Before we attempt to tackle this question, we must first establish the definition of 'Faith' and 'Virtue', so as to know what it is that we are implying. The Oxford English Dictionary defines 'Faith' as;
“Complete trust in someone or something”
Or
“Strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof”
Now we look at 'Virtue';
“A quality considered morally good, or desirable in a person”
________
As you are well aware, in common, everyday language, the word Faith is thrown around a fair bit, so I will address this, before moving on to 'Faith' in it's latter sense and it's questionable 'Virtue'.
Let's take the fairly common sentiment “you can do it, I have Faith in you”. By our previous definition, you would actually mean you, 'trust this person will succeed'. Now let us say that we have a friend called 'John', John has entered a swimming tournament and hopes he will win. The only trouble is, John swims like an anvil. Sincerely wanting John to win, but knowing, based on previous evidence that there is almost no chance he will win, we boost his confidence by playing the 'Faith' card in hopes that he will.
In almost every way that we use the word 'Faith', what we mean is that we Trust, or Believe in this person or thing. Many times, we do this not realising that we are confusing for example, 'Sincere hope for the success of the person/persons in question', with 'unsubstantiated Faith claims of their success'. But all is well and good, day to day misapplication of words are not what I am here to write about.
Now what of 'Religious' Faith, surely that is a virtue? Surely the scores of 'faithful' prostrating before who they 'believe' is the one and only almighty god, is an act of piousness which has no equal within the ranks of human virtue?
On the contrary. What religion demands of the faithful, is an utterly firm, unwavering, unquestionable level of 'Faith'. Faith not only makes no requirements for proof, but rather, it impedes it, it thrives in spite of it, insisting and depending on the 'Credulity' and 'Gullibility' of people, it flourishes in the minds of 'believers', with an almost childlike arrogance worn like a badge of honour on the chest of ignorance. Attached to it, is years of emotional baggage, making it all the more difficult to let go in the face of glaring evidence to the contrary.
Having previously defined 'Virtue' as “A quality considered morally good, or desirable in a person”, one must ask oneself if qualities such as, Credulity and Gullibility are morally good, let alone desirable?
There is belief based on evidence and then there is 'Faith', If one is to establish a connection with reality and the world as it is, and attempt to determine if ones perception is accurately correlated with it, then the pathway to achieving this is via critical thinking and reason as applied to evidence, thus by definition; no amount of 'Faith' is sufficient enough to confirm ones perception of reality, as reality.
A Virtue? One would sincerely hope not.
Hey Lone Atheist,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you for the most part, but there are a couple of minor parts I take issue with:
Firstly I think the precise definition of "faith" is important. The word I think might be inaccurate is "complete". The example the Oxford Dictionary gives under definition 1 is "this restores one's faith in politicians" In a real-life situation, if one heard that comment, i think that one would NOT assume that the person who said it now had ABSOLUTE belief and trust in politicians.
Webster's, another major dictionary, defines "faith" as
A(1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion
B(1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof
(2) : complete trust
All of which is meaningless if the DEGREE of trust does not matter. But I would argue that it does. In fact, I would argue that the more doubt is cast onto the claim, the more faith one can rationally have in it.
For example, the fact that the Sun has risen every other morning does not mean it will definitely rise tomorrow. But i have faith, i.e. trust and belief (admittedly from first-hand experience) that it will.
However, can one extend this example to the religious person? Hypothetically, if a believing person tested his faith in God regularly and found it to be "true" (probably through some dodgey logic, which I would argue is the actual root of the problem), does he not have the right to such strong faith?
I believe that faith itself is not a problem if it is well founded, and that the problem lies in the reasoning of the religious being insufficient to justify such STRENGTH of faith.
However all this relies on the premise that you can have faith based on evidence, rather than just "knowledge". But I don't believe anything I "know" to be absolute.
My second issue is my belief that misinformation can in some rare situations lead to a beneficial outcome. Taking your example of John, who swims like an anvil (which also means he's a great diver). If one were to lie/misinform John, he might perform better than otherwise. The placebo effect seen in medicine is another good example of beneficial misinformation.
Of course I see your point, and would strongly agree that misinformation is annoying and bad for society most of the time and at worst downright dangerous. But I'm hesitant to talk in absolutes.
In summary I'd say that faith is a problem when it's unfounded, (e.g. faith in religion or anything being sold to you), but not when it has a rational basis (faith in a friend, faith you can jump from this height and not get hurt, faith in sugar pills) it can be beneficial. But is that faith?
Always inspiring to see people pushing for progress, keep up the good work!
Hello J-wire,
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading the blog and taking the time to post a comment, reader feedback is always appreciated.
I will begin addressing your two points of concern with the first, primarily, your own example of the Sun rising.
If we were to run an experiment where every day, for the next thousand days, we were to wake up, stare out the window and document the presence of the sun and complete the final thousandth day with the Sun in full view, you would be absolutely correct in saying that the Sun may NOT rise tomorrow. But... where having faith of the Sun's reappearance on the 1001st day runs into problems, is in the probability of that event actually occurring based on what we currently know to be facts about the Sun's state and that of the Earth's rotation, among other things.
What i'm getting at here is the same thing that i began to get into in the Blog, but decided to put aside and pursue at a later date. I will expand on this slightly: Your assertion of having 'faith' "from first-hand experience", that the sun will rise tomorrow, is actually not 'faith' at all, but 'a reasonable expectation based on evidence'. To be able to proclaim 'Faith' as the contributing belief mechanism, it would require you to have never seen the Sun rise in the first place (or to have any knowledge from reputable sources of science & inquiry) but instead to have been told that it does exist by sources whom themselves have not witnessed it first hand either. If one has evidence for an upcoming event, then one can justify their level of belief based on such evidence as long as they understand the probability of such an event.
Quoting your statement:
"I believe that faith itself is not a problem if it is well founded"
For a belief to be well founded, that would require evidence towards the fact, in which case the application of 'faith' would cease to be needed. If the evidence was only marginal and one required a belief mechanism (for whatever reason, be it emotional, cultural or otherwise) to bridge the gap from possibility, to a degree closer to certainty, then one would be employing 'hope' to accomplish said task (although, in the case of the sun, mere hope obviously would not increase or decrease this possibility, this would be purely a psychological mode of self reassurance based on known facts and desired outcomes) not 'faith', hence why one can not have faith which is well founded. After all, 'faith' is a "firm belief in something for which there is no proof". Any level of known facts in such a case, would immediately remove the label of 'faith' and be replaced (if desired) by 'Hope'.
In addressing your second point, i must agree. There are certain scenarios in which a placebo effect would be desirable, if not, necessary. But applied across the board to all areas of human interest and this would certainly be non-conducive (if not, in your own words "downright dangerous") to the well-being of all concerned. In any case, i was only using John's swimming ability and the show of 'faith' applied by friends to supplement his result, to point out that in this Blog i would not be addressing such examples, rather, i would be dissecting 'religious faith'.
Finally i would like to respond to your question: "But is that faith?" and in regards to your comment: "faith is a problem when it's unfounded, but not when it has a rational basis"
That no, that would not be considered 'faith', rather that would be more along the lines of 'hope' and 'desire'. 'Faith' can never have a rational basis, for something to be based on rationality, it would require a form of substantiation.
Again i would like to thank you for taking the time to read, analyse and comment. Such discourse is invaluable to progress. Please feel free to continue reading and critically analyzing future Blogs.
The Lone Atheist.