Faith is the issue

[Thumpalumpacus]

I prefer to deal with people as people, and not numbers.

[Inevitable Droid]

Hmm.  I could agree that, in many theists, it appears they lack consistency in their application of skepticism.  To put it another way, it appears they require different measurably probable accuracy to accept different propositions.  But why would a person have multiple standards for multiple propositions?

An excellent question, which I have put to Davin, who first raised the possibility that you and I both are curious about.

Therefore we necessarily rely on others to do that for us, and we choose which groups to recognize as authorities on various matters.

Yes.  We also, or at least I, certainly, rely on whatever checks and balances are systematically in place to keep authorities honest.

I would say an absolute rube is a person who accepts anyone as an authority on any topic.

I agree.

I do believe we could find such people, but they would either all be under 5 years old, or they would suffer from a mental disorder just like Inevitable Droid has suggested an absolute skeptic might.

Perhaps.  I'm willing to entertain the possibility that to be an absolute rube/mark is be in some sense neurotic or otherwise mentally disabled, perhaps developmentally.  I lack the data by which to pronounce on this.

From birth, I think we begin by defaulting to recognize authority in anyone until we have some reason to do otherwise.

Yes, probably true.  As we mature we grow steadily more discerning and more demanding.

But then there are theists like the one I am talking about in the "Literal Genesis - Why?" thread.  They may rank at the top of the curve in science & math.  They understand how it works, and how to evaluate propositions by the scientific method.  And yet they can still believe in a literal Genesis at the same time.

Such people have long been a conundrum for me.  But your next portion raises an intriguing interpretation.

When it comes to science, they argue these points:
- We can never know what the laws of nature were before recorded history
- We can never know what they will be tomorrow (bubble nucleation?)
- We don't really know what they are now (we continually discover new ideas that render old ideas obsolete -- when will it end?)

Thus the Ouroboros of absolute skepticism turns around on itself and begins devouring itself by the tail?  Wow!  You may be onto something here! :eek:

A large community of apologists and scholars "connect the dots" outside of the Bible for them to create the impression of evidence through historical study, genealogy exercises, manipulation of scientific concepts such as the uncertainty principle, etc.  This body grows, amasses more arguments, and reflects skepticism back at the scientific community, and these theists don't have the time to work out the probable accuracy of every last argument for themselves.

If anything is possible, then accept whatever propositions make us feel good?  Wow thricely!

This is an insidious and debased mode of thought, a gangrenous corruption of the mind, if indeed it actually occurs in people's heads.

Maybe elliebean is right.  Maybe the key difference between a theist like that, and myself, is they have less desire for consistency,

You define yourself as ignostic, by which is usually meant that one finds the definitions of such words as God and theist to be so unclear as to afford no purchase by which to formulate a proper question of accuracy.  Does that describe you?

so they spend less time assessing the accuracy of the propositions they accept.  If they had a stronger desire, they might not only question the scientific community, they might more rigorously question the apologist community as well and find they are giving it more authority than it deserves.

Or else, as noted by me above, they reason that since nothing is certain, then anything is possible, so accept whatever propositions make you feel good.  Thus they claim themselves as final authority, which might be constructive, except they employ emotion as their measuring rod - emotion, which is reliable for discerning beauty, but never truth.

Why should a strong skeptic want to disengage in debate with a rube?  An absolute rube, sure... but I thought perhaps locating a person on this scale might help us determine how to streamline a debate, not necessarily disengage it.

One debates with another human being so as to learn, to teach, or to win.  The rube has nothing to teach me, nothing to learn from me, and will never admit defeat, while never causing me to admit defeat either.  Debate with such a one is therefore a waste of time.

[Persimmon Hamster]

Perhaps.  I'm willing to entertain the possibility that to be an absolute rube/mark is be in some sense neurotic or otherwise mentally disabled, perhaps developmentally.  I lack the data by which to pronounce on this.

In some sense a victim of brainwashing or torture may fit the bill.  Though usually a brainwasher/torturer would condition the brainwashee/torturee to only accept his authority/truth and not that of just anyone.

If anything is possible, then accept whatever propositions make us feel good?  Wow thricely!

Sure, and that's a world view that has subscribers.  But it's not my own, nor is it that of a theist like I am describing.  They are not accepting just any old proposition.  They see the Bible's very existence as at least some evidence that someone once believed what was written, they assume they had reason to believe it (such as it was true), and they work diligently to corroborate that theory.  If a scientist would ask them why they are trying so hard to justify something they can never prove for certain, they would just ask the scientist the same thing.

This is an insidious and debased mode of thought, a gangrenous corruption of the mind, if indeed it actually occurs in people's heads.

I take it you disapprove of nihilism?  What is the purpose to everything as you see it?

You define yourself as ignostic, by which is usually meant that one finds the definitions of such words as God and theist to be so unclear as to afford no purchase by which to formulate a proper question of accuracy.  Does that describe you?

I currently believe my own theological position is best classified as ignosticism, but I only recently discovered the term and that is therefore subject to change as I continue to enhance my understanding of it and, of course, as I continue to enhance my own views.

