RE: What is Your Approach?
August 8, 2013 at 1:09 pm
(This post was last modified: August 8, 2013 at 1:10 pm by Faith No More.)
(August 8, 2013 at 12:53 pm)Locke Wrote: Again, you're doing extra. Atheist, Agnostic, Deist and Theist encompasses everything necessary. There is no need to insert sub-categories.
The sub-categorization comes from the false dichotomy that faith and knowledge are in opposition to each other, when in reality they compliment one another. Faith is the confidence we have in something (be it God, or otherwise) that comes from a knowledge of that thing. As knowledge increases, evidence emerges and either increases or decreases faith in that subject. If it increases faith, then faith in turn motivates us to seek out more knowledge.
The extra is necessary for such a nuanced position. We use the extra labels to demonstrate that nuance.
No one said that knowledge and faith must be wholly separate. That is why someone who is agnostic(does not take a position of certainty) can be an atheist or a theist. Also, you are equating knowledge, body of information possessed, with knowledge, knowing your beliefs are correct based on the body of information possessed. The latter is what the agnostic/gnostic variable describes. One can have all of the faith in the world but still not take the position that one knows their beliefs are correct.
(August 8, 2013 at 12:53 pm)Locke Wrote: If you see someone with faith blatently denying the facts, then what you are witnessing is not faith, but ignorance.
And ignorance is, after all, the opposite of knowledge.
I agree, the denial of facts is not faith. Faith is a conclusion derived from evidence that does not conclusively support it. When one derives certainty from faith, that makes them gnostic. Otherwise, they are agnostic.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell