Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

The Devil's Dictionary Ambrose Bierce

John Locke points out that everyone is quite happy to use reason until reason fails. It is then, that they turn to faith, and announce that they did not need reason in the first place. Very much like La Fontaine's parable of "The Fox and the Grapes". From which we get the phrase, "sour grapes".

But then Hume comes along and gives us the problem of induction. There is no guarantee that things will happen the same in the future as they had in the past, thus, we have faith that things will happen as they always seem to have. Sure we have good reason to think that things will happen as they did, but we have no proof that they will.

I agree that faith is necessary. Starting the post off with judgments like "stupid" is just that - (the mirror).

Faith is something that all of us have to some extent. Faith is usually associated with a religion and thus there are different faiths around the world. There are a lot of unknowns, different cultures, unique surroundings, social influences and conditioning, and the list goes on.

Think about how faith is formed. As a baby we don't know a thing and then we meet our parents and then we are fed and conditioned much in the same way you'd train a dog. Everything we learn or believe or have 'faith' in has come to us via our surroundings and influences. As we grow we develop a faith in parents, siblings, friends, roommates, our preacher and basically faith in other people. All the input you or I receive while evolving or aging takes a bit of faith and influences our perception of all other faiths.

We then get to an age or mind where we desire to know more or are uncomfortable with the 'family faith', we look into others faiths or religions or anything for answers in our outside, physical world. Whether born in a preachers home or a bum on the street, each and every one of our external and worldly experiences shapes the views, perceptions and faiths we have. We ultimately embrace or lean towards the strongest faith that we've been subject too all our lives.

The stupidity in all this is not seeing the larger picture and the division among people various faiths and the surrendering of the desire to understand know versus having faith. However, it's not really stupidity because it only looks stupid, or is perceived to be stupid by some not ALL.

In religions, people have faith because they have to. There's no way to verify a lot of these writings and claims so faith is what is necessary and if you think about it, it's an easy sell because we usually have faith and are conditioned to have faith in many things. If you're a prisoner in a cell, you have faith they are bringing you 3 meals a day and faith that they will be on time. If you're working at your job, you have faith that you will get a paycheck on Friday or whatever day you get paid. The longer and more effective in coming through, the faith strengthens. The more examples of a certain faith you are shown, the stronger the faith becomes. The more you are surrounded by believers in any faith, the stronger the faith becomes and thus influences decisions like the jury....

... Each juror will rely upon their past and their faiths, (which are tied to their beliefs which are tied to their social conditioning) to come to a conclusion, each being unique and different to certain degrees. But what else are they to rely on? It's how we make decisions everyday.

The OP had faith that when he posted this thread, it was going to be posted on a forum and that he would most likely get a reply or many replies. There's also an element of faith that the forum isn't going to disappear tomorrow and he or she will be able to respond. Faith to a certain extent is trust because in having faith, we have to sorta trust the information we're receiving and decipher what we'll believe and trust in and what we wont. It's part of our nature.

The Problem with Faith
Faith, in many ways also leaves us blind to truth. When we know, there is no need for faith but our knowing is based upon these social conditionings and all the other factors that take us from innocent baby through childhood and into adulthood. This becomes a problem because there are so many faiths and we need faith to believe because science, biology and investigation just give more questions than answers. If we settle in a faith without digging deep, without learning more, without opening our eyes and seeing the world and society from a birds-eye-view and seeing ourselves within it. Faith can also be a way of selling oneself short and settling for that warm fuzzy feeling or whatever we perceive of this world to best fit our own conditioning. This is why there are so many faiths and this is also why we argue, fight, and war over it.

Faith is not stupid at all. If anything it simply provides the blinders on the side of our faces so that we can only see in the direction of our faith. Ignorant much of the time, yes... stupid, No.

Personally, I've struggled with faith for a long time in family life because of how I was raised and my social conditioning. Where my family became charismatic Christians, I couldn't settle on that faith and just believe or trust in our pastor. It simply didn't resonate with my thought pattern, intellect, or my desire to understand why people do follow each other blindly. After careful investigation of their faith, I often said the same thing, 'These people are just stupid'. This is a judgment which leads to resentment and condemnation and these thoughts harm the carrier not the target of these thoughts.

With faith, with the real giving of oneself up and ones life up in a faith, there becomes judgment. Strong people of faith are usually also the first to judge someone that doesn't follow their faith. This is a problem within our society that spreads like cancer. So when the faithful judge and condemn others not fitting their ideology, it begins to spread around.

