These are pretty strong assertions -- any evidence to back them up? Or are
they just your subjective beliefs?
> There is no
> empirical reason to believe that faith is even accidentally
> correct as often
> as we would expect by pure chance.
> That is, we would probably do better by
> taking a contrarian view of faith, and simply rejecting whatever
> most other
> people have faith in, than by accepting whatever they have faith in, so
> often to faith-based beliefs turn out to be wrong in the real world,
> whenever they are tested. Of course, even contrarianism would
> only increase
> one's chances of being right by a small percentage.
Sounds like a caricature to me. E.g., suppose one would poll religious
fundamentalists and ask them about the age of the earth, and compare that
with the correct answer -- in your view, is this a good proxy for the
reliability of Christian faith in general?
>
> Ultimately, because there is no objective basis for faith itself (it is a
> "method" of no actual method at all), and because it is empirically
> demonstrable that most faith-beliefs are false, a rational person has to
> reject faith.
We're waiting for the demonstration!
> Historically, faith has fared no better. Every major evil of human history
> has been perpetrated on the basis of faith, without exception, as
> have been
> most minor evils as well.
Holy buckets! (Er, this was not an emotional outburst, but rather a
reference to the buckets used at the Vatican.)
> It is not an accident that the Dark
> Ages were also
> the period in European history in which faith was at its maximum.
> It was not
> an accident that Hitler denounced reason and advocated "thought"
> and action
> based on mindless passion. It was not an accident that Communism relied on
> mindless repetition of slogans and the monstrously irrational
> ideas of Marx
> (such as polylogism, or the belief that *logic* varied according to one's
> economic class, and that, therefore, one need not judge the
> *rationality* of
> one's arguments, but only needed to know the *class* of the speaker to
> evaluate his arguments). All major wars are based on faith. Genocide is
> based on faith. Racism, a form of genetic collectivism, is based on faith.
> Slavery is based on faith. As Ayn Rand and others have pointed out so
> eloquently, faith and force go hand in hand, because, when reason is no
> longer available to resolve disputes, force is all that's left (or abject
> surrender).
So Jesus, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all had one thing in common -- faith?
>
> In recent times, more attempts have been made to reconcile faith
> and reason,
> especially in the form of reconciling faith and science. It is true that
> some scientists have been religious, but it is not true that this
> shows that
> faith and science are compatible. They are not, but not because
> of disputes
> over particular matters of facts (e.g., whether there really are moons
> circling Jupiter, or even whether abiogenesis occurred or
> occurs). They are
> incompatible because faith represents a rejection of *the*
> fundamental rule
> of rational belief:
>
> Believe all -- but *only* -- what you have rationally adequate
> cognitive basis for thinking to be true -- and be very careful
> about how easily and why you conclude that *do* you have
> rationally adequate cognitive basis for a belief.
>
> Faith, in its purest form, does not bother with cognition at all. It is
> *purely* subjective. But, even in its impure forms, cognition only plays a
> supporting role, mainly to rationalize beliefs held for non-rational
> psychological reasons. Faith thus rejects this rule. This is
> about the only
> thing that you can't believe on faith (if you try to believe it on faith,
> the fact that you are accepting it on faith contradicts what you are
> claiming to *believe*, so you do not *really* believe it, because you are
> still operating on the belief in faith).
>
> Because faith introduces erroneous beliefs into the mind and sets them in
> the same "ecological niches" as might otherwise be occupied by rational
> beliefs, the mind will try to use them as if they were rational beliefs.
> Because they are false, or at least not well-founded, false
> conclusions will
> follow. These false conclusions will lead to inappropriate
> actions, such as
> serial murder, genocide, or (in the case of some men) trying to
> pee through
> the opening in a toilet seat without getting any on the seat. :-)
>
> In any case, I find it hard to see how anyone knowing anything
> about current
> beliefs worldwide or popular beliefs historically, or who can even examine
> his own beliefs introspectively, can believe that faith is a "rock."
>
> Science is not a rock, either, of course. It's more like cartography, in
> which we progressively improve the maps to reflect the latest information
> about reality.
>
> Philosophy is where the only rocks are. Something exists. You
> exist (if you
> don't, I don't have to worry about you reading this and getting
> upset at my
> presuming that you exist). What a thing is, *is* what it is. Etc.
>
Chris, I was going to comment further, but I think it's enough to say I just
don't use the term "faith" the same way you do. You seem to use "faith" as
a synonym for some conflation of "ignorance", "stupidity", "hatred",
"demagoguery", and perhaps "incorrigibility". If I thought that were faith,
I'd reject faith with a vengeance too. But I just don't see it that way in
the least. (Okay, I will agree on the lavatory issues, but beyond that....)
And of course, I'll certainly agree that philosophy -rocks-. :^>
John