On Behalf Of Len Kennedy, Esq. Sent: 19 October 2004 04:56 AM
Did I miss something? Did anyone actually say faith was useless. Considering that you've put the word "useless" in quotes, I'm assuming you're quoting someone. I, for one, can see how faith may prove useful by helping people to cope, albeit by believing comforting lies. And I can see how groups of people, including the U.S., can benefit if their armies are comprised of people who foolishly believe that when they die they'll be rewarded for their sacrifice-and people with that kind of belief are far more likely to throw their lives away "for the greater good" than are people who would be hesitant because they realize that after they die they're probably actually going to be dead. So, no, faith isn't useless from an evolutionary perspective-whether we're talking about genetic or memetic evolution-and sometimes it can even be pragmatic . . . but the things in which people tend to have faith are dubious at best: horoscopes, prayer, politicians. . . . I think it's sensible to have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow (from our perspective, anyway), because that's been happening for quite some time now, and there's no reason to expect the earth to stop rotating on its axis or the sun to go supernova anytime soon. And it makes sense to have faith in people whom you know-based on their past behavior, among other things. But to have faith in things like God, Satan, Santa Claus, pixies, fairies, leprechauns, life after death, or the healing power of crystals is just silly. <http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mesg/tsmileys2/39.gif>
An ideology is a complex of ideas or notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification, obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other to his advantage.
Erik, your use of the word "tool" implies, of course, a certain goal to achieve - I am sure we agree that there is none such goal, are we not? Besides, being "evolutionary fit" has to me no ethical implications whatsoever, or else we'll probably end up at some form of social darwinism. Just because something is evolutionarily relevant doesn't make it good or evil; scientific description goes beyond that (and there it should stay, being descriptive not normative).
(In case this sounds more aggressive than it should: it should not; I refer to the quote below...)
Otherwise I fully agree with Len once more - adding, though, that in the context of MY ETHICS (essentially, that no suffering should be caused to anything - this is a perfectly arbitrary standard, of course), religion is evil for it carries the seed of destruction. I agree with Erik - and raised the topic before - that one should not try to abandon religion at all psychological cost (cf. my ethics), but one look at the United States' religious perversity (that's in parts of the US - no offence to ye!) should remind one of the dire consequences of religion gone awry.
A believer cannot judge the validity of his faith - so he may believe he actually lives in God's Own Country and that Bush is the new Messiah or that Hussein (you ever noticed how disgustingly propaganda-induced the common use of Hussein's first name is? it's like saying, ah, Saddam, he's only a child, why give him the respect he deserves as an adult human being...) is Satan or I am the great iridiscent Blob-to-be-worshipped-out-of-fear or otherwise I will simply crush this pitiful planet.
Thus, we SHOULD discard it as potentially harmful and try to substitute the psychological and social losses with a free membership in the CoV... :-D
No, we do not have the truth - but we know we don't. (is this paradox? or what?)
Goodbye for now.
Björn the Blob
<<Othello. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago, If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his ear A stranger to thy thoughts.>>
<snip>An ideology is a complex of ideas or notions which represents itself to the thinker as an absolute truth for the interpretation of the world and his situation within it; it leads the thinker to accomplish an act of self-deception for the purpose of justification, obfuscation and evasion in some sense or other to his advantage.</snip>
I had to admit it before: we're all ideologists. Even though I'd prefer meta-ideologists, there is still no escaping it.
: Erik, your use of the word "tool" : implies, of course, a certain goal : to achieve - I am sure we agree : that there is none such goal, are : we not?
No, I have outlined, precisely, the use of faith on this list before.
Faith can be used in a situation in which there are no other alternatives except one in which little/no information is available. For example, if you've failed to adequately debug a program, but you have to run it anyway because of a critical deadline, you can “run it on faith”. The purpose here is to remove fear which would have prevented action. Inaction can have grave consequences and fear, as inaction-causation, is often inappropriate.