Or else, as noted by me above, they reason that since nothing is certain, then anything is possible, so accept whatever propositions make you feel good.  Thus they claim themselves as final authority, which might be constructive, except they employ emotion as their measuring rod - emotion, which is reliable for discerning beauty, but never truth.

Again, that would not be the reasoning of the theists I was attempting to describe.  Those I describe think rationally and would not let emotion be their only measuring rod.  They believe there is evidence external to themselves to be referenced/found/inferred in support of their belief.

One debates with another human being so as to learn, to teach, or to win.  The rube has nothing to teach me, nothing to learn from me, and will never admit defeat, while never causing me to admit defeat either.  Debate with such a one is therefore a waste of time.

[strike:3uguvr71]I do not follow the conclusion that a rube has nothing to learn from you.  An absolute rube, being incapable of learning, sure.  But I think you might be able to reason with any other sort of rube -- it just might take you an absurdly long amount of time.  But if you could convert one rube into a skeptic, would it be a waste?[/strike:3uguvr71]
I take that back.  Upon reconsidering your original scale, and the definition of "rube" it provided, I think I understand your point, strictly speaking.  Though I still question how you will effectively locate people on it.  I think your proposed method of soft rigor may lend itself to classifying people "lower" on the scale than they actually are.

[Inevitable Droid]

They are not accepting just any old proposition.  They see the Bible's very existence as at least some evidence that someone once believed what was written, they assume they had reason to believe it (such as it was true), and they work diligently to corroborate that theory.  If a scientist would ask them why they are trying so hard to justify something they can never prove for certain, they would just ask the scientist the same thing.

I keep seeing mention of this concern that things be proven for certain.  This is what I've described as the absolute skeptic position.  What I hadn't realized is that some people apparently reason - if such a thought process can be called reasoning - that unless a proposition's probable accuracy is 100%, it is completely open to question, and if accepted, that acceptance is utterly arbitrary.  How ridiculous!  The likeliest answer is the best answer and the best answer is to be accepted.  Reservations as to the possibility of error merely induce the reasonable person to take whatever precautions will mitigate any jeopardies, and put in place any verification procedures available for use.  But the likeliest answer is still accepted and acted upon.  Answers less likely are to be rejected.  Nothing is less likely than the myth of seven day creation.

I take it you disapprove of nihilism?  What is the purpose to everything as you see it?

What prompted that question?  I'm missing the connection to what we were talking about.  Nevertheless, I'll answer your question.  Rather than say I disapprove of nihilism, I will say that I consider it an inaccurate interpretation.  Objective meaning is an oxymoron, because meaning can only exist in the context of subjectivity, but subjective meaning is everywhere to be found, in the mental experience of every subject, everywhere.  As for purpose, every subject has purposes.  If the universe as a whole were a subject, I would say that it must have purposes.  Since I doubt the universe as a whole is a subject, I doubt it has purposes.  But in the mental experience of every living creature that qualifies as a subject, purpose is there to be found.  If I were a telepath walking through a forest, I would surely detect purposes all around me, in the mental experiences of all the insects, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds in the vicinity.  

I currently believe my own theological position is best classified as ignosticism, but I only recently discovered the term and that is therefore subject to change as I continue to enhance my understanding of it and, of course, as I continue to enhance my own views.

I will suggest, then, that you consider whether the concept of God, to be at all intelligible, must contain within it the concept of the supernatural - and whether you are willing to entertain as a proposition the existence and relevance of a supernatural dimension to reality.

Upon reconsidering your original scale, and the definition of "rube" it provided, I think I understand your point, strictly speaking.  Though I still question how you will effectively locate people on it.  I think your proposed method of soft rigor may lend itself to classifying people "lower" on the scale than they actually are.

You may be right.  But I would still succeed in avoiding the waste of time represented by an attempt at fruitless debate.  Maybe now and then I might miss an opportunity to learn something from someone who is more skeptical than I gave them credit for - but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

[Asmodean]

I prefer to deal with people as people, and not numbers.

Numbers are SO much more agreeable though, no?  

[Persimmon Hamster]

I keep seeing mention of this concern that things be proven for certain.  This is what I've described as the absolute skeptic position.  What I hadn't realized is that some people apparently reason - if such a thought process can be called reasoning - that unless a proposition's probable accuracy is 100%, it is completely open to question, and if accepted, that acceptance is utterly arbitrary.  How ridiculous!  The likeliest answer is the best answer and the best answer is to be accepted.  Reservations as to the possibility of error merely induce the reasonable person to take whatever precautions will mitigate any jeopardies, and put in place any verification procedures available for use.  But the likeliest answer is still accepted and acted upon.  Answers less likely are to be rejected.  Nothing is less likely than the myth of seven day creation.
...
What prompted that question?  I'm missing the connection to what we were talking about.  Nevertheless, I'll answer your question.  Rather than say I disapprove of nihilism, I will say that I consider it an inaccurate interpretation.  Objective meaning is an oxymoron, because meaning can only exist in the context of subjectivity, but subjective meaning is everywhere to be found, in the mental experience of every subject, everywhere.  As for purpose, every subject has purposes.  If the universe as a whole were a subject, I would say that it must have purposes.  Since I doubt the universe as a whole is a subject, I doubt it has purposes.  But in the mental experience of every living creature that qualifies as a subject, purpose is there to be found.  If I were a telepath walking through a forest, I would surely detect purposes all around me, in the mental experiences of all the insects, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and birds in the vicinity.

