From: Jeff Bone (jbone@jump.net)
Date: Sat Dec 29 2001 - 18:33:44 MST
Josiah Draper wrote:
> Faith... is not the idea that "some things should not be rationally
questioned",
> but if you have faith in something I would say it is more like
knowing something
> is true or will happen although you don't have all the proof it
wil. For example :
> the sun will rise next morning. You know it will happen, but you
can't prove it
> or can you?
Aaahh... what comes around, goes around. Having recently been
through this one on FoRK, let me try to give you the summary. You're
asking a deep epistemological question. Let's take it backwards:
you can't prove that the sun will rise tomorrow morning, *nor do you
"know" it will happen.* You *believe* that it will happen with a
high degree of probability simply based on precedent, but belief and
knowledge aren't the same thing. "True" and "most likely true given
precedent" aren't the same thing. "Faith" is a misunderstanding of
the difference at best, at worst a blind belief in certain things
being "true" when there's no evidence to support such belief, or even
evidence to the contrary of such belief.
Ask yourself this: how can you know for certain that any given thing
is true? What level of "probably true" is sufficient basis for you
to act on in various contexts?
jb
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