Tim does that mean you believe something without proof?

Damn. That didn't take long. I was waiting for someone to catch that. (Didn't seem fair, me taking his side and all. I thought someone else ought to do the honors.)

Tim, this is a good point. You just used faith, did you not?

OR, could it be that you made an educated guess, based on empirical evidence you've seen through your whole life? Perhaps you put all the evidence together, and this was the most likely conclusions?

"Belief based on empirical evidence and/or probability" is not "Belief despite lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary."

Hume would be disappointed.

If you read my post about FAITH I have said, there is degree of FAITH, depth of Faith, which is actually probability of a thing to be true or false. In my post about "why we do not steal", some fake atheist argued saying  "well you can never be sure that you won't be caught". I have responded by saying that we do thing on the basis of probability all the time.

As HD pointed out "probability" in this context. I agree with him 100%. Faith is when people still like to believe on something despite of overwhelming probability against it. 

There is overwhelming probability that there is NO Free Will, therefore, I do not have FAITH on it.  

Probability, that's all we have to make up our mind. 

Tim, I'm honestly not sure what all this troll business is.  For what it's worth, the mods are confused by some of what you have said, but don't worry too much about the troll comments until and unless a mod says something officially, ok?

Patrician, Matt, it's my opinion that Tim is confused about the definitions of faith, and is simply using a word inappropriately.  I'm trying to explain that to him.  Your opinion of his troll-ness has been noted.  You don't have to follow him around and post the same opinion in each thread he posts.  That would be... um... trolling, wouldn't it?

I understand you don't like being called fake atheists, or have it said that you have faith.  I don't care much for it either, but let's wait until we see if he's here to preach or to exchange information, ok?  If he's a troll, you know I'll banish him without a moment's remorse, right?

In other words, enough with the troll comments.

 That's why we have a mod team.

 Tim, I'll answer your reply in the next post.

Fair enough, Hamby, but he is what he is.  You don't make the same topic multiple times whilst dropping veiled insults and using the old 'Borat English' trick if you're not at home under a bridge.

But I take your point and shall bow out gracefully.

Oh and Tim: Anytime you want to drop the act and have a real out and out debate then I'm waiting for you.  Just so you know. 

Tim, it's very important that you understand the distinction here. There are two different definitions to faith.

You're technically correct, in a sense:

1.confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.

Atheists have this kind of faith.

2.belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.

Many have this. You've stated it yourself. You believe that MRI's will back up your unproven theory on how religion affects the brain.

4.belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.

This one's fine, too.

8.Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

and

3.belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.

are philosophically different usages of the word, and cannot be equated.

Theist faith, unlike the versions that atheists have, is "belief despite a total lack of evidence, or evidence to the contrary. To be precise, definition 2 should read, "belief that is based on incomplete proof or probability." In other words, when I have faith that Richard Dawkins knows what he's talking about, it's because there's lots of evidence supporting that, but I don't have 100% certainty in a logical sense.

Do you see the difference?

*****

Ok, now that we've gotten this out of the way, I think I may have figured out the main reason so many people are getting aggravated with you. I'm going to assume that you don't live in the United States, and that you don't understand the nature of American Christianity as fully as we who live here do. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In America, one of the primary arguments in favor of theism goes like this:

1) Theists have faith in god.

2) Atheists have faith in science.

3) Therefore, Atheists and Theists both have faith.

4) Therefore, Atheism and Theism are equal possibilities.

5) Therefore, since you can't prove that god doesn't exist, that in itself is evidence of his existence.

6) Therefore, god exists.

****

Clearly you can see the howling errors in this proof. 1) and 2) are using different definitions of "faith." This is the fallacy of equivocation. 4) does not follow 3). 5) does not follow 4). It's a terrible argument.

Yet, it is the most common one we hear.

For this reason, faith is kind of a bad word in America. Even though what you say is technically true, theists don't understand what you mean, and they take what you say as proof that they are right!

If you changed everything you've said about faith, and talked about the "problem of induction" and "reasonable certainty" instead, you probably would not have received such rude replies.

Basically, atheists in America really, really don't like the word faith, even though it's technically correct.

Probably the term "fake atheist" is not winning you many friends either.

"Atheist" is anyone who answers "No" when you ask if they believe in god. It doesn't matter if they disbelieve for the correct philosophical reasons or not.

You're correct. Free will is incoherent. Atheists believe in things based on induction.

BUT. People who don't understand this are not FAKE atheists. Nor is it culturally appropriate to say that American atheists have "faith," even though the dictionary agrees with you.

Does that make sense?

 [edit: format]

Tim, I'd really like you to consider modifying your statements in the following ways:

1) Substitute "probability" and "induction" for "faith" when refering to atheists.  Not because the definition of "faith" that you're using is incorrect, but because faith is essentially a very bad word in America for atheists.

2) Refrain from saying "Fake Atheists" as this implies that they actually believe in god.  Perhaps you mean to say "uninformed atheists" or "misguided atheists."  I'm not agreeing with you that they are either, but I believe the words are closer to what you mean than the term "fake atheists."

As far as your arguments go, I don't disagree with you on many philosophical points, but I do wonder what the relevance is.  Granted, lack of free will would deal a great blow to most religion (Not calvinism!) but I'm not sure what relevance this has, since the nonexistence of free will is on a level below our day to day cognition.  We perceive choices, make choices, and are responsible for the effects caused by our thoughts and actions, regardless of whether or not there is "free will."

Perhaps you could explain how your position regarding free will impacts the argument for whether or not god exists?  Or, maybe you could explain how atheists are hurting their argument by not realizing that free will does not exist?

MattShizzle,

Ok then, we are friends now. Right?

Did you see my response about Troll/Wiki?

