(1) Please define what you consider to be the basis or method for establishing fact
(2) Please define what you consider to be faith, and how do you see this is different from fact?


1: There can be different types of fact:
A: Scientific:Can be scientifically and repeatedly verified, peer reviewable.
B: Moral: it is a fact that murdering an innocent person is immoral.
C: Religious: Theists will always look for wiggle room in your posts to squeeze in the possible existance of their magic man.

2: Faith: is when you act like you know something when in fact you don't

I have a bad day can you tell?

(1) Please define what you consider to be the basis or method for establishing fact
(2) Please define what you consider to be faith, and how do you see this is different from fact?


I consider the scientific methods of observation, experimentation, logic and reason to be the best ways to establish facts.

I consider faith to be the opposite of fact in the sense that faith requires you first believe in something before establishing its reality or its premise as fact.

I agree with binny and consider myself a strong atheist as well. I do not nor cannot believe in the existence of god or gods of any kind, due mainly to my conviction that gods and all manner of religions and worship were created by man. The whole argument about not being able to prove a negative is nonsense to me since I feel it does not apply nor is not my job to do so. The onus is on the one making the claim to prove to me that his so called god or gods exist. I am of the view that it is impossible to do so convincingly because he does not exist outside of the hearts and minds of those that choose to believe in him.

(January 19, 2010 at 4:42 am)theVOID Wrote: Who else uses a name on a forum that mirrors their first agenda?

Hypocrisy much?

Erm... EvidenceVsFaith maybe???

(January 19, 2010 at 11:12 am)leo-rcc Wrote: I think Purple Rabbit is, and perhaps one or two more.

I think Rabbit isn't at all. He doesn't hold with thought = physical like those who I'd think of as more strongly atheist do.

(January 19, 2010 at 11:38 am)Eilonnwy Wrote: You will be hard pressed to find one who specifically makes that claim because I think most atheists here are intellectual honest and recognize the difficulty in asserting a negative.

Are there any? I don't remember anyone.

(January 19, 2010 at 11:02 am)FaithvsFact Wrote: My interest is from strong atheists who make that positive assertion as defined by this forum. I am not focusing on any other kind of atheist for the purposes of this scope.

I am not sure if you are a strong atheist or not, but I would like to hear from strong atheists about their answers to my original two questions.

(January 19, 2010 at 8:35 am)FaithvsFact Wrote: I don't think you are a strong atheist according to the definition of a strong atheist which I have come across which is from strongatheism.net:

"Strong Atheism is the proposition that we should not suspend judgment about the non-existence of a god or gods. More extensively, it is a positive position against theistic values, semantics and anti-materialism, a rational inquiry in the nature of religious thought, a new way of thinking about religious and spiritual issues."

When you say "I will, however, not make the claim that there absolutely is no God at all, it's impossible to know" you are "suspending non-judgement".

Thus, you are not the target of my post. My scope is for the bona-fide strong atheist. Are you all agnostic atheists or apatheists? I wonder if there are any genuine strong atheists on this forum?

I will keep pressing on.

At last I've found you! You're a Strong Label Chaser.

According to my definition, one that I will not be surprised about to find it somewhere on the internet, a Strong Label Chaser (SLC) is a person who makes a strong positive claim about the intrinsic value of a label to put on a person no matter what subtleties of interpretation and definition are around.

Glad to have met. Bye!

(January 19, 2010 at 12:28 pm)theVOID Wrote:

(January 19, 2010 at 5:40 am)FaithvsFact Wrote:

(January 19, 2010 at 4:42 am)theVOID Wrote: Lmao Leo, totally right.

I get the feeling that our new friend here, FaithVsFact, has a bit of a disingenuous agenda.

Who else uses a name on a forum that mirrors their first agenda?

I also find it rather Ironic that your name is FaithvsFact and yet you obviously subscribe to the former part of your name, implying that the main claims of Christianity are non factual, which is true, yet you seem to have a problem with strong Atheists taking the same position.

