From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Tue Apr 26 2005 - 07:37:04 BST
Hi Mark,
A quickie on the core question:
> msh:
> To me, a belief is faith-based if it is held in the absence of
> supporting empirical evidence, using my understanding of empiricism
> stated above. By this definition, a child's belief in Santa or the
> Tooth Fairy is faith-based. As is a Christian's belief in the
> divinity of Jesus, as is a Catholic's belief in transubstantiation.
> In contrast, a NASA scientist's belief that he can land a rover on
> Pluto (so far not done) is nevertheless not faith-based. Similarly,
> the Christian's faith-based belief is CLEARLY different from the
> flexible belief of scientific assumptions, which are made for
> pragmatic, not emotional, reasons. Please note, cuz I want to say
> this only once: This DOES NOT mean that Jesus is not the son of God;
> it means only that such a belief is not rational-empirical.
Where would you put beliefs like 'my partner loves me'? Or, 'Nelson Mandela
is a good man', or 'the provision of universal health care in the US would
be humane' or other similar questions?
I'm happy to have 'scientific' beliefs defined as those with
rational/empirical support, and 'faith' being defined as those beliefs
without such support (for the time being at least ;-) I just think that all
the most important things in life fall outside of the boundary.
Sam
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