What does faith mean to you?

It’s trust.
Not limiting it to religion, you have faith in your marriage (or you should). You have faith in your friends. You have faith in many things in your life.
My relationship with the Lord involves trust in Him.

Everyone human being subscribes to some kind of “faith,” we couldn’t get through the day without it. Faith that we won’t be killed in a car accident today, even though statistically, we have a reasonably good chance of being killed in a car accident, faith that our children will go to school and come home safe even though sometimes they don’t, faith that today we will go out and about in the world and nothing really bad will happen to us, we won’t be raped or mugged or break a leg falling down the stairs, even though bad things happen to people every day. We have to believe this, have faith in this, evidence to the contrary, or we couldn’t function.

@lillycoyote & @filmfann. You both rock. Thank you.

Why thank you @Trillian, you’re pretty awesome yourself. :-)

Faith is leaning in for a kiss first!

@Ltryptophan That is quite a leap of faith, isn’t it?

How would I know!

I think faith is incorrectly used to describe stubborn beliefs. I came up with a sort of diagram of the mind in which faith is a balance of knowledge and belief—knowledge being something like the metric system and belief being something like “I believe this roof wont cave in on top of me at this time”—two levels of certainty, one justified by strict logic, the other justified by practical application, faith being justified by the intuitive use of both to reach complex tendencies (not conclusions).

edit:

The Mind
Intelligence : Conception : Perception
—————————————-
Logic : Knowledge : Desire
Emotion : Belief : Fear
—————————————-
Intuition : Faith : Love

This is my little diagram of the mind, not sure if it makes sense, but I like it.

@zophu “faith is incorrectly used to describe stubborn beliefs”

No doubt!

Dawkins, like so many others, toss the word faith around very loosely, typically equating it as synonymous with dogma. How unfortunate.

I wonder if Dawkins has faith in the statements he makes about faith. Whether he does or not, his statements expose his own dogma.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Couldn’t agree more.

To me faith means that my gun will fire with every pull of the trigger, as long as it’s loaded. :-)

A George Michael song.

Gripping the shifting sand with my toes and standing tall, when all I want to do is crawl into a ball and hide.

I agree with Dawkins. I think it is much better to prove and know than to just have faith. There are so many charlatans around it would be a real waste and shame to put your faith in them.

I have faith in what I know and have proved for myself. I believe certain theories because they make sense. I do not have faith in the theories and my belief is conditional. That, to me is the only way to live and to deal with sales people, religious or secular.

@Ron_C “I agree with Dawkins.”

Does that mean you have faith in Dawkins and what he says and stands for?

@Ron_C “I think it is much better to prove and know than to just have faith.”

What has Dawkins “proven”?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies clever, I don’t have faith in Dawkins but believe that his arguments make much more sense than blind belief. Further, if anything he says is “proven” wrong, neither I nor anyone that understands his writings would be considered apostics and threatened, by his “followers”, with death. or thrown out of the scientic community or dismissed from the church of Dawkins.

Dawkins has blind faith in a blind watchmaker. How insightful.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies I think Dawkins’ point is that there is no watchmaker.

Dawkins’s faith is based on a multiverse with an infinite amount of universes with different natural laws. Tegmark calls this a level 4 multiverse.

Scientific evidence for this uncreated multiverse: zero

Modern Christians have faith that God is the origin of the natural laws. They see God as an uncreated creator.

Scientific evidence for this uncreated creator: zero

Educated Christians realize that both forms of faith exist. They don’t get aggressive about it. They don’t resort to polemics. Atheist materialists like Dawkins do. It makes their arguments rather weak.

Atheist materialists don’t think that our universe has any purpose or meaning. As some believers have pointed out, “the logical consequence of a pointless universe is ugliness and destruction. No matter how you try to hide such a philosophy under a mantle of stoic nobility, it remains no fountain of hope, but rather a poison brew of pessimism. In the language of its nihilist proponents, a pointless universe has no conceivable outcome except the grim maximization of entropy.”

