the slippery "F" word - my solution

[yuriythebest]

One of the most time-consuming and frustrating things a theist can do is say something like "you have faith that the sun will rise up tomorrow - thus even you have faith, so how can you be critical of my faith in god" - while it's possible to go into dictionary definitions of the multiple way the word can be used or go the route that one has no faith at all in anything in the believe without evidence meaning of the word, what I have found is that it is best de-obfuscated by dissecting the F word into something a computer might understand:

Faith, Belief Definition:
An assertion that assertion A matches reality with X degree of probability with Z as evidence

One can use the above, for both the sun rising up and theistic faith:

faith that chair won't break when you sit on it:
An assertion that "faith that chair won't break when you sit on it" matches reality with "99,9%" degree of probability with "a life led where chairs have been observed to break very infrequently when one sits on them" as evidence

Theistic:
Assertion that "God, the afterlife exist" matches reality with 100% of probability with "the bible, personal feelings" as evidence
(this can then probably lead to the debate as to why the bible is good evidence - if they say faith return to the above formula once more)

hope this helps someone...

[rob_hollar]

With no proof whatsoever, people believe in God. That’s fact. They actually believe they can have a one way conversation with an unseen god and that , through some kind of magical telepathy, hears every word they say. Why aren't these people in an Insane Asylum?

[yuriythebest]

With no proof whatsoever, people believe in God. That’s fact. They actually believe they can have a one way conversation with an unseen god and that , through some kind of magical telepathy, hears every word they say. Why aren't these people in an Insane Asylum?

cause then the insane asylum would be 90% of the world. the atheists might as well move to the moon or to a city of marvels in the middle of the ocean where only great minds come and that will subsequently sink and be a place of adventure

If a person admits to having no proof for his belief that's fine - one can then discuss why he chooses to do so. If they play the faith card you can talk about how believing something with no evidence is a BAD thing - if they try to imply that you also have faith use the argument in the original post.

[Amethyst]

With no proof whatsoever, people believe in God. That’s fact. They actually believe they can have a one way conversation with an unseen god and that , through some kind of magical telepathy, hears every word they say. Why aren't these people in an Insane Asylum?

They're not because literal religious belief is not yet considered a form of insanity. It may never be. After all, the U.S. Constitution protects it. I personally don't think it's so much insanity so much as it is the effects of brainwashing. Brainwashing is treatable, but most people don't want to admit to having been brainwashed. And I think most people would have a hard time putting most of their relatives in an Insane Asylum. Probably over half the country would be in one.

[yuriythebest]

With no proof whatsoever, people believe in God. That’s fact. They actually believe they can have a one way conversation with an unseen god and that , through some kind of magical telepathy, hears every word they say. Why aren't these people in an Insane Asylum?

They're not because literal religious belief is not yet considered a form of insanity. It may never be. After all, the U.S. Constitution protects it. I personally don't think it's so much insanity so much as it is the effects of brainwashing. Brainwashing is treatable, but most people don't want to admit to having been brainwashed. And I think most people would have a hard time putting most of their relatives in an Insane Asylum. Probably over half the country would be in one.

not half but about 90% of the US. As for calling it brainwashing - I wouldn't quite agree, since when we talk about brainwashing this implies a party who is "sane" feeding the other one false information on purpose, and, while I'm sure there are secretly-atheistic priests most of the time I think the parents/priests/community probably believe it themselves. But if you want to include those people as well then what about just a few hundred years ago when basically everyone was a theist and there were no alternatives in society? what about tribes with no contact with the outside world- are their views about the world brainwashing, or or perhaps more simply they don't know any better? And perhaps we have some facts about the nature of the universe wrong that might be corrected in the next decades or hundreds of years - that would then also have to be included.

I think it's better to use the Meme and idea-organism analogies to describe what is happening.

[Hollenfeuer]

"cause then the insane asylum would be 90% of the world. the atheists might as well move to the moon or to a city of marvels in the middle of the ocean where only great minds come and that will subsequently sink and be a place of adventure"

That would be the greatest place to live. Just imagine all the scientific advancements that would come of it, in all fields, especially that of medicine.

[yuriythebest]

"cause then the insane asylum would be 90% of the world. the atheists might as well move to the moon or to a city of marvels in the middle of the ocean where only great minds come and that will subsequently sink and be a place of adventure"

That would be the greatest place to live. Just imagine all the scientific advancements that would come of it, in all fields, especially that of medicine.

yeah one can only imagine...

[orogenicman]

Faith is, simply put, a belief in something for which there is no proof. To believe that sitting in a chair will not result in the chair breaking is not a matter of faith. It is a matter of life experience that most chairs don't break when you sit in them. Likewise, believing that when you release a ball from your hand, that it will drop to the ground is also not a matter of faith, since there is plenty of empirical evidence that it will behave in this manner.

[The Omnissiunt One]

Actually, Hume's Problem of Induction says that we can't infer from past experience that the world will act in the same way as it did before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

Still, this doesn't justify believing in blatant nonsense like religion.

[yuriythebest]

Actually, Hume's Problem of Induction says that we can't infer from past experience that the world will act in the same way as it did before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction

Still, this doesn't justify believing in blatant nonsense like religion.

ahh, but I circumvent that by also specifying the degree of probability- me saying "all chairs never break when you sit on em" is wrong, but saying "chairs won't break when you sit of em" with 99,9% (approx - one would need to do a LOT of practical tests to determine the true percentage) - so this is still valid