What is faith?

TheMadFool

Looking back at my past I realized that I never had, what can be called, faith. I was always very doubtful. I can't call this doubt skepticism because I wasn't mentally mature enough to realize the difference. Skepticism is a philosophy and is, well, much deeper than the simple doubt that I had.

After some very superficial study of philosophy and religion I had the feeling that faith was nothing more than A=belief without evidence. Position A is, from all angles, completely irrational and so, clearly, anti-philosophical.

However, lately I began to analyze what faith really is. It isn't simply A. There's a lot of reasoning and emotion that goes into it.

Reasoning: Doubt in full bloom is skepticism and skepticism challenges absolutely everything. Nothing can be taken for granted. Such a position, at first glance, undermines faith but skepticism leaves us with no option other than faith. Faith in our senses, our rationality, our instruments, our reality. Faith, it seems, is integral to all knowledge - even science is, if you dig deep enough, grounded on faith. So, why single out religious faith for our criticism?

Emotion: Is hope an emotion? Religious faith seems to be tied to hope. We hope for meaning in life, for a soul that outlives our body, for heaven and so on. Hope, then, is a fuel for the engine of faith. This isn't rational but there is a clear and strong connection.

In addition our ignorance far exceeds our knowledge. Shouldn't we, then, approach the issue of the divine in a careful well-considered manner? I know this is the God-of-the-gaps argument but my response to this is that even our knowledge (science included) counts as evidence for a creator. There simply is no good answer to ''why the universe can't be designed?''

So, the rational position, in the present, is to suspend judgment. To change position to atheism or theism requires, and this is queer, faith. An atheist requires faith in some form of materialism and a theist requires faith in some form of spiritualism.

Faith can't be used to brand some belief system as irrational.

Wayfarer

One useful word from the lexicon of religious studies is fideism which is generally interpreted to mean that knowledge must rely on faith. ‘I believe in order that I may understand’ is one frequently =-quoted aphorism.

However, I don’t believe that fideism is regarded as a sound basis for the spiritual life in many Christian denominations. Catholic theology is intricately reasoned, and Thomas Aquinas’ arguments all commence with a thorough ‘consideration of objections’. So as you say, it is to simplistic to say that Christianity depends merely or only on ‘accepting propositions for which there is no evidence’, although it is certainly depicted in those terms by many of its antagonists.

There was some interesting writing done on this question by religious studies scholar, Karen Armstrong, a few years back, in articles such as Metaphysical Mistake, which sees the emphasis on belief as a kind of ‘clinging to dogma’ as being very much part of the modern view of religion.

The extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on "belief" in Christianity today is an accident of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth. We call religious people "believers", as though acceptance of a set of doctrines was their principal activity, and before undertaking the religious life many feel obliged to satisfy themselves about the metaphysical claims of the church, which cannot be proven rationally since they lie beyond the reach of empirical sense data.

Worth reading.

The other point that might be made - and it’s a very difficult one - is that there is a tension in Christianity itself between faith and the idea of a ‘higher knowledge’. This underlies the conflict betweeen mainstream Christian denominations and the various movements known as ‘gnostic’ in the early tradition. Gnosis means a kind of saving knowledge or insight, and is distinguished from belief. It doesn’t necessarily signify a conflict although in practice, there were major conflicts between the early gnostic movements and the mainstream (whom the Gnostics referred to pejoratively as ‘pistics’, after ‘pistis’ meaning belief.) In any case, the Gnostics lost out, and as history is written by the victors, the ‘doctrine of the pistics’ has become the standard. Which, I think, is reflected in that article above by Armstrong.

TheMadFool

↪Wayfarer

Thanks for your informative post. I think I'm talking aboit the universality of fideism - that faith is essential to all knowledge. Just thought of this...

Am I making a mistake by equating scientific faith and religious faith? The former is, well, proven through the actualizations of predictions about our world. Science makes predictions and tests them. True predictions support the theory and its methods (its axioms and rules). So, science is self-verifying, a quality that religious faith lacks. Perhaps religious folks can claim miracles as proof of their faith. What do you think?