Hypocrisy much?

Actually its my turn to laugh ha ha! If you read my first opening statement I wanted to demonstrate that strong atheists foundationally start from faith which is what you have since confirmed - so in fact - I don't have a problem with that at all! But to be clear - I still require you to define for me what you mean by faith and what you use to establish fact. Someone posted about using science - is this true for you?

I use the scientific method for scientific claims, it is by fat the best methodology for establishing truth clams that we have, it's results are testament to this success.

I consider faith a belief that is neither logical nor based on evidence.

Okay this also is interesting. You say you use the scientific method for scientific claims for establishing truth claims but I'm here to tell you that sometimes the science is simply not available when a scientific job needs to get done. As a professional mechanical engineer of 10+ years experience in billion dollar plus resource projects, I use science where it is available to deliver my designs but where it is not available I must rely on previous experience or my own "gut feel" or apply what is affectionately called in my game the "fudge factor". So what happens for you when you don't have the science? May I hold you to your definition of how you "establish truth claims"? I would like to come back to that.

I'd also like to hold you to your definition of how your describe faith. May I do that?

Anyway, I am not sure if you are a strong atheist.

(January 19, 2010 at 7:11 pm)FaithvsFact Wrote: Okay this also is interesting. You say you use the scientific method for scientific claims for establishing truth claims but I'm here to tell you that sometimes the science is simply not available when a scientific job needs to get done. As a professional mechanical engineer of 10+ years experience in billion dollar plus resource projects, I use science where it is available to deliver my designs but where it is not available I must rely on previous experience or my own "gut feel" or apply what is affectionately called in my game the "fudge factor". So what happens for you when you don't have the science? May I hold you to your definition of how you "establish truth claims"? I would like to come back to that.

I'd also like to hold you to your definition of how your describe faith. May I do that?

Anyway, I am not sure if you are a strong atheist.

Using the scientific method for proving scientific claims is different than using the scientific method to make a judgment call when the science isn't available.

I'm not sure if you're implying that he would be using faith to make the judgment call when the science isn't available, but based on the definition he gave you, "a belief that is neither logical nor based on evidence," he would not be using faith because using past experiences that can relate to the topic is what a logical person does. He would be using faith if he just picked a random solution and hoped it worked.

(January 19, 2010 at 8:04 pm)Zhalentine Wrote:

(January 19, 2010 at 7:11 pm)FaithvsFact Wrote: Okay this also is interesting. You say you use the scientific method for scientific claims for establishing truth claims but I'm here to tell you that sometimes the science is simply not available when a scientific job needs to get done. As a professional mechanical engineer of 10+ years experience in billion dollar plus resource projects, I use science where it is available to deliver my designs but where it is not available I must rely on previous experience or my own "gut feel" or apply what is affectionately called in my game the "fudge factor". So what happens for you when you don't have the science? May I hold you to your definition of how you "establish truth claims"? I would like to come back to that.

I'd also like to hold you to your definition of how your describe faith. May I do that?

Anyway, I am not sure if you are a strong atheist.

Using the scientific method for proving scientific claims is different than using the scientific method to make a judgment call when the science isn't available.

I'm not sure if you're implying that he would be using faith to make the judgment call when the science isn't available, but based on the definition he gave you, "a belief that is neither logical nor based on evidence," he would not be using faith because using past experiences that can relate to the topic is what a logical person does. He would be using faith if he just picked a random solution and hoped it worked.

As part of my work as an engineer I do not pick random solutions and hope they work because society and my clients do not expect that from me. Moreover I can not always rely on previous experience to demonstrate my designs will succeed because once I have a base design in place I rigorously and systematically hypothesise failure modes that may lay outside my realm of direct experience. I then must design mitigations and safe guards to these failure modes and implement them so that they become reality.

