Faith is a mental defect...
Offline Faith is a mental defect made into a virtue by those with an agenda to fleece the gullible. Faith isn't sloppy reasoning, it's no reasoning at all by simple definition. There is a lot of equivocation about the word, other than 'spirit' I can think of no other word more horribly abused from a semantic standpoint. Faith is belief without evidence. If you have evidence, you don't have faith you have a reasoned belief. How hard is that to grasp?
Yet, there are those that claim faith is a good thing, that believing without any real evidence makes you somehow more moral than those of us who rely on the mundane notions of facts and proofs...
If your god loves you better because you are basically a moron, what does that say about your god?
I'm waiting for the storm of half witted equivocation...
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
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Careful Brian. She's probably a lawyer too. And even if not, you can be damn sure she knows a few!
/stereotype
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Fuck, I knew there had to be a catch being friends with a Jew. Furry, lets skip the lawyers, how much do you want me to write the settlement check out for? I have to warn you though, it will be invisible like your god.
Crap, that joke will cost me more. Keep digging myself in deeper. When will I learn to just stick to barbecuing kittens?
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Ah, semantics aren't they fun? Is that why you believe in a god you don't believe in?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
She probably controls the press too. If you piss her off too much she's going to call her Uncle and your life will be utterly exposed on the front page of the NY Times.
Those Jews will fuck your entire world up if you mess with them.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
This is why I use an alias.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
You know what. I better back off. If she can do that, then I would piss off Mel Brooks and Luis Black. And I certainly dont want John Stewart on my ass.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
If I could get =you= to RELAX, I'd be convinced the Messiah is coming next week or so.
You need to find and watch "The Hebrew Hammer". Especially since it is Chanukah.
Go Judah Maccabi! Kick Greek Ass!!!
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
Dependence on blind faith sounds like a contradiction. I agree that the human need for a higher power is very crippling and people sould move past that and learn to rely on themselves but at the same time needing evidence for everything is such a burden and just as equaly big a set back.
I think atheism is a mental defect.
Theism is naturally selected to confer a survival advantage.
If you're going to use the word defect in the context of theism how can you do so without asking by what specification standard is it...defective?
Atheism and mental illness are quite easily correlated in a number of ways.
(See most recently David Tacey, Gods and Diseases)
Theism WAS a survival mechanism. It no longer functions that way. Which is why it's dying.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I don't think either are a defect. There are tribal advantages to shared cultural values, but there are also problems when cultures clash and those cultures lack the ability to resolve differences in a peaceful manner. You should make note of both the Crusades and the Muslim conquests.
The largest problem I have with Atheism is that it lacks any authority for moral or ethical codes beyond "might makes right". Even "We all agreed" is "might makes right" because minority opinions are silenced.
"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."
There's no authority with God either. He could have made the rules different. I don't see how "might" could ever make "right," unless the "right" being judged is whoever has more "might" (like in a weightlifting or a mixed martial arts competition). If you say 2+2=4 and someone says it's 5, and then beats you up, that doesn't mean that's he's right, even though he overpowered you.
You're right that you have to have might in order to enforce rules, usually. In a war it doesn't matter who's right, whoever has more might will win. Of course, you have to be right to a certain extent about some things, like how technology works.
Morality should be based on increasing well-being, and we should use psychology, neuroscience, and moral philosophy for guidance.
Theism is rationally defective. Just because a belief allows you to be successful doesn't mean it's true. Someone could believe they are the most important person in human history, and that might confer a survival and reproduction advantage, but that doesn't make it true. I could believe I'm the smartest man in the world, and that might make me more successful, but it's rationally defective.
You have to have evidence for your claims about what exists.
That is how it works anyway. The morality of a culture is no more than a reflection of the beliefs of the majority of the culture. No religion holds absolute authority over the morality of a democracy. And even dictatorships have never been successful at quelling all opposition to their proposed ethical system. In fact, if a dictator deviates too significantly from the society, he/she'll be deposed.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Faith is just faith. And those with an agenda are just using faith to make up religions that will serve their personal (or collective) goals. I have faith that physical experiments are reproducible, and though it is probably not the same as religious faith, it still can be called faith. Call me crazy, I don't see it as a mental defect.
So is it or is it not reasoning?
Faith can be based on reasoning. For example, based on statistical information on the probability of the occurrence of potentially life-supporting planets, I can have faith in extraterrestrial life.
Yes, by definition.
I don't think you necessarily need to have evidence in order to have either faith or a reasoned belief. The example above on extraterrestrial life is not based on any direct (or indirect) evidence for such life.
