Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Andrew the Atheist answers: Faith is not reasonable. Faith is delusional.

I'd say, Tim, we've come full circle.  I think the issue of faith is actually where we started, but you didn't want to acknowledge it.  You first asked, "Is science the only way to know what is real?"  While we both agreed science is indeed a fantastic tool to determine what is real, you never specified what alternative method could also be used to do the same.  I think you meant faith.  I think faith is delusion.

Before I go too far, let's establish a few terms.  By faith, I mean "to believe something without evidence."  This is to say that the phrase, "I have faith in myself," does NOT fit the defintion of faith I am using here.  This phrase should be re-worded to say, "I have CONFIDENCE in myself (based on evidence)." 

Now I realize I am limiting the defintion of a word.  But for this discussion, I think this is legitimate.  You may disagree if you like, but in the context of this discussion, one that is suited to address the topic of religion, words like "faith" need a clear definition.  So if we need to have a conversation about the semantics of the word faith, that's fine, but I think that is a red herring.

Now, since faith is believing without evidence, it is clearly irrational.  You claim there is evidence for your leap.  You cannot possess this.  You admit you do not possess this.  You cannot both have this evidence, and not have it, at the same time.  You need to make up your mind.

If you have evidence, what need have you of faith?  If faith is a way of knowing things, why is it ONLY employed when evidence is lacking?  For example, take the claim the sun is a star.  You have evidence that this is true.  Do you believe is based on faith?  Say you met a person who didn't know the sun was a star, and you assert the fact.  The person doesn't believe you.  Do you ask the person to take a leap of faith, or do you present evidence?  Say you present your evidence does not convice the person.  Do you THEN ask the person to take a leap of faith, or do you discover why the person is not convinced, and show further evidence?  When is faith needed?  When evidence is lacking.

Say your new friend is still not convicned after all the evidence you present.  The person tells you that they "know" the sun is actually the god Horus, because an ancient book of wisdom explains that Horus travels across the sky every day.  Suppose your friend has faith that Horus is real, and is not really considering your evidence because it contradicts what is already held on faith.

This is what I mean by faith is delusion.  It really does not matter that one person believes in Horus and another believes in allah and another believes in jesus.  None of these beliefs are based on evidence.  If they were, they would not be based on faith.  Faith and evidence are mutually exclusive.

If you happened to live at a time when germs had not yet beed discovered, and people thought that ailments were demonic possesions, and you asserted that germs were real, what would happen?  Say you had no evidence.  None exists.  The discovery has not been made.  Even though you are correct, there is no rational reason for anyone to believe you.  Rational belief is based on evidence.  If you have none, there is no rational reason to believe a claim is true.  This is why science adjusts it's views when new evidence is presented, and faith resists evidence so belief prevails.

We've discussed your evidence for thinking the leap of faith is rational.  It is not.  You have presented arguments from ignorace.  You want me to explain why atheists have morals without gods.  You suppose that if I cannot provide an explanation, god must be the explanation.  This is a fallacy.  Further, I provided you with the way morals evolve.

You've claimed the universe is too ordered to have come from nothing, and therefore, if I cannot explain why the universe is ordered, the answer should be that god made the universe.  Again, this commits the same logical fallacy.  Even if I could not explain it, that does not mean the explanation is supernatural.  And cosmology is a real science, with real answers based on real evidence.  And in no way does it point to a creator, much less a specific creator.

Now for the sake of further posts, I'll not address the question of the benefits of faith.  First, I want to estblish my position that faith is not rational, illogical, and delusional.  Faith exists only in the absence of evidence.  Why use faith if you have evidence?  You don't.  No one does.

5 comments:

  1. Whether you are an atheist or a Christian, science does not require an "alternative"...just a "complement". In fact you have loaded all of the terms of debate into your own circular argument. That is fallacy.

    If you have "evidence" to trust yourself, then there is similar evidence to believe in God. At the least, I don't have faith in you. ;-)

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  2. This is where the problem is made. You keep mentioning a believe in God or faith in God as a completely blind and un-evidenced faith. This isn't true. We have ancient documents written by 40 authors over 1500 years, we have documents that declare God's existence, an actual bones and flesh man named Jesus who dies and resurrected. The issue is that you do not accept this evidence. The only thing is that you haven't seen God himself.

