Faith

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Alan

Except that religion is merely a superstructure and thus it doesn't create a more egalitarian society but merely masks inequality by proclaiming equality of souls over equality of lives.

Assuming the religion believes in souls, and has not historically been a vehicle of change and revolt, such as in Newfoundland where religious revival inspired fishermen to fight for educational rights, and the merchant class sought to deport preachers, resenting them for empowering the lower class, who up until then had no church or knowledge of religion.

There's also the feminist side, patriarchal religion vs matriarchal/individualistic faith, and in keeping with Audre Lorde's male logic vs. female emotion, women are more likely than men to be religious and more enthusiastically religious. Faith has become feminized, like women's emotions and experiences it is dismissed as illogical and frivolous, while right wing Christians bemoan how womanly the churches become and try to make Christianity more "manly."

[burningplain]

"No organisation is inherently evil. It is the people whom control it that twist it to their own designs and machinations for power."
ltimately that is the basis for my separation of Faith as in a belief in there being a higher power (i.e. a god) and Religious Faith. I have Faith, but not religious faith. Humanepain makes a strong point Alan.
Religion can be a force for good or for evil. It is the one who controls that religion that ultimately makes that decision.

[CuckooTuli]

Originally Posted by Saya

There's also the feminist side, patriarchal religion vs matriarchal/individualistic faith, and in keeping with Audre Lorde's male logic vs. female emotion, women are more likely than men to be religious and more enthusiastically religious. Faith has become feminized, like women's emotions and experiences it is dismissed as illogical and frivolous, while right wing Christians bemoan how womanly the churches become and try to make Christianity more "manly."

Pictured: manly Christianity.

[Grausamkeit]

Originally Posted by CuckooTuli

Pictured: manly Christianity.

....creepy. He looks more like Pedo-Jesus.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by CuckooTuli

Pictured: manly Christianity.

That's what I'm talking about! And the dudes who buy into it go on retreats in the woods where they talk about being men, dance around fires naked, cry together, but in the end reinforce notions of heterosexuality. There's a lot of homoerotic male romance going on.

[CuckooTuli]

Originally Posted by Saya

That's what I'm talking about! And the dudes who buy into it go on retreats in the woods where they talk about being men, dance around fires naked, cry together, but in the end reinforce notions of heterosexuality. There's a lot of homoerotic male romance going on.

Reminds me of the whole Mythopoetic Men's Movement. As obscenely ridiculous as the whole thing was on multiple levels, I have to admit I get a big giggly kick out of picturing a load of wannabe "blokes' blokes", sitting around getting tough over fairy tales.

[Saya]

I should feel bad that they feel so compelled by gender roles that they need to make being emotional, sensitive and religious a manly thing, but mostly I enjoy the homosexual subtext and the thought that grown men are crying over how the wimminz are taking over.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Alan

But what is the fundamental difference between having faith in causality and having faith in a personal god?

I thought you were trolling me for a minute there.

The answer here is rather basic: We have a mountain of evidence that natural laws do not alter for no concievable reason. I can observe the sun rising, I can look at the rotation of the planets and I can see human physiology and from that data I can draw a reasonable conclusion about the future, which can be coloquially described as "Faith that the sun will rise and set"

On the other hand, there is absolutely no observable empirical evidence supporting the notion of a personal god, and thus no objective reason whatsoever to believe that there is one.

So I'm kinda stuck having this character make a pretty, but ultimately empty emotional appeal for religious faith, which doesn't necessarily sit well with me. I like my character to be real people, not straw-men and I want to get myself to a point where this character's viewpoint at least begins to appeal to me as the writer before I present him to an audience.

I was kinda hoping I could make a "Faith is necessary because faith and only faith is capable of doing X" where X is a positive thing necessary for life.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything good about faith which can't be found elsewhere, so I'm sort of out of ideas here. I was hoping that as an atheist I'm just prejudiced/ignorant and hadn't considered something that Saya or someone else on here would have.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Despanan

I thought you were trolling me for a minute there.

The answer here is rather basic: We have a mountain of evidence that natural laws do not alter for no concievable reason. I can observe the sun rising, I can look at the rotation of the planets and I can see human physiology and from that data I can draw a reasonable conclusion about the future, which can be coloquially described as "Faith that the sun will rise and set"

On the other hand, there is absolutely no observable empirical evidence supporting the notion of a personal god, and thus no objective reason whatsoever to believe that there is one.

