(September 19, 2012 at 6:09 am)CliveStaples Wrote: Hmm. A person is said to be "gullible" if they are "overly" credulous, relative to some standard of what constitutes 'reasonable' credulity given some set of criteria. I think you could distinguish faith from gullibility on these grounds, depending on what you understand "faith" to mean. Let's say that r is the "proper" amount of credulity that X should ascribe to some proposition p, and let k be a "gullibility" constant such that X is gullible with respect to p <=> X ascribes p some credulity greater than r+k.
So, according to this hypothetical standard, X should ascribe p a credulity of r; and if X ascribes p a credulity greater than r+k, then X is gullible. What if X ascribes p a credulity in the interval (r, r+k)? Then X isn't gullible, but X is going "beyond" the evidence for p, so to speak; whether or not this constitutes "faith" depends on what you understand "faith" to mean.
I think your question is unanswerable until you define your terms more clearly.
You are just obfuscating the issues. I'm wary of those who try to use equations for anything. I've read a story of someone who gave a complex equation and in the end, the conclusion, Therefore God exists follows quite naturally.
The truth is there is not a trickle of evidence for faith. Total zilch. Anyone who believes must be gullible.