Deleted User

A=belief without evidence. Position A is, from all angles, completely irrational and so, clearly, anti-philosophical. — TheMadFool

No, Position A is completely rational. Where there is no evidence but you need nonetheless to take some action requiring knowledge you must simply believe something to be the case. Where that action is quite important to life (and evidence for the knowledge it required is unlikely to ever be forthcoming) then living with the decision you made becomes emotionally challenging. The more fervently you hold the belief you used to make that decision the less emotional distress you will be in. Since the evidence is unlikely to ever be forthcoming the disadvantage of this 'faith' (that you might miss out on the 'truth') is unlikely to ever arise. Thus you have, by your actions; taken the decision that needed to be taken, saved yourself considerable emotional distress, and lost nothing in the process. Sounds entirely rational to me.

So, why single out religious faith for our criticism? — TheMadFool

Because religious faith causes actual measurable harm and we do not need to suspend judgement about that, the evidence is there. We might not know whether there is a God, but we do know that abusing children causes them to suffer, so when Catholic priests abuse children we might, on the basis of the evidence, question their religion's ability to direct people to do good. We know that stoning hurts, so when the Bible or the Quoran advise it as a punishment for adultery we might justifiably question whether this is the sort of group we want to be associated with.

Think about your comment if applied to the Klu Klux Klan. We have no actual evidence, apart from faith, that black people aren't actually an inferior race put on earth by god to serve the whites, we can't disprove it in any conclusive way. So should cut the Klu Klux Klan a bit of slack, stop being so harsh on them?

TheMadFool

No, Position A is completely rational. Where there is no evidence but you need nonetheless to take some action requiring knowledge you must simply believe something to be the case. — Inter Alia

This is an exception to the rule that all actions must be well-thought. As such I think it doesn't damage the rule: we must believe only on evidence.

Because religious faith causes actual measurable harm — Inter Alia

Damage or benefit has no relation with truth. Fire is harmful and beneficial but its use or misuse has no effect on the truth that fire burns.

Anyway, my point is faith isn't irrational and I think you agree.

Deleted User

This is an exception to the rule that all actions must be well-thought. As such I think it doesn't damage the rule: we must believe only on evidence. — TheMadFool

I don't think it's an exception, based on your initial proposition, that faith underlies every belief, it's pretty much something required on a daily basis. We are constantly put into ethical dilemmas which require us to have some belief in a proposition about both the future and our moral duty towards it, neither of which have any evidence for them which cannot be questioned at some level. Just leaving your house to go to work - is it OK for you to be doing your job and not some more worthwhile enterprise, should you drive (with the associated pollution) or walk, if you walk should you give money to the beggar in the subway, how much should you give, is it OK to buy breakfast from the food stand, should you have gone organic, vegetarian, kosher... you've not even got to work yet and already you've had to make dozens of decisions none of which you have any evidence for which cannot be refuted by a clever enough philosopher.

Damage or benefit has no relation with truth. — TheMadFool

But that's not what you said. You said

So, why single out religious faith for our criticism? — TheMadFool

Nothing to do with truth, you were making the typical apologist presumption that because we can't disprove their beliefs we should go easy on religion. Attacks on religion are not limited to, nor even dominated by, the fact that their beliefs cannot be disproven. They are dominated by the fact that their beliefs are harmful. It's quite a simple metric - seeing as we cannot be sure of any beliefs, we should at least avoid the ones that we can see cause harm.

Mitchell

Religious language must get its meaning from extending that of ordinary speech. In ordinary language, 'faith' means "trust", as "to have faith in the American judicial system". The primary locution is "faith in". Somehow, religionists have focused instead on the locution "faith that", meaning believing that something is true, usually without evidence, or at least sufficient evidence. The original religious notion of faith was "faith in God", meaning to trust God. In this sense of faith, the existence of God is not in question; it is a given.

Metaphysician Undercover

After some very superficial study of philosophy and religion I had the feeling that faith was nothing more than A=belief without evidence. Position A is, from all angles, completely irrational and so, clearly, anti-philosophical. — TheMadFool

It is very questionable what exactly "belief without evidence" means, and whether it is truly irrational. We must consider what it means for a belief to be justified. A belief may be justified through logical process, so if "evidence" means justifying the belief by means of the senses, then many beliefs are justified without evidence. Further, if something is told to us by a person who is believed to be an authority on the subject, then many people would agree that belief in what the person says is justified. But isn't believing what a person says, simply because that person is thought to be an authority on that subject, nothing more than having faith in that person?