@zophu “Dawkins’ point is that there is no watchmaker.”

Not at all. He suggests that the dumb mute cosmos can author the code of life, when in fact, aside from sentient authorship, no such mechanism has ever been demonstrated.

He proposes that the blind, deaf, and dumb universe, has somehow accidentally spoken, and continues to speak the genetic code of life. Modern genetics has refuted this dogmatic assumption.

“a pointless universe has no conceivable outcome except the grim maximization of entropy.”

That’s right @mattbrowne. And the sole purpose of sentient authorship, every sentient authorship, is to make order of that entropy by way of harnessing it, bending it, molding it, and altogether designing it into understandable bits of usable information.

There is no blind faith in sentient authorship. It is the most precise and specifically directed process known to man. Eyes wide open with intentionality.

The dumb cosmos has no intentions. And I have no faith that intentions may be borne from that which has no intentions.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies – Yes, and I think the sentient authorship had something like DNA in mind. I also think the author’s masterpiece doesn’t require micro-management playing around with base-pair codons.

Yes Matt, I believe we are in agreement here.

You’ve heard me say it before (so sorry to repeat), but our knowledge of A.I., Computer Science, and Robotics is rife with precedent to support a hypothesis that programs can indeed be authored with the functionality to re-author themselves based upon sensory input from external stimuli.

This is beyond reacting to stimuli. This is acting upon stimuli. It is direct and intentional in the context of the ultimate programmed end goal.

If one of those end goals is to survive, then I propose our initial programming is quite lenient, allowing a wide range of thoughtful actions (perhaps limitless) to achieve that goal.

This does not deny the notion of cause/reaction in any way. A hot flame burns flesh and our sensory equipment initiates cause/reaction to pull away from the flame. But it is our thought/action which directs the process of extinguishing the flame altogether, nursing the flesh, and harnessing that flame for intentional purposes. Cause/reaction had nothing to do with that.

Thus, I believe there to be a constant battle raging. One that promotes sentient beings to exercise their authority of thought/action over cause/reaction.

This scenario plays out in every aspect of life. For instance, a drug addict, a child abuser, an over eater… they are allowing the entropic principles of cause/reaction to control their lives. Their sensory input reacts to external stimuli, and they have no discipline to exercise thought/action upon it. They are reacting rather than acting. Actions require thought, and they just don’t think about it.

This entropic cause/reaction allows them to claim themselves as victims, under the control of another force… They point to the cause, rather than exercising their authority of thought over that cause. Ultimately, this may very well be used as the justification for all deviant behaviors. Society judges these people by calling them deviant acts, while at the same time acknowledging them as victims. It is this conflation of action and reaction that prevents any real and beneficial progress from being achieved.

Thought/Action is not reducible to Cause/Reaction. Thought/Action requires sentient authored code. Cause/Reaction does not. Where there be a code, we must infer Thought/Action.

Thus when I claim:

Satan = Deception = Entropy

That’s how the drug addict can claim something to the effect of “The Devil made me do it”.

As well, from the Christian perspective, by allowing entropic cause/reaction to rule one’s life, a person is in effect spiritually dead.

Likewise, if as I claim:

God = Truth = Information (Thought)

Then, and only then, may the spiritually dead find spiritual life by adhering to what Jesus Christ has said about himself. That being, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life”.

Accept the Way of Truth and Live. Do this by exercising authority of Thought/Action over Cause/Reaction.

The Way of Truth is always presented upon a set of codified plans or instructions.

I buy a cheap desk at Office Depot. The instructions, the plans, depict the exact Way of Truth that desk is supposed to be assembled. If I deviate from that Way of Truth, then I will not achieve the end goal of how that desk is supposed to be.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Your thoughts and actions are causes and reactions. And guess what? That doesn’t mean it’s simple or meaningless. Your having difficulty accepting that complexity. You give two options: either a super-intelligent entity is existence; or existence is dumb and without purpose. Either way, you simplify it. In your mind the only alternative to existence being a single intelligence of order and strength is that it is a pointless collection of floating rocks and gases.

