Hi Horse and MD,
>From the Horse's mouth:-)
> Yes I do BELIEVE that faith is unnecessary - at least in the way that I have
described it.
> You're also correct that faith/dogma/belief and the supporting evidence for
these is a gray (or
> fuzzy) scaling.
> At one end of the scale is "...believing in something you know not to be
true." (thanks Rick)
> and at the other end is the confirmation and verification (note that I am
deliberately avoiding
> the term proof) by scientific method. I would say that this more or less
equates with a scale
> starting at the low social level and working through to high up in the
intellectual level.
Horse brings up the TRUTH word again in its objective sense, to which I must
give my oft repeated statement that TRUTH and REALITY are not the same. As an
example, the story of Little Red Riding Hood is REAL (it exists), but probably
UNTRUE (it didn't happen). However, in answer to Horse, it might be better to
use more value-laden stories as an example e.g. Aesop's Fables.
I *believe* in those stories - NO, NO not that the hare and tortoise really had
a race, but that the story presents a truth that transcends the plot.
Horse's truth of "confirmation and verification" only applies to a particular
sort of objectified pattern extracted from the whole. When we objectify Aesop's
fables, we end up with childish plots with little truth, but then IMHO what we
have done is leave behind the real VALUE in those stories.
However, I believe that fables and myths can often be exploited to excuse
"false" values i.e. values of low quality.
Thus, what it comes down to is not an issue of True vs. False, but of True
Values vs. False Values, or to put it another way, Good vs. Bad.
HORSE:
> Faith is very useful for maintaining social order and is often cynically
exploited by those with
> an interest in maintaining social order and it is just this type of faith that
has been eroded
> with the rise of intellect as a dominating force (probably one of a number of
reasons why
> Darwin was so disliked by a social structure centred upon faith).
I conclude that Faith must ALWAYS be questioned, including faith in logic and
science.
Furthermore, any social order that denies the value of questioning is suspect.
The same should be applied to intellectual orders, but then I would say that
the idea of an intellectual order than denies questioning is an oxymoron.
Jonathan
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:40 BST