At this point in our world we have a lot of faiths. Each faith being uniquely different or with a twist. As faith and trust grow stronger, so usually does the judgment and condemnation. Faith in many ways has divided people and causes great pain, many deaths, and discontentment across the entire world. Take a look around the world and see it from a different perspective and you'll see that faith, while heavily in use, it's not as productive as we'd like to think because faiths differ. If not for faith, what would we have to argue about?

The thing I'd like to see is people not surrendering themselves to the faith of another. When the white flag of faith is raised, the chase is over. The desire to have an open mind lessens and becomes clouded because of it. Introspection becomes obsolete because faith provides enough smoke between us that we cannot see into the mirror or see our reflection in it. Surrending to a faith means we'd give our lives because of it. If we are faithful, we would die by the sword to defend and promote our faith. Faith is a very strong word and it's uses are like a double edged knife. People had faith in Hitler, look what that did. People have faith in the minister that is molesting children on the side... look where these faiths bring us.

Faith, much of it relies upon having faith in people. Most of the people are so blinded and detached themselves.. yet we have faith in what we're being told and faith that what another man says is actually truth. We have faith in history we have faith in the roman empire, we have faith in the sanskrit, we have faith in the bible.... faith faith faith but ultimately it comes down to having faith in people of this world. We follow each other around being manipulated by each other allowing others to form our own faith. Then at some point, faith stands in the way of progress - look at today. Look out at our world. Is faith standing in the way of love, balance, and progress?

I could keep writing on and on about faith but I'm not so sure it would make any difference. My faith in people is not strong enough, nor do I want it to be.

I think in order to truly understand it, we're going to have to seek answers not in each other but within ourselves. If we settle for one faith, the seek sorta ends and become a channel of another man's faith. We surrender our lives based upon what we've found suitable in the world to our own ideas and perspectives.

Also, I'd like to add that in many ways faith removes us from the here and now because faith looks forward into the future which is non-existent right here and right now. Faith removes us from the present with anticipation of a future event. Faith also leaves us crippled in many other ways... so may ways a book could be written on it. You wouldn't believe how many of us have faith in our government and haven't got a clue as to what our governments are doing. We're allowing ourselves to be herded around like cattle when it comes to faith. While it doesn't happen exactly like that, it's the same thing.

So, what does faith really do? I've made some bullet points on what faith is and does:

• Faith to a certain extent is a blind. It blinds us from seeking answers within the divine energy that flows throughout every living thing.
  
• Faith needs information that is of this world, not just in it.
  
• Faith relies on people. Many of which don't understand it themselves.
  
• Faith provides a basis of judgment. The faithful are usually also the judgmental. When we slash the sword of judgment it hurts both the faithful and unfaithful.
  
• Faith provides the smoke for which separates us and doesn't allow us to see the mirror we are reflecting into, hence we cannot see the reflection.
  
• Faith is a following and is easier sold to those who follow. There are leaders ad followers and in order to embrace a faith, one must settle with being a follower of a leader.
  
• Faith is great for money. It generates all kinds of it.
  
• Faith manipulates people. Once accepted, our faith manipulates the way we look at life and what we think or do.
  
• Faith is believing in a future event or a future life and takes our thinking out of the here-and-now which is all we really have right here, right now.
  
• Faith is needed because investigation leaves too many questions and provides answers leading us away from our faith.
  
• Faith swallows people whole. To the point where they won't even look in another direction because that in-and-of-itself would seem unfaithful.
  
• Faith leads people into war.
  
• Faith leaves us blind to truth.
  
• Faith divides the world and the people in it.
  
• Faith eliminates the need for love and balance, (depending on the faith one has)
  
• Faith in many ways is more destructive than any other thing.
  
• Faith is like placing a brass cup over the flame of a candle, diminishing the light.
  
• Faith feeds us from the world, not from the divine nature of ourselves.
  
• Faith needs defense.
  
• Faith needs people to defend it.
  

I'm sure there are a lot of other points one could make. Faith also does positive things but with all the negatives it provides the postives do not exactly bring it into balance.

The above is how I see faith. Right wrong or indifferent, I agree with the OP but I disagree with the delivery of his content and the condemnation, or resentment used. However, I understand because for much of my life I felt as though I were surrounded by absolute morons and sometimes still struggle with that thought. This is just as judgmental as the faithful judging others of different faiths and it only harms the carrier, not the faith or the others.

That's my rambling on this subject. Happy New Year to you all!

May love and balance begin to take the place of blind faith in this new year!

As long as we have good reason for thinking so, that is not faith. There are many things for which we have no proof (as you would think of it) but for which we are justified in believing they are true. In your sense of "proof" you have no proof that you were born, or that you had parents. But your belief that both are true is completely justified. All proof is justification, but not all justification is proof.

