I don't quite understand how you could say the Greeks' definition of 'faith' and a modern-day Christian's definition of 'faith' are synonymous.
It all boils down to faith.
(215 posts) (19 voices)-
elizabethdamaro
MemberTy:
It has nothing to do with a "win". It has to do with understanding that equivocation won't work. Period. You can't pretend a word means something different than it does even in same contexts of sentences just because it happens to be faith in a god instead of faith in say, a spouse or friend.
Basic grammar tells us that alone.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorAs far back as Augustine of Hippo (and probably earlier), Christian thinkers supported strongly the notion of fideistic foundationalism: faith is axiomatic (all other thoughts and beliefs ultimately rest on it), and is not generated by any sort of evidence, but rather experienced only as a direct gift from God. Knowledge proceeds from faith, not the other way around.
What elemenope showed was that some criteria of evidences are varied.
No, what I described were the two well-recognized categories for evidence of the external world (deduction and empirical observation), and one category which almost nobody believes is a legitimate category of evidence for the external world (existential or internal experience).
-----------------Also, for what it's worth, Christians blithely changed the meaning of logos from its originally accepted sense. What makes you think they didn't do the same with pistis? They certainly speak of faith in a way that no contemporary religious or secular source does.
-----------------Also, just a little housekeeping note, if you could please instead of posting several posts each addressed to different people, please try to condense them into one post. Thanks. :)
Posted 3 years ago # -
elizabethdamaro
MemberThought of condensing after the fact.
Actually: I'm not sure you are understanding that you aren't challenging my statements or correcting them, but rather supporting them each time you post.
You keep saying things like "almost no one" or "no one" or "hardly anyone" etc.. or statements along those lines. Those are grand generalizations and are countered the minute you bring up that theists use these very criteria.
You also generalize "Christians" as well. Generalizations don't work for you well.
And there are many contemporary religious scholars who do consider the etymology and don't have the ignorance other folks might about what a word actually means.
Again: it is equivocation to suggest the word "faith" gets a whole new definition just because the subject matter happens to be theism. No way around that.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorWords are consensual conventions for communication of ideas, and hence they mean exactly what the people using them want them to mean, nothing more or less. These days, people (theist and atheist both) generally use this word faith to mean belief ungrounded by evidence, and thus that is what the word means. It may have meant something else before, but that's not what it means now. Your insistence on fixing to an archaic meaning for the word is perplexing, as it interferes with understanding the idea that other people using the word are attempting to convey by using it.
Posted 3 years ago # -
"These days, people (theist and atheist both) generally use this word faith to mean belief ungrounded by evidence, and thus that is what the word means."
Everyone keeps saying this. I don't want it to be true. It's a monumentally retarded definition of the word faith for both sides of the argument. For atheists, it leads to circular arguments far too often. For theists, it's just incorrect. People, whether they admit it or not, base beliefs on some kind of evidence. Doesn't matter what kind, but they'll do it. And then still call it faith, and agree to that definition.
Pisses me off no end.
Can't we rule out utterly stupid definitions that do no one any good?
Posted 3 years ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorCan't we rule out utterly stupid definitions that do no one any good?
Only if everyone stops using them, which is not likely.
I agree with you that the current definition and usage of the word 'faith' is impoverished of descriptive power in some ways, a degeneration from nuanced notions of epistemological warrant. On the other hand, many people experience 'faith' in precisely this way, and as such it is problematic to try to graft onto the current understanding meaning that is not existentially present. When a person resorts in an argument to "it all comes down to faith", they really do mean it in the degenerate sense of the word.
Posted 3 years ago # -
elizabethdamaro
Member"These days, people (theist and atheist both) generally use this word faith to mean belief ungrounded by evidence, and thus that is what the word means."
No they don't. And I already demonstrated a few examples of this.
"Well that's somewhat bad because this is what faith is unless you have evidence for your god ..."
equivocation.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorIt really isn't. Your interlocutors may disagree as to the presence of the fallacy. In order to judge your claim that a fallacious statement is present, your reasoning and analysis would need to be present so that it can be itself analyzed for soundness. In this particular case, in order to show equivocation, you must show how the argument has covertly presented two disparate definitions of a word critical to one or more premises. And even if you succeed, all you will have shown is that the argument is not apodictic, not that it is wrong; an unsound argument can still generate truth, it is merely not guaranteed to do so.
Posted 3 years ago # -
elizabethdamaro
MemberSure it is. To suggest that only when it comes to matters of theism that "faith" means something different when in the same context of a sentence is nonsense.
If you can't follow the thread, that's on you. But I don't need to reorchestrate it all in a post when simply reiterating the obvious will do.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Jasowah
Member@Elemenope: Man you are a fighter. I can't believe how adamant you are despite this person's strange obsession.
Elizabeth: I don't know if you realized, but answering a question with a single word, such as "incorrect", is incredible rude, condescending and arrogant. Though I suppose you are such a busy person that it's okay.
You said you understand that language evolves but don't seem to accept it in this case. If everyone in North America decided that "Sandwich" now meant "Paper", well guess what? It would change. I don't want GIGGY to be a word but people made it a word.
So do you still call a bundle of sticks a "faggot"? Or perhaps a cigarette a "fag"? When you feel happy do you say, "Man, I sure am gay today"?
No you don't.The description of Faith as described here is the ONLY one I have ever heard in relation to religion. Guess what this site is about!?
Posted 3 years ago # -
elizabethdamaro
MemberJasowah:
I'm not sure how you can't simply follow this... let me try to be very clear for you:
Faith has always dealt with strong trust/perfect confidence/conviction based on the evidence and experience of performance.
