Talk:Faith
From Academic Kids
My sentences are logical. I'm sorry D Clayworth finds logic inflammatory.Barbara Shack 16:00, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Larry, this text is much improved. If you don't mind I'll change the essay, so that the existential view of religious faith is not the only one presented.
I'd also like to re-write the definition of fideism, to include a more philosophically defensible view, which is actually held by some Christian philosophers...
Fideism, on this account, is simply the claim that "faith" includes beliefs which are either above, beyond, or against reason. The difference between radical fediesm, and moderate fediesm is that the moderate fediest qualifies reason in various ways. If you are amenable, I'll develop this more, and dig up the sources necessary to attribute this to the relevant philosophers... MRC
No problems, Mark. This is definitely not my area. --Larry
- In many situations in life, there is a large body of circumstantial evidence supporting a given point of view, without actually having concrete proof, and faith can often play the deciding role in the acceptance or non-acceptance of such a point of view.
I removed this, not because I think it definitely shouldn't be in the article, but for the following reasons. I am skeptical that "faith" is the correct term to apply in such a situation. I'm not sure what the force of the claim is that "faith can often play the deciding role" in situations where the evidence is inconclusive. Is it a statistical claim about human psychology, viz., that when evidence is inconclusive, some people just leap to one position or another based on "faith"? Or is it a semantic claim, saying that the sorts of belief just described really ought to be called "faith"? Or is it, perhaps, an epistemological claim, saying that it's OK to leap to one position when the evidence is inconclusive (since everybody does it, presumably)? Moreover, however exactly it is to be understood, is this just a statement of personal opinion? As far as I know, the other views mentioned in the article (at least, when properly clarified) can find supporters among theologians and philosophers. And, for all I know, the above too can find such supporters. So, if you put the claim back into the article, it would be nice to see a source for it.
I am not (really!) trying to start a debate here. I am just trying to explain my reasoning. Feel free to put it back. --LMS
- I don't much like that statement either--it doesn't really say much, and what it does say is wrong. I, personally, don't have much use for faith of any kind, even in "reason" or "science"--I consider every decision I make at every point in my life a gamble. Indeed, that's what "life" is to me--dead things are predictable, life is about taking chances. I certainly seek to find the best odds, and I make commitments to one proposition or another. I've decided to put my money on a certain horse like "science" rather than "mysticism", I think I have good reasons for making that choice, and I'm willing to face the consequences of that choice, but that doesn't mean I have anything like "faith" in it. --LDC
Perhaps it needs revision based on the neutral point of view idea. I know people who tell me that, given circumstantial evidence, they make a final decision based on faith in some belief one way or the other. I can see there being plenty of philosophical discussions on such an action, and I won't pretend to be a theologian. Does such a statement need to have the endorsement of a recognized philosopher to be included in the article, or can it be preceded with "many people think...". I don't think it is an uncommon point of view. --Alan Millar
As far as I'm concerned, when some view on an abstract religious topic isn't endorsed by an actual theologian or philosopher, it might bear mention, but only as a matter of anthropological interest. Actually, I'll bet you can find a representative for your view here, but I'm not sure. --LMS
- "It is known that faith in one's abilities, particularly logic and language, is an unsupported logical prerequisite to any skeptical or critical action. Thus, at least this limited form of faith must be accepted by any skeptic, or the skeptic must admit that the skepticism is without substance."
- I found this statement out of place. The contention that "this limited form of faith must be accepted by any skeptic" is anything but neutral.
- the author of this paragraph assumes an argumentative tone, which is not suited for an informational article
- there is no reference to groups or individuals who hold this belief, other than the author
- there is a complete absence of a balancing perspective
- The phrase "it is known" implies knowledge, yet there is no reference to academic research or other supporting evidence. Perhaps with changed wording the point the author was trying to make would be more clear.
- After the reference to Kierkegaard, the long section added under the title "The definition of faith in Scriptures" has the tone of a sermon rather than an encyclopedia article. Distinguishing between quotes, paraphrases, and explanations is no longer possible because the references to Biblical passages may refer to the most recent sentence, or possibly the previous two sentences, or . . . well, it's difficult to tell.
