From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Tue Apr 26 2005 - 17:45:14 BST
Hi Sam,
On 26 Apr 2005 at 7:37, Sam Norton wrote:
> 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.
sam:
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?
msh:
In the first two cases you can look at what people do to justify your
belief. If my partner is beating me, fooling around on the side,
and forging my name to cash checks, I'd say my belief is "faith-
based" to the point of nuerosis. If Mandela had spent his life
supporting apartheid rather than fighting it, my belief regarding his
"goodness" would be irrational, assuming I also believe that freedom
is better than slavery.
In the case of universal health care, I think the argument can be
made that to deny vital services to large portions of a population
will result in the eventual destabilization of society as a whole.
So, if one wishes to retain the advantages of society, if one
considers societies a better way of life than jungle survival of the
fittest, then your belief about universal health care is rational-
empirical.
But I see where you're going with this, and your point is well taken.
Are my beliefs that freedom is better than slavery, that societies
are better than the bloody tooth and talon, faith-based or rational-
empirical? I'd say neither, or rather, that they contain elements of
both. They are pragmatic assumptions which are suggested by my
empirical recognition of our species' common humanity.
sam:
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.
msh:
And I agree, though I might argue that the boundaries of rational-
empirical problem-solving are not as restrictive as you think.
Thanks, Sam.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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