responses. I meant what I said at the end of post #168. I want to add that I have problems in concentration because of medication and that when posts become extremely long I have difficulty in responding.
I would like to say here that I have faith that Satan exists, that He is evil, rotten, a traitor, and bad to the core. I don’t have faith in the the idea that he is red, has horns sticking out of his head, has a tail, hooves, and carries a trident, has three heads, or is partially buried in ice in hell and waves his bat wings to freeze everyone around him.
You’ll have to ask Satan if he has faith. I have no idea and I really couldn’t care less about his opinion on anything.
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LittleSoldier
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Addendum: The upper-case H in the word “He” in the second paragraph is a typo. I didn’t see it until it was too late to change it.
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DysonSphere
Guest
Would it not be fair for most flatlanders to conclude that, likely, no evidence would be sufficient to justify the existence of another dimension, unless it produced a measurable and predictable change within the two known dimensions?
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DysonSphere
Guest
How is God distinguished from space-time?
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