Also, you might want to learn more about genetics. It’s more of a canvas on which life is painted than it is a blueprint. Life doesn’t have an instruction manual, we have to figure things out on our own. And that wouldn’t be a problem if we were allowed to work together, but we are constantly divided by our various unhealths imposed upon us by incompetent social systems. You should focus on bringing order to that, rather than existence as a whole. Suppositions are practical constructs, not something you can use universally. And definately not level-7-multiversally.

I think these kinds of things are a form of intellectual escapism. A way of justifying the lack of scientific attention towards things of actual social concern.

How can you claim that thought/action is cause/reaction? There are distinct differences between them. I refuse to conflate them as synonymous. That conflation eats itself in paradox, for if TA=CR, then CR=TA, meaning the universe is therefor a result of thought/action. Does not compute for the materialist.

What I know about genetics is that it is not a canvas, and it is not a blueprint. The Genetic Code is a Code. And there are extremely specific protocols that distinguish it from a metaphorical canvas, or blueprint, or template. It is called a code for precise scientific reasons that adhere to principles of Information Theory. It is a quaternary code that pre-defines you before you ever exist. I appreciate the poetic waxing comparing it to “painted” life, but it is not nearly as abstract as you make it out to be. It is direct and intentional. Forensics will confirm that for you after your next crime spree.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Dawkins specifically says that he does not believe in the blind watchmaker. The only explanation needed to create complexity out of simplicity is natural selection. Natural selection if far from” a wind blowing through a junkyard creating a 747” Maybe you should look closer at his book “The God Delusion” for clear explanations from a scientist. Not such clear rhetoric are available from a cleric.

This is interesting. I was under the impression that “The Blind Watchmaker” was Natural Selection. And as he suggests, that’s all that’s needed to account for life. Dawkins doesn’t believe in “The Sighted Watchmaker”... God. Am I mistaken?

And although there is no shortage of scientific clerics, I don’t tend to glean my knowledge from the likes. I prefer scientist that have no preconceived notions or dogmatic agendas to promote. My position is founded upon the research of Barbara McClintock, James Schapiro, Wes Warren, Hubert Yockey, Claude Shannon, Norbert Weiner, and numerous others. None of whom would be considered clerics. Many of whom are self proclaimed Atheists.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies My brothers are identical twins, they share the same genetic code. Their lives are very different. One didn’t follow any instructions better than the other, they each adapted to slightly different environments. That is life—adaptation; you can’t just follow some rules and expect to survive. That’s right! You might be doomed, regardless of what you do. And that’s not such a bad thing. It just means you have to do your absolute best to help this world, because even that might not be enough.

I suspect that 150 years ago, you would be worshiping electricity as the energy of life and the universe.

Their are two separate codes to life. The first being a necessity for a genetic code. Your brothers turned out exactly how their genetic code determined them to be. There is no denying this.

The second code is the one they author themselves as sentient beings. You say, “they each adapted to slightly different environments” and I’m sure that is factual. But they did this intentionally by adding additional code which directed their paths in life. That should be proof enough that thought/action is not synonymous with cause/reaction.

The laws of physics perform the same way every single time. If your identical twin brothers were presented with many of the same circumstances in life, then cause/reaction would have limited them to the exact same outcomes. Yet it didn’t. Instead, they individually employed thought/action upon many of the same circumstances, thus allowing the separate outcomes.

Faith does not make sence. Why would God give humans the most powerful reasoning brain on Earth and then require us to have faith in Him, and the bible? Which bible? Which God? Which religion? HA! I think that humans have a flaw in our DNA that causes us to believe in just about anything that those in power tell us to believe. If there is a God that operates with Faith as a tool then He must be crazy. God bless.

@gondwanalon If I were to guess a way to describe any single flaw in our DNA when it comes to these problems it would be with the word hyper-competition. Once we started stockpiling our food, risking shortages, instead of constantly gathering and hunting for it as a almost-completely cooperative group, the vital question changed from “where do we go to find food?” to “how am I going to eat when the food runs low.”