Faith can also be used to inspire others in an improbable outcome so as to make that outcome more likely. Ghandi had “faith” in a free India. The strength and honesty of his faith overcame racial and religious prejudices and inspired millions of others to unite in a cause.
: Just because something is : evolutionarily relevant doesn't : make it good or evil;
The term I used was “useful”. Evolutionary fitness does imply a likelihood of usefulness. --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
: I, for one, can see how faith may : prove useful by helping people to : cope, albeit by believing : comforting lies.
Not a very positive endorsement. I can only see that as useful if the result “sans faith” would be a damaging breakdown. Most of the time, this is not the case and this is typically where faith is misused.
: And I can see how groups of : people, including the U.S., can : benefit if their armies are : comprised of people who foolishly : believe that when they die they'll : be rewarded for
Again, a poor use.
Your examples of “usefulness” are neither useful to the faithful, nor do they produce evolutionary fitness. Clearly your are making a “straw man” argument against faith. --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
reviewing your disparate postings, I finally understood what you were saying (more embarassing since you repeated your primary statement twice). There is virtually no disagreement between us. All there was was a different use of the word faith - while you stated precisely what you meant indeed, I used it more diffusely, closely associated with/virtually synonymous with "religion" or "belief".
I now understand and agree that - when religion serves faith, it is useful and powerful and produces real and creative results. When faith serves religion, it is just the opposite... - faith is a useful and evolutionarily fit [meaning, having evolved as an essential motivational mechanism] tool; to discard it as “useless” is short-sighted.
Yet please note that I have never argued against faith, Erik-style, per se. I have argued against the UNFALSIFIABLE NATURE of the OBJECTS/ARTICLES OF FAITH and their being principally exchangeable with every mad idea.
Wittgenstein was probably tossing and turning in his grave, while Derrida is laughing madly, still.
Thinking/writing about it, I actually wonder if you misunderstood me at all or simply wanted to remind me of the proper use of the word, but your precise but minimalistic statements simply did not arrive where they were supposedly supposed to arrive.
Hopefully, the matter is settled now - though, looking up your other comments, I realised you still owe me/us (?) an answer to the cryptic
<snip>You never, ever go after God with scientific inquiry. If you try it, you will wind up with religion in charge of *everything* and the death of science. The explanation of WHY this is true will take too long for me to explain while typing in the back of a cab. Think seriously about the consequences of “disproving prayer”.</snip>
<<<Did I miss something? Did anyone actually say faith was useless. Considering that you’ve put the word “useless” in quotes, I’m assuming you’re quoting someone.>>>
Zach:
Usually when a person puts one word or a small phrase in to quotes without indicating the author of the quote, they are using that word or phrase for lack of a better word or phrase, or they are using it tongue in cheek. This is my experience.
KenLen:
<<<But to have faith in things like God, Satan, Santa Claus, pixies, fairies, leprechauns, life after death, or the healing power of crystals is just silly.>>>
Zach:
So you think it is wise to have faith in things that, through repeated experience, have proven themselves to have a high probability in repeating themselves again. I can buy this, I actuallyy do buy this, it one of the cornerstones of my philosophy on life. I have a few questions though.
Does this extend to other peoples experiences? I mean do you have faith that Japan, assuming that you haven't been there repeatedly, exist? If yes, why do you have this faith?
Do you have faith in things because of their explanatory properties? Do you believe the universe is made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons? Have you ever seen one of these things? What about physical forces?
If a person has had repeated experiences with transcendental/supernatural entities and/or forces...ie God, Satan, Fairies, Aliens, and the like, should that person have faith in these entities/forces, or should that person commit himself to a mental institution, because those entities don't positively correlate with commonly perceived reality? But, how can that person know that it is not commonly perceived, he only has his perceptions, and the human perceptions tell him he is crazy, but the fairy perceptions, that are just as common, to him, as the humans, tell him that most humans are just not connected with the higher level realities?