JustSomeGuy

But isn't believing what a person says, simply because that person is thought to be an authority on that subject, nothing more than having faith in that person? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is.
Everything we have been taught, from every source (people, books, the internet, etc.), requires us to have faith in the source in order to accept it as truthful or accurate
And even if we have firsthand experience of something, we are still placing faith in our physical senses and our own brains/minds that they are giving us accurate information.
Descartes may have been wrong about a lot, but one thing he got right was that the only thing I can truly be certain of is that I exist. Everything else requires varying degrees of faith.

Wayfarer

Somehow, religionists have focused instead on the locution "faith that", meaning believing that something is true, usually without evidence, or at least sufficient evidence. The original religious notion of faith was "faith in God", meaning to trust God. In this sense of faith, the existence of God is not in question; it is a given. — Mitchell

I think the notion of 'evidence' ought to be considered a bit more deeply (and here, I'm not speaking as a Christian apologist or church-goer.) But what would be considered evidence in this case?

It seems to me that much of the incredulity about 'God' is based simply on the notion that 'God' is said to be intangible and not knowable to the senses. And after all modern empiricism really amounts to a requirement for tangible or measurable evidence of whatever is supposed to be real. In other words, many sceptics will ridicule belief in God on the grounds that this is not something for which there is empirical or sensory evidence. But that is something that was always understood by the founders of the monotheistic faiths. Karen Armstrong, in her book Case for God, argues that the attitude of seeking 'evidence' arose from the tendency in the early modern period to present science as 'showing the handiwork of the Divine'. As science expanded, the purported role for the Divine correspondingly diminished.

But that attitude was mistaken from the outset. Armstrong points out that the unknowability of the Divine was always central to the great monotheistic faiths: '"He is not "good", "divine", "powerful" or "intelligent" in any way that we can understand. We could not even say that God "exists", because our concept of existence is too limited."

The problem, according to Armstrong, is that we don't properly grasp the relationship of logos and mythos.

Both were crucial and each had its particular sphere of competence. Logos ("reason; science") was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled us to control our environment and function in the world. It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external realities. But logos could not assuage human grief or give people intimations that their lives had meaning. For that they turned to mythos, a precursor to psychology, which dealt with the more elusive aspects of human experience.

Stories of heroes descending to the underworld were not understood as factual in our sense, but taught people how to navigate the obscure regions of the psyche. In the same way, the purpose of a creation myth was therapeutic; before the modern period no sensible person ever thought it provided a literal account of the origins of life. A cosmology was recited at times of crisis or sickness, when people needed a symbolic influx of the creative energy that had brought something out of nothing. Thus the Genesis myth, a polemic against Babylonian religion, was balm to the bruised spirits of the Israelites who had been defeated and deported by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar during the sixth century BCE. Nobody was required to "believe"; like most peoples, the Israelites had a number of other mutually-exclusive creation stories and as late as the 16th century, Jews thought nothing of making up a new creation myth that bore no relation to Genesis but spoke more directly to their circumstances at that time.

Above all, myth was a programme of action. When a mythical narrative was symbolically re-enacted, it brought to light within the practitioner something "true" about human life and the way our humanity worked, even if its insights, like those of art, could not be proven rationally. If you did not act upon it, it would remain as incomprehensible and abstract – like the rules of a board game, which seem impossibly convoluted, dull and meaningless until you start to play. (You find the same in the Platonic dialogues, where many profound truths are suggested by way of allusion to myth.)

Religious truth is, therefore, a type of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to dive in the deep end and acquire the understanding by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or the Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.

Wayfarer

Incidentally, CloserToTruth has just published a series of interviews with David Bentley Hart, philosophical theologian. Available here.

