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Post by swankivy on Jan 15, 2010 23:26:23 GMT -5
Many people--like Dax and Weaver--live according to a set of beliefs that could be considered a religion, and faith is an important component of many religions. Do you think questioning one's faith is necessary to ultimately understand it, or do you think it's dangerous to doubt? (Feel free to discuss your own experiences with religion or faith if you feel like sharing as well!)
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Post by customdesigned on Jan 16, 2010 4:25:13 GMT -5
It depends on the kind of "faith" one is trying to cultivate. A kind that is popular today was described in "Miracle on 34th Street" as "Faith is believin' what ya' know ain't so." Liberal thinkers see an intangible benefit to that kind of "faith". As Episcopal Bishop Spong puts it, "It doesn't matter whether Christ rose from the dead - it matters only that He is risen in our hearts."
Some pseudo-christian writers like those in the "Word of Faith" movement go even farther and describe "faith" as a "force", like the Force in Star Wars. They teach that all of us have the same nature as God, and can create our own reality if we just believe hard enough. (Of course, it is necessary to demonstrate such faith by sending them money. For some reason, they are unable to create their own money through the force of faith. Although some of them do try - typically ending up in jail for ponzi schemes.)
This kind of faith is destroyed by any kind of rational questioning or doubt. (Although I would consider such destruction a good thing, there is generally a lot of destructive emotional fallout from the process.)
The Christian concept of faith can be described as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence">"object permanence"</a>. (I don't know if links work in this forum.) Actually, there are two aspects. The first aspect is trusting someone's promise of future performance. US Bonds are "backed by the full *faith* and credit of the United States of America". The second aspect is trusting the memory of past events ("object permanence"). As Hebrews 11 puts it, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen." Things hoped for are the promises, things unseen are things that we know are true from past experience, but cannot at present be reconfirmed.
This kind of faith is greatly improved and deepened by questioning. Our interpretation of past events is often faulty. We often have false expectations from misinterpreted promises.
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Post by SHO! on Jan 16, 2010 16:39:33 GMT -5
I think I am agreeing with most of what customdesigned said. Faith, like most things, is okay... in moderation. It's the extent that most religions take faith to that becomes problematic. If you harbor a strict dogmatic belief in something and are too rigid to question it or be "bent" by new discovery or compelling evidence contrary to some unmoving faith then you run the risk of being broken when the winds of truth come blowing hard.
So to answer your question; I believe it stems on the type of faith (though I would argue that most of it is bollocks anyway). If you're working form the ground up like Dax and Weaver than you probably have to question things to fully understand. I think that's what meditation is supposed to be about in many religions. It probably isn't totally about understand the faith/belief but more about understanding what it means to you as an individual and how you will present yourself to and interact with the rest of the world.
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Post by wright on Jan 17, 2010 16:02:33 GMT -5
I'm an atheist, but I see value in the kind of "faith" that Dax and Weaver are trying to cultivate. Their approach seems more like what little I know of Buddhism than the dogmatism and apologetics that I see so often in Christianity and Islam.
I think that having one's beliefs tested and challenged is inevitable, unless you go to great lengths to isolate yourself from pretty much everything (and everyone). So questioning your assumptions, your "faith" is a way of preparing for that inevitable testing.
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Post by swankivy on Jan 17, 2010 22:30:57 GMT -5
Oh yeah, definitely--I think Dax and Weaver are presenting their beliefs as more of a philosophy of life than a religion, though Dax does seem a bit more "religious" about it. And as for me, I think "questioning one's faith" is imperative. You've got to ask questions if you want to be able to express why you believe what you do. If you treat every question of your faith--internal or external--as an attack you have to isolate yourself from to preserve your beliefs, I have to ask "What are you so afraid of?" People who isolate themselves from outside influences strike me as being afraid that such things might tempt them to see the value in alternate belief systems. If theirs is so obviously right, what are they feeling threatened by? Fear is such a terrible thing to incorporate into a religion. . . .
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Post by Fred on Jan 18, 2010 19:23:13 GMT -5
Nice discussion question! I'll have to get an account...
In matters of faith and spirituality, if you don't question, you don't grow, appreciate, and "get it..."
I think questioning makes faith stronger. Of course, the word "faith" implies that one must accept several theories or concepts without direct observation or experimental verification, so... the only way to be more confident in your faith IS to question it, discuss, meditate, and find logical answers.
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stab
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Post by stab on Jan 18, 2010 21:30:31 GMT -5
Sorry this ended up being rather longer than I intended. I hope it is interesting enough to warrant a read through. XP
When we talk about faith, there is often a trend to assume that faith refers only to matters of spirituality or religion. This often leads to the rather amusing phenomena of rather pronounced demarcation between matters of spirituality and other lenses through which the world might be viewed. To take the most extreme case, consider the hard sciences. Many practitioners of hard science will scoff at practitioners of overt spirituality because their own fields run on a rational empiricism while the spiritual studies depend on faith. The spiritual may have an elaborate system of logical premises, 1 follows from 2, follows from 3, etc. Eventually, however, it will reach some value, n, where n follows from faith, something which, for whatever reason, is taken for granted within the given spiritual system.