- It is understandable that elaboration of this topic is of particular interest to the religious, but in my opinion the bulk of this article is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. There is little point in arguing whether the inclusion of several kilobytes of quotes should be deleted or severely cut back since the contributor may well add them back. With all respect, I fear that most readers will be discouraged by both the length of the article and its tone, and those who might otherwise be interested in the history of religious faith will look elsewhere for a balanced view. --Rethunk
This article should be renamed Faith in Christianity. Since faith in general is a philosophical discussion of its own. Faith in general simply is unquestioning trust transcending empirical knowledge. This definition applies to all uses of the term, however Christians, Jews, Hindus, Scientologists, Buddists, Confucists, Mormons, Agnostics, Atheists, Humanists, Scientists, all have different spins and additions based on their particular lifestyle and philosophy. When I wrote my entry I was trying to focus on an objective discussion of the common elements of what faith is an how it influences acceptance of religious theologies in place of concrete ignorance. --Jonathan--
But the present article isn't just about faith in Christianity; it is a philosophical introduction to the concept, inevitably informed Christian examples of theories of faith because that's what most of us are familiar with. Anyway, details about faith in other religions are more than appropriate. Why not? The notion that faith "transcends empirical knowledge" is not particularly clear and sounds like your theory about what faith is, not an uncontroversial starting-point that can be used to identify various theories about what faith is.
This is not at all to say that an article called faith in Christianity would be inappropriate--we definitely should have one, eventually. --LMS
Perhaps Faith in Religion would be best if a sufficiently broad spectrum were to be represented (this seems to be the way you are leaning). Obviously my baseline position is simply observing the difference between operating knowledge which is scientifically derived and operating assumptions otherwise derived. Commonly the latter case would be accepted as faith whether or not it was religiously related and the former is thus distinguished from faith. I'm not sure that I understand the sticking point. --Jonathan--
Now that you have heard our views, I recommend that you change the article, if you think it's incorrect; if necessary, I will change it back explaining what I think is incorrect. I'm interested in discussion on this page only insofar as it results in improvement to the main page. From what I've heard from you so far, however, I really don't think you have studied the concept of faith very much. --LMS
I would have described "faith" in much the same way you do if asked to scribe an entry 25 years ago as I first started studying the philosophy of religion. After years of study and anguishing thought I realized that faith and religion have some simple commonalities which became the clearly defining distinctions from what those things were not. What is faith? That without fact is the simple answer. However it is apparent that those with "Faith" are more interested in the nature of the particular ideas making up that "Faith" than simply defining "faith". Since my intent was only to provide insight, and not to irritate, I will abdicate from my failure to communicate. --Jonathan-- :-/
I do think that some religious folks believe based upon evidence (sometimes a'priori arguments, and sometime empirical evidence) and I'm pretty sure they don't constitute an extremist minority. The belief that faith should not or cannot be based on evidence finds no place in Christian thought before the twentieth century, and even thin it has become popular only in industrialized countries, so it is certainly not the majority opinion amongst Christians. My knowledge of Jewish and Islamic thought seems to indicate that many practitioners of these faiths are willing to provide evidence for their beliefs, so I think the definition of faith as belief without evidence is not as broad as you seem to think. At the very least it does not apply universally across the monotheistic religions.
However, it is a popular view amongst pantheists, as well as certain groups of Christians who express an extreme form of fideism. I believe that some modern Jewish existentialists would also fit quite easily into this camp, so the view should certainly be included with a thorough explanation of it's historical context and some documentation of its proponents. However, it should be clearly defined, and clearly delineated from other contemporary views of the meaning of faith. MRC
Well put, however, I guess my definition of empirical evidence is simply too stringent to be compatible with that which has, and is, been used as a basis for "Faith" or more generally "faith". After all a drought is clear empirical evidence of an angry god. --Jonathan--
The content for Faith, as mentioned by others, should be moved to a Christian oriented article. Faith is common and central to all religions. Buddhist myself, faith is saddha (conviction). I was going to contribute but there is no room? Usedbook 21:03 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
- As I understand what's discussed above, the article ought to aim toward becoming more general and inclusive. Its present state is just a stage of development. Mkmcconn 21:09 May 14, 2003 (UTC)
The current version is vastly superior to the mess that preceded it. However, the subsection within the Protestant view titled "Faith is a kind of knowledge" still attempts to equate "faith" with "reason". The reference to John 10:38 makes no sense to me in that vein, and the other reference uses the translation "believe" or "belief" instead of "faith" in both the NET Bible and the KJV. "Belief" can refer to either faith or reason, so I'll leave it to the Greek scholars to disambiguate, but in either case the idea the faith is based on knowledge does not seem to follow. Even if that interpretation can somehow be justified from the text, no book is completely reliable and that one is particularly flawed. "Faith" is essentially an antonym of both "reason" and "knowledge" and no maneuver to obfuscate that relationship can be allowed. Fairandbalanced 8/17
| Contents |
Reorganize or rewrite
- Jews, Christians and Muslims hold that there is adequate historical evidence of God's existence and interaction with human beings
- Many use the term faith as a way of affirming a belief in an idea for which one has no evidence. Most modern Jews, Chrisitans and Muslims would admit that they do not possess evidence that God exists, yet for a variety of reason they still believe in God.