Your examples of “usefulness” are neither useful to the faithful, nor do they produce evolutionary fitness. Clearly your are making a “straw man” argument against faith. _____________
El Bastardo Loco: Clearly, I was merely fucking around. But I do think faith, except in the pragmatic cases that you’ve already delineated, is oftentimes contrary to reason. My all-time favorite quote apropos of faith—a passage that probably every member of the CoV has read at least once—is from Richard Dawkins’s book The Selfish Gene, footnote #7: “Blind Faith Can Justify Anything”:
<snip>I have had the predictable spate of letters from faith’s victims, protesting about my criticisms of it. Faith is such a successful brainwasher in its own favour, especially a brainwasher of children, that it is hard to break its hold. But what, after all, is faith? It is a state of mind that leads people to believe something—it doesn’t matter what—in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway. It is this that makes the often-parrotted claim that ‘evolution is a matter of faith’ so silly. People believe in evolution not because they arbitrarily want to believe it but because of overwhelming, publicly available evidence.
. . . I don’t want to argue that the things in which a particular individual has faith are necessarily daft. They may or may not be. The point is that there is no way of deciding whether they are, and no way of preferring one article of faith over another, because evidence is explicitly eschewed. Indeed the fact that true faith doesn’t need evidence is held up as its greatest virtue; this was the point of my quoting the story of Doubting Thomas, the only really admirable member of the apostles. Faith cannot move mountains (though generations of children are solemnly told the contrary and believe it). But it is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness. It leads people to believe in whatever it is so strongly that in extreme cases thay are prepared to kill and die for it without the need for further justification. Keith Henson has coined the name ‘memeoids’ for ‘victims that have been taken over by a meme to the extent that their own survival becomes inconsequential . . . You see lots of these people on the evening news from such places as Belfast or Beirut’. Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr’s death will send them straight to heaven. What a weapon! Religious faith deserves a chapter to itself in the annals of war technology, on an even footing with the longbow, the warhorse, the tank, and the hydrogen bomb.</snip>
’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have known what it’s like to have sex with someone besides yourself. —LenKen
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: But I do think faith, except in the : pragmatic cases that you’ve : already delineated, is oftentimes : contrary to reason.
Faith is *always* contrary to reason.
It is the very unreasonableness of faith that made it a successful strategy in certain circumstances.
There are times when reason is appropriate, and times when faith is appropriate.
The times when faith is appropriate is when being reasonable is a recipe for failure. --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
I come to think of faith as a purely motivational, individual matter. It is only useful for realising an intention, not for formulating it. In order to make decisions, especially on a larger scale, one should always refer to reason.
Thus, with many different options to ponder, and thus many difficult AND important decisions to make, it seems that faith should never, ever get in the way of reason in politics. If the existence of organised religion makes this more probable, then one should probably try to take measures against it.
I have done about thirty seconds of thinking about this... is it valid? Or not? Or relatively?
Faith is motivational - and it can work collectively and individually. However it can motivate large numbers of people behind a particular goal as well. Imagine if there were some global catastrophe. Faith in mankind and it's ability and ingenuity might be just the sort of thing that we'd need to overrcome our daily hardships.
I come to think of faith as a purely motivational, individual matter. It is only useful for realising an intention, not for formulating it. In order to make decisions, especially on a larger scale, one should always refer to reason.
Thus, with many different options to ponder, and thus many difficult AND important decisions to make, it seems that faith should never, ever get in the way of reason in politics. If the existence of organised religion makes this more probable, then one should probably try to take measures against it.
I have done about thirty seconds of thinking about this... is it valid? Or not? Or relatively?
LenKen: Did I miss something? Did anyone actually say faith was = useless. Considering that you've put the word "useless" in quotes, I'm = assuming you're quoting someone.