And there the secluded ego was born and ingrained into our instincts. Domination became prerogative and the most selfish became the most powerful, thus ensuring thousands of years of fucked up civilizations where the most powerful leaders are ensured to always be parasitic in that they do not serve the masses they control—they dominate for selfish reasons. Only sociopaths are willing to sacrifice what must be sacrificed to get that high up, and insanity is contagious. Where there is insane domination, there is insane subservience.

That is where “blind faith” comes from, I think. The “faithful” will always follow the greatest power, regardless of what that power actually is. A god-fearing people is an obedient people.

Are God-less people disobedient by nature?

@zophu ”. A god-fearing people is an obedient people.” well said. Look at what they have wrought, possible the end of the U.S. as we know it.

@Ron_C

Are you suggesting that “the end of the U.S. as we know it” is caused by “god-fearing people” who are “obedient”?

I’ll ask again, Are God-less people disobedient by nature?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies of course I am suggesting that. The republicans didn’t have much impact until they reigned in the Christian right. Now they put their repressive laws and wars in religious terms. Laws are written for “moral” reasons and wars are “crusades”. The party runs like a well oiled machine. Members of congress vote in blocks because that is how they are ordered. Any dissenters are severely punished.

All of their efforts are in support of large corporations and multi-national organizations are all are aimed at diminishing the middle class. Since Reagan, the middle class and unions have lost members and power. Money has shifted from the poor and middle class to the richest 1%. The patriot act is the biggest assault on personal liberty since the Revolution and despite all of this, devote Christians support their oppressors. Want proof, see who wins during the next election cycle. The good obedient members will vote more of their oppressors back into office.

The Democrats probably won’t do well because they don’t have the party disipline like the republicans. Democrats, mostly, believe in freedom, republicans believe in order and who is more easily ordered than the faithful?

So, in context to the OP, I take it that you have a great deal of faith in Democrats, and very little faith in Republicans, and the main difference between the two is that one party fears God and the other doesn’t.

Do I read you correctly? I certainly don’t want to misrepresent your comments.

And for the third time I’ll ask, Are God-less (faith-less) people disobedient by nature?

And, are the professed Christian Democrats just putting on a show, lying about their faith, somehow attempting to conceal their disobedient nature?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies
1. I don’t have faith in either party I am just saying that the faithful in the republican party are more open the rhetoric of their leaders.

2. I used my statements to indicate that the “faithful” are more easily lead, therefore more obedient than others. I suspect that the “faith-less” are more free thinkers and more likely to “disobedient”. They’ll stop for a red light because that makes sense. They will not vote for Sara Palin because there is no good reason to do so, even if their political leaders insist.

3. Christian Democrats are not the same as the Religious Right in the U.S.or even the Christian Progressives. Not all Christians are blind followers, apparently all “fundamentalist Christians” are. If you can reject evolution and claim the bible is inerrant truth, with convection, there isn’t much that you won’t believe if ordered to by your leaders saying that it is “God’s word”.

@Ron_C

Would you reject anyone who disagreed with you, or just those who disagree based upon their faith, rather than reason?

Let me ask…

Was Obama elected because…

people lost faith in Bush policy, therefor losing hope?

or

people had hope in Obama policy, therefor expressing faith?

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies “Are God-less people disobedient by nature?”

Self-determined people are godless by nature.

@Ron_C yes to both.

@Ron_C Well, obedience doesn’t negate self-determination. I’ll obey my leader, my peer, or my subordinate if I trust his/her competence in giving the command, or if I have no other choice.

I agree. There is nothing about wrong with following a leader based on reason. Blind faith, is the opposite of reason.

I will follow a leader as long as his goals coincide with mine. Anybody can have a better idea. Are you telling me that TV evangelists have a better idea about philosophy or life? Marketing possibly, but on religion, not likely.

@Ron_C meh

Wow, everyone has very strong beliefs and supportive statements.