So I'm kinda stuck having this character make a pretty, but ultimately empty emotional appeal for religious faith, which doesn't necessarily sit well with me. I like my character to be real people, not straw-men and I want to get myself to a point where this character's viewpoint at least begins to appeal to me as the writer before I present him to an audience.

I was kinda hoping I could make a "Faith is necessary because faith and only faith is capable of doing X" where X is a positive thing necessary for life.

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything good about faith which can't be found elsewhere, so I'm sort of out of ideas here. I was hoping that as an atheist I'm just prejudiced/ignorant and hadn't considered something that Saya or someone else on here would have.

But not everything secularists or atheists believe in is purely based on empirical evidence. For example an atheist can perfectly well think things like "all humans have the potential to be good" or "all humans are inherently selfish", "all humans are inherently selfless", and there's empirical evidence for all sides. Or in things like politics, one easily can become a communist because they believe that is the most ethical model, instead of using empirical evidence of "and it worked really well in the past."

[Murder.Of.Crows]

Unfortunately Desp, I think that is the reason many of us are Atheist in the first place. Faith could never be explained as necessary. Most people I have discussed Atheism with however, seem to hold onto faith out of fear that, if they chose Atheism they would be punished, or the lack of knowledge about the end of life frightened them enough to want to believe in some higher power.

[Grausamkeit]

Originally Posted by Murder.Of.Crows

Unfortunately Desp, I think that is the reason many of us are Atheist in the first place. Faith could never be explained as necessary. Most people I have discussed Atheism with however, seem to hold onto faith out of fear that, if they chose Atheism they would be punished, or the lack of knowledge about the end of life frightened them enough to want to believe in some higher power.

You have a point. I still retain some small amount of fear of punishment if I'm ultimately wrong due to my upbringing. I can't, however, live my life in fear that my decision is wrong. I can't have faith in a deity that can't be proven. If I'm wrong at the end, it'll suck, but whatever. I'm going to enjoy life and not live in slavery out of fear of a punishment that will probably never happen.

[CuckooTuli]

From the artistic point of view of creating a rounded character, maybe background and life history would be the best ways of explaining what drives them to faith.

Faith itself: I got nothing. I was raised Spiritualist and the existence of God just always felt self-evident to me, until one day, it didn't. I learned about the logical side when I was older, but the truth is that at that point in my life, the "this doesn't feel true anymore" thing was what swung it. I couldn't say exactly what generated that. Probably advances in critical thinking brought by maturity - although if that was it, it was a subconscious process.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Saya

But not everything secularists or atheists believe in is purely based on empirical evidence. For example an atheist can perfectly well think things like "all humans have the potential to be good" or "all humans are inherently selfish", "all humans are inherently selfless", and there's empirical evidence for all sides. Or in things like politics, one easily can become a communist because they believe that is the most ethical model, instead of using empirical evidence of "and it worked really well in the past."

Ethics can be studied empirically and one can make a rational judgement about human nature by studying the empirical evidence and using logic to discern the best possible answer.

Atheists are perfectly capable of being illogical and intellectually lazy, but there is literally no comparison between what you have just described and a religious leap of faith.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Ethics can be studied empirically and one can make a rational judgement about human nature by studying the empirical evidence and using logic to discern the best possible answer.

If it was that easy, we wouldn't have several schools of thought when it comes to ethics, a few who really disagree with each other. And a lot of how we decide is the best school of thought, the best line of thought, is based on our emotions and personal taste.

Lots of things we believe not because we have a whole lot of evidence for it, but because we feel its true. Faith in humanity is quite the leap of faith given all the horrible things humans do, but its something a lot of us feel we need to believe in despite the evidence.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by Saya

If it was that easy, we wouldn't have several schools of thought when it comes to ethics, a few who really disagree with each other. And a lot of how we decide is the best school of thought, the best line of thought, is based on our emotions and personal taste.

That's like saying that if physics were really empirical we wouldn't have loop quantum gravity and string theory as incompatible explanations of the composition of the universe.

[Saya]

The thing with physics though is that you work on the best information you have and be ready to drop what you previously thought was true when new evidence contradicts.

