Sam Harris

[quote author=“camanintx”][quote author=“burt”]Yes, a nice quote.  The only thing I would change is the word faith to belief.  In my view, there is a major difference between faith and belief—a person with faith doesn’t need to defend it, a person who only has a belief will, as pointed out, take any questioning of the belief as a personal attack.

I would have to disagree with you on this one Burt. I think Joad got it right the first time. I’ve always made the following differentiation between faith and belief.

Belief is knowledge based on reason. I don’t know that the sun will rise tomorrow but I believe it will because it has for the last 15 million years.

Faith is knowledge that defies reason. Though the NHL Ducks have had several bad seasons, I have faith that this season will be their year.

Beliefs are easier to give up when faced with conflicting evidence while faith resists all change.

We have differing views.  As I see it, beliefs can be based on reason (the sun rising), but I differentiate that from belief that is not based on reason, but uses reason (or abuse of reason) to support itself.  Faith I don’t consider as knowledge, but an internal state that is non-conceptual.  I would use the word certainty, but that has unfortunate connotations of fanaticism.

Hello to you all.

I believe. God is great. We are not so great. I read Sam’s book and it wasn’t very good. Ill thought through and cliched. C minus.

Sam - why do you bother?
G

[quote author=“Gwen”]I believe. God is great. We are not so great.

Welcome, Gwen. Nothing like starting the free skate with a triple Salchow. What will you do for an encore?

Hi Gwen,

You believe. God is great. We are not so great.

I believe. We are great. God is not so great.

I am happy because I am surrounding by what I believe is great and I am not bothered by what I believe is not so great.

You, unfortunately, are in the opposite situation.

Maybe that is why Christians look forward to death.

[quote author=“Gwen”]Hello to you all.

I believe. God is great. We are not so great. I read Sam’s book and it wasn’t very good. Ill thought through and cliched. C minus.

Sam - why do you bother?
G

Gwen, perhaps you could say something more about your reasoning.  Otherwise it’s like you intentionally farted and gleefully skipped out of the room.  You wouldn’t want to leave us with that memory of you, would you? :(

[quote author=“HappyHeathen”]Otherwise it’s like you intentionally farted and gleefully skipped out of the room.

The essence of blind faith?

He might sound as a dreadful public speaker because of his coughing tic
but ...I agree with Melvin Konner…..

Bertrand Russell ..again and again .. 8)
(note : i was always an atheist…)

[quote author=“burt”]That’s why I don’t make a distinction of kind between religious dogmatists and militant atheists.  The belief is attacked and the responder attacks back. 

Exactly!
From the one side we have supernatural dogma and from the other side in the best case we have the methodology of the proof theoretic approach as a dogma.

I am really tired with the dogmatism of the proof theoretic approach that some militant atheists project …as if they don’t know that one could also argue in a model theoretic base. 

I feel that someone is waving me a “Boolean algebra” (as a Bible written with operators) and claiming that the truly true truth is written in this holy book.

Some atheists act as if they belong to some priesthood of a “Boolean Higher Dogma”.

“Jesus is the son of God or he is not.”

and as i say to scoff that…

“Pinocchio is made of wood or he is not”

PS: as Darwin said “Let each man hope and believe what he can.”