The second statement is nonsense in light of the first, and in my opinion the second statement is as irresponsible as the first one is irrelevant. This is just one example of the quagmire in which this article is entrenched. It's another of those articles, of which there are many on Wikipedia, that pretends to be about a topic but is actually only the transcript of an argument between atheists and fundamentalist Christians. If all articles here followed this pattern, I am persuaded that Wikipedia would not be worth the investment of time to read, let alone to edit. Mkmcconn 20:07, 9 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- I don't think that it is nonsense. Rather, the problem is that people are using the same word ("faith") to mean two different things. This fact used to be more explicit within the article, but recent edits have mucked things up again. This isn't a bad article; it just needs some clear organization, and a recognition by all editors that people are using the same word in different ways. See the article on revelation for a good example of disambiguating how different religious believers use the same word. RK 23:59, 10 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- I don't know how to account for the difference in opinion, here, RK. I don't see any forthright way to reconcile the statements
- a = Jews, Christians and Muslims hold that there is sufficient evidence ...
- b = Most Jews, Christians and Muslims admit that they do not possess evidence ...
- Oh, that kind of thing? That is an inconsistency, due to the typical "too many chefs" phenomenon. We simply should edit the article to remove this kind of logical error. Be bold in updating pages! RK
- The article seems to have two sub-arguments sustained throughout. 1) A discussion of the problem of belief predominates, going back and forth on the subject of whether belief rests on evidences. 2 ) Second, there is a not very convincing effort to avoid the identification of faith with belief, by denying (for example) that the Old Testament concept of faith implies any notion of trust in God as the source of truth, through Scriptures or doctrines. The article is vague and evasive throughout: even the sermonic Christian portion, while detailed, rests on a very unlikely, and rather uncommon rendering of Hebrews 11. None of it rings true. Mkmcconn 18:35, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- I see what you mean. Let's take a whack at things thing. RK 22:13, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Your revisions at least make the article less exhausting to read. I'll let it rest for a while, and see how it reads with a fresh start. Thank you, RK. Mkmcconn 22:36, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I rewrote the introductory section, to make it more inclusive of the spectrum of views as I understand them. The previous version was somewhat alien to me, so I was unsure how to incorporate the existing material. I had particular trouble reconciling sentences that began "Most ... believe", "Some ... believe". I didn't know what the frame of reference was, for these statements. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are not contentless, vague "belief" that "God exists". "Faith" in these religions incorporates specific content, versions of history and ways of life. What it means, in that light, that "most ... admit that they believe without evidence" is beyond me. If what is meant, is that there is a difference between the conclusions of scientific, experimental proof, and religious belief, then the article should simply say this (which I tried to do). Since I couldn't fully understand the previous version, I expect (and welcome) a revision of my re-write. Mkmcconn 19:20, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Some content has been moved to Forty-nine charismatic virtues. Peter Manchester 13:20, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Faith (NPOV definition)
Faith, in its most neutral connotation, is the trust placed in a conviction of (or confidence in) a truth founded upon evidence.
For example, one may be thoroughly convinced that there are penguins in Anartica, not based upon the first hand experience of actually seeing them there, but based upon other evidence (written accounts, testamonials, pictures, etc.) that penguins inhabit Anartica. Thus, if a person should say, "I am convinced that there are penguins in Anartica," it cannot be concluded (absolutely) from the statement that it is a statement of faith, for it may well be that the person making the statement has acutally been to Anartica and observed penguins living there. However, being "convinced" something is true is not quite the same as "knowing" something is true, and perhaps, "believing" something is true connotes something less than being "convinced" something is true.
The fact is, faith is directly related to evidence. Faith must be founded on evidence to be connoted as such. For example, one may say, "I have faith that carrying a rabbit's foot will bring me good luck." However, without evidence that such is actually the case, such "faith" could properly be called "superstition." The fact that such a one might actually carry a rabbit's foot in the hope of having good luck has no bearing on the validity of the hope.
The act of "believing" is not properly faith either. One can believe that the moon is made of cheese, but that does not make it so. One could even act upon that belief by making a journey to the moon without food "believing" that they could eat the cheese of which it is made when they got there.
It is probably safe to say that nothing can be known to "absolute" certainty. Thus, to some extent "knowing" anything involves some element of faith. Thus, if one sould say, "I know the sun will rise tomorrow." That "knowing" has within it some element of faith. Since the rising of the sun has occured without fail for many trials, the weight of the evidence provides a strong possibility that the sun will, in fact, rise tomorrow. Thus, the greater the body of non-contradictory evidence upon which faith is based is the measure of the strength of the conviction.