No, I have proof of things that have happened in the past. To think otherwise would be stupid. But I don't have proof of things that will happen in the future based on the past. I have no proof that my girlfriend will stay with me, that I will still have a job, that my friends will still be around, that my car will start, and all of those other things that I have faith that will continue happening into the future based on what has happened in the past. Sure, I am justified in believing that they will, but the belief is not derived from reason, but rather faith.

Why is your belief that you will have, for instance a job, not justified? Don't you really mean that you cannot be certain that you will have a job? The same goes for your car starting. Justification and proof (as we ordinarily use those terms) do not imply absolute certainty. There are very few things, if any, that we can be certain of without the possibility of error. But to think that it is either certainty or faith without anything in between is to commit the black or white fallacy.

The Black-or-White Fallacy

You might want to read the book to which a link was provided at the beginning of this essay. There you will find an analysis of James, exposing many problems with his thinking.

---------- Post added 12-31-2009 at 02:48 PM ----------



What I find interesting is that you have agreed that faith in certain mundane things is stupid and moronic (for anyone needing to find the post, read this). As you do not provide a reason for that judgement, I will venture to guess that you realize that in those cases, faith is unreliable as a method for determining the truth that one seeks. As, for example, driving without looking to see where one is going, and instead having faith about where objects are, is virtually certain to involve making a mistake and running into something. However, the same is true when applying faith to matters of religion. Consider, for example, one person having faith that the Pope is God's representative on earth, that Jesus is the son of God, and that Mohammed is not the prophet of God, and consider a second person who has faith that the Pope is not God's representative on earth, that Jesus is the son of God, and that Mohammed is not the prophet of God, and consider a third person, who has faith that the Pope is not God's representative on earth, that Jesus is not the son of God, and that Mohammed is the prophet of God. For ease of reference, we may call the first one a Catholic, the second a Protestant, and the third a Muslim. These three people cannot all be right; at most, one of them is right, and the other two are wrong. Of course, they may all three be wrong, but no more than one of them can be right. If we consider further the multiplicity of religions in the world, and consider the religions that are no longer practiced, and consider all possible religions, we can easily see that selecting one by faith is going to be virtually certain to give one the wrong answer. This shows why using faith for belief selection is a very bad method.

It's the same old game. You pick a virtue and its opposite. You pat yourself on the back. For some the virtue is doubt, for others faith. There are "moronic" forms of doubt and "moronic" forms of faith. I don't like thoughtless biblethumpers either. At the same time there are superior conceptions of faith that are not being addressed. Greatness in general is related to faith, even blind faith. I'm talking about faith in one's potential. Let's call it a self-fulfilling prophecy. If a person doesn't believe in themselves, they will find something else to believe in-- like skepticism or thoughtless religion.

I only have a little time at the moment, it being new years eve and all. Hope yours is happy.

Quote from Burger

Believing is a sort of activity. Believing is a habit that can be cultivated. When a belief is cultivated consciously it is a bit like auto-hypnosis which is more recognizable as an activity. Some habits are easier to acquire than others. Some require more effort to establish and maintain. Habits get easier to maintain the longer you've been at them and also harder to break the longer you've been at them. Some beliefs (as well as other actions) are even acquired unconsciously and are never questioned and thus can sometimes be mistaken for knowledge. Knowing is not a habit or an action or if it is, it is more like an autonomic (process like digestion, or the heart beating) once its object (knowledge) has been acquired.

Believing can also be an experiment. We can believe something and find out if believing it has any positive or negative results. An experiment is a type of action. Knowing cannot be described as an experiment.

Even if I grant, for the sake of argument, that beliefs are actions, that still does not make Burger's point wrong. Going out with an umbrella is simply not a belief, and consequently, cannot be an example of an hypothesis. James simply bungles things horribly, but many people like his conclusion, so they ignore his errors. In other words, people engage in wishful thinking.

Additionally, what you are saying does not affect the main point, that having faith is an extremely unreliable way of determining the truth about anything. That fact is obvious from even a fairly casual consideration of the matter, as explained above. And that is what makes it moronic to use faith as a method of forming beliefs.

Faith is knowing.
The difference between faith and trust is that trust is applicable to a one-time transaction, i.e. you trust a friend to do what you have charged them to do, but that trust is born of faith, else the request would not have been made to begin with.
If that trust is broken for any reason the faith may be shaken, but not destroyed, and the circumstances of the break in trust considered. This allows faith to endure, forgiveness to overcome the broken trust and the friendship to remain intact.