I agree.  I think theists like I describe erroneously believe that the scientific community and those that would accept its authority on matters expect to find objective meaning through the scientific method.  They correctly deduce that it won't.  They erroneously believe that their concept of God provides it.  Therefore they wish to shine skepticism on science to draw in converts (apparently humans like knowing that other humans think similarly to them).  Surely any good, contemporary scientist would grant that the laws of nature could change tomorrow, and may not have always been what they are, and that he may not yet understand them as well as he would like, but he would also ask what relevance such propositions have for the present (and by extension, for him).

I asked the question about your view of nihilism out of humor because of the strong language you have been using.  Insidious, debased, gangrenous, anti-progress, etc.  Such strong statements suggest that your own sense of purpose is that we have some sort of responsibility to live up to involving our capacity for reason and our continual application thereof.  Is this an accurate description of your sense of purpose?

I will suggest, then, that you consider whether the concept of God, to be at all intelligible, must contain within it the concept of the supernatural - and whether you are willing to entertain as a proposition the existence and relevance of a supernatural dimension to reality.

I find the term supernatural unintelligible.  I would tend to concede that elements of the natural universe may exist wholly outside of my physical/mental capacity to perceive or comprehend, but I would never call such things supernatural.  I would, however, consider such things generally irrelevant to my existence.  They may certainly influence my existence, but as I cannot perceive or comprehend them my efforts would seem to be best spent on that which I can.

Assume, for a moment, that certain events which are traditionally described as supernatural, as depicted in the Bible, actually occurred.  Additionally assume, for a moment, that all of the explanations one can fathom for every such event that are perfectly within my ability to comprehend were falsified, leaving only incomprehensible explanations.  Why, then, should (and how can) I attempt to comprehend them?  Such explanations would prove utterly inarticulable -- am I even capable of entertaining such explanations to attempt to articulate them?

It would seem the paradox is that most would set out to define their concept of God as having attributes they would consider to be supernatural (or as I would identify such attributes, outside our capacity to perceive/comprehend).  But assigning any sort of language to describe something like that (and thereby derive meaning from the description) is impossible because language (and meaning) will always be either equal to or a subset of our capacity for perception/comprehension.  So I believe they would find themselves unable to provide a definition that contains the concept of the "supernatural".  That is, I think by the time they finished defining God to my satisfaction they would find it was no longer what they thought it was, or that they really never thought it was much of anything at all.

I think responses to both things you asked me to consider have been covered by the above.  Do I still sound ignostic?

You may be right.  But I would still succeed in avoiding the waste of time represented by an attempt at fruitless debate.  Maybe now and then I might miss an opportunity to learn something from someone who is more skeptical than I gave them credit for - but that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Fair enough.  You might also deprive same of an opportunity to learn something from you.

[Inevitable Droid]

I asked the question about your view of nihilism out of humor because of the strong language you have been using.  Insidious, debased, gangrenous, anti-progress, etc.  Such strong statements suggest that your own sense of purpose is that we have some sort of responsibility to live up to involving our capacity for reason and our continual application thereof.  Is this an accurate description of your sense of purpose?

My subjective sense of purpose - yes, an accurate description.  Subjectivity is the glory and the burden of the living creature.  I have never understood why objectivity is ransacked in ever nook and cranny in vain pursuit of meaning, when all anyone has to do to find all the meaning anyone could possibly handle, is to engage in introspection, identify one's own bottom lines, and make those the themes of one's own life.

I think responses to both things you asked me to consider have been covered by the above.  Do I still sound ignostic?

Yes.  In my own case, I have no trouble defining God as, "that which, not of nature, made nature exist."  I then reject this concept out of hand because I reject the existence of anything that is not of nature, since that which is not of nature cannot be apprehended by biological or technological sensing apparatus, thus erecting an inassailable barrier to the empiricism project, a barrier that can be swept away by simply refusing to credit its existence.      

Fair enough.  You might also deprive same of an opportunity to learn something from you.

Actually, any weak rube/marks who might learn something from my diatribes have plenty of opportunities to do so, by reading my discussions with strong and weak skeptics, such as the one I'm having with you now, a perfectly pleasant one, for me at least.

[Davin]

I think you'll find that there is a great amount of inconsistency between what evidence is required for a theist to believe in their religion and the evidence that is required for them to accept that their religion is wrong about things... like how old the Earth is.

Interesting.  I interpret you as saying that a theist requires very little evidence to believe in their religion, but would require a great deal of evidence to accept their religion is wrong about things.  Is that what you're saying?  If so, to what do you attribute this double standard?