Zach: Usually when a person puts one word or a small phrase in to quotes = without indicating the author of the quote, they are using that word or = phrase for lack of a better word or phrase, or they are using it tongue = in cheek. This is my experience.
LenKen: I'm familiar with that particular use of quotation marks-I = sometimes use them that way, myself, as a matter of fact. It just = seemed, in the context in which he was using it, that Se=F1or Aronesty = was quoting someone. Well, that's what it seemed like after a few = glasses of wine, anyway. =20 _____________
LenKen: But to have faith in things like God, Satan, Santa Claus, = pixies, fairies, leprechauns, life after death, or the healing power of = crystals is just silly.
Zach: So you think it is wise to have faith in things that, through = repeated experience, have proven themselves to have a high probability = in repeating themselves again. I can buy this, I actuallyy do buy this, = it one of the cornerstones of my philosophy on life. I have a few = questions though. Does this extend to other peoples experiences? I mean do you have = faith that Japan, assuming that you haven't been there repeatedly, = exist? If yes, why do you have this faith?
LenKen: Hmm . . . I just so happen to have a friend who's currently = living in Japan. Or so he claims. =20 _____________
Zach: Do you have faith in things because of their explanatory = properties? Do you believe the universe is made up of protons, neutrons, = and electrons? Have you ever seen one of these things? What about = physical forces? If a person has had repeated experiences with = transcendental/supernatural entities and/or forces...ie God, Satan, = Fairies, Aliens, and the like, should that person have faith in these = entities/forces, or should that person commit himself to a mental = institution, because those entities don't positively correlate with = commonly perceived reality? But, how can that person know that it is not = commonly perceived, he only has his perceptions, and the human = perceptions tell him he is crazy, but the fairy=20 perceptions, that are just as common, to him, as the humans, tell him = that most humans are just not connected with the higher level realities?
LenKen: But comparing belief in protons, neutrons, and electrons with = belief in Satan, Santa, and the supernatural is comparing apples and = kumquats. As Dawkins and many other scientists have pointed out, = science doesn't rely on faith (with the possible exception of string = theory)-it relies on rigorous experimentation, observation, et cetera. = I, personally, tend to rely on science and pragmatism to decide what's = probably true. Back when I was flirting with logical positivism, I used = to be overly optimistic about what could be known for certain and what = would forever remain unknown. But I have since acquired a smidgeon of = humility in the epistemology department. I think there's a lot of truth = to the old saying: "Scratch a pragmatist and you'll find a logical = positivist with a broken heart." (Well, I don't know if that's really = an old saying, but I'm pretty sure I heard it somewhere). =20
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have known what it's like to have sex with someone besides yourself. -LenKen, Esq.
----- Original Message -----=20 From: "Erik Aronesty" <erik@zoneedit.com> To: "Church of Virus" <virus@lucifer.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2004 8:04 PM Subject: Re: AW: virus: know thy enemies
Faith is motivational - and it can work collectively and individually. = However it can motivate large numbers of people behind a particular goal = as well. Imagine if there were some global catastrophe. Faith in = mankind and it's ability and ingenuity might be just the sort of thing = that we'd need to overrcome our daily hardships. _____________
LenKen: There=92s a reason the most optimistic candidate tends to win in a = democratic election (well, as long as they=92re not just a cock-eyed = optimist, anyway). Leaders who have faith in the ingenuity and = resourcefulness of humankind will be able to accomplish far more than = their pessimistic, Negative Nellie counterparts will. When people think = progress is impossible, that usually becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And on the scale of individuals, optimistists tend to be healthier, = more productive, and more long-lived than pessimists. Martin E.P. = Seligman has done extensive research on the issue, of course, and he=92s = written fairly extensively about that research in, e.g., his books = Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness. Here=92s a link to the website of The Positive Psychology = Center=97which is =93a not-for-profit organization . . . [that conducts] = research on Positive Psychology, learned helplessness, depression, and = on optimism and pessimism=94:
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