In summary, one can believe (or be convinced or convicted) that there are penguins in Anartica based on a body of evidence, but that alone would not be faith. Faith involves placing one's trust in that convicition based on evidence. Thus, if one should say, "I believe that there are penguins in Anartica, and that I would see them if I went there." would properly connote faith.
BroLeeLove
Rubbish. Faith is believing without evidence, or completely against evidence. Reason -- deductive or inductive -- is based on evidence. Faith and reason are not the same thing. Period!!!!!!!!
There are penguins in Antarctica. I have been visited them. At least a great deal of evidence indicated I was there and that they were penguins. I never had a scintilla of faith in it, but I was convinced by the evidence. The difference between absolute proof and available evidence is doubt. The arbitrary elimination of doubt is either "faith" or "madness", depending on how much harm it does and the social status of the believer. Fairandbalanced 01:38, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Well, if we are going to talk about faith in a NPoV way, we must be willing to accept that there are many conceptions of faith out there. Some (mostly Atheists in my experience) do take Fairandbalanced's stance that faith is believing what you know ain't true, i.e. faith and reason are incompatible. Others argue like BroLeeLove, saying that faith is based on evidence. Others will define it differently. I would say something similar to BroLeeLove, that faith is the basis for reason.
- Using the penguin example, Fairandbalanced says he's been to Antarctica and has seen penguins there. But can he answer the question, "Are there penguins in Antarctica?" with absolute, 100% certainty? Only if he is in Antarctica, looking at a penguin with his own eyes as he answers the question. He can't know for sure otherwise, he would only be inferring from his previous visit and other bits of info he picks up along the way if he says that indeed, there are still penguins in Antarctica. This is not to deny that he has sound, logical reasons for making this inference, in fact he does have quite an array of evidence ranging from the reports of experts and his own experience. I merely point out that this inference, while rational, relies on knowledge he does not have and could not have unless he was a god. For all he knows, I went over to Antarctica and evicted every last penguin, and so there were no penguins in Antarctica. (David Hume would give one a lot to think about when it comes to induction!)
- My point is that to remain fair, we should keep a balanced, NPOV by not simply calling other's conceptions of faith ‘rubbish’. I personally feel that Fairandbalanced's definition of faith is 'rubbish,' but name calling and merely asserting a definition of faith all must henceforth use helps no one. I personally would rather learn how others define faith and try to see where they are coming from, find where I personally agree and disagree with their definitions, and so grow in knowledge and understanding. It doesn’t seem like it would be helpful to anyone, least of all me, to immediately reject anything I personally disagree with.
- OracleofTroy
"Faith means believing that everyone else is wrong". A brief reading of this article shows that this is a long way from everyone's interpretation of faith. It's also inflammatory. DJ Clayworth 15:45, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- And inaccurate and overly-broad. Niteowlneils 16:22, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Removal of ugly but correct editing by Barbara Shack and Andries
I have removed the following sentences which I think are ugly but correct. "Even though the existence of an altered state of consciousness acquired by intense sadhana (spiritual excercises) is undisputed, the concept of moksha is an unproven supposition rejected by atheists and freethinkers and most non-Hindus alike." We don't need to say over and over again that a concept is controversial. Just stating that a concept is Hindu (or Christian, or Muslim) is enough to let the reader know that a concept is controversial. Andries 11:17, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Faith and identity
Shouldn't we state that a person's identity depends to some extent on a person's faith? For some people this is a very important aspect of a their identities. This should be stated in the article. Done Andries 11:17, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Cleanup
This article needs a thorough cleanup. For example:
- Translation of "faith" to Hebrew is wrong - emet means "truth", not "faith".
- The process of obtaining faith is called conversion. This is the strangest definition of conversion I have ever read.
- The section on "loss of faith" seems worthy, but its contents are encyclopedically implausible.
- The See also section needs to be looked into as well
- Faith in other religions are missing (Islam, Hinduism, Budhism, as a minimmum)
- The book references are wrongly formatted and information missing.
--Zappaz 22:29, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Zappaz, I agree that the contents is not good but please do not remove section headers so others will know what to write and where to expand. This is standard practice. Andries 23:08, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Zappaz, can you write down what the relationship is between conversion and faith? There is clearly a strong relationship, which should be stated in the article. Andries 07:17, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I will get to this in week or two. This article needs cleanup and tuneup. --Zappaz 15:06, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Eduardo, What is the difference between faith, hope, and believe not contextually but deriving from its nature?
