Faith vs. Logic

[zarc]

I hate that I finally passed out asleep just as the discussion began full flow. Time to play now that I'm semi-awake.

Kind of like there's a possibility that god could exist but it's yet to be proven?

You didn't quote me and it confused me at first. Ha. You nearly made me think Kiddo was I! Anyhoo, I pretty much said that (I think you were playing with me!! Wooo!) The problem is the tools don't exist to prove it. And no one is creating the tools to prove it because it's not currently possible and most people just take that as a given. Maybe it is possible but people aren't trying to because there is the big Threat that god doesn't exist or at least as defined by most religious people. Scary! People are so trapped by their faith, they refuse to so much as try or it's not the point to try. Just have faith. Right err. But hey, what works for them, let it work... I won't begrudge a person their faith. I just don't like the people who aren't open that they could be wrong. I said the same for atheists who aren't open that they could be wrong too. The moment we restrict ourselves by limiting our options, we become boxed by them. This coming from a Dom Ni, ya--N i know. It's fine to limit initially to make that choice but to remain open that you can change it should you be found wrong or suspect you're wrong. Or people tell you that you're wrong, Heaven forbid! As I said, I'm open to the possibility even though I wouldn't define 'god' the way most people would. So, no more taking it as a given for those who'd take it as so. Give me, give me.. or not.

If science has any inherent "faith", it's only the radical assumption that reality exists and is coherent. The rest is entirely logic, and everything from that is completely non-contradictory.

Really, I don't think that's so radical, myself. Some people may point out the problem of induction, the problem of where the axioms come from, etc. but unless you're willing to accept total and irrecoverable nihilism, you have to start somewhere.

It's not radical to you now but, hey, if you existed during Galielo's time... Radical at first until it cannot be denied any longer due to evidence. And maybe hundreds of years until you're pardoned for that radical thought. Imagine this!!

That exists in an alternate reality, Ni told me so!!! Thank you, for our reality's, Father Galileo!

And if anyone wants to attempt to transcend my "faith" in the laws of gravity right off the top of a building, be my guest.

But I'm guessing no one will, and I do think that's indicative of some implicit and intuitive knowledge we have that reality is, you know, real.

nemo! Drats, man. You didn't see me that one time?! I'll try it again. Next time, wake up. Reality is, you know Ni, relative.

And what no one seems to be mentioning is that science freakin' works. Even with bizarre things we definitely don't understand well -- for instance, quantum mechanics predicts phenomena so accurately that it is literally on the scale as if one accurately measured the distance across the United States to within the width of one human hair.

That's pretty cool, if you ask me.

I think someone mentioned it before but I can't be certain. I mean.. I have faith it was written but I can't find it.... W/e. Stupid Si-- I think it was nightning. Science works until another scientist, or a group of them, happily comes along and disproves a system or idea in order to supplant it with another. It worked in the past but not currently. Or it may not have been entirely disproven, it just becomes enhanced by new theories and new evidence. Ta da!

What I'd really really really like to know is... why have I never been able to access "?"'s profile???!!! I'm beginning to suspect s/he is God/dess!!!

Excuse, me. Time to jump off another building. You're all invited to watch. nemo gets a front view, though. His Ni told me not to tell him.

 

[faith]

... ilfaithical...

 

[Night]

You humans sure are strange...

 

[zarc]

Rhetorical question: Which of these statements make sense?

You're so silly! My dad hates The Rhetorical. I sense it's time to play with you and all who watch us me!

(1) "x has faith" or "x has logic"?

X has Y-- This is why XX suffers...

(2) "x has faith in logic" or "x has logic in faith"?

Most XX have faith in XY. This is why most XY have no faith in all XX but logically use most XX.. This how some XX logically use all XY.. but nothing beats XXX.. So far...

(3) "an invalid argument is illogical" or "an invalid argument is ilfaithical"?

Ilfaithical isn't a word, silly. An invalid argument is disbelieved. Or unbelieved. Or... I wanna say skepticized but I have to Pop Vocab it first =/ You could do the same with ilfaithical!!! But my word is better and probably catch on whereas you will be caught by Believers! Hide nocturne, hide from the diurnal sounds and binaural beatings!

(4) "logic is concerned with the validity of formulas" or "faith is concerned with the validity of formulas"?

