Do you think faith has weakened this past millenium?
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Mateo3112
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Do you think faith has weakened this past millenium?
It's a rather simple question, i just want to know your opinion on the subject. Do you think faith has weakened and or decreased this past thousand years? and most importantly, how do you feel about that? I'd also like to know if there are still theists in the forum, i saw a few in a previous post, but it was from almost a year ago,so i don't really know if there are still any.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Do you think faith has weakened this past millenium?
It depends in part on how you define it.
Faith may not be so much believing something on 'insufficient evidence', but a lack of sound reasoning behind a belief. There could be sufficient evidence for something which you just do not understand, and you would still be taking the notion on faith -- not because there was not evidence, but because you didn't understand the evidence personally.
I would say faith has probably decreased a little in terms of the advance of education, since some people are better understanding why we know what we know, but I don't think it has really decreased much in absolute magnitude (particularly for the masses) so much as shifted in nature.
There ARE people who just have faith in science without really understanding anything about science or why it is correct, for example. It's a criticism many Christians and other theists make, which atheists reject, and yet is sometimes true -- particularly for the broader science ignorant population.
People who have no idea how science really works or why it is true but accept it anyway aren't doing anything fundamentally different from the religious faith of the past. As I often say, they (many atheists) are only "accidentally right" -- we shouldn't be giving people so many points for dumb luck of happening to believe things that true (usually by upbringing, or for emotional reasons), while condemning others who believe wrong things for the same bad reasons.
Faith may not be so much believing something on 'insufficient evidence', but a lack of sound reasoning behind a belief. There could be sufficient evidence for something which you just do not understand, and you would still be taking the notion on faith -- not because there was not evidence, but because you didn't understand the evidence personally.
I would say faith has probably decreased a little in terms of the advance of education, since some people are better understanding why we know what we know, but I don't think it has really decreased much in absolute magnitude (particularly for the masses) so much as shifted in nature.
There ARE people who just have faith in science without really understanding anything about science or why it is correct, for example. It's a criticism many Christians and other theists make, which atheists reject, and yet is sometimes true -- particularly for the broader science ignorant population.
People who have no idea how science really works or why it is true but accept it anyway aren't doing anything fundamentally different from the religious faith of the past. As I often say, they (many atheists) are only "accidentally right" -- we shouldn't be giving people so many points for dumb luck of happening to believe things that true (usually by upbringing, or for emotional reasons), while condemning others who believe wrong things for the same bad reasons.
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Mateo3112
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Re: Do you think faith has weakened this past millenium?
Yes, i should have stated my definition of faith on the original post, my bad xDbrimstoneSalad wrote:It depends in part on how you define it.
"Tell people that there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure" -George Carlin