As I said above, I find this amusing. The reason being, if examined, scientific fields have the exact same fault. This is not clear in most cases, not even to most scientists, because the chain of premises is rather longer than it is in most spiritual cases. To demonstrate, consider physics. There are several items in physics we take to be indisputable truths. The reason being, that they follow from other truths, and down and down until we hit raw mathematics. Since the math describing the principle in question is correct and the raw data comes from clearly observable phenomena, the nth premise must be true and thus we may go back up the scale and say that the original principle is true. Or at least, so it would appear. It is at the point of mathematics that I would point and say, here this is blind faith.
Like any other science, mathematics is rigorously defined. Unlike other sciences, though, mathematics cannot refer to the outside world. Many principles in the outside world refer to math, but this relationship is not mutual. In a simple example, counting objects is referring those objects to math, we can make useful judgments on those objects because of this reference, but we cannot say anything about math because of the object. This is problematic because, to define our terms in math, we can only refer to other math, which in turn can only refer to other math, eventually one item of mathematics is forced to refer to something that refers to it, likely not directly, but never the less through some chain of reference. This, however, creates a circular definition, something logically invalid and useless.
This same problem is addressed by Jacques Derrida in his paper “Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences.” He finds that this circularity of premise and definition occurs linguistically, at some level, in all human sciences. He describes the phenomena as a rupture of the system and goes on to show that every science either devolves into these circles or refers, symbolically, to some other system outside itself which in turn devolves. The implication is that the systems of definition and description cannot truly relate to reality because they cannot possibly properly describe it. However, Derrida does not abandon science, but rather claims that it can be made to refer to a pseudo reality very closely related to reality and so still make useful predictions. He describes this as a sort of bricolage, the tools available cannot possibly meet the task, but they are what is available and so we must use them, equally so, however, we must acknowledge that the result is not true, as such, because it is not composed of truth.
This is precisely the recourse taken by mathematicians. We take some very small set of necessary parts of mathematics and declare them to be axioms, or self evident truths. From these we are able to construct upwards the remaining parts of the mathematical system. However, we must, and for the most part do, accept that these systems are not truth as such. In fact, many mathematicians, myself included, are fond of reworking the axioms to create new mathematics and following them to see where they lead. Studies such as these often illustrate the weaknesses in our own axiomatic system for what we would normally consider mathematics. For example, geometry, as we have presently constructed it, depends upon the three dimensional plane operating in a specific way, which for the most part it does, however, pushed to certain extreme cases results, which are logically consistent with the remainder of geometry, appear which are clearly not correct.
In these scenarios, our “faith” occurs at a very minute level, imperceptible to most examinations, but it follows upwards throughout mathematics. Similarly, any system, such as our example with physics above, that depends upon mathematics must also operate by faith. Thus, physics, and any other science, must be understood to make useful predictions of reality, but to be not actually of it.
We can make two important conclusions from this. Firstly, we ought not take for granted scientific fact as truth and place it in some superior position to any other understanding of the world. It is useful, but so too is a spiritual understanding. Secondly, this same logic must be applied to spirituality. It may be useful in understanding the world, but it too is based on faith and so does not relate directly to reality. We must accept this fact, and apply a conscious questioning of our spiritual understanding, just as we must do for science, so that we can perceive where it fails to meet reality and acknowledge it.
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Post by customdesigned on Jan 18, 2010 23:36:07 GMT -5
In addition to the dependence on axiom at some level, there is also the dependence on testimony. No one can personally verify every experiment the underlies physics. Only a few verify much at all. Instead, we trust the testimony of others who have done so. In the same way, many claims of religion are based on the testimony of a few.
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Post by swankivy on Jan 19, 2010 5:03:09 GMT -5
Yep, what you say about mathematics and physics is true, stab. I remember when studying it in high school that mathematical/logical steps could only be known to be true if they were based on a "given." How we acquire our givens is something not often understood. I also thought it was kind of interesting how often mathematics went off the map of reality when it discussed imaginary numbers. Basically, that study of imaginary numbers was saying (to me), "We can't actually go off the map and solve for these values, but IF WE COULD, once we got back on, it would equal out to this." Wait, I break the rules temporarily and still trust the answer to apply? Weird!
