Hmm, not sure. I believe, as surely as if it were fact, that if an object such as a rock is dropped from a height above the ground, it will always fall towards the centre of the earth.
I believe this because I've never seen any (non-aerodynamic) object do otherwise and nor have any human beings in all of history. Isn't it observation that compels us to accept such things as fact, rather than mere 'faith'?
As soon as you accept something as truth you are applying your faith it is the confidence in what we acknowledge as true.
AI has a grasp of the word faith.
The word “faith” has a rich etymology that traces back to ancient languages. Let’s explore its origins:
Latin (Fides):
Many terms have changed their meaning over time, faith not the least. It's best if we use that term in the sense that most modern people do, not as it might have been applied many centuries ago?
Altering the words' meaning allows for historic meaning to be lost in the modern world, and faith has gone through some drastic changes attempting to turn it into a religious word only while ignoring the meaning it has had since the root for it brought it forward.
It's not helpful to apply the same term to a well-justified propositional belief based on evidence, with one held for religious (or other) reasons supported by little or no evidence.
There's a good reason why we call the latter 'dogma'.
You cannot justify anything on evidence if you don't believe first the evidence is what you think it is, you are capable of understanding the evidence, and you are rightly dividing the information you believe you have properly, it all starts with faith. If you don't believe you have the means to do things would you do them?
Dogma is simply unquestionable truth, it can be justifiable or not, but it most certainly is believed to be true, just like you think we can do science properly to get an understanding that is a dogmatic belief too.
"Dogma is simply unquestionable truth" - no, it's really not! If we think of truth as being that which describes one or more matters of fact, then that is not what dogma is.
A dogmatic belief may be true but is held in the absence of evidence, thereby being unjustified. No one is ever forced to fix their opinion on some proposition where insufficient evidence exists to support it because 'I/we do not know' is a perfectly reasonable position to take.
Any view about truth can be held in the absence of evidence but dogma isn't questioned. You have zero evidence that an evolutionary process could have come about by abiogenesis for the first life, do you believe it did anyway? You believe the universe started how what evidence do you use to make your assumptions a valid view? You want to talk about blind faith which is something employed by everyone who accepts large portions of their worldviews with zero positive reasons for them.
To repeat the old cautionary saying "someone may have any number of personal opinions but they may not have personal facts".
We do not get to choose what is or isn't a fact, it's a process of discovery that can only be established by supporting evidence and if that evidence is absent, belief in something as fact is unjustified.
You are putting the cart in front of the horse, you are talking about taking a validation process as if that too were not part of the discussion. Looking for validation starts in a place you have faith in, supporting evidence, means that you have accepted something that can and does support your discovery. That is not an absence of belief, that is putting what you believe into action, that does exactly what you are attempting to do because you believe it.
Why did the Geocentric model of the heavens eventually show itself to be false? Because ever more careful, detailed observation of the movements of the planets (in particular) could not be reconciled with the model.
The body of new evidence that was compiled could only be satisfactorily explained by replacing the Earth with the Sun at the centre of our solar system. This happened in the teeth of very considerable opposition (not least from the established church) but in time it came to be accepted because the available evidence compelled it.
Can you explain in what way your concept of 'faith' affected that change? At what level or point was 'faith' necessary?
I place trust in the ability of my senses to give me reliable and accurate information about the world I live in and generally they don't let me down.
If you wish to describe that as faith instead, then that's your right.
I place trust in the ability of my senses to give me reliable and accurate information about the world I live in and generally they don't let me down.
If you wish to describe that as faith instead, then that's your right.
You putting your trust in anything is putting your faith in it, the word comes from fidelity, trustworthiness, and then the seeking of some truth is only done using the methods we find trustworthy. Faith is inescapable in our lives, it is not a pigeon whole word for a nonexistent evidence based beliefs.
You may draw no distinction between trust and faith but many people do because they are not the same. If I have trust in the observed phenomenon of objects falling towards the centre of the earth it's because this effect can be demonstrated over and over: Our planet exerts a measurable force on all things that possess mass and as a result, we regard this as a consistent and predictable aspect of the natural order of things.
But if you have only faith in this then it suggests that such an effect might be reversed at any moment.
To put faith into something is the same as trusting it, you basing trust in observation is you putting your faith into it. The fact some want them to be so different from one other you will have to show that by some examples that is true, not that some feel that way but that they are different.
Our understanding of the mechanics of the solar system now enables us to predict events such as solar eclipses with great accuracy. No such prediction has failed since we acquired that understanding.
Would you describe the prediction of a given eclipse as something in which we can have trust or something in which we have only faith, never being entirely certain of whether or not it might happen?
Our understanding is that which we believe to be true, if someone believes for example that one race is the scum of the earth they will see everything in the light of that belief it defines both the individual they hate, as well as how they affect their process every piece of information that comes to them, their faith colors their world to see what their faith dictates. Faith directs our lives to move in the direction we have accepted as truth, those whose faith believes every Jew or Palestinian should be killed due to the hate they have due to their faith will define them. A Godless worldview colors the world we are in just as much one where God is viewed as a reality.
If you believe you know about mechanics then those things you are trusting to be true are matters of faith, they are what you believe, trust, and have confidence in.
Now you're talking about opinions, not propositional beliefs! The latter relate to matters of fact, not a person's personal prejudices.
There is no fact as such about an opinion held, beyond the fact that it's held. Therefore there can be no truth about it either. Using 'truth' to describe a person's opinion is to use the term in an inaccurate (/sloppy) way.
"If you believe you know about mechanics then those things you are trusting to be true are matters of faith, they are what you believe, trust, and have confidence in."
But if understanding of any natural system allows us to make predictions about the way they behave and the outcomes we observe are exactly as we predicted, how is that no more than a matter of faith?
We clearly don't use that word in the same way.
You cannot know anything unless you have accepted by faith, some things are true that you believe to be so. To think and understand the universe around you, your belief you are capable of doing that must be accepted on faith, the truths you accept are just that, have to be believed as well. To do science, the universe must be mathematically comprehensible to make predictions, and the foundation for all of these beliefs is due to?