Faith and human knowledge: do they differ?

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23 Nov 2011, 12:23 pm

"Scientific fact" is the highest secular standard of determining truth. This while "scientific facts" formerly "proven" are "disproven" daily. (The logical conclusion: Fact is superior to scientific fact. Fact is what is true, while scientific fact is what finite minds temporarily think is true, until the nearly-inevitable time comes that they show it false.)

So, do scientists know truth? Discuss.

Do they live and work by faith? Discuss.

(Faith can be informed faith, as almost all faith is.)

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Believing as I do that neutrinos have mass -- it is one of my oldest and most deeply held convictions -- I believe what I do on the basis of the fundamental laws of physics and a congeries of computational schemes, algorithms, specialized programming languages, techniques for numerical integration, huge canned programs, computer graphics, interpolation methods, nifty shortcuts, and the best efforts by mathematicians and physicists to convert the data of various experiments into coherent patterns, artfully revealing symmetries and continuous narratives. The neutrino has nothing to do with it.

-David Berlinski, The Devil's Delusion

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Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.

Last edited by Ragtime on 23 Nov 2011, 12:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

01001011
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23 Nov 2011, 12:27 pm

You are confusing 'facts' and scientific theory. Scientific theories are tentative and there is no 'truth' in the naive realist sense.

Ragtime
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23 Nov 2011, 12:50 pm

01001011 wrote:

You are confusing 'facts' and scientific theory. Scientific theories are tentative and there is no 'truth' in the naive realist sense.

Then why do scientists declare scientific conclusions to be "absolutely true"? I constantly hear them do this. It is apparently they who are confusing facts and scientific theory. Many scientists speak -- correctly -- in terms of finite knowledge. The more famous ones come forward and, with unmistakable declaration, throw the phrase "It is a fact that..." around in almost every speech they give in reference to science. What, are they simply unfamiliar with the phrase "We believe..."?

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Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.

Ragtime
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23 Nov 2011, 1:01 pm

Science writer Tom Bethell:

Quote:

“It is an article of our secular faith that there is nothing exceptional about human life”.

Therefore, it is an article of "our secular faith" that "there is nothing exceptional about human life[ -- contrary to the Christian faith]."

So what we have here is one faith against another faith.

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Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.

Gedrene
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23 Nov 2011, 1:08 pm

Faith and knowledge are not the same. Faith is just our capacity to trust in something. This may be validated by evidence.

Knowledge on the other hand is simply what humans and other sapients, sentients too, interpret of the world which is correct.

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23 Nov 2011, 1:15 pm

Ragtime wrote:

01001011 wrote:

You are confusing 'facts' and scientific theory. Scientific theories are tentative and there is no 'truth' in the naive realist sense.

They do it because of the general dumbing down of society and because of the general hostility toward science, coming from religious fundamentalists, which makes science education a (unnecessary) battle for hearts and minds.

I say give your heart to Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, if you will, but honor your divine gift of reason and reserve your mind for science!

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23 Nov 2011, 1:20 pm

Gedrene wrote:

I would add that "Faith" is the subjective belief in unprovable things; that "knowledge" is the belief in objectively proven things; that "proof" is valid material evidence for, or an empirical demonstration of a belief; and that subjective belief proves nothing.

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23 Nov 2011, 2:04 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Quote:

-David Berlinski, The Devil's Delusion

Scientific facts are never "proven". They are observed or not observed and usually by indirect means. As long as observation is theory laden a scientific fact can at most be probable. The possibility of misidentifying a fact cannot be eliminated entirely.

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Ragtime
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23 Nov 2011, 2:36 pm

Gedrene wrote:

Knowledge on the other hand is simply what humans ... interpret of the world which is correct.

"...which is correct"? But how do we know it is correct? Is there a 100% proof about any part of the natural world?

That which is "known" is believed.

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Ragtime
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23 Nov 2011, 2:41 pm

GoonSquad wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

01001011 wrote:

You are confusing 'facts' and scientific theory. Scientific theories are tentative and there is no 'truth' in the naive realist sense.

Blame for erroneous claims may lay here or there, and certainly always lies somewhat with the claimants, but my point is that that the claim that "truth" and "fact" have been "proven" is false.

GoonSquad wrote:

I say give your heart to Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, if you will, but honor your divine gift of reason and reserve your mind for science!