    Everything God claims to have done in the bible is true, we have planets and stars, we have animals of different kinds, male and female, we have humans being created in the image of God, that is having knowledge of good and evil, we have evidence as to the beginning of races and languages, we have amazingly accurate historical events. This is hardly no evidence.

    Do you know that this is exactly how scientist believe in Dark Matter? They can't see it, measure it, but all the evidence seems to point as to its existence, why do you not have a problem when it comes to that?

    Again, you believe in abioegensis though it has never been proven, I agree that just because we don't know where life originated, that it automatically we assume a God, but we have evidence of a God who claimed to have created it and that evidence seems pretty strong.

    You keep misrepresenting Christianity as if we just created created God out of imagination, and forget the rich history of the bible. You can ignore this all you want, but it is hardly irrational.


    An interesting thing you mentioned was the example of the man asserting that germs were real, and you claimed it was irrational. But the man was right, who was actually irrational?
    Rational belief is based on evidence? How can you still claim people were being rational even when they were wrong about germs not being real. And even if this is the case, it proofs even further than being rational does not lead to the truth, just because they were rational in negating the existence of germs, did not mean they were right, truth still stood, and by this same standard, you have to acknowledge at least the possibility of the existence of God, regardless of how irrational it may sound to you.

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  3. athanasius said...
    Whether you are an atheist or a Christian, science does not require an "alternative"...just a "complement". In fact you have loaded all of the terms of debate into your own circular argument. That is fallacy.

    What are you talking about? Explain how faith complements science. Exactly what is it about my term do you not find satisfactory? Where did I use circular logic?

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  4. "Whether you are an atheist or a Christian, science does not require an "alternative"...just a "complement". In fact you have loaded all of the terms of debate into your own circular argument. That is fallacy.

    If you have "evidence" to trust yourself, then there is similar evidence to believe in God. At the least, I don't have faith in you. ;-)"

    Was that supposed to be witty? It failed.

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  5. i think youre begging the question when you assert faith is irrational. youre saying it is rational only to believe in claims which have empirical evidence? please support this.

    By the way, you yourself have faith without evidence. You believe that the universe was not created 10 seconds ago preloaded with memories and everything. Here is another, how do you know you're not dreaming right now?

    It turns out that faith in certain propositions concerning existence is unavoidable, irreducible propositions for which there is no evidence.
    for instance, scientists have faith that the future will resemble the past (problem of induction), there is no evidence that the future will resemble the past since the event in question has not occured. we cannot use as evidence past inductive successes since they only count as evidence *if* the future resembles the past.

    one needs faith that we are not dreaming, that there is an objective external reality. there is no evidence that we cannot be dreaming. one needs faith that we are not in a matrix...

    there is also faith when it comes to ethical irreducible propositions, it is wrong to inflict gratuitous harm to animals . it is wrong to amputate an inch of a baby's pinky (even under anesthesia).

    i dont see faith as being irrational per say, you could say that the sun is in fact horus and that horus is in the 'form' of a giant ball of hot dense helium, etc. The problem of faith has to do with parsimony (ockhams razor). scientists favor parsimonious explanations, and saying the sun is horus is not parsimonious. So, given that we avoid making faith claims (claims without evidence), the horus sun theory gets ruled out. But we cannot reject all faith claims, as described above we must assume there is an external objective reality, that we are not dreaming.

    furthermore, religious people and atheists agree that most events can be explained naturally. the religious person however adds miracles to the list of events that have occured, all of which were witnessed only by a few people (kind of like alien abductions). unless they can be witnessed by more people, scientists, and not just cult members then we can safely dismiss them. how else can we establish alien abductions. miracles are a little more tricky, but if a christian could pray over an amputee in jesus name and the limb regenerates, that counts as evidence of a miracle.

    so to sum up, i would say, in the spirit of ockhams razor faith should be kept to a minimum. it is unavoidable however. but this is beside the point. It doesn't matter whether religious people are rational or irrational. They do not present me any compelling evidence that god exists. it would be like someone telling me that they have met an alien from outer space but only briefly since the alien left. so i cannot observe the alien. what should i make of this? given my background assumptions i would have to dismiss the claim since i am by default skeptical. dismiss it not in a pejorative sense, but simply reject it for lack of evidence. its an extraordinary claim so should expect more evidence than a witness

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