RE: Faith vs Belief
May 24, 2015 at 1:14 pm
(This post was last modified: May 24, 2015 at 1:18 pm by Whateverist.)
(May 24, 2015 at 9:25 am)robvalue Wrote: The problem with "belief in God" is I can't even get as far as knowing what it is I'm supposed to be believing in. No one can give me a definition that would adequately identify it even if I "saw" it.
Tell it. brother.
(May 24, 2015 at 12:34 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: Holy recursion, Batman!
For me, personally, to trust in any source of anything, it needs to hold up to scrutiny, so....
I'm with you regarding most any particular claim. So "belief" as ardent wishing goes in the shitter as far as I'm concerned. For me, what I believe is synonymous with what I think is true .. not what I hope is true.
But I'm not willing to discard "faith" altogether. At its core I think there is something of value that needn't have any connection to religion. I do not wish to concede that I am "faithless" even though I am lacking in religious faith as that typically applies. Nor will I allow that I am "unfaithful" in the sense of even of being "disloyal, treacherous, or insincere".
I don't think any of us on this site feel hobbled because we lack of an objective basis for morality. My own sense of right and wrong seems to animate me as strongly as most theists in my experience. Despite what some theists like to tell us to the contrary, we are not driven by unchecked malevolent urges. You could argue that subjectivist based morality even has advantages. Chief among these being the relative ease with which we can (though don't always) embrace tolerance.