Deleted User

It seems to me that much of the incredulity about 'God' is based simply on the notion that 'God' is said to be intangible and not knowable to the senses. And after all modern empiricism really amounts to a requirement for tangible or measurable evidence of whatever is supposed to be real. In other words, many sceptics will ridicule belief in God on the grounds that this is not something for which there is empirical or sensory evidence. But that is something that was always understood by the founders of the monotheistic faiths. — Wayfarer

I think you've misrepresented the atheist argument, it doesn't focus on "this is not something for which there is empirical or sensory evidence" and then walk away, it argues that it is not something for which there is empirical or sensory evidence, and, that having empirical or sensory evidence for such a belief is a reasonable requirement to justify it on account of the potential (or actual) harm such a belief may do. It's basically no more than the application of the Hippocratic oath "do no harm" i.e. in the face of uncertainty, at least doing nothing will mean you have caused no harm. If we can't obtain any evidence to support the net benefit of religious practices, then don't engage in any.

The fact is that some faith is required at the foundation of any belief system, but that doesn't then mean all belief systems become equal. There are many other means to judge belief systems than the degree of evidence in their favour. Their simplicity, their utility, their net observable harm, the virtues of fellow believers, even their aesthetic beauty. None of these judgements are objective, but they shouldn't be dismissed as valid and many of them form an important part of the atheist argument. It not just about lack of evidence.

Wayfarer

The fact is that some faith is required at the foundation of any belief system, but that doesn't then mean all belief systems become equal. — Inter Alia

Oh I certainly agree with that. I think 'evangelical atheism' has nothing much to recommend it. But I can't agree at all with the repeated claim about 'the harm religion does'. Whilst it is certainly true that at times religions have done great evils, they've been well and truly de-fanged in modern secular culture, which has plenty of its own evils to dispense. As Terry Eagleton said, swap you chemical warfare for the Inquisition any day of the week,

Actually I think a lot of what motivates atheist polemics is what Thomas Nagel described well in his essay, Evolutionary Naturalism and the Fear of Religion, to whit:

IN SPEAKING OF THE FEAR OF RELIGION, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring tothe association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evidentempirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper, namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and,naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heavea great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning,and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena,generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the non-teleological laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed.

As to how to adjudicate whether religion is overall a boon or a curse, I would say - forget about it. As Thomas Paine said, you can't reason a man out of something he hasn't been reasoned into, and religions have immense emotional appeal, as attested by their explosive growth in many of the developing nations. The atheist dream of a purely scientific-secular culture is ever doomed to remain just that.

Deleted User

Whilst it is certainly true that at times religions have done great evils, they've been well and truly de-fanged in modern secular culture, — Wayfarer

You've missed the point of the harms religions have done. It's not to say "do not be religious because they are burning people at the stake" it's to say "do not be religious because they have burned people at the stake and this reveals something unsavoury about being religious, something potentially harmful". It's like encouraging the breeding of Pit Bull Terriers and saying it's OK because they're all muzzled nowadays, why would you even want to breed them in the first place?

Modern secular culture may well have plenty of evils, but none of them are demonstrably the result of secularism. The inquisition was demonstrably the result of a fanatical devotion to the Catholic religion. The covering up of child abuse was definitely the consequence of unquestioned faith in the church. "Swap you chemical warfare for the Inquisition any day of the week" is a ridiculous argument, chemical weapons are not caused by secularism, the inquisition was caused by Catholicism.

I don't entirely disagree with Nagel's suspicion that there is a great deal of fear of cosmic authority, but there's a great deal of fear motivating the religious, I don't see how that helps us assess the value of either position.

Being honourable in a battle is not about choosing which side is most likely to win, it's about choosing the one that's right.

Deleted User

Oh and I'm sorry if I sound a bit "hysterical" about child abuse, I guess I'm just funny like that, we all have our little quirks, mine just happens to be a personal dislike for regularly beating and abusing children in the name of one's religious authority and then having everyone else in one's religion keep quiet about it. I shall try to calm down about such trivialities in future.

TheMadFool

you've not even got to work yet and already you've had to make dozens of decisions none of which you have any evidence for which cannot be refuted by a clever enough philosopher. — Inter Alia

That, my friend, is a point in my favor. Faith is, well, ommipresent. So, why point fingers at one particular variety (religious) of faith? I'll follow up on this below...

They are dominated by the fact that their beliefs are harmful. — Inter Alia

Following your reasoning - we do most things on faith - how do we know religion is harmful? Is it an open and shut case as you suggest? Also religion is a complex mixture of things. Surely, we're intelligent enough to know the difference, separate the wheat from the chaff, and may be we'll see religion has a thing or two in its favor.

