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Old 01-29-2011, 04:27 PM   #719 (permalink)
Freebase Dali
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Join Date: Mar 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Batlord View Post
It's not faith. Faith is believing in something without evidence. Certain facts are just true as far as can be possibly determined (I am currently wearing a shirt, I am standing on the ground, I am sitting in front of a computer). We have reason to believe (and belief does not necessarily constitute faith) in other "facts"(gravity, evolution, microbial life) because a scientific community has provided a preponderance of evidence that these are true. To question the validity of these facts, one would have to show evidence that society and the scientific community was perpetrating a gigantic fraud.

Faith is belief, not only without evidence, but belief even in the face of evidence. To call belief in facts faith, is to change the definition of the word "faith".
I agree with that as a matter of practicality, but my point was 'fact means something only to our perceptions'. So at some point, we acknowledge that we believe what we know is a matter of faith in our own perceptions and experiences. While we can logically work out the state of things, even as a whole, our perception of fact has to rely on faith in our mechanism of arriving at fact to begin with.

I realize this isn't relevant in a discussion about belief in god, but that's what I meant by my passing sentence you responded to.
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