I think one of the main things that distinguishes science from religion, though, is in how people practice it. In many religions, faith becomes its own virtue, and that has always bothered me--the way people will be downright smug about their ability to believe something without a reason they can explain. "I just feel like it's true" is a good enough reason to believe something, I suppose, but if that person wants to explain their faith to me in that way, I will reply, "I just feel like it's NOT true," and then we have nothing to talk about. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
In religions and in pseudoscience, many commit the fatal flaw of deliberately searching for evidence to support the hypothesis rather than doing the experiment openly and collecting/evaluating/accepting ALL the data. This is because they have chosen their conclusion before they actually do the experiments, and sometimes haphazardly construct support beams retroactively as if the ultimate belief really does rest upon them. But if one actually follows the scientific method when executing an experiment, their hypothesis is more or less irrelevant. Honestly done, the experiment will lead to the conclusion in exactly the same way for two different people with opposite hypotheses.
"Faith" is also often applied when we are dealing with something not only untested, but untestable.
In the context of the comic, however, I think we just saw someone figure out that blind faith is a bad idea. Dax seemed to believe he would enjoy a protected status with the Mother if he decreed himself one of Her chosen (and proved his devotion to her by doing rituals and sacrifices in Her name). He was really disturbed when he realized that might not be the case, and now if he wants to continue to believe there IS a Mother, he is going to have to figure out what attributes he can realistically apply to Her. To what extent does his belief control Her actions? Does it matter? Does She have a Grand Plan that is unaffected by his beliefs or actions?
I think there are types of faith that are natural and even necessary, but making a virtue out of the ability to jump to conclusions seems a bit dangerous to me. I hope for his sake he figures out his position and becomes comfortable with it. (It sounds weird coming from the author, but sometimes I have no idea what my characters are going to do or how they're going to feel about it. . . . )
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Post by SHO! on Jan 19, 2010 12:51:54 GMT -5
Stab, you bring up some interesting points, but I think Swankivy hit on why many educated people admonish religion and embrace science and mathematics. True, both concepts deal with faith, however, for the most part, only one does so with a solid foundation of reason and reasonable, testable conclusions. Simply put, if I lay two apples on a table, that previously had two apples on it, then there are now four apples on the table. Unless disturbed by another source, anyone can come in and easily verify that there are four apples regardless of the symbology used to describe the phenomenon of 4Apples it will stand as a fundamental truth. If I take the area under a curve describing the acceleration of an object then I will get a curve describing its velocity at any given moment. I believe this. I have faith that this is true and, baring outside factors of my closed set, it is measurable and testable, it could be verified with the proper set up and instrumentation and always come back with my original results. It is concrete and reasonable, this solidness is what gives math and science credence. Now you take religion. Most of the widely accepted ones throw in a law of blind faith. They say, "Don't question. Do not test. Pay absolutely no attention to the man behind the curtain." And they do this because those that made it up, those that continue and govern over it, and those that grip on to it like a celestial life preserver in an ocean of unknown, realize that their dogmatic axiom would crumble under the weight of some of the simplest, blatantly evident truths. So they choose to close their eyes, put their fingers in their ears and scream "FAITH" at the top of their lungs. In my opinion, this turns "faith" into an ugly word associated with those that would rather cling to pleasant lies than harsh truths. One could say, "I believe that, when I step off of this cliff, I will not hit the ground and die because I am a true believer." Then when said person smashes on the very real ground below all of the other true believers say, "Hm, that person didn't have enough faith. However, when I step off of this cliff..." And that is why the educated snicker and point at religious zealots and their usage of faith, then turn around and start counting apples on a table feeling secure in what they believe they will find. At least that's how I've always seen it.
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stab
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Post by stab on Jan 19, 2010 17:51:55 GMT -5
I don't think you necessarily meant it this way, Sho, but for the sake of completeness, you appear to be making the assumption that the religious are certainly wrong. Precisely the problem with religious argument is that it is not falsifiable. It is a common fault with the religiously minded to construct a false dichotomy in which it is either science or religion. I am not suggesting that you ought to take up some religious or spiritual discipline, simply that, unlike your charming comic, we cannot know, at least until death when presumably we are no longer capable of passing on that information in any sort of meaningful way. Thus, we cannot assume they are wrong.
To use a clearer example, consider string theory. It also suffers, at least presently, from the problem that it is not falsifiable. If we want to use its potentially highly useful results, we must do so with a grain of salt, acknowledging that we are doing so with a degree of faith in its premises. So too with spirituality. It can still be useful, it just must be taken with that same grain of salt. It behooves us as rational thinkers, until such a time as a proof is presented verifying or falsifying religious thought, to treat it with respectful distrust. This does not imply disbelief, though one is certainly entitled to disbelieve, but rather that we must question faith and keep it in perspective as something unknown.
