Post by Terrapin Station on Mar 2, 2017 13:25:21 GMT
Scenario 1
When you go to a circus and you see, perched high up on a platform, a trapeze artist... You are pretty certain that whatever daring feat that he is about to perform, he will perform with skill... and you will be amazed.
Why?
You've never met the guy before... But you reason that he is there for a reason... You reason that he earned his place in this circus. You have faith in his skills..
Granted.. He could fall to his doom... but:
You have faith that you just didn't bring your family to be traumatized by a bloodbath.
It's faith, not based on the nothingness of not really knowing the guy... but, by reasoning that you guess his experience.
When you go to a circus and you see, perched high up on a platform, a trapeze artist... You are pretty certain that whatever daring feat that he is about to perform, he will perform with skill... and you will be amazed.
Why?
You've never met the guy before... But you reason that he is there for a reason... You reason that he earned his place in this circus. You have faith in his skills..
Granted.. He could fall to his doom... but:
You have faith that you just didn't bring your family to be traumatized by a bloodbath.
It's faith, not based on the nothingness of not really knowing the guy... but, by reasoning that you guess his experience.
Scenario 2
You have a friend named Johnny who has a skill of juggling 47 chainsaws while blindfolded.
He have seen it done numerous times.
You tell a stranger who bets you a thousand dollars that it can't be done... You take the bet.
You know that he can do it.
There's a thousand dollars on the line, but:
You have faith in Johnny's skills.. not based on nothing.. but, your experience of seeing it done numerous times before.
You have a friend named Johnny who has a skill of juggling 47 chainsaws while blindfolded.
He have seen it done numerous times.
You tell a stranger who bets you a thousand dollars that it can't be done... You take the bet.
You know that he can do it.
There's a thousand dollars on the line, but:
You have faith in Johnny's skills.. not based on nothing.. but, your experience of seeing it done numerous times before.
I'm not arguing that God is real or that dumb blind faith doesn't exist...
Just that you can have faith in something that isn't a known fact based on reason and experience.. not just because you have a stupid desire to do so.
How this can be applied to religion?.. That's up to the individual to decide.. I don't really care about that.
Nothing against faith, but I wouldn't say that you're describing faith. Faith as an epistemic basis is different than empirical evidence and logic (the latter being the same as reason). This doesn't make faith desire-oriented. But it's not faith if it's empirical or logic-based. Those are different epistemic modes than faith.