Logic is unconcerned with the invalidity of belief and Faith is unconcerned with the invalidity of belief (or Faith should be )

(5) "an argument is logical if the conclusion follows from the premises" or "an argument is faithical if the conclusion follows from the premises"?

Ah erm.. Faithical is logical if nocturne believes this word exists for him and him alone.

(6) "x has a strong faith" or "x has a strong logic"?

I've got one hand to keep both in my pocket and the other one's used to take'em out and put'em in the other pocket when I have to separate'em most of the time (Gotta Keep'em Separated! HEYAY!). Faith likes to bark at Logic and Logic likes to bite back at Faith...but I like watchin'em play when I take'em out, even if I have to do time for them!

I Feel drunk but I Look sober. I Feel sober but I Look drunk. I unconsciously use Faith and Logic interchangebly during both times-- or I consciously use'em without meaning to or I meant hat I put on... Ni don't know which one I am right now =/ I do

(7) "x has faith in The Bible" or "x has logic in The Bible"?

Which "The Bible"? The original copied stories bound together after numerous years of floating around a desert of time within a group of dehydrated minds? The thousands of altered editions of thousands of altered translations of "The Bible" which were copied stories bound together after.........within a group's imagination dehydrated mind?

(8) "the sunday service was a gathering of the faithful" or "the sunday service was a gathering of the logicful"?

The Sunday Service was a gathering of the logical. And they'd logically not show up...

*throws up hands* At least apples and oranges are both fruit...

*grabs hands and throws'em around* Apples and oranges are both fruit because they are defined as fruit.

That was SO MUCH fun! It nearly woke me up! And will likely logically or faithfully confirm to most people here that I am crazy! Crazy of mind or crazy at heart or both! And Edahn might give me another neg rep to playfully spite me for my use of emoticons which I've been trying to use to get rid of my fear of them...

There's faith but where's logic? And why is it that logic is never happy until there's a reason to be so? Or after logic has a one minute hit of faith and then goes on and on hitting and missing its point until its satisfied in the end and thinks faith is too...until its proven incorrect and then it begins over and... Y is always after X until it tires of X! Oh noes! That resultS in Evil X-ing out of errors!

 

[Nocapszy]

Science can't disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns on Mars, either. But in science, absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Damn right. The nice thing about scientists is, if we see something that doesn't fit the previously collected evidence, we'll change our conclusions. Science is designed to be flexible. Unless you're practicing bad science. Faith is not flexible.

I don't think the fact that something can't be disproved is any reason to believe in it. Why would you believe in invisible pink unicorns living on Mars?

The bible said to.
See 27:11

I like even standards, personally.

And if anyone claims to be able to perceive the existence of God without others being able to replicate their results, science will just take the standpoint that their experiences are the result of the known cognitive irregularities of human intelligence, and not the result of some unknown transcendental being's super-intelligence.

Nemo wins.

 

[Night]

I would argue that logic deals with the intangible. Logic is the study of formal languages, transformation rules, consistency, completeness, argument, validity, etc. It does not concern the study of tangible objects in the universe, such as air, water or stones, but what does or does not follow from particular statements or propositions, irrespective of the facts. (The semantic interpretation of a set of symbols of a language need not even concern truth and falsity, for example).

Our points align.

 

[Wandering]

Faith is not flexible.

Yes it is. Blind faith may not be, but faith is.

 

[zarc]

Yes it is. Blind faith may not be, but faith is.

keke I wanted to say it but didn't want to get bitten by an undercover Noc... One line I was going to say, "...unless you're practicing bad faith." But blind works too. <--closed eyes but still happy like the people who are blinded by faith. It's sometimes fun/ny to watch..until they try to bite you..with their collectively big chompers...which makes us all a bit of losers because we all then try to champ but usually chump out..

Back to sleep I go, I fear I've become to corny playful for my own good. Night, Night.

 

[Nocapszy]

Yes it is. Blind faith may not be, but faith is.

No, it isn't. If you change your belief, then you didn't have faith in that belief.

Do you own a dictionary?

 

[Electric]

Have you actually *tried* faith ? And I mean REALLY tried, not just "looked at it from afar", or "considered intellectually"?

FYI I used to be a Buddhist and actually deeply believed in nirvana. Now, I'm more of an evolutionist guy.

 

[Night]

FYI I used to be a Buddhist and actually deeply believed in nirvana. Now, I'm more of an evolutionist guy.