I do not have any more information than what I've offered as my observation of dealing with a great many theists. I have a lot of speculations, but no reasonable data. I also think it would be near impossible to get some usable data on the subject as I think most people do not want to be considered irrational (even anonymously).

[Achronos]

Greetings to all and I hope all is well with each one of you.

Faith means believing the unbelievable or it is no virtue at all. Also hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. But there is a paradox of hope or faith, that the more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must be the man.

Reason is itself a matter of faith.  It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

Faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is "the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." Yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.

Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove.  Thus, for instance, we believe by faith in the existence of other people. But there is another Christian virtue, a virtue far more obviously and historically connected with Christianity, which will illustrate even better the connection between paradox and practical necessity. This virtue cannot be questioned in its capacity as a historical symbol. The virtue of humility. I admit, of course, most readily, that a great deal of false Eastern humility (that is, of strictly ascetic humility) mixed itself with the main stream of European Christianity.  We must not forget that when we speak of Christianity we are speaking of a whole continent for about a thousand years. But of this virtue even more than of the other three, I would maintain the general proposition adopted above. Civilization discovered Christian humility for the same urgent reason that it discovered faith and charity, that is, because Christian civilization had to discover it or die. Humility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and the stars. It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars from wrong, from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is through humility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong.

The curse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders.  If we saw the sun for the first time it would be the most fearful and beautiful of meteors. Now that we see it for the hundredth time we call it, in the hideous and blasphemous, "the light of common day." We are inclined to increase our claims.  We are inclined to demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, to demand a green sun. Humility is perpetually putting us back in the primal darkness. There all light is lightning, startling and instantaneous. Until we understand that original dark, in which we have neither sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlike praise to the splendid sensationalism of things.  The terms "pessimism" and "optimism," like most modern terms, are unmeaning. But if they can be used in any vague sense as meaning something, we may say that in this great fact pessimism is the very basis of optimism. The man who destroys himself creates the universe. To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea. When he looks at all the faces in the street, he does not only realize that men are alive, he realizes with a dramatic pleasure that they are not dead.

In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice in an age of prejudices, just as it armored itself with logic in an age of logic. But the difference between the two mental methods is marked and unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other's way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our existing divisions but are out of each others way.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove.

And therein lies the rub.

[Inevitable Droid]

Greetings to all and I hope all is well with each one of you.

I want to thank you for responding.  Your perspective is exactly the one I was hoping to interact with on this thread.  I'm grateful you took the time to participate.

Faith means believing the unbelievable or it is no virtue at all. Also hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. But there is a paradox of hope or faith, that the more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must be the man.

I of course consider faith to be the very opposite of a virtue.  But your divergent viewpoint is what I wanted to explore when I started this thread.  I credit you with this much: you don't pretend that your theism is somehow scientific.  In this, at least, you're a breath of fresh air.

Reason is itself a matter of faith.  It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

If so, then, by your definition, the notion that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all must be unbelievable.  Why would that be the case?  I can sit here and have any number of thoughts about what would happen if I grasped any number of objects in my vicinity, lifted them, and dropped them.  I can then go ahead and grasp, lift, and drop them.  For the heck of it, I'm actually doing it, even though no one is here to see me.  A pill bottle, a pencil, and a coaster were all manhandled by me in my investigations.  What they did is what my thoughts led me to expect them to do.  The only way I could conclude that my thoughts were somehow illusory is if I entertained the premise that my sensory apparatuses were illusory.  The probable accuracy of that premise is impossible to investigate, let alone calculate, and so I reject the premise out of hand, as I reject any premise of which the probable accuracy is impossible to calculate, or especially if it's impossible to even investigate.  I also reject that premise as being so counter-productive to all the processes of life as to be literally anti-life.  I don't care if anti-life premises are true.  I reject them in advance, prior to considering their truth or falsehod.

I've noticed that some people, perhaps even yourself, despite the fact that you defined your term, confuse faith with any and all instances of commitment to propositions.  Being committed to a proposition isn't necessarily faith, albeit faith is one sub-category of commitment to propositions.  Your definition above actually wasn't too far from what mine would be.  I would define faith as commitment to a proposition of which the probability, calculated objectively, would be less than fifty percent.  I define objectivity as the perspective of the psyche that excludes emotion or appetite.  I'm therefore implying a second definition for faith, namely, commitment to a proposition for reasons of emotion or appetite over and above ratiocination.  Do you agree that you believe in the propositions of Christianity for reasons of emotion and/or appetite?
 

Faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is "the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." Yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

If we define charity as you propose, as being the power of defending the indefensible, then I lack charity toward charity, for I would never defend the act of defending the indefensible.  The indefensible isn't to be defended, but rather is to be abandoned for some other person, place, or thing that is defensible.  But that is my shouldmust.  I coined the term shouldmust on another thread to stand for any instantiation and all instantiations of meaning, purpose, value, or standards of conduct.  Your shouldmust includes charity as you've defined it.  Mine doesn't.  Yours also includes faith as you've defined it.  Mine doesn't.  I'm a fan of hope but I don't by any means define it as you have, as I don't view it as having anything to do with cheerfulness.  I define hope as the assumption that a proposition's probability of being actualized is greater than fifty percent if sufficient enterprise is brought to bear on behalf of actualization, and the consequent willingness to bring enterprise to bear, because the proposition finds purchase in one's shouldmust.  I have hope in the promise of robotics.  I try my best to have faith in nothing.  