So, if I said, Faith that placed God in the gaps of current understanding about the natural world may be headed for a crisis if advances in science subsequently fill those gaps.

Would you agree or disagree? Why?

Most modern believers, at least in Europe do not believe in a God of the gaps. But science can’t determine the ultimate origin of the natural laws / super-law. Science can’t tell us anything about the deeper purpose of the universe either. Science is wonderful when we apply it to what it can do best: describe and explain natural phenomena.

@mattbrowne Isn’t our perception of the deeper purpose of the universe a natural phenomena? I’m sure science will have a lot to say once we gain the wisdom to turn it more inward than outward.

@zophu ”...the wisdom to turn it more inward than outward”

the Kingdom of Heaven is in you

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies No true heaven has a king.

Is anarchy your heaven? Best I leave you to describe what heaven is like, rather than assuming that a headless horse will take us anywhere.

Otherwise I might be tempted to believe that you have pronounced yourself as king of your king-less heaven by claiming to know what the requirements of heaven should be.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies

Paradise is not a place.
Paradise is not a reward.
Paradise is not a state-of-mind.
It is a state-of-being.

It is harmony with nature, and that is a song that no one can sing alone. Make any choice, believe any thing, obey any one—nothing is guaranteed. Too much beauty has been lost because of that insanity—“it is your choice! believe or perish!” Too much beauty lost, most forgotten. It makes me sick. How many have been burned, broken and forgotten for the Kingdom of Heaven?

Everything that “is” is in me, but most everything is not. I need no codes, Reelyz. No God. I live with uncertainty. It is the only way to live. Ha! So many have given up on that; life is just a transition. Fools dependent upon certainty, already dead by their own perverse proclivity—hefted upon them by the fools that produced them, or stole them.

And we who live to live must die for your delusion, your essential disrespect for your very existence is a burden we must accept regardless of our choice. And so we wait patiently, watching you writhe simply because you are. We accept the poison you spew, the children you corrupt, the lives that you waste. We accept your foolishness, we see it for what it is. Insanity, tangible.

You’re subservient down to the core, a mutant product of generations under sociopathic rulers. You believe chaos is the only alternative to slavery! Ha! No one leads you! You’re confused! You’re just being left behind.

It all started with the invention of the chocolate martini. Everything went downhill from there.

@zophu – I’m talking about the meta phenomenon of having natural phenomena as such. Again, science cannot tell us everything. It can’t tell us about the ultimate origin of the natural laws and it can’t tell us anything about the purpose of having a universe in the first place. Or the meaning in the life of a human being. Yet science is able to tell us about evolution and how life develops and continues to develop. Science is wonderful, but not omnipotent.

@mattbrowne “Science is wonderful, but not omnipotent.” excellent line but does it follow that there is something omnipotent? I don’t see that we need that or if it is even desirable.

@mattbrowne I bet one day psychology and metaphysics will be one.

They call that Buddhism.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies +1 Good one!

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Science and Philosophy, one. What’s that called?

But does it follow that there is something omnipotent? No. Not in a scientific or first order logical sense. We don’t know whether there is something omnipotent. We can have faith there is, or we can have faith there isn’t and the origin of the natural laws is self explanatory even thought we might never learn of this type of explanation.

@zophu They call that Anthroposophy.

I call it Balderdash.

@mattbrowne I bet science can prove that there is omnipotence, and that the only omnipotence is Everything. Existence itself. But, what’s the point of that? I guess I’m being simplistic, or sane; or both. Or tired, or drunk; or both. whatever. . . Omnipotence can do whatever it wants with me and anything, everything. And if that’s the case, my wants are omnipotence’s wants and I’m omnipotent! Yeah, I don’t really see the point in believing in omnipotence as some sort of entity. So, I don’t see a point in trying to disprove it. Fuck! Now like all of my angst is pointless.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies that is balderdashy

@zophu – Goedel has already proved that mathematical omnipotence does not exist.