Blind faith is trust based on hope.
Simply put, it is the relinquishment of personal responsibility in favor of another accomplishing in your name what you are unwilling, or unable, to do for yourself.
No matter who that other may be they are at best bound to compromise the hopes of those who have placed their trust in them, and at worst dash them completely.
There are only three entities that solicit and trade in the hopes of others.
They are the church that prays for you, the business that makes money for you and the politicians who decide for you.

These three entities foster dependence and dissuade the individual from realizing the courage to live outside of their influence, producing a humanity that is in perpetual class and never graduating in its own right as mature human beings.

The framework of human society is built on the foundations laid by these three entities, in our names. Nothing can be changed until responsibility is assumed for the results of our actions, and the foundations of hope replaced with those of faith.

Is this an unattainable ideology or utopia? No! It is where we our consciousness began, and where faith causes each of us to strive to return. It is the whole that we are the sum parts of, segregated only by the ideologies of the three entities that encourage fear of unification, for that would bring about their own demise.

The tenets of faith are inherent to our being, as is the courage to follow them. These two fundamental attributes of a human being allow love to exist, and is what the trilogy of God represents.

That it is possible to manipulate life in order to gain power over existence speaks not to any weakness in life, but to its fluidity. To ignore that such manipulation can in turn affect your own existence to a greater degree than intended, is to not realize that existence begat you, not the other way round.

When a fish or animal or plant is taken for monetary profit it creates a system that cannot replace the assets it draws from. This is intensified when humans are used to promote such systems, and while human ingenuity will invent more efficient ways of drawing from its assets, the end result can only be the weakening of life's infrastructure in favor of the monetary gain.

If the percentage of human population used for no other reason than to man the factories, refineries, fishing and transport ships, farmlands and business offices of industry is considered, against the percentage of population receiving the greater benefit of these activities, even a child could see the disparity does not support the purpose.

If the child were a little older it could also see that the humans born into such a system would inherit the mantle of slave, albeit with the rare opportunity of becoming a master.


Without faith there is only belief and hope, and they are not enough.

Stopped right there. It is impressive/depressive that people try to advocate things they know are wrong.

According to the american dictionary you can faith in different things. God, church, ratio or soul. It doesn't have to be absulute. If you try to live compassionated, care for others and stay out of legal trouble you don't need to worry about the Nature of the God/des

How is faith not knowing? You can know something without it being true.

If someone knows that P, then P is true. Anyway. I'm not interesting in discussion with you if you really think that faith is knowing.

do you have faith in yourself? I'm not sure all faith is blind nor is faith a bad thing. If someone asked me to do something I've never done before, upon accepting it, I would have faith in myself to do it based possibly on things I've done in the past that were similar or just on visualization of the problem or dozens of other reasons.

I don't believe that my faith in God is wrong or blind in that respect, because I feel like there are enough tangential issues, experiences, and evidences to assert that that God is real or that such a believe in not totally blind. It it a much smaller leap than some here would have us believe. In some ways it may actually take a larger leap(or at least as large) of faith to assert the opposite

The problem here is that humans are not naturally good judges of cause and effect. People believe in ghosts because of experiences and "evidences". We are very good at looking for patterns where there may be none. We posit ideas such as luck when rolling dice or skill when winning an arbitrary game.

I once associated the euphoria of being in a large crowd at a Christian youth camp with God moving through me. Do you think that was actually God I was experiencing? Does that count as evidence to you? I hope not.

It may seem a small leap when one is supported by a group of like-minded people, but when you start to see the subjective nature of your viewpoint, things you took as fact and evidence before start to dwindle.

I find no evidence for or against god, for how does one build evidence for the metaphysical?

Someone once said, "The more you have to make excuses for your belief to make sense the chances are what you believe is actually male cow feces."

I believe this is the only real truth. People like to twist and bend and push their beliefs by perverting definitions so the can try to legitimize them. Faith being not blind? That there is evidence for god? That experience is enough to believe without faith. These are perversions of knowledge or understanding. What you really are saying is, "I want this to be true, so I'll find what ever way I can to make it true, even if I have to manipulate definitions to make it work."

People love to gravitate towards male cow feces because it makes them feel better about their existence. They want the world to work how they want it to work and not accept the world for what it really is. It is hard not to step in the male cow feces and I'll admit that I do it, but once I smell it, I am quick to wash myself clean of it. You should ask yourself, did you step in the male cow feces again? Are you walking around spreading male cow feces all over the place?

Also think about all the knowledge we have in the world, how do know that all we have is truthful? Without faith it wouldn't make any sense to believe anything, much less in something. Though we may have proof of our knowledge, how do we know the proof is reliable? Only by faith.

No, the real answer to that is that we don't know.

You'd make a good skeptic if you got over this whole faith=evidence thing.