It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and eclipse. It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful.

There!  That is precisely the question I want to ask.  Why do you consider unreasonableness a virtue?  

Any valid shouldmust interacts with questions of justice, utility, social appropriateness, reasonableness, sanity, and authenticity.  You've cited unreasonableness as a virtue.  Would you likewise cite as virtues injustice, inutility, social inappropriateness, insanity, or inauthenticity?  Your endorsement of charity, as you've defined it, hints at an endorsement of injustice.
 

Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove.

Thank you again for stating such a thing so clearly.  I wish all Christians would do likewise.

Civilization discovered Christian humility for the same urgent reason that it discovered faith and charity, that is, because Christian civilization had to discover it or die.

Setting aside humility for a moment, here is my unvarnished interpretation of the rest of what you just said.  Filtered through my brain, you just said, "Civilization had to discover the virtues of unreasonableness and injustice because if it didn't discover those virtues, it would have died."  I tend to think unreasonableness and injustice are contra-survival for the individual and for society.  What leads you to think otherwise?

Humility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and the stars. It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars from wrong, from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is through humility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong.

I don't understand what you said here.  Can you restate it without metaphor?

The curse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders.  If we saw the sun for the first time it would be the most fearful and beautiful of meteors. Now that we see it for the hundredth time we call it, in the hideous and blasphemous, "the light of common day." We are inclined to increase our claims.  We are inclined to demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, to demand a green sun. Humility is perpetually putting us back in the primal darkness. There all light is lightning, startling and instantaneous. Until we understand that original dark, in which we have neither sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlike praise to the splendid sensationalism of things.

I think you're saying if we were humbler we would be more amazed by natural phenomena.  Presumably your point is that humility would lead us to praise God for His creation.  I think scientists display humility in their perpetual willingness to let data trump theory.  Often, when the data defies all expectation, the scientist will be awestruck by the endless capacity of nature to surprise.  Humility may be a virtue that Christians and atheists can both appreciate, a common ground, despite the different perspectives as to what to do with one's awe.
 

The terms "pessimism" and "optimism," like most modern terms, are unmeaning. But if they can be used in any vague sense as meaning something, we may say that in this great fact pessimism is the very basis of optimism. The man who destroys himself creates the universe. To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea. When he looks at all the faces in the street, he does not only realize that men are alive, he realizes with a dramatic pleasure that they are not dead.

Apparently you're equating pessimism with humility, so you must be talking about pessimism with respect to self.  Self-pessimism enables awe, apparently, in your view.  To some extent I can agree, for example if we're talking about pessimism with respect to one's propositions being accurate in all cases.  The willingness to entertain the possibility of being misled in one's expectations can enable one to acknowledge and incorporate surprising data into one's purview, and be awed thereby.  Where we differ is in my insistence that the data trumps theory.  This is precisely what faith denies.  Faith insists instead that the theory trumps data, if the theory in question is one's creed.

In short, the rational human faith must armor itself with prejudice in an age of prejudices, just as it armored itself with logic in an age of logic. But the difference between the two mental methods is marked and unmistakable. The essential of the difference is this: that prejudices are divergent, whereas creeds are always in collision. Believers bump into each other; whereas bigots keep out of each other's way. A creed is a collective thing, and even its sins are sociable. A prejudice is a private thing, and even its tolerance is misanthropic. So it is with our existing divisions but are out of each others way.

Is our present age an age of logic or an age of prejudices in your view?

[Achronos]

If so, then, by your definition, the notion that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all must be unbelievable.  Why would that be the case?  I can sit here and have any number of thoughts about what would happen if I grasped any number of objects in my vicinity, lifted them, and dropped them.  I can then go ahead and grasp, lift, and drop them.  For the heck of it, I'm actually doing it, even though no one is here to see me.  A pill bottle, a pencil, and a coaster were all manhandled by me in my investigations.  What they did is what my thoughts led me to expect them to do.  The only way I could conclude that my thoughts were somehow illusory is if I entertained the premise that my sensory apparatuses were illusory.  The probable accuracy of that premise is impossible to investigate, let alone calculate, and so I reject the premise out of hand, as I reject any premise of which the probable accuracy is impossible to calculate, or especially if it's impossible to even investigate.  I also reject that premise as being so counter-productive to all the processes of life as to be literally anti-life.  I don't care if anti-life premises are true.  I reject them in advance, prior to considering their truth or falsehod.