↪Metaphysician Undercover

May be I'm talking about myself here. I was under the ''misconception'' that faith is irrational and, therefore, bad. Now I feel that faith is inescapable in all spheres of experience. We must have faith in our senses, in our instruments, even reason itself, which is opposed to faith as I defined it, must be taken on faith.

Of course I see that reason supports itself quite well through the process of predictions. If reason were wrong or baseless then we wouldn't have been able to ''understand'' our world as much as we have. This form of self-supporting mechanism is absent in religious faith. At best the faithful have missed every opportunity of vindicating their beliefs or, at worst, religion is utterly bogus.

Deleted User

So, why point fingers at one particular variety (religious) of faith? — TheMadFool

Because religions are entire world-views that cannot simply be picked at whilst still claiming to be religious. I cannot say I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but not because he was the son of god, and then claim to be a sort of Christian, I'm not a Christian unless I believe that Jesus is the son of god, that his words are the words of god and that following them is a requirement, it's not a pick-and-mix. You cannot take the good things of religion and ignore the bad. One way or another religion has 'caused' all these things, they must be taken as a whole or not at all.

So the relevant question is, do the net benefits of joining, and thereby strengthening and condoning this community outweigh the harms?

But the problem with this approach is how are you going to judge? If you can see what is 'wheat' and what is 'chaff', as you put it, then what is religion actually offering you? You clearly already have sufficient knowledge of good and bad to carry out this filtering, so what's religion going to offer you at the end of the process?

In order that you obtain some world-view, some insight that you do not already possess (or possess the means to obtain for yourself by application of your own thought), you must simply trust someone else to know better than you. Honestly, can you look at the history of religions and say that they have proven themselves trustworthy institutions?

TheMadFool

↪Inter Alia

I guess to judge religion the way you have one would have to be a moral consequentialist - you think religion has had harmful consequences.

The flaw that I see in this is that its a static point of view. In addition to some folks taking exception to your evaluation of religion being harmful one would also need to stop the examination of consequences at 2017 so to speak. Life is dynamic, change is an undeniable fact, and, to me, in very simple terms, things haven't reached a conclusion yet. What about 2018? What about a decade or century later? Religion might just prove itself good don't you think?

Deleted User

↪TheMadFool

No, I'm a virtue ethicist, for exactly the reason you've just given, long-term consequences are too difficult to work out with any hope of accuracy. I just look a religions (as institutions, not individuals) and see that they do not display the virtues I believe we all know are good. I've not yet had anyone argue that the priests were right to abuse those children, or torture people during the inquisition, not one single person. How come? Because we all knew it was wrong anyway, We all know what right and wrong are, it's working out how to get there that's difficult, but abusing children? Is that really likely to be the sort of virtue we want to adopt?

JustSomeGuy

Because religions are entire world-views that cannot simply be picked at whilst still claiming to be religious. I cannot say I believe that Jesus rose from the dead, but not because he was the son of god, and then claim to be a sort of Christian, I'm not a Christian unless I believe that Jesus is the son of god, that his words are the words of god and that following them is a requirement, it's not a pick-and-mix. You cannot take the good things of religion and ignore the bad. One way or another religion has 'caused' all these things, they must be taken as a whole or not at all. — Inter Alia

First off, the vast majority of religious people do "take the good things and ignore the bad". In 2010 there were 5.8 billion religious people in the world, 84% of the total human population. How many of them are murdering infidels? How many of them are stoning people to death for breaking Biblical laws?

Blaming religion for atrocities committed by humanity is short-sighted. Some people are just more prone to violence and hatred, whether it be due to mental illness or simply because of their biology. We don't understand much about what makes people do bad things, but it's safe to say that religion isn't responsible.

For the record, I'm not religious and this isn't a defense of religion. There are disgusting things in most religions, but it's very clear that if religion truly caused people to do bad things, there would be a lot more people doing bad things than there actually are.

I just realized this is essentially the same as the gun control issue. Blaming the tool a person uses to do bad things isn't rational. Religion doesn't kill people; people kill people.