Faith can be bad, it can be good. I believe that we should judge people based on what they do rather than on their faith. You can be a moron without faith and be a decent person with faith. What does it say about people with faith in general?
If a religion based faith is the only thing that stops you from becoming a murder, then I totally support religion for that particular person. But if religion stops you from talking to your relatives having a different religion, then it is an ultimately evil thing.
Summing up, it's all different from person to person, and I find the generalization about faith expressed in the OP to be equally unsupported as a symmetric generalization about Atheists morals.
Faith is not reasoning. It greases the wheels of cognition, but it's what we do when we don't have reasons or evidence to back up our belief. Your example of having faith in extraterrestrials doesn't count as faith, it counts as a belief based on the evidence of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and biology, as well as the rationality of statistics and probability theory.
If you look up 'faith' in Merriam-Webster disctionary, then you will find out that basically every definition begins with 'faith is belief ...' For this, I do not really see a big difference between belief and faith.
Specifically:
belief: 3: conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence
This basically follows your definition.
But now:
faith: 2b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof
I understand this in a way that faith is a strong belief even when there is no proof, while the evidence-based reasoning can still provide a basis for faith as a sub-category of belief.
I see 'belief' as referring to anything we assume, or hold to be true, along a whole spectrum from high certainty or confidence, which the individual will see as 'knowledge', to the other extreme where it shades into just an "assumption" with little or no justification.
From this point of view, everything we hold is a belief, the important thing is the degree of confidence we have in the truth of that belief.
"Faith" involves an additional factor - to me it combines high confidence with no actual justification. Religion, despite the foolish beliefs of its adherents, provides zero certain basis for morality, even if some kind of God critter actually existed, since it would be impossible to know the actual motives or intent or 'morality' of such a being.
At least secular morality has an objective basis, in our ability to note what causes harm, pain, distress to our fellows, and ourselves, coupled with some version of the "Silver Rule", which is the ultimate starting point for ethics. It relates to that part of the ancient Hippocratic Oath, sometimes phrased as - "First do no harm".
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
How do you know the ten commandments are 'good' unless you have an internalized moral code of your own to which you can compare it? That humans value a particular set of social behaviours above all others is universal - it's the same in atheists as it is in the religious. It's part of the human condition. We support those close to us and punish those who fail to reciprocate. Additionally, watching some one suffer makes you suffer yourself - they're called mirror neurons. To varying degrees people avoid the inner hurt of hurting others.
One of the interesting things to me about monotheistic doctrine is that it generally adheres to the pre-conventional morality of a child. How can I avoid punishment? How will I be rewarded? Most outspoken atheists are far beyond this. I think the suggestion that atheism short circuits accepted elevated social morality through inability to appeal to an unknowable authority is patently false and among the most insulting things a theist can throw at a non-believer.
We label universal human behaviours that benefit the in-group using the word moral. So strong and so rewarding is this physiological compulsion that when in large groups we continue to apply in-group rules as being best-of-breed. There's no need to externalise the motivations for any of this. Sharing is mutually rewarding for humans, dolphins, rats, bacteria. Our societies, our organs, our cells depend for their survival on symbiosis. As for might making right, game theory shows that co-operation is more rewarding than aggression.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Damn, Bob, I JUST made the exact same point on another venue...
I also utilize the creed of Hippocrates as the basis for materialist morality.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
can you explain that last part a little more in depth
I've been trying to explain this to people of faith for years.
There is a dead philosopher from Russia, sorry but at this time his name escapes me, but he rationalized (not his exact words):
If you have faith in [subject] it means you believe in it with out evidence.
If you have faith you can not debate the subject because you do not have evidence.
If you attempt to debate the subject you are being a hypocrite and you you didn't have any faith in the first place.
Debating your faith destroys your faith.
Experiements have shown that stimulating specific areas of the brain will bring about that "feel good" sensation and people have claimed to feel their "creator". Each religion brought different comments but the end result was the same: god is a chemical reaction associated with a desire to feel "special" and give your life meaning.
Define love?
Scratch that question. I see from your other posts what your answer would be...
I'll answer your question though:
1) Observation: I love my mother.
2) Hypothesis: I love my mother because she gives me money and other material gifts; including paid vacations.
3) Prediction: My mother will pay for my next skiing trip to Colorado. Chemical reactions in my brain will make me feel good. I will say to myself, "Damn I love my mom!"
4) Test and Experiment: Ask mother, "Hey I want to go skiing and I don't have the funds can you pay?" Said mother does so. I feel good. I love mother.