I've noticed that some people, perhaps even yourself, despite the fact that you defined your term, confuse faith with any and all instances of commitment to propositions.  Being committed to a proposition isn't necessarily faith, albeit faith is one sub-category of commitment to propositions.  Your definition above actually wasn't too far from what mine would be.  I would define faith as commitment to a proposition of which the probability, calculated objectively, would be less than fifty percent.  I define objectivity as the perspective of the psyche that excludes emotion or appetite.  I'm therefore implying a second definition for faith, namely, commitment to a proposition for reasons of emotion or appetite over and above ratiocination.  Do you agree that you believe in the propositions of Christianity for reasons of emotion and/or appetite?

Do human thoughts, and senses, accurately relate to reality? Countless words have whirled around the question, and none have come to rest on anything bridging reason to resolve. There is no reasonable answer to the question, only a practical one. Trusting in the mind or the senses because there is no reason not to, may be no more reasonable than distrusting them because there is no reason to trust them. Either trust, however, is faith, and one faith is the beginning while the other is the end. Knowledge accordingly is belief; belief in a world of events and precedes all deliberate use of intuitions as signs or descriptions of things; as I turn my head to see who is there, before I see who it is. All alleged knowledge of matters of fact is faith only, and that an existing world, whatever form it may choose to wear, is intrinsically a questionable thing.

Having faith, or accepting something that cannot be proven, does not always imply a lack of argument or reason. That is only the wrong end of fideism, believing for the sake of belief, and one may be faulted for it, even when the belief is reasonable. Faith is commonly a reference to a body of reasoning, which is built on an assent to a practical bias bridging a gap between a logical impasse. In the event of such a stalemate, though philosophy should ignore this faith for its lack of proof, it may not employ reason to defeat it. For, the battlefield lies across the rational void, and while faith has crossed, leaps of logic are entirely bad form.

The paradoxical nature of reasoning lies in the ambition to ground reason in itself. Thus, the reasonable futility of presenting propositions without first having reason to believe them. The backward spiral that swallows the deliberator is manifest in persistent reasoning unaided by the sense that is called common. For if a man is to be always deliberating, he may go on ad infinitum.

As for the question you have raised, and as you may have noted, I am a very logical person, probably to my disadvantage, therefore for me to become a Christian I had to accept the logicality of the faith before I could transcribe into the emotional appeal. I honestly would tell you that I wish I could blindly believe in the faith because my mind is constantly being rattled. There have been specific times when I have read through sixty page research papers merely for the sake of argument.
 

If we define charity as you propose, as being the power of defending the indefensible, then I lack charity toward charity, for I would never defend the act of defending the indefensible.  The indefensible isn't to be defended, but rather is to be abandoned for some other person, place, or thing that is defensible.  But that is my shouldmust.  I coined the term shouldmust on another thread to stand for any instantiation and all instantiations of meaning, purpose, value, or standards of conduct.  Your shouldmust includes charity as you've defined it.  Mine doesn't.  Yours also includes faith as you've defined it.  Mine doesn't.  I'm a fan of hope but I don't by any means define it as you have, as I don't view it as having anything to do with cheerfulness.  I define hope as the assumption that a proposition's probability of being actualized is greater than fifty percent if sufficient enterprise is brought to bear on behalf of actualization, and the consequent willingness to bring enterprise to bear, because the proposition finds purchase in one's shouldmust.  I have hope in the promise of robotics.  I try my best to have faith in nothing.  

My general meaning touching the three virtues of which I have spoken will now, I hope, be sufficiently clear. They are all three paradoxical, they are all three practical, and they are all three paradoxical because they are practical. It is the stress of ultimate need, and a terrible knowledge of things as they are, which led men to set up these riddles, and to die for them. Whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of hope that is of any use in a battle is a hope that denies arithmetic. Whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of charity which any weak spirit wants, or which any generous spirit feels, is the charity which forgives the sins that are like scarlet. Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty about something we cannot prove.  Thus, for instance, we believe by faith in the existence of other people.

There!  That is precisely the question I want to ask.  Why do you consider unreasonableness a virtue?  

Any valid shouldmust interacts with questions of justice, utility, social appropriateness, reasonableness, sanity, and authenticity.  You've cited unreasonableness as a virtue.  Would you likewise cite as virtues injustice, inutility, social inappropriateness, insanity, or inauthenticity?  Your endorsement of charity, as you've defined it, hints at an endorsement of injustice.

Well the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It was nobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang this lasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, that reasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden or golden age, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. And it is not to be recovered in this sense again that, while we are certainly jollier than the pagans, and much more right than the pagans, there is not one of us who can, by the utmost stretch of energy, be so sensible as the pagans. That naked innocence of the intellect cannot be recovered by any man after Christianity; and for this excellent reason, that every man after Christianity knows it to be misleading. Let me take an example, the first that occurs to the mind, of this impossible plainness in the pagan point of view. The greatest tribute to Christianity in the modern world is Tennyson's "Ulysses." The poet reads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable desire to wander. But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all. He desires to get home. He displays his heroic and unconquerable qualities in resisting the misfortunes which balk him; but that is all. There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a Christian product. There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; that is a Christian product. Everything in that old world would appear to have been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man; a bad man was a bad man. For this reason they had no charity; for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul.  For this reason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel; for the novel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity. For them a pleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant landscape unpleasant.  Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; it is a Christian idea. In a word, we cannot reconstruct or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world. It was a world in which common sense was really common.
 

