pull down to refresh
342 sats \ 21 replies \ @PlebeiusG 10 Aug 2023 \ parent \ on: Why Joe Rogan Avoids Bitcoin Discussions bitcoin
perhaps not in every manifestation, but faith is illogical.
But isn't that like saying books are illogical, just because some of them are?
I guess there are many ways to interpret it, language doesn't convey certain things well. We may be talking about different concepts but using the same words.
reply
If you know something is true, why would you say you have faith in it?
Faith is when you don’t know, yet still believe. It’s often seen as a virtue and it’s not a reliable way to come to the truth. Why have faith? I’d rather know for certain, or withhold my judgement.
Faith is used as an epistemology in religion, and it’s unreliable.
Peter wrote a book on this topic. In the bitcoin community where “verify, don’t trust” is a virtue, faith is the literal antithesis of that phrase.
reply
Faith is inevitable. 'The problem of induction' or, faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, that rules of gravity will hold. It is a good kind of faith that works better than not having it at all. 'Agrippan Trilemma' or, most belief systems ultimately rest on faith in the reliability of some authority's experiment or claim. 'The Cartesian Problem' or, 'I think, therefore I am' as the only certain foundation for a proof of knowledge. Note: 'I think therefore I am' itself is a faith based claim, which is sort of the point. Ultimately one cannot proceed through the world on rationality alone. It is necessary to move forward on faith (that my leg will continue working throughout this stride, etc).
reply
I disagree. I think reading Peter Boghossian's book "A Manual for Creating Atheists" is the best way to fully grasp how the religious use faith as an epistemology and also contrasts it with our every day understanding of world dynamics based on direct experience. First, they are not the same.
Second, when a religious person says they have faith, it's essentially them saying "I have no way to know, but I am choosing to believe it's true as if I had evidence."
If you had evidence you wouldn't need faith. That's why faith is a mind virus and a completely unreliable way to come to understand the world. Comparing it to phrases like the sun rising and "I think therefore I am" is a confusion of the conversation.
reply
Good times
when a religious person says they have faith, it's essentially them saying "I have no way to know, but I am choosing to believe it's true as if I had evidence."
This could be a strawman. First, a 'religious person' ought not be a category with characteristics that can be ascribed based on belonging to a group. The individuals vary greatly. Some have thought it through and some haven't.
Second, and this will require some unpacking, let's look at the 'it's true' in your statement that I've highlighted. But first, we need to distinguish the difference between 'evidence' and 'proof.' If I'm not mistaken, I think you meant 'proof.' Evidence can exist but not lead to the conclusion a person observing it thinks it does. Proof is objective, not subject to anyone's opinion.
The point I aimed to make is not that all types of faith are the same. It is that every person ever chooses what to believe. Every person ever chooses to believe some things 'as though they had proof.' Some people only choose to believe those things which they can reasonably prove with experimentation, and doubt anything they have not proven themselves. However, as they perform experiments in their garage -- on whether orange juice truly has vitamin c in it, or whether their gut really breaks it down as is claimed in the journals -- they must trust that their own brain has not gone delusional and hallucinated the results as they record them on their personal 'reality verification journals.'
Now, back to 'it's true'. It seems to me that your statement presumes to know what 'the religious person' thinks is true, and how that person would define it. In other words, it seems that you allow yourself the possibility to choose what portion of reality to believe, and on what level / quality of evidence - but do not allow a person whom you categorize as a religious one to do the same.
Perhaps they only believe that for which they think they have seen enough evidence to be reasonably sure is worth believing -- but only believe it to a degree of certainty that makes sense based on information gathered -- while keeping an open mind to any new evidence that might inform a more mature opinion - just like you, and just like science is supposed to work ;)
After all, not all religious people buy all religious claims. None of them do. They just believe what they believe, just like we all do.
reply
You sound religious.
This is turning into a word game. Not longer interested.
Again, anything written by Peter Boghossian.
reply
Okeedoke, cheers
reply
Let me help
deleted by author
reply
deleted by author
reply
Here is how I see it...
There are things science can know, and things it can't; the beyond.
If science can't know something, you have the freedom to choose what you want to believe, and if you don't want to be accused of being illogical, the only requirement is that your belief be consistent within itself. By assumption, it can't be inconsistent with physics. If it were, it would be false, which would put it in the realm of science and not the beyond.
A self-consistent belief that can't be proven or disproven can't break anything. For example, you can choose whether to believe our Universe and the evolution of life on Earth was a pure coincidence, or there was some higher intelligence outside of this realm behind it; neither belief contradicts physics. So it doesn't even make sense to say it's objectively true or false; in a way it's subjective and whichever you believe becomes true within the unique frame of reference that is your consciousness. I've thought about it in the context of Gödel's incompleteness theorems and the way I see it, it still holds true.
The naysayers say the fact you can't prove it makes it illogical. I offer that the fact you can't disprove it makes it logical.
At the end of the day, people choose to believe what makes them happier, gives their life more meaning, hope, purpose etc. There is nothing wrong with looking after one's own mental well-being and finding one's place in all that is.
You're also free to believe we should strictly follow Occam's razor and in particular, that the pursuit of happiness is redundant, because it doesn't serve logic.
But whatever we believe, I think respect for other people's cosmovisions makes for a more frictionless life.
reply
To believe things that cannot be proven is by definition, illogical.
Religion is a faith based scam...more dangerous than most shitcoins.
reply
Logic is only a construct and it has its limitations, some of which have been formally proven by Gödel.
To believe things that cannot be proven is by definition, illogical.
In that case ZFC, the most common foundation of mathematics, is illogical, because the axiom of choice can't be proven or disproven from the Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory.
In the same way that mathematicians include AC in ZF, the existence of God can be proven trivially by axiomatizing it.
reply
If you get terminal cancer one day, and I hope you don't, you may find the god of [whatever you view as] logic you're worshipping doesn't serve your happiness anymore and change your stance.
reply
deleted by author
reply
Faith is pretending to know what you don’t know.
reply
deleted by author
reply