Are there scientific facts that are established through the result of such a failure study? Yes - I may install a 6" ball valve where there wasn't one before, or provide a 20 L fire extinguisher where there wasn't one, or increase a flange from 150# to 300#. But was there a scientific process that was gone through? Yes and no - it involves alot of conjecturing, using gut feel, teasing out problems, but where it appears scientific is that the framework for conducting the study is robust and exhaustive, and if I have calculations I need to perform they are done through established mechanical and process engineering standards.

Are there also non-scientific facts that are established but which nonetheless are important in reality? Yes - the safety level of my system has improved. Quantitatively it means that the probability of failure for a given node has decreased. Qualitatively, it means an operator can now access the valves more ergonomically.

This is a situation where both scientific facts and non-scientific facts are established using both scientific and non-scientific methods.

(January 20, 2010 at 12:27 am)FaithvsFact Wrote:

(January 19, 2010 at 8:04 pm)Zhalentine Wrote:

(January 19, 2010 at 7:11 pm)FaithvsFact Wrote: Okay this also is interesting. You say you use the scientific method for scientific claims for establishing truth claims but I'm here to tell you that sometimes the science is simply not available when a scientific job needs to get done. As a professional mechanical engineer of 10+ years experience in billion dollar plus resource projects, I use science where it is available to deliver my designs but where it is not available I must rely on previous experience or my own "gut feel" or apply what is affectionately called in my game the "fudge factor". So what happens for you when you don't have the science? May I hold you to your definition of how you "establish truth claims"? I would like to come back to that.

I'd also like to hold you to your definition of how your describe faith. May I do that?

Anyway, I am not sure if you are a strong atheist.

Using the scientific method for proving scientific claims is different than using the scientific method to make a judgment call when the science isn't available.

I'm not sure if you're implying that he would be using faith to make the judgment call when the science isn't available, but based on the definition he gave you, "a belief that is neither logical nor based on evidence," he would not be using faith because using past experiences that can relate to the topic is what a logical person does. He would be using faith if he just picked a random solution and hoped it worked.

As part of my work as an engineer I do not pick random solutions and hope they work because society and my clients do not expect that from me. Moreover I can not always rely on previous experience to demonstrate my designs will succeed because once I have a base design in place I rigorously and systematically hypothesise failure modes that may lay outside my realm of direct experience. I then must design mitigations and safe guards to these failure modes and implement them so that they become reality.

Are there scientific facts that are established through the result of such a failure study? Yes - I may install a 6" ball valve where there wasn't one before, or provide a 20 L fire extinguisher where there wasn't one, or increase a flange from 150# to 300#. But was there a scientific process that was gone through? Yes and no - it involves alot of conjecturing, using gut feel, teasing out problems, but where it appears scientific is that the framework for conducting the study is robust and exhaustive, and if I have calculations I need to perform they are done through established mechanical and process engineering standards.

Are there also non-scientific facts that are established but which nonetheless are important in reality? Yes - the safety level of my system has improved. Quantitatively it means that the probability of failure for a given node has decreased. Qualitatively, it means an operator can now access the valves more ergonomically.

This is a situation where both scientific facts and non-scientific facts are established using both scientific and non-scientific methods.

I never claimed nor implied that you picked a random solution and hoped it worked. I did not mean that using past experience to make judgment calls is the only other way to logically make a judgment call where science hasn't yet provided a solution; I only mentioned it because that was one of your points on how you make decisions. You mentioned using your "gut-feeling". There is something that is causing you to think that will work, whether it be a past experience that worked or you notice a trend and think that will work, you are still using reason and logic to think it out. Based on my definition of faith (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith) I do agree with you that making these decisions does require faith, but based on the definition we are using, the decisions you come to are logical and therefore do not require "faith."

FvF Wrote:(2) Faith is belief without evidence (my fav. definition, but there are other suitable ones) such as having faith in a spegetti monster existing, no evidence, therefore faith, not fact

As the bold doesn't exist... i would question if you believe in such a thing as faith (or evidence) at all. I rather take issue when people define faith like so... for reasons outlined below.