Janus

Modern secular culture may well have plenty of evils, but none of them are demonstrably the result of secularism. — Inter Alia

Not true; all ideologies come with their share of evils. Socialism, Nazism, Neo-Liberal Democratism, or whatever; people do evil things in the names of all of them.

Agustino

Not true; all ideologies come with their share of evils. Socialism, Nazism, Neo-Liberal Democratism, or whatever; people do evil things in the names of all of them. — Janus

I think that the problem is that some people cannot distinguish between religious beliefs and actions of certain groups, and political beliefs and actions. Quite often the Catholic Church, for example, isn't just involved in religion, but also in politics - and the two aren't the same.

Janus

↪Agustino

True!

TheMadFool

I've not yet had anyone argue that the priests were right to abuse those children, or torture people during the inquisition, not one single person. — Inter Alia

Others have responded this but a few things I want to say...

It's true that religion has many bad directives and examples. We can't deny that. Violence, for instance, is part of many religions but I sense that religious violence isn't an end/goal but that it is used only as a means. War, paradoxically, can achieve peace. About homophobia and human sacrifice or slavery I see no redeeming qualities.

Also, religion is good for it teaches love but people aren't perfect. Everybody has a flaw and the points you make about child abuse, terrorism, stoning, etc. should be attributed to human failings than religion itself.

Deleted User

First off, the vast majority of religious people do "take the good things and ignore the bad". In 2010 there were 5.8 billion religious people in the world, 84% of the total human population. How many of them are murdering infidels? How many of them are stoning people to death for breaking Biblical laws? — JustSomeGuy

Well they're not religious then are they? that's what the instructions in the bible specifically say and they specifically say the they are the word of god and must be obeyed. What people say the are is irrelevant to this argument. Most people say they are above average drivers but we know this is not mathematically possible, more heterosexual men say they've committed adultery than women but this is not technically possible.

Blaming religion for atrocities committed by humanity is short-sighted. Some people are just more prone to violence and hatred, whether it be due to mental illness or simply because of their biology. We don't understand much about what makes people do bad things, but it's safe to say that religion isn't responsible. — JustSomeGuy

Are you seriously suggesting that where a direct link is found between an ideology and some aberrant behaviour we should do nothing about it?

I just realized this is essentially the same as the gun control issue.

Blaming the tool a person uses to do bad things isn't rational. Religion doesn't kill people; people kill people. — JustSomeGuy

Oh god, you are! 130/yr per capita equivalent gun murders in the UK (with gun control) vs 11,004 in the US (without gun control). As Eddie Izzard says "I think the gun helps"

Deleted User

Not true; all ideologies come with their share of evils. Socialism, Nazism, Neo-Liberal Democratism, or whatever; people do evil things in the names of all of them. — Janus

What evils have been associated with Jainism then? The Hare Krishna movement? Stoicism, Epicurianism? It's nonsense to say that all ideologies have a share of evils. In fact it's pretty much limited to the ones that lend themselves to idolatry, which encourages the word of their leaders to be taken without question. I haven't mentioned the evils of Nazism because I thought that's basically been covered, can't remember where...oh yes, the second world war.

You've just done the same as everyone else in response to my use of religious atrocities in this argument, ignore the actual context in which they were mentioned and simply leapt to the defence of religion.

At no point did I say "religion is all bad and no secular ideology would do anything bad" so why do you feel the need to point out the obvious? The question was;

So, why point fingers at one particular variety (religious) of faith? — TheMadFool

The answer (in my opinion) is that religious faith, by it's doctrine of submitting to authority, has allowed (I never claimed they directly caused) some terrible atrocities to take place. Atheism, the disbelief in god, has not directly caused or allowed similar atrocities to take place. Ideologies which happen to be atheist have committed atrocities, but nothing about the atheism has caused them.

My argument is that the blind submission to authority allows atrocities to take place because people can suspend their natural tendency to avoid committing immoral acts, by absolving their judgement to others. Religion actually requires that you do this, atheism does not require it, that makes the two morally distinct. The fact that some atheists nonetheless choose to give over their moral judgement to others would only be relevant if I were making the argument that atheism automatically makes you a 'good' person, which am not.

