(December 15, 2014 at 9:14 pm)comet Wrote: faith has different levels and is used rather losely these days. I don't do "blind faith" but I have "faith" that my kids will be in school tomorrow. twist it this away or twist it that way. whatever floats the agenda boat.I think the way theists use it changes the word. Faith as we use it outside of religion implies trust that has a basis of some sort. Faith as used by religion specifies trust without any basis ("blessed are those who do not see, yet believe"). This allows them to bypass the normal way in which we express belief, so that not having any tangible evidence becomes a feature and not a bug.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
