Brent Meeker writes:
> >This cannot be explained away by
> > "faith" in the sense that one can have faith in the gravity god or a
> > deist god (because no empirical finding counts for or against such
> > beliefs): rather, it comes down to a matter of simultaneously
> > believing x and not-x.
> >
> Seems like "faith" to me - belief without or contrary to evidence. What is the "x" you refer to?
There is a subtle difference. It is possible to have faith in something stupid
and still be consistent. For example, I could say that I have faith that God
will answer my prayers regardless of whether he has ever answered any
prayers before in the history of the world. However, I think most religious
people would say that they have "faith" that God will answer their prayers
because that it what God does and has done in the past. In so saying, they
are making an empirically verifiable claim, at least in theory. They can be invited
to come up with a test to support their belief, which can be as stringent as they
like; for example, they might allow only historical analysis because God would
not comply with any experiment designed to test him. I suspect that no such
test would have any impact on their beliefs because at bottom they are just
based on blind faith, but given that they do not volunteer this to begin with, it
shows them up as inconsistent and hypocritical.
Stathis Papaioannou
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Received on Fri Nov 10 2006 - 07:49:00 PST