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Post by customdesigned on Jan 21, 2010 0:38:24 GMT -5
Ya'll are attacking a straw man. There are certainly religious (and other) people with the kind of blind faith you are talking about (and I talked about as the 1st kind). But many religions make historical claims that are just as falsifiable as other other historical claims. For instance, Mormons have a history of pre-Christian civilization in the Americas. One can look critically at the evidence (or lack of it). It boils down to the testimony of one individual that angels dictated (well, translated disappearing tablets - it amounts to the same thing). Islam says that angels dictated the Koran to Mohammed. (The Koran itself makes few historical claims.) Jews have a recorded history of remarkable events, but many authors. In some cases, multiple authors cover the same events, e.g. Samuel/Kings vs Chronicles, events recorded by prophets like Isaiah or Daniel that match with historical books. Christians have four different accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Many of the metaphysical claims of religion are constructed by theologians, not the founders. But in the Judeo-Christian tradition, even these are logical interpretations of historical events and testimony.
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Post by SHO! on Jan 21, 2010 17:24:36 GMT -5
Okay, real quick, not my comic. It looks like XKCD to me, but I've seen it floating around the interwebz and thought it might add color to this discussion.
Like customdesigned said, many (if not most) religions make claims that are historical, researchable, and/or testable and easily falsifiable. Which remains that if you claim that your doctrine is the infallible, absolute truth and then even one thing is found to be erroneous then it negates it all.
You can't say, "Hey guys, c'mere and look at this book. It's absolute, it's the complete truth and all of the truth you will ever need to know, from cover to cover..." Then come back years later and finish with, "well except this part about the seven days, typo. Yeah, I know, we should've ran spell-check there. Oh, and this stuff here with the flood and boat of animals, well gee fellas, we just exaggerated a little. This guy, okay you got us, he didn't walk on water, but he was a really awesome swimmer! Seriously! Like Aquaman awesome..."
I guess I do assume that religion, for the most part, is false. Chalk it up to a lifetime of watching the wicked go unpunished when most of religion claims that it would be otherwise. Even further claiming that my punishment for even doubting would be clear and defining. I guess when it comes down to it, I would rather not worship or even give any credence to a high power that would demand piety to the point of ignorance and unquestioning loyalty. If someone's god has a problem with that, my cellphone's almost always on. I'm sure they know the number, but be sure they refrain from calling between 3am and 7am Friday mornings. I have a running and much more important engagement.
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stab
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Post by stab on Jan 21, 2010 19:07:36 GMT -5
Ya'll are attacking a straw man. But if I cannot defeated the Knight of Straw, however shall I proceed to slay the great winged beast on the horizon. In all seriousness, customdesigned, you have given me some things to think about. I am not completely sold, however, that the value in the claims of a religion lie in the sort of literal reading required for a historical argument of its veracity (or lack there of). In response to Sho, I do agree to an extent, anything claiming to be absolute truth tends to set off the BS-o-meter. In some, though not all, cases though, I think (and this is just my understanding, I really haven't done enough research to say this for certain) that most of time, it is future generations that have decided to call the text related to their faith absolute. Also, as I said above, I don't think that one can afford to render judgement based on a strictly literal reading. To do so, along with forcing some rather interesting and absurd conclusions, ignores the fact that, with the exception of texts written with express intent of founding a religion (and ever there to some extent), these are literary texts and deserve to be read as such. With that in mind a few important things come forward. First, it is a fallacy to claim to know the author's intent. Second, it has been shown (by Stanley Fish I think) that if one assumes the meaning of a text to be inherent in the wording of the text itself, one will find, without fail, an arbitrarily large (but presumably finite) number of possible readings (and thats not even counting if you are working with a work in translation, which really is a mess). Finally, and I think the religious texts of the Alchemists make the best case for this, the text is not always written plainly with the intent that anyone could read it. The dense layers of metaphor and other tropes make a literal reading impossible. For example, many Alchemical works refer to the slaying of a serpent as the beginning step of the creation of a Philosopher's Stone. This is one of the few tropes we know for sure from Alchemical writing and it stands for the Calcination (or reduction by burning) of the base substance. Clearly, it is mistake to read such texts literally, and just because the magority of those who do read them attempt to read them that way does not imply that that is the way they were intended to be read.
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Post by SHO! on Jan 21, 2010 23:15:21 GMT -5
So, don't trust the writers, the scholars, the masters, or the book? At least we agree on that much.
Alchemy is/was a vocation wrought in secrecy. Of course it is not "written plainly with the intent that anyone could read" that's a conscious decision. The practitioners wanted to be selfish with their knowledge and only make it available to the initiated, the privileged few. They didn't want others to know their highly guarded crafts unless they were completely worthy.
Contrariwise, religion (for the most part), is all about indoctrinating as many new people as possible. It would be completely counterproductive to write texts in codes and metaphors that could confuse or make the secular flat out disbelieve your message.
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