In effect, you take things on faith based on information and experience. The certainty and conviction allows the leap so to speak. It isn't blind belief. It isn't absent evaluation and evidence.
It doesn't matter if it's faith in your doctor, your spouse, or what not. Pretending a word suddenly changes meaning ONLY when used in relation to theism is just nonsense.
Posted 3 years ago # -
"Pretending a word suddenly changes meaning ONLY when used in relation to theism is just nonsense."
I actually buy this.
This is why I have trouble accepting the aforementioned "stupid" definition of faith. If faith is meant by most people to mean: "belief without any kind of rational support," then that would be one thing. But it isn't, or I should say, there are other, equally common definitions. The reduction of faith to one definition anytime theism is introduced to the conversation is consistent with neither the common usage of the word, which can be used to mean multiple things, nor is it consistent with the relatively high argumentative standards encouraged by real-world skepticism.
Defining faith to be "belief without reason" is, in my estimation, pernicious. Will religious people accept this definition? To my chagrin, yes, although they'll typically use it as merely a cop out. But reducing the word to a definition that favors your argument, and rejecting any discussion that doesn't build itself around that definition, is not responsible. I've raised this question on these forums before. Say I would like to make an argument that faith and rationality are not mutually exclusive. I can present all the evidence I want to, and I have in the past presented evidence for this argument. What tends to happen is that the argument is deemed false *based on the definition of faith,* a definition which a) I don't agree with, b) I think is used in other ways in almost every setting besides discussions of theism, and c) irresponsibly defines the answers to several important questions by the imposed definition alone.
All human judgments are based upon some kind of evidence. If we define faith as "belief based on empirically-unverifiable evidence," then we might have a shot. If we define faith as "strong conviction," that's alright too. However, defining faith as something that it *empirically cannot be,* that is, belief without any rational justification, is not okay with me. Every human decision is either completely arbitrary, completely instinctual, or informed by rationality. There isn't any other way to have a belief. Defining faith as impossible is uninteresting. We should define it in a way that matches with reality.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorIt is just as pernicious to define existential internal convictions and states as "evidence". The crux of the matter is whether faith is a belief that is grounded by some form of evidence, and ultimately I will grant that faith is usually grounded on *something*, but to call it evidence is as violent to the concept of evidence as calling faith ungrounded belief is to that concept.
And for what it's worth, JonJon, your perspicacity and discernment about the nuances of the concept of faith are not typical of most believers. Since words are defined consensually, the word won't change until people's conception of the underlying concept changes. Do you really think that likely?
Posted 3 years ago # -
"And for what it's worth, JonJon, your perspicacity and discernment about the nuances of the concept of faith are not typical of most believers. Since words are defined consensually, the word won't change until people's conception of the underlying concept changes."
That does not make the definition helpful, nor does it make it responsible. Your argument is that it is accurate. That *may* be true, but I don't think it is, especially since faith has so many connotations divergent from this "standard" definition.
"It is just as pernicious to define existential internal convictions and states as "evidence". The crux of the matter is whether faith is a belief that is grounded by some form of evidence, and ultimately I will grant that faith is usually grounded on *something*, but to call it evidence is as violent to the concept of evidence as calling faith ungrounded belief is to that concept."
Are you reducing the entire concept of evidence down to "empirically testable evidence?" If so, that's cool, but like I said, that really does change the argument. We could define faith to be "belief without empirically testable evidence." If you are reducing "evidence" to "valid testable evidence only," then you seem to have ruled out of the concept the very notion of "insufficient" or "bad" evidence, which most scientific inquiry requires. Evidence does not mean the same thing as valid testable evidence, or we wouldn't qualify the word in that way.
Internal states are evidence by which people make decisions and believe things. If you don't like calling them evidence, I'm not sure what else to call them. It is difficult to quantify sadness, but I use it as a factor in rational decision making all the time. I can even construct an experiment to predict and test whether or not I feel sad after a given event. This doesn't make my internal thinking process scientific. But it does mean that it is dependent upon my experiences, whether those are sensory or internal.
We can qualify words like faith just as we qualify words like evidence. If I can call evidence "solid," I am indicating that there are instances of evidence which are not solid. If I can qualify faith as "blind," then I also indicate that there are kinds of faith which aren't blind. The "standard" definition I see proposed on these boards when discussing theism incorporates "blind" into the basic definition. This is injurious against a concept of faith which is not blind, even alternative definitions like "strong feeling". Incorporating "empirically testable" into evidence does much the same thing.
Posted 3 years ago # -
Elemenope
ModeratorI think a crucial criteria for something to be called "evidence" is that it is at least intersubjective and externally accessible. Definitions of word and relationships between concepts are public, and so the results of deductive arguments are evidence. Testing and observing external objects are processes which are intersubjectively valid, and so the results of inductive arguments are evidence.
The activity of internal states are indisputably important for a massive collection of human activities. It would be a mistake, though, I think, to confuse that which is indispensable with that which possesses evidential warrant. Because internal states aren't directly experienced by anyone except the person experiencing them, and they themselves can have no confidence that those internal states hold any correspondence to reality, they can't serve as evidence of a feature of that reality.
When we qualify "faith" with adjectives, it can mean our expressed confidence in the belief because of evidence, but often it merely means the extent psychological or existential commitment to the belief. I would argue only, as was from the original context of the person and his Catholic friend, that the colloquial use of the word "faith", as such, by believer and unbeliever alike, is strongly bound up with notions of ungroundedness with regards to evidence. I imagine that if the person's interlocutor were a Jesuit priest instead of a lay Catholic, the discussion would be very different, but as I say, most people aren't Jesuit priests and do not visit these concepts with much nuance.
Posted 3 years ago #
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