Setting aside humility for a moment, here is my unvarnished interpretation of the rest of what you just said.  Filtered through my brain, you just said, "Civilization had to discover the virtues of unreasonableness and injustice because if it didn't discover those virtues, it would have died."  I tend to think unreasonableness and injustice are contra-survival for the individual and for society.  What leads you to think otherwise?

The great psychological discovery of Paganism, which turned it into Christianity, can be expressed with some accuracy in one phrase. The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else. The absurd shallowness of those who imagine that the pagan enjoyed himself only in a materialistic sense. Of course, he enjoyed himself, not only intellectually even, he enjoyed himself morally, he enjoyed himself spiritually. But it was himself that he was enjoying; on the face of it, a very natural thing to do. Now, the psychological discovery is merely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing our ego to zero.

I have not spoken of another aspect of the discovery of humility as a psychological necessity, because it is more commonly insisted on, and is in itself more obvious. But it is equally clear that humility is a permanent necessity as a condition of effort and self-examination. It is one of the deadly fallacies that a nation is stronger for despising other nations. As a matter of fact, the strongest nations are those which began from very mean beginnings, but have not been too proud to sit at the feet of the foreigner and learn everything from him. Almost every obvious and direct victory has been the victory of the plagiarist. This is, indeed, only a very paltry by-product of humility, but it is a product of humility, and, therefore, it is successful. For example Prussia had no Christian humility in its internal arrangements; hence its internal arrangements were miserable. But it had enough Christian humility slavishly to copy France, and that which it had the humility to copy it had ultimately the honor to conquer. The case of the Japanese is even more obvious; their only Christian and their only beautiful quality is that they have humbled themselves to be exalted. All this aspect of humility, however, as connected with the matter of effort and striving for a standard set above us, I dismiss as having been sufficiently pointed out by almost all idealistic writers.

It may be worth while, however, to point out the interesting disparity in the matter of humility between the modern notion of the strong man and the actual records of strong men. Hero-worship is certainly a generous and human impulse; the hero may be faulty, but the worship can hardly be. It may be that no man would be a hero to his valet. But any man would be a valet to his hero. But in truth the proverb itself upon it ignore the most essential matter at issue. The ultimate psychological truth is not that no man is a hero to his valet. The ultimate psychological truth, the foundation of Christianity, is that no man is a hero to himself.

Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, that whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. Every oligarchy is merely a knot of men in the street; that is to say, it is very jolly, but not infallible. And no oligarchies in the world's history have ever come off so badly in practical affairs as the very proud oligarchies, the oligarchy of Poland, the oligarchy of Venice. And the armies that have most swiftly and suddenly broken their enemies in pieces have been the religious armies, the Muslim Armies, for instance, or the Puritan Armies. And a religious army may, by its nature, be defined as an army in which every man is taught not to exalt but to abase himself. This virtue of humility, while being practical enough to win battles, will always be paradoxical enough to puzzle pedants. It is at one with the virtue of charity in this respect. Every generous person will admit that the one kind of sin which charity should cover is the sin which is inexcusable. And every generous person will equally agree that the one kind of pride which is wholly damnable is the pride of the man who has something to be proud of. The pride which, proportionally speaking, does not hurt the character, is the pride in things which reflect no credit on the person at all. Thus it does a man no harm to be proud of his country, and comparatively little harm to be proud of his remote ancestors. It does him more harm to be proud of having made money, because in that he has a little more reason for pride. It does him more harm still to be proud of what is nobler than money, intellect. And it does him most harm of all to value himself for the most valuable thing on earth, goodness. The man who is proud of what is really creditable to him is the Pharisee, the man whom Christ Himself could not forbear to strike.

I don't understand what you said here.  Can you restate it without metaphor?

It is the wonderment of being new again in our vision of the stars and earth, of life itself; as I said we become childlike in its wonder.

I think you're saying if we were humbler we would be more amazed by natural phenomena.  Presumably your point is that humility would lead us to praise God for His creation.  I think scientists display humility in their perpetual willingness to let data trump theory.  Often, when the data defies all expectation, the scientist will be awestruck by the endless capacity of nature to surprise.  Humility may be a virtue that Christians and atheists can both appreciate, a common ground, despite the different perspectives as to what to do with one's awe.

Could the data itself cause ourselves to become more humble?

Is our present age an age of logic or an age of prejudices in your view?

In the words of Oscar Wilde: "We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid." I believe this is also an age of both pride and prejudice, but that's not to see some resemblances of logic don't appear. What's your take?

The only logical cure for all this is the assertion of a human ideal. In dealing with this, I will try to be as little transcendental as is consistent with reason; it is enough to say that unless we have some doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl. The racist white employer need not mind sending a black to work underground; he will soon become an underground animal, like a mole. He need not mind sending a diver to hold his breath in the deep seas; he will soon be a deep-sea animal. Men need not trouble to alter conditions, conditions will so soon alter men. The head can be beaten small enough to fit the hat. Do not knock the fetters off the slave; knock the slave until he forgets the fetters. To all this plausible modern argument for oppression, the only adequate answer is, that there is a permanent human ideal that must not be either confused or destroyed. The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick and the dead.