The mind by its very design is reserved for science; it is itself a testing-and-reasoning machine. The mind cannot fail to practice science. It does everything from bad science to good science, but what it necessarily does at all times is test, reason, and conclude -- which is science. No one can ever "stop being scientific" in their thinking, except through certain massive physical brain injuries. So, God, if He exists and created us, designed our minds to be science machines.

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Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.

Last edited by Ragtime on 23 Nov 2011, 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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23 Nov 2011, 2:44 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Gedrene wrote:

Knowledge on the other hand is simply what humans ... interpret of the world which is correct.

"...which is correct"? But how do we know it is correct? Is there a 100% proof about any part of the natural world?

That which is "known" is believed.

No, that which is "known" is supported by evidence, that which is "believed" is not necessarily supported. What constitutes as sufficient evidence for a "belief" to become "knowledge" depends on consensus and is still subject to alterations when presented with new evidence. A belief is not required to change regardless of evidence.

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23 Nov 2011, 2:44 pm

Quite bluntly, science updates itself when there's new evidence, religion doesn't. Religion is doomed to fail to explain new evidence, and many of the standard ones have failed already.

Faith is what you have when you don't know about something. If you knew God existed, it wouldn't be faith, it would just be knowledge.

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23 Nov 2011, 2:55 pm

Lecks wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

Gedrene wrote:

Knowledge on the other hand is simply what humans ... interpret of the world which is correct.

"...which is correct"? But how do we know it is correct? Is there a 100% proof about any part of the natural world?

That which is "known" is believed.

No, that which is "known" is supported by evidence, that which is "believed" is not necessarily supported.

Oh, every belief is supported. It comes down to the question, "By what is a particular belief supported?"
The "what" must then be evaluated for trustworthiness -- again, the subjective enters into it. Partial epistemological success is the very best that exists in the intellectual human experience.

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What constitutes as sufficient evidence for a "belief" to become "knowledge" depends on consensus

That's politics, not epistemology.

Quote:

and is still subject to alterations when presented with new evidence. A belief is not required to change regardless of evidence.

You're making an irrelevant contrast between utterly-baseless beliefs (insane ones) and logical beliefs, which you name "knowledge". I call it irrelevant because my OP has nothing to do with the random shoutings of the clinically insane, but rather the lifelong experiences of many devout religious people. The beliefs they hold are not random, and they are not without foundation -- as they are dismissed by atheists to be. Conversely, science is NEVER absolutely true. If it were true, it wouldn't be called "science", which means "the study of nature". "Study" is not truth -- it is quite inferior, so that any attempt to call one the other is grossly irresponsible and intellectually dishonest.

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23 Nov 2011, 3:07 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Gedrene wrote:

Knowledge on the other hand is simply what humans ... interpret of the world which is correct.

"...which is correct"? But how do we know it is correct? Is there a 100% proof about any part of the natural world?

That which is "known" is believed.

Correct as in can be demonstrated as true in every case and not false in any case or as close to that as possible.

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23 Nov 2011, 3:09 pm

Vexcalibur wrote:

Quite bluntly, science updates itself when there's new evidence, religion doesn't.

Dr. David Berlinski is one of a great many scientists who note that science is not always updated toward accuracy, but rather, for political reasons, toward inaccuracy.

Vexcalibur wrote:

Religion is doomed to fail to explain new evidence, and many of the standard ones have failed already.

I don't find that to be the case at all, in regard to Christianity. (In general, I don't defend other religions.)
The Bible has not changed in the content of what it says (punctuation and such non-informational errors in copying notwithstanding) since it was written, and yet it is far more accurate than were the secular scientific determinations of its age. Indeed, nothing in the Bible has been shown to be wrong.

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Faith is what you have when you don't know about something.

So we're agreed: We all have faith, as I have shown that so-called "human knowledge" is faith.

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Christianity is different than Judaism only in people's minds -- not in the Bible.

Last edited by Ragtime on 23 Nov 2011, 3:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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23 Nov 2011, 3:09 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Lecks wrote:

No, that which is "known" is supported by evidence, that which is "believed" is not necessarily supported.

The difference is that knowledge does not rely on personal experience or hearsay, it's testable.

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What constitutes as sufficient evidence for a "belief" to become "knowledge" depends on consensus

That's politics.

That's human nature, our methods are flawed but not without success.

Quote:

and is still subject to alterations when presented with new evidence. A belief is not required to change regardless of evidence.

When such experiences stop exclusively happening to certain types of people, in certain parts of the world they may actually be verrified. Until then I see nothing wrong with categorising those beliefs with "the random shoutings of the clinically insane".

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