| Author |
|
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132295
|
| Posted: 24 March 2024 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | 1
|
post reply
|
|
.......a man with no invisible means of support......I'm going to steal this......••• I did! I took it from John Buchan, Governor General of Canada from 1935 to 1940.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3139
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | 2
|
post reply
|
|
One of the biggest problems I have with organized religion is that it's completely co-opted the concept of faith. The idea of belief in something that one has never personally experienced or witnessed is 100% baked in to the core of what it means to be human. From single individuals up to whole societies, it's as necessary as oxygen to be able to operate with faith-based beliefs every second of the day - in the functioning of electricity or stairs or money or whatever. But religion demands that one's faith be endlessly expansive and distortable, and kept in an unknowable black box. It's an exploitation of the natural human need for safety and consistency, with a big dash of social pressure thrown in for good measure.
Edited by Dave Kopperman on 25 March 2024 at 3:45pm
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132295
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | 3
|
post reply
|
|
From single individuals up to whole societies, it's as necessary as oxygen to be able to operate with faith-based beliefs every second of the day - in the functioning of electricity or stairs or money or whatever. ••• No faith there. The things you cite exist. They require no extraordinary belief to be real. Especially, they require no abdication of common sense. (Well, maybe money!)
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3139
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | 4
|
post reply
|
|
They do exist, but it's in the functioning of them that I (and most others) take them on faith. So it's more like my faith is in electrical engineers and architects. But it's definitely a form of faith - I can wire a light switch but I couldn't tell you how electricity works, and similarly to Arthur Dent, if I were stranded on a technologically primitive planet, I'd be helpless to recreate them (though I don't really make any particularly great sandwiches, either).
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1649
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | 5
|
post reply
|
|
Faith is a belief in something for which there is no conclusive evidence.
What you’re referring to is trust, not faith. We trust that various human-
designed systems will function despite our inability to fathom their
workings, because there is a great deal of independently verifiable
empirical evidence that they have done so in the past.
E.g, it’s not my faith in medicine that keeps me going back to doctors to
treat an illness; it’s the innumerable documented and verified instances
where the application of medical science has resulted in a positive outcome
that sees me trusting a doctor and following their advice.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15801
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | 6
|
post reply
|
|
QUOTE:
| But it's definitely a form of faith - I can wire a light switch but I couldn't tell you how electricity works |
|
|
But you probably also believe there are people that have genuine answers to the questions of how these things work. Your questions would not anger or irk those with the answers. They would simply be able to answer them. And also, crucially, we know how to produce electricity in a repeatable and reliable process. To have any disbelief in it would be illogical.
It's very different to religious faith, where nothing is provable, or demonstrable, or repeatable or reliable. It is supported by nothing but faith and then more faith. And any questions of how or why are generally brushed aside (or worse in the past).
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3139
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | 7
|
post reply
|
|
You're both right - my original point is that religion has coopted the evolutionary inclination towards faith, which I view as being a necessary foundation stone for civilization. It's in the exacting way we discuss this instinct towards a trust in things beyond our knowledge that I get frustrated. Instinctual Faith (for lack of a better term) is a useful tool for daily functioning and building a society. Its twisted misplacement and misalignment as Religious Faith (and related) is how civilizations decline.
Think of it like another of our key evolutionary advantages, as experts in pattern recognition. Super useful to identify faces, predators, and poison berries. But then we see patterns where there are none; totally pointless when we experience the pareidolia of seeing the face of Jesus in a piece of toast, and downright dangerous when used to advance conspiracy theories.
Edited by Dave Kopperman on 25 March 2024 at 7:54pm
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15801
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | 8
|
post reply
|
|
I do see some of what you're saying, Dave. There is an evolutionary advantage in believing what your parents tell you first time and with no questions asked -- it saves a great deal of time and can save your life. But this disposition also comes with the flaw of gullibility. The same lack of scepticism that gives us a shortcut boost when we are know-nothing infants is a gullibility flaw once we have matured. We have an inclination when someone from a position of authority says "I know best, listen to me" to just believe them -- and religion certainly does exploit into that.
Edited by Peter Martin on 25 March 2024 at 8:27pm
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
Posts: 1649
|
| Posted: 25 March 2024 at 8:43pm | IP Logged | 9
|
post reply
|
|
“When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from
childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that
mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and
conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast
a doubt upon the validity of that superstition.”
- Mark Twain
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
e-mail
|
| |
John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132295
|
| Posted: 28 March 2024 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | 10
|
post reply
|
|
The thing that astonishes me is people who come to religion as adults. Like Sir Alec Guiness converting to Catholicism. Indoctrination as a child I can understand. Preying on minds that have not yet fully developed the faculties of reason. But as adults?
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
|
| |
Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3139
|
| Posted: 28 March 2024 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | 11
|
post reply
|
|
C.S. Lewis is the best example of that by far, as he was a committed atheist in his teens and then became not only a devout Christian but one of the greatest proselytizers of faith in his 30s onward. And he had a brilliant mind and was a gifted prose stylist, so his writings about faith are beautiful - he wouldn't convince someone steadfast in their atheism to become a believer, but at least make you understand the appeal it held for him.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
|
| |
Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4525
|
| Posted: 28 March 2024 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | 12
|
post reply
|
|
I have wondered if someone could not "believe" in the least but see such a system of belief as useful or even somehow necessary. A creation having a creator at the base of everything I suppose.
As I say, I have known of people who apparently believed, whether happily or unhappily, and have done good things in their lives and world. Impossible to call them fools you know. It keeps my door open a crack. They aren't all glassy eyed rubes watching only specialist channels/shows and listening to a sort of Christian ghetto radio and reading only Christian books.
I'm lucky I had a very quiet bit of Christianity around growing up, no hellfire or regimented stuff, more of if you want to read this stuff for yourself here it is, and grandparents who would talk about their own thoughts when you asked, even if to say they didn't know something. Early on I also encountered Buddhism and meditation via martial arts and a Joseph Campbell 'Masks Of God' volume.
|
| Back to Top |
profile
| search
| www
e-mail
|
| |