@mattbrowne If math began to calculate everything, I think math would break. I’m not sure you can disprove omnipotence with math, since you can’t actually calculate everything—since everything might be the only omnipotence. Did this Goedel guy use infinity in his work or something? That wouldn’t really be the same, would it?

@zophu – Yes, Goedel used infinity in his proof. Some people think the universe is a computer and the natural laws are its program. The question is who wrote the program (theist view)? Or did the program write itself (atheist view)?

@mattbrowne Isn’t it we who write the programs by perceiving them? The observer is the author, don’t you think? I feel in my creativity that it is more about discovery than creation, and I see that in others’ creativity.

Writing a program by perceiving it? That’s called plagiarism, or at best copying.

It’s not a bad hypothesis actually. But one must determine the transmitter and code mapping methodology in order to put any validity behind it. And then of course, one must admit that the cosmos is somehow speaking to humans.

The only actual standards we have to judge a perception on is other perceptions. I doubt we can perceive anything to be exactly what it is. That would mean that by perceiving something, we alter it, therefore creating something new. An imperfect copy, maybe.

————————————————————————————————————————-

“One must admit that the cosmos must speak to humans.” I’m trying to follow your way of thinking here. I think this is a good question for you:

If an entire people could no longer hear (or perceive sound in any way,) would the sounds they are accustomed to making with our vocals be speech? Even if it was directed towards other people with effort, would it still be speech if there was no way for it to be received?

The intention only plays a part in an intended action, it does not alone define it. So, even if the cosmos is intelligent and intends for us to “hear” it, it would not be “speaking” until it is “heard.” And if it wasn’t intelligent, it wouldn’t speak unless it was perceived to be speaking; but I guess that is beside the point.

Plagiarism is a legal/moral term, by the way. Not a scientific one. And copying isn’t an automatically negative thing. Besides, there may not be such a thing as a true copy even with codes as all things including codes are relative and are ultimately defined by that relativity which as far as I can tell can never be the same twice. The universe is constantly changing, I mean, so the relativity of anything is always different—this doesn’t matter when dealing with things on a daily basis (exact copies are everywhere!,) but when thinking existentially it does, I think.

“there may not be such a thing as a true copy even with codes as all things including codes are relative and are ultimately defined by that relativity which as far as I can tell can never be the same twice.”

____________________

“there may not be such a thing as a true copy even with codes as all things including codes are relative and are ultimately defined by that relativity which as far as I can tell can never be the same twice.”

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies The codes there are only the same if you choose not to see their relativity outside of either set of quotation marks. And left and right are the same if I choose never to turn. But then, that’s the whole point of codes isn’t it? To not see beyond certain, practical points. That’s what makes them so useful. They limit things down to units that can be moved around to make things. But can they make everything? Wouldn’t that be annoying? Discovering that creation is not the action of thought alone, but the participation of thought with chaos. The heartbeat jitters in a painter’s stroke, thoughts clashing to form actions unthought—useful jitters, useful actions; but unintentional and unreflected upon. Code improves the odds of things working, but they are not all that works—they’re just mostly what works. Accidents benefit life, not as frequently as codes do naturally, but they do sometimes benefit.

What I’ve been unable to competently argue with you about is your use of “code” in your existential views. Code is relative to existence—but so is everything else. It seems like you’re giving it too much weight, or you’re giving something too much weight.

Sure accidents happen. But in reference to the OP, I have little faith that they can create. Accidents (entropy) can only decay creation. Who will claim the mudslide created a slope? Certainly not the mudslide. Certainly not the slope. The existentialist in you should clearly understand that there is no mudslide, nor a slope until the existentialist comes to name them as such. Will he then deny his authority to name them by claiming they were created? Me thinks no.

By definition, the existentialist observes and names phenomenon to suit his fancies. Let’s call it Bob. Does the mudslide care? Have we insulted the slope? No. Bob was created by the existentialist. Creation is a sentient endeavor.

Good point. Maybe sentient creation is only dependent upon reflection upon accidents and not the accidents themselves, like you’ve said.