Deleted User

Also, religion is good for it teaches love — TheMadFool

Religion doesn't 'teach' love, we've been loving each other perfectly well for the last few million years since oxytocin evolved to do the job.

the points you make about child abuse, terrorism, stoning, etc. should be attributed to human failings than religion itself. — TheMadFool

This would seem to suggest that we take no steps at all to eradicate those things which are linked to crimes. Racist propaganda doesn't actually cause attacks against minorities, it just human failings so perhaps we should go easy on that. How would you feel about a Nazi coming in to speak to children at a primary school, after all it wouldn't be Nazism itself that caused any resulting atrocities, but human failings. In fact why bother having any laws at all, gun control, restrictions on the sale of alcohol and dangerous drugs, after all these things are not directly responsible for the resultant harms, it's human failings.

JustSomeGuy

Well they're not religious then are they? — Inter Alia

You're getting into "No true Scottsman" territory by claiming that. The definition of "religious" is simply "believing in a religion". You can believe in a set of tenets and not follow all of them--or any of them, really. Many people "believe in" donating to charity, but don't do it themselves.

Most people say they are above average drivers but we know this is not mathematically possible, more heterosexual men say they've committed adultery than women but this is not technically possible. — Inter Alia

Alright, now use that same reasoning on what we're discussing. Does it work? Is there a technical/mathematical contradiction in the case of people claiming to be religious vs. actually being religious? Of course not. Your examples are irrelevant because they are of a completely different kind than the issue at hand.

Are you seriously suggesting that where a direct link is found between an ideology and some aberrant behaviour we should do nothing about it? — Inter Alia

What is this direct link that has been found? Has there been a scientific breakthrough I missed that has proven a causation between religion and aberrant behavior? You're free to believe whatever you want to believe, but don't act as though we have any sort of proven causal relationship between religion and people doing "bad" things.

Oh god, you are! 130/yr per capita equivalent gun murders in the UK (with gun control) vs 11,004 in the US (without gun control). As Eddie Izzard says "I think the gun helps" — Inter Alia

How do you not see the dishonesty in making that argument? You're saying there are more gun murders in a place that had more guns. Well, obviously yes. How can you murder someone with a gun if you don't have a gun? It makes sense that you feel this way, though, based on what you're saying now about religion. You are one of many people who conflate correlation with causation, without putting any actual thought or reasoning into it.

Janus

What evils have been associated with Jainism then? The Hare Krishna movement? Stoicism, Epicurianism? — Inter Alia

The first two are not widespread enough to cause significant evil, and in any case are not ideologies, but spiritual and/ or ethical practices, as are both Stoicism and Epicureanism. An ideology, as I define it and under which category I would include religious fundamentalisms, is an aggressive, repressive, and oppressive system of prescription and proscription. An ideology say how things are and what you must believe or be punished, It is when religions become ideological in this sense that they bring about significant evils; but the main point was that there are secular ideologies that operate in just the same kinds of ways.

JustSomeGuy

↪Inter Alia

A few more comments on the topic of guns which further demonstrate the point I was making in regards to religion:
It has been firmly established that there is zero correlation between guns and violent crime. The only crime-related statistic that correlates with guns is how many violent crimes end in death.
While you can use this as an argument for gun control if you wish, it is more evidence of my point that guns aren't making anybody commit violent acts--they only enhance violent acts which would be committed regardless. If you want to try to relate this to religion, attempting to claim that religion makes bad people do more bad than they would without it, I don't see how that could work. Mainly because what you're actually claiming religion "causes" isn't even clearly-defined, at this point, but also because that seems like it would be near impossible to measure.
A final comment in regards to guns: two-thirds of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicide. This is something people often don't know or take into account, and funnily enough is probably a good analogy for religion--it does more harm to the individual who uses it than it does to others.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

After some very superficial study of philosophy and religion I had the feeling that faith was nothing more than A=belief without evidence. Position A is, from all angles, completely irrational and so, clearly, anti-philosophical. — TheMadFool

How can anybody believe anything without evidence?

Whether such faith is rational or irrational is a moot point if it does not exist.

Can a belief even be formed without evidence?

Saying that it is about trust rather than belief doesn't change anything. One has to believe that someone or something can be trusted.

Beliefs come and go. Who knows what we will believe tomorrow.

Faith is deeper than that. It is not swayed by evidence or lack of evidence. It is the foundation upon which everything else is built.

What is faith?

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