Philosophy Now Forum

I have never understood why faith is a virtue. Suppose I am a child and live with my brother (who is also a child). We are the only people that live in the house. Everyday, criminals break into our house,beat us up and take our stuff. My brother says that I must have faith that our father is alive and in the attic. He also says that he is silent and never leaves his room for our own good. Unfortunately, we do not know the reason. However we must have faith that there is a reason. Decades go by. One day Dad leaves the room and says to my brother, "both of you are good boys. However, your brother never believed in me. Therefore he will be tortured for eternity."
Is Dad insane? Is God insane?

raw_thought wrote:I have never understood why faith is a virtue. Suppose I am a child and live with my brother (who is also a child). We are the only people that live in the house. Everyday, criminals break into our house,beat us up and take our stuff. My brother says that I must have faith that our father is alive and in the attic. He also says that he is silent and never leaves his room for our own good. Unfortunately, we do not know the reason. However we must have faith that there is a reason. Decades go by. One day Dad leaves the room and says to my brother, "both of you are good boys. However, your brother never believed in me. Therefore he will be tortured for eternity."
Is Dad insane? Is God insane?

Perhaps because faith has nothing to do with reason. You posted about Pascal, Pascal used to say "The heart has got reasons which mind can't comprehend."

The rationality depends on what we mean by "faith". It appears you're defining it down to something like "believing things for which there is no evidence or reason," or even, perhaps, "believing things you know ain't so."

If that's what we are to understand by the concept, then you're right to have doubts...that conception of "faith" cannot be defended.

But is that what "faith" entails?

raw_thought wrote:Is Dad insane? Is God insane?

Yes.

Faith closes the mind. It is pure idol worship.

Faith is a way to quit using, "God given" power of Reason and Logic, and cause the faithful to embrace doctrines that moral people reject.

The God of the OT says, “Come now, and let us reason together,” [Isaiah 1:18]

How can literalists reason with God when they must ignore reason and logic and discard them when turning into literalist?

Those who are literalists can only reply somewhat in the fashion that Martin Luther did.
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.”

This attitude effectively kills all worthy communication that non-theists can have with theist. Faith closes the mind as it is pure idol worship.

Literalism is an evil practice that hides the true messages of myths. We cannot show our faith based friends that they are wrong through their faith colored glasses. Their faith also plugs their ears.

Regards
DL

Well, with the definition of "faith" you guys are positing, there's clearly no more to be said.

Still, we ought to wonder why, if it's so glaringly obvious as some of you seem to suggest, you would have bothered yourselves to ask about it at all.

So what made the question worth asking?

Immanuel Can wrote:So what made the question worth asking?

This assumes it was meant as a question and not another case of showing how cool it is to interrogate strawmen.

Faith is belief in consciousness as nonlocality giving a nonlocal interface between the observer and the event.Where as no faith equals only a local interface with the local event. One is good the other evil. He who argues against faith argues against nonlocality and there for automaticaly makes him self local to the event and thus evil in that respect to the event. But at the end of the day your arse is going to end up nonlocal no matter what.

raw_thought wrote:I have never understood why faith is a virtue. Suppose I am a child and live with my brother (who is also a child). We are the only people that live in the house. Everyday, criminals break into our house,beat us up and take our stuff. My brother says that I must have faith that our father is alive and in the attic. He also says that he is silent and never leaves his room for our own good. Unfortunately, we do not know the reason. However we must have faith that there is a reason. Decades go by. One day Dad leaves the room and says to my brother, "both of you are good boys. However, your brother never believed in me. Therefore he will be tortured for eternity."
Is Dad insane? Is God insane?

Faith is the death of reason.
It what people cling to when they have lost hope of knowing.

What God? What Dad?

Immanuel Can wrote:The rationality depends on what we mean by "faith". It appears you're defining it down to something like "believing things for which there is no evidence or reason," or even, perhaps, "believing things you know ain't so."

If that's what we are to understand by the concept, then you're right to have doubts...that conception of "faith" cannot be defended.

But is that what "faith" entails?

Faith is also loosely used for "trust". But that often relies on background knowledge and some evidence.
For example, I trust my doctor to remember what is the recommended drug for my prescription. It never hurts to check for yourself though. And with any new medication I extend that trust to reliable websites such as NHS or the Lancet.
Then there is the everyday, unthinking sort of trust. It is not worth the worry to consider that my BMW is not going to get me to my appointment tomorrow, as it has been reliable more than 99% of the trips I have taken with it.
Is that 'faith" misplaced? Even if the car does not start tomorrow, the faith i have NOW, of which I am unaware, is still reasonable based on the evidence. I know someday it will let me down, though. It's not even conscious faith until I consider the possibility of failure.

But we all know that "Faith" is not just trust.
Faith with a capital F is the stupid kind, of unreasoning blindness to the facts.

Immanuel Can wrote:Well, with the definition of "faith" you guys are positing, there's clearly no more to be said.

Still, we ought to wonder why, if it's so glaringly obvious as some of you seem to suggest, you would have bothered yourselves to ask about it at all.

So what made the question worth asking?

Strawman? Conventional Christianity believes that by faith one is saved from eternal torture. What does conventional Christianity define as faith? Belief without proof.
Why ask the question in the OP? To see if faith ( as defined by conventional Christianity ) makes any sense.

Immanuel Can wrote:Well, with the definition of "faith" you guys are positing, there's clearly no more to be said.

Still, we ought to wonder why, if it's so glaringly obvious as some of you seem to suggest, you would have bothered yourselves to ask about it at all.

So what made the question worth asking?

Repeat post. Sorry. Bif fat fingers and a tablet.

ReliStuPhD wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote:So what made the question worth asking?

This assumes it was meant as a question and not another case of showing how cool it is to interrogate strawmen.

Sorry, yhis is where the strawman accusation was from.
The OP was obviously not a strawman. The analogy fits perfectly with conventional Christianity.

The OP was obviously not a strawman. The analogy fits perfectly with conventional Christianity.

I think what ReliStuPhD is pointing out is that your "conventional Christianity," and indeed, your description of what you consider "faith" would not be recognizable to any real Christian.

He's correct.

If we accept the term "faith" as you seem to want to define it, then the question you ask is simply no longer worth asking; for then the proposed "definition" would itself pretty much constitute a rational defeater for "faith" -- except, perhaps for the extreme irrational mystic, and very few Christians are that.

So then the question would be unnecessary, since rational persons could not even entertain a controversy there.

I admit that I wasn't hopeful...but I did want to give your question the benefit of the doubt.

raw_thought wrote:What does conventional Christianity define as faith? Belief without proof.

Like I said, a strawman.

Immanuel Can wrote:I think what ReliStuPhD is pointing out is that your "conventional Christianity," and indeed, your description of what you consider "faith" would not be recognizable to any real Christian.

Right. Perhaps the only qualm would be the qualifier "real Christian." I would prefer to phrase it something like "educated Christian" (as in, educated in the central points of orthodox Christian theology rather than going on whatever they half-learned on Sunday morning at the feet of a pastor who may or may not know what he/she is speaking about). That is to say, I think "real Christians" get these basic concepts wrong all the time.