HD and other please, let's continue our discussion of Free Will and its relavancy in the other thread "Free Will - Is there any?

This thread was about Richard Dawkins' inaccurate/PC/foolish statement:

ShaunPhilly used above with pride. I am ashamed of Mr. Dawkins' above statement. He is obviously smarter than that. He must be playing politics/psychology here.

I disagree that religion even asks legitimate questions.

Yep, he's a troll. He's accusing me of being a fake atheist by misrepresenting my post a second time after I had already corrected him in his first misrepresentation. He never replied to my central argument nor his subsequent misrepresentation. Hardly an honest poster, and I think he's trying to get a rise out of us by deliberately insulting and misrepresenting us.

In all of the interviews I've seen with Dawkins he has been very selective in his words. While the Rational Response Squad refers to theism with terms like "mental disorder", Dawkins goes the other way. He seems intent on keeping tempers low while making his point as clearly as possible.

While it sounds like you disagree with how he chose his words, the sentiment is true enough. Like everyone else, religious persons ask quesitons about where we came from and why we are here. The fact that he said he admired them for it is his own position to take, I disagree but it does not cast a shadow on my respect for him. Nor do I understand why that should/could be the case.  

I don't see where the issue comes from with this statement. It's clear enough and I think the only reason an atheist would have a problem with it is centered around an emotional response toward the semantics of his approach.  

Evidence? Are you a neurologist (A medical specialist with advanced training in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases of the brain, spinal cord, nerves and muscles.) Tim? Cause it may give you validity if you are.

Error

Tim

As you say we do not have the ability to measure the efect of specific thoughts on individual neurons or the individual connections between neurons. So it's probably not a good idea to make assserions about this area.

Maybe if you stick to psychology (a field in which we have a bit better understanding of the behavior of thoughts) to work with this idea there could be a better discussion. Ignore the underlying phsysical processes and deal with the effect of indoctrination on the mind rather than the brain. The mental rather than the physical. We understand they are the same thing from different points of view, but from the mental point of view it might be possible to build a stronger case without relying on possible future evidence (which is never a good thing to build a case on). I am aware of some works on the psychology of religion, those may be a good starting point.

 I don't disagee with the concept except for the fact you based it on very specific physical phenomena that we as yet do not have the evidence to discuss.

As I said, anything psychological must simply be the underlying phsysical brain viewed from another perspective. I have no problem with the idea that religion does bad things to the thought processes of believers. That must be reflected in the physical nature of the brain. The effects are long term and very hard to reverse so It's not unreasonable to infer that the physical changes are also fairly difficult to reverse. My problem is that we dont understand those physical processes well enough to allow the level of specificity in your argument.

Arguing that religion has a significant effect on the mind is fine, following that the effect must be at a physical level some change in the brain is fine, putting forward an argument based on theoretical specific changes that we dont have evidence for is incorrect.

I know very little neuroscience so I cannot offer any opinion on the physical difference between rote leaned ideas and understood ones.

I have some grounding in educational psychology so I can offer a point of view on that. There are two ways we can add new information to our long term memory: repetition and making connections to existing knowledge.

If you learn something through simple repetition it is a lone idea. It does not have connectins to other ideas. For example I know that the chemical symbol for tin is "Sn". The fact that is is Sn does not relate to any other idea in my head. I had to read it and say it and be tested on it for it to stick into my memory.

If you can relate the new info to existing info then then it is much less work to make it stay in your memory. I know that perpetual motion machines are impossible. this is easy to remember because I know that energy cannot be created or destroyed and that no real-world process is 100% efficient.

So the different structures (from a psychological rather than physiological point of view) are that indoctrinated/memorised information is not connected to other information in memory each memorised item exists as a lone factoid while understood information is interconnected, as each new piece of information is added new connections are formed and you have a network of knowledge.

There is a problem with this theory however. rote learnt ideas often form the basis of these knowledge networks. You have a set of ideas that were not understood, just learnt but when a new idea comes in you can still form connections to that from the rote ideas. I know that short term memory holds 5 to 9 items in most people. That's something I just memorized. However I used that to understand certain theories on how to present information to students so that they can hold it all in short term memory (like grouping a set of ideas into one). Chisitans can build much of their world view on things rote learned from the bible.

Our brains also look for patterns and like to organise things. So it's possible that rote learnt ideas will form connections over time too.

So the result is that no matter how an idea got in, over time it will become a part of the network. Maybe by becoming part of the network it has crossed from rote learned fact to understood information.

The problem here is that you can force any idea in with repetition while to learn through making connections you must test the new idea against existing ideas so there is a way to filter out bad ideas or refine them so they make sense. If the basis of your testing is faulty then your filters can do the opposite job, accept bad information (because is matches the bad foundation) and reject good information (becasue it contradicts the bad foundation)

One test I would suggest is to look at the quality and number (taking into consideration the ammount of time the idea has been in the memory) of the connections from that idea. Information that had to pass the test of the filters would have stronger, more convinceing connections because it would not have made it into the memory without them. connections just haphazardly string between ideas that were already in the memory (in my experience) tend to be a bit more shakey and not hold up to scrutiny from eternal parties well (they may still seem strong to the individual who holds them though, even when the flaws are shown).

A good test for undrestood vs rote learnt is to have the person teach the idea to someone else. If they understand the idea they will be able to explain it. If they dont they will simply assert it or will use very shakey statements to explain it. Asking questions that relate to the knowledge but are not asking for that specific piece also works. for example: If you want to test if someone understands that you cannot travel faster than light (rather than just knowing the fact) ask them what would happen if you were on a train travelling at 5 m/s less than the speed of light and ran from the back of the train to the front at 10 m/s (relative to the train).

Error