[Inevitable Droid]

Faith is commonly a reference to a body of reasoning, which is built on an assent to a practical bias bridging a gap between a logical impasse.

I think you're saying faith is maintained out of practical necessity.  Certainly commitment to propositions can derive from practical necessity.  Do you count Christianity as an example of this?  Is Christian faith practical?  In what way?  I would call Christianity the most impractical system of thought ever seriously proposed.

The paradoxical nature of reasoning lies in the ambition to ground reason in itself. Thus, the reasonable futility of presenting propositions without first having reason to believe them. The backward spiral that swallows the deliberator is manifest in persistent reasoning unaided by the sense that is called common. For if a man is to be always deliberating, he may go on ad infinitum.

I agree.  This is why I will reject some propositions out of hand, in advance of even considering whether they're true or not.  If seriously accepting a proposition would be to court psychosis, I drop the proposition like a hot potato.  I'd rather be sane than indisputable.

As for the question you have raised, and as you may have noted, I am a very logical person, probably to my disadvantage, therefore for me to become a Christian I had to accept the logicality of the faith before I could transcribe into the emotional appeal. I honestly would tell you that I wish I could blindly believe in the faith because my mind is constantly being rattled. There have been specific times when I have read through sixty page research papers merely for the sake of argument.

You find Christianity logical?  Seriously?  I would call it the most illogical system of thought ever proposed.

I will have to hear you on certain questions before I can begin to imagine your perspective.  Why was it necessary that Jesus be crucified?  Why is it necessary that people believe in the crucifixion and what it meant?  How is it reasonable and just that many people are born in places where the likelihood of their coming to believe the Christian creed is almost nill?  How is it reasonable and sane to accept the Christian creed while rejecting the Muslim or Buddhist ones?  Why are the myriad varieties of suffering reasonable and just under the auspices of an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving God?  I apologize for basically asking you for a Christianity 101 primer, but I currently dispute that Christianity has anything logical to say in answer to any of these questions, and I've studied quite a bit of Christian theology.

There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a Christian product.

How so?

There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; that is a Christian product.

How so?

For this reason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel; for the novel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity.

How so?

Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; it is a Christian idea.

How so?

In a word, we cannot reconstruct or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world. It was a world in which common sense was really common.

I'm a big fan of common sense.  You're making me wonder if my perspective is anachronistic.  It would be fun to think that.

By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else.

How so?

And it does him most harm of all to value himself for the most valuable thing on earth, goodness. The man who is proud of what is really creditable to him is the Pharisee, the man whom Christ Himself could not forbear to strike.

How is justified pride harmful?

Humility may be a virtue that Christians and atheists can both appreciate, a common ground, despite the different perspectives as to what to do with one's awe.

Could the data itself cause ourselves to become more humble?

Yes it could, and does.  The antidote for over-confidence in one's expectations is always the uncooperative data.  As a result, the wise scientist traverses humility on the way to wonder.  This is almost the whole story of the history of science.

Is our present age an age of logic or an age of prejudices in your view?

In the words of Oscar Wilde: "We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid." I believe this is also an age of both pride and prejudice, but that's not to see some resemblances of logic don't appear. What's your take?

I think we live in an age when logic (science) and illogic (superstition) are engaged in an epic struggle.

it is enough to say that unless we have some doctrine of a divine man, all abuses may be excused, since evolution may turn them into uses. It will be easy for the scientific plutocrat to maintain that humanity will adapt itself to any conditions which we now consider evil. The old tyrants invoked the past; the new tyrants will invoke the future.  Evolution has produced the snail and the owl; evolution can produce a workman who wants no more space than a snail, and no more light than an owl.

This is precisely why we must accept the fact that meaning, purpose, value, standards of conduct, can never be grounded in objectivity, but only in subjectivity, in emotion and/or appetite as aided by ratiocination.  

The most important man on earth is the perfect man who is not there. The Christian religion has specially uttered the ultimate sanity of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the incarnate and human truth. Our lives and laws are not judged by divine superiority, but simply by human perfection. It is man, says Aristotle, who is the measure. It is the Son of Man, says Scripture, who shall judge the quick and the dead.

Yet all Jesus teaches us is how to get ourselves killed.  Surely we can find better role models.  Charles Darwin comes to mind.

[Inevitable Droid]

Relevant to what this thread is about, I quote here Kurt Wise, who has a PhD in geology and is a well known creationist: "As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turned against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate."

Source: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/isd/wise.asp

I credit Kurt Wise with at least being honest about the nature of faith.

[Persimmon Hamster]

"...I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate."

Did he ever indicate what his view would be should all evidence in the universe also turn against the Bible actually being the Word of God?  Or give any indication as to the evidence he would currently cite for believing it is?