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Define Faith...
I define faith as believing in something that is obviously false. Belief in something that is clearly impossible, untrue, a lie.
"In spite of the fact that George drank every day for 17 years, Jan had faith that he would stop today."
"faith of a mustard seed you can command a mountain to move"
Faith is belief in the ridiculous, the stupid, the invisible, the unproven, the impossible. Faith is identical to delusion.
It does not take faith to belief in things like scientific theories, because they are obviously true. They come with evidence. Faith is belief that the world is 6000 years old in spite of overwhelming physical, falsifiable evidence to the contrary.
How do you define faith?
"In spite of the fact that George drank every day for 17 years, Jan had faith that he would stop today."
"faith of a mustard seed you can command a mountain to move"
Faith is belief in the ridiculous, the stupid, the invisible, the unproven, the impossible. Faith is identical to delusion.
It does not take faith to belief in things like scientific theories, because they are obviously true. They come with evidence. Faith is belief that the world is 6000 years old in spite of overwhelming physical, falsifiable evidence to the contrary.
How do you define faith?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lorryslorrys on -
Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faith
Yep, that's it.
I know I'm being an arsehole, but if you're anything like me you have become allergic to sincerity, I hope you understand.
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Permalink Reply by ryan cameron on -
I do not detect arseholeishness, and I think your definition technically is the same as mine. Agreed?
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Permalink Reply by Lorryslorrys on
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yeah, for sure.
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Permalink Reply by Asa Watcher on -
The Nerd wrote:
***”I have faith that the bus will come at the scheduled time,”
Is it really “faith” that you are engaging here?
After all, having looked at a schedule, you have certain “expectations”, perhaps even a “hope” that the bus will be reasonably close to its scheduled time of arrival. That, and I am presuming that you are at a bus stop, which, at least causes you to think or assume that a bus stops there in the first place.
I think there are a lot of other words that can better explain why you are waiting at a bus stop, for a bus to arrive, at a scheduled time.
I don’t think you are exercising faith.
Rather, lets just say you are applying “the judgment of The Nerd”.
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Permalink Reply by Asa Watcher on
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The Nerd:
***"How about let's have faith that the dictionary knows what it's defining. ;)"
How about we here on Atheist Nexus make some decisions for ourselves, rather than dictionary writers who make every attempt to define words in their broadest, and all inclusive meanings.
I'm going with ryan cameron:
***"Full disclosure this comes from a recurring theme I am encountering at A/N where people state that "it takes as much faith to hold a belief in science as it does in religion". I am of the opinion that is incorrect."
I don't believe Darwin to be right because I have "faith in Darwin".
I don't hold to my belief that the sun will come up tomorrow because I have "faith that the sun will come up".
I have 3 billion years of history and an understanding of how planets move around the sun.
Faith has nothing to do with it.
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Permalink Reply by Asa Watcher on
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There are NO busses where I live.
It would be a total act of faith for me to go to a corner and wait for one.
***"Faith has nothing to do with it."
***"It does when the bus isn't always on time."
But you know, do you not, that the bus isn't always on time?
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Permalink Reply by Asa Watcher on
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The Nerd observes:
***”It almost seems as if you have an all-or-nothing view of what "faith" is.”
Well, duh, yes.
Faith is something you have, or you don’t have.
It IS an all or nothing proposition.
There is no middle ground.
No “beautiful shades of gray”.
You either have faith in the existence of god
or
You don’t.
That is the essence of “FAITH”.
Why is this simple concept so difficult for so many to understand? -
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Permalink Reply by Dave Rogers on -
Although I have no proof in the following, which is the very definition of faith, I believe the Atheist Dictionary Police will forever consume vast amounts of server space in their defense of defining any and all terms in their quest to bring purity to the "movement" and root out those who wish to define terms using any standard dictionary.
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Permalink Reply by ryan cameron on
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Full disclosure this comes from a recurring theme I am encountering at A/N where people state that "it takes as much faith to hold a belief in science as it does in religion". I am of the opinion that is incorrect.
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Permalink Reply by Lorryslorrys on
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Tell them when you use science, it works.
It's seen as progressive in philosophy these days (phhh) to try to tear down other disciplines while not learning very much about them and reduce any way of understanding the universe to rubble. This has obvious filtered to these people, but I think the following is good enough to base life decisions in the real world: http://xkcd.com/54/
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Permalink Reply by Asa Watcher on
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ryan;
I believe you are of the correct opinion.
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Permalink Reply by Lorryslorrys on
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The woolliness of language makes it very different to tell different types of 'faith' from 'trust' or each other etc. It's the price we pay for not sounding like lawyers.
What Ryan meant, was define faith based on the context of the definition I have already given. Good god, this is pointless.
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