Quote:
Originally Posted by Yorick
We can all make educated guesses. There's never the admission of guesswork though, just more and more bold declarations of assumptions as proven fact.
In espousing the ideal you were proclaiming Scientists to be above mortal failings... but if you didn't mean to that's ok. I can forgive.  
The point is, most people accept received knowledge from scientists as though it was firsthand. Trusting firstly that the scientist is telling the truth about what they discovered, and secondly that they are telling the truth about what they are "guessing" and thirdly that the "guess" is in fact correct.
It wouldn't be such a big deal if people did not hold up certain "scientific" worldviews any higher than other so-called "nonscientific" religious worldviews, especially when those religious worldviews may be based on firsthand experiences, rather than received knowledge.
That's all.
I like fairness and equal standards. Faith is faith. You use faith when you step on an airplane. You use faith when you believe in evolution, and you use faith to believe in God. If there were more mutual respect and acknowledgment of these similarities of process, the world would be a happier place. |
Not this dead horse again, lol. The biggest flaw with this argument, to me, is and has always been not about faith, but about "blind faith". I don't think, as much as some would like them to be equal and similiar, that they are. It's like the difference between naivete and bravery.
I mean, one can reason away anything with the "faith" argument. Take eating, for example. You might say that you've been told that if you don't eat, you die, but that you don't take these doctors and scientists at their word, and since you have never died, you have chosen not to believe it and so, you stop eating. In a way, you would never be proven wrong because you'd not be around to see the results when you starve to death. Because you'd be dead. So, even when this faith fails you, it protects you from the truth, shields you with itself so you never know the number it did on you. In essence, blinding you.
Now, why would anyone want faith to blind them? Because, as we see here in this example, it's comforting. To the extreme point where it helps us even avoid the reality of our own demise! Security, protection, warm and fuzzy feelings. Having blind faith in something expels the need to prove it, rationalize it, and thus, understand it. As humans, we are generally frightened of the unknown, but even pretending that we know about it (heaven, for example), will work for us.