Buddhism is evolution.



Nice to see you again, Electric - from INTPc?

 

[Wandering]

No, it isn't. If you change your belief, then you didn't have faith in that belief.

Do you own a dictionary?

Nowhere in any of the definitions that I have read does it say that faith in something can never change. You can perfectly have faith in something today, and not tomorrow. Nothing in the definition of faith precludes that.

Please show me a definition of faith that says it cannot change.

 

[Wandering]

FYI I used to be a Buddhist and actually deeply believed in nirvana.

And yet you would describe this "deep belief" as "fluffy marshmallows" ?

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

If I:

1- perceive the possible existence of "God"

2- decide to experiment on the basis that my perception might be true

3- repeatedly obtain the same result to the same experiment

4- conclude that there must be something to my perception of "God"

Which one am I using? Faith or logic?

If your experiment in (2) uses sound logic, then there's no need to interject faith. You're not in the realm of science.

 

[Nocapszy]

Nowhere in any of the definitions that I have read does it say that faith in something can never change. You can perfectly have faith in something today, and not tomorrow. Nothing in the definition of faith precludes that.

Please show me a definition of faith that says it cannot change.

The word "change" don't have to be in the definition for it to be an inherent part of the meaning of the word.

faith |fāθ|
noun
1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something

If you trust something confidently and completely, then it won't change, otherwise, you didn't really trust it completely and confidently. There was some wiggle room.

QED: faith is rigid.

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Science can't disprove the existence of invisible pink unicorns on Mars, either. But in science, absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

I would disagree with that, and say that your conclusion is illogical. Absence of evidence is exactly what it means; when there is no evidence, there are no affirmative conclusions to draw. Does the fact that short-tailed albatross haven't been seen in California in 20 years mean they've gone extinct? Absolutely not. It just means what it says: that no one has seen them yet. Will they ever see them? Who knows. Should you believe that they are really there now? No.

 

[Wandering]

If your experiment in (2) uses sound logic, then there's no need to interject faith. You're not in the realm of science.

What do you mean exactly?

***

If you trust something confidently and completely, then it won't change, otherwise, you didn't really trust it completely and confidently. There was some wiggle room.

QED: faith is rigid.

Little kids have absolute faith in their parents, ie they trust them confidently and completely. Do you still have faith in your parents?

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

What do you mean exactly?

You have a theory that god exists. You design an experiment based on that hypothesis, that tests the merits of your theory. Assuming the experiment is well-designed, why would you need faith?

Compare it to an experiment to test the absolute speed of light. You design an experiment to test that theory. If your experiment is sound, then you've proven that the speed of light is absolute. Do you still need to have faith that the speed of light is absolute? No.

 

[Wandering]

You have a theory that god exists. You design an experiment based on that hypothesis, that tests the merits of your theory. Assuming the experiment is well-designed, why would you need faith?

Ah, I see.

The problem is that my experiment was not aimed at determining whether God exists or not. That's not what it tests. So that's not what it ends up "proving".

To use your speed of light analogy: it would be more something like: "if the speed of light is absolute, then this (whatever it is) must be true." And you then design an experiment to test for "this". Should the experiment be successful, you will have proved "this". But you still won't be able to argue that the speed of light is necessarily absolute, because A implies B does not imply that B implies A. However, you will have significantly reinforced the probability that the speed of light is indeed absolute.

That's why my last step was to "conclude that there must be something to my perception of "God"". I didn't say "conclude that God exists", because that's not what the experiment "proved".

 

[ThatsWhatHeSaid]

Ah, I see.

The problem is that my experiment was not aimed at determining whether God exists or not. That's not what it tests. So that's not what it ends up "proving".

To use your speed of light analogy: it would be more something like: "if the speed of light is absolute, then this (whatever it is) must be true." And you then design an experiment to test for "this". Should the experiment be successful, you will have proved "this". But you still won't be able to argue that the speed of light is necessarily absolute, because A implies B does not imply that B implies A. However, you will have significantly reinforced the probability that the speed of light is indeed absolute.

That's why my last step was to "conclude that there must be something to my perception of "God"". I didn't say "conclude that God exists", because that's not what the experiment "proved".

Oh I see. In that case, why would it prove that "there's something to your perception" ? If it rain, I get wet. If I'm wet, does that mean it rained? Maybe I was in the shower. (With a girl!)