Adrian Wrote:Having a belief in something without having good evidence to do so. I disagree with leo's definition. I don't think believing that the sun will come up tomorrow is a faith based position, since you have good reason to believe so, same with having a job next month.

As for how it is different from fact? Facts are true. Faith positions have a possibility of being true.

Having good ("scientifically tested"?) evidence requires less faith to accept than poor ("personal"?) evidence... but it remains that it requires faith.

I have faith that you are all not simply products of my imagination, and that the lot of you live in a similar subjective reality as me, which 'most of us?' further assume to be the objective reality... and that is a position of untestable faith. And so the very form of my own existence is a position of incredible faith... imagine the amount of faith i must hold to accept the existence of others, and anything else really. So personal evidence is as much evidence (if less compelling) as scientific evidence, or theological evidence, or evidence because she said so... but evidence is itself only the justification for the belief in something. Some forms of evidence (scientific) make far more compelling justifications for the belief in something... but one finds that people can use almost any reason to believe something they want to hear/already have faith in (if simply because it 'feels right' <--intuitional evidence if you will ).

So simply... if we state that faith is the belief in something without evidence... we are stating that it is possible to simply believe in anything without reason (emotion, rationality, and in fact absolutely nothing that would make one 'feel' as though something is right.... essentially to be of absolutely no opinion and still believe one thing to be 'correct/right', which is simply a contradiction). We usually use "faith" to describe extreme positions of faith (Ie: religion)... but the action of holding a belief is no more modified by what the belief is in than the action of running is modified by wether you run to the store or from the unusually large turtle. Like with saying 'obese' instead of 'fat'... using 'belief' instead of 'faith' is just political correctness... but as the word faith is 'redefined' to look different than belief: it simply does not hold up.

It rather defeats the purpose of having faith in something when it is defined as requiring absence of evidence. Perhaps if it were defined as being the absence of scientific evidence... then the definition would fit its colloquial use. But when it is defined simply as belief without evidence (which i cannot see how is possible... if you know of some way for that: enlighten me): one runs into the impossible difficulty of distinguishing faith from belief, and then into the difficulty of understanding just what constitutes evidence (for it is such a subjective matter, if some forms of it are apparently 'objective' or 'inter-subjective'). A good reason simply lets one more easily accept things as true... the acceptance of which is the assumption that one is correct, which is faith/belief. If one defines faith as belief in something without evidence, then they've defined faith as something that does not exist, or they've defined evidence as something that cannot exist. They've also defeated the purpose of both evidence and faith (reason to believe and the belief in it because of said reasons).

And for all of the reasons above (though i think i repeated some things more than was perhaps necessary :S), I simply cannot see how one could be defining faith as belief without evidence. Unless 'evidence' is used to signify 'scientific evidence' or 'scientifically testable evidence'... then i fail to see any reason for distinguishing 'faith' like so.

(January 19, 2010 at 4:30 pm)chatpilot Wrote: (1) Please define what you consider to be the basis or method for establishing fact
(2) Please define what you consider to be faith, and how do you see this is different from fact?


I consider the scientific methods of observation, experimentation, logic and reason to be the best ways to establish facts.

I consider faith to be the opposite of fact in the sense that faith requires you first believe in something before establishing its reality or its premise as fact.

I agree with binny and consider myself a strong atheist as well. I do not nor cannot believe in the existence of god or gods of any kind, due mainly to my conviction that gods and all manner of religions and worship were created by man. The whole argument about not being able to prove a negative is nonsense to me since I feel it does not apply nor is not my job to do so. The onus is on the one making the claim to prove to me that his so called god or gods exist. I am of the view that it is impossible to do so convincingly because he does not exist outside of the hearts and minds of those that choose to believe in him.

Great! A strong atheist answers the questions!

You spoke about the method for defining a fact - if it is ok by you i wish to hold you to that definition - it is an onerous condition on you as a strong atheist. As an extension to this then, can you please define what a fact, in your opinion, actually is?