I'm talking more about personal ethics than philosophy discourse, how logic gets to two different conclusions is a different can of worms. With ethics a lot of it has to do with personal appeal that isn't really examined often. Like Despanan has said that the result of religion doesn't matter, because anything done in the name of religion is based on delusion and that is wrong. Whether someone is happy or a better person because of religion doesn't matter, it goes against his personal ethics that everything must be based purely on empirical evidence. Where does this ethic come from? How do we know that rule is a good rule?

[Alan]

You do realize you're talking to a philosophy major here, right?
The whole philosophical branch of ethics is nothing but an unfalsifiable set of personal fancies?
Why don't you tell me that 'evolution is just a theory' while you're at it?

[AshleyO]

[Saya]

Originally Posted by Alan

You do realize you're talking to a philosophy major here, right?
The whole philosophical branch of ethics is nothing but an unfalsifiable set of personal fancies?
Why don't you tell me that 'evolution is just a theory' while you're at it?

You mean you didn't read my post where I said "I'm talking more about personal ethics than philosophy discourse"?

[Alan]

I did, but I decided to disregard it, seeing how it would have been a dick move from your part to respond to Despanan's argument with an entirely unrelated conversation of what YOU want ethics to mean, and I want to give you the benefit of the doubt despite your own admissions.

[Saya]

I said "personal ethics", how lay people determine ethics and how the schools of ethics lay things out in neat organization is pretty different.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with being emotional, I think the contempt at the idea that hey, we use our emotions to come to ideas and beliefs, even though we sometimes use rationality to justify those emotions, isn't a negative thing. I think the hatred of being accused of being emotional comes from a sexist place, not because being emotional is bad.

[Alan]

JEsus fucking Christ, when did you become an essentialist feminist?
You realize essentialism is bullshit, right?
You contrast the feminine 'emotion' to the male 'reason' and just perpetuate the patriarchal idea that reason can only be masculine and emotion is a concept best discarded and left for the minoritarian sex.
You might claim to attack patriarchal modes of thinking, yet you base your ideas on their premises.

Emotion and reason are not mutually exclusive. By definition no act of faith acts on reason, but this does not mean it is an untainted and pure beacon of feminist emotion that should be glorified as an 'alternative' to 'male' reason.
NO! It is a fucking corruption of the emotional which unambiguously implies that emotion and reason cannot be bridged. Faith is pure emotion and no reason, thus there is no excuse for it. I want emotion AND reason. Can't you see how sexist you are in divorcing them entirely and preferring the one that has been deemed the feminine one by patriarchal standards?

If you are seriously championing faith from an essentialist perspective as an inherently feminine concept, then you're cutting off the feminine from the reasonable and you might just as well tear out your feminist card right now or I'll email Helene Cixous myself on your fall from grace.

[CuckooTuli]

I could be wrong, but I get the impression she's alluding to the Cixousian binary that tells us femininity is associated with emotion and irrationality, rather than endorsing this association. And surely the need for certain Christians to reclaim Christ as a masculine figure, as per the link I posted above ("sure he preaches love and all that girly shit, but he totes beat up the money-lenders in the temple like a REAL man, too!"), suggests that this association is alive and kicking in present-day culture. I got the impression she was saying, "I think the conflation of emotion with unreason comes from this bullshit binary that's still fucking with us today", rather than "Ya so women are emotional and men are logical."

[HumanePain]

I see Saya's comments as similar to Einstein's "Imagination is more important than knowledge"; gut instinct, educated instinct serves as the compass, which can sometimes lead us to dead ends, but then we learn and change course.

[Saya]

Originally Posted by CuckooTuli

I could be wrong, but I get the impression she's alluding to the Cixousian binary that tells us femininity is associated with emotion and irrationality, rather than endorsing this association. And surely the need for certain Christians to reclaim Christ as a masculine figure, as per the link I posted above ("sure he preaches love and all that girly shit, but he totes beat up the money-lenders in the temple like a REAL man, too!"), suggests that this association is alive and kicking in present-day culture. I got the impression she was saying, "I think the conflation of emotion with unreason comes from this bullshit binary that's still fucking with us today", rather than "Ya so women are emotional and men are logical."

Yeah, I'm surprised he read me as an essentialist. This is basic Audre Lorde and bell hooks stuff.