Hirhurim: Faith is a Four Letter Word

What is faith?

Let's analyze. If faith was based on sound evidence and/or good reasons then it wouldn't be called faith, it would be called knowledge or reason. Nobody says I have faith that 2=2=4, or that things fall down, not up. And nobody, except possibly sme exrteme Christian irrationalists, is going to argue that faith based beliefs are more true than evidence based beliefs.

And likewise, on the opposite extreme, if the belief was absolutely invented fantasy apparent for all to see, then likewise no normal person would call it faith either. They would agree that it's fantasy. Nobody really believes in the FSM for example.

So faith clearly lies in between stories which are obviously invented with zero reasons to believe in them, and things which have good evidence and/or reasons.

So, why would someone believe in something if the evidence is lacking? Sure, they have reasons, but we have already established that those reasons can't be that good, because if they were, then it wouldn't be faith.

So, mimah nafshach, when Gil Student (for example - I like Gil and I don't have it in for him, but he's the guy who keeps posting about faith) says that he has faith in TMS (for example), what is he talking about?

If he has good reasons why, given ALL the evidence, TMS is most likely true, then he has Reason to believe TMS, it's not Faith. And if the evidence (and any other logical reasons) doesn't show that TMS is most likely to be true, then why is he believing it? After all, he doesn't believe KMS, or MMS or any other religious claim. So why is he believing this claim, despite the lack of good evidence?

There's only one possible answer. And that's BIAS. He wants to believe it for reasons which have nothing to do whether it is true or not. This is called BIAS my friends. Or possibly (misplaced) loyalty. Or any one of a number of emotions, all of which are the common cause of bias.

Gil will probably get round this by saying the evidence is inconclusive either way, and he has subjective reasons to think that TMS is true. But why would he think the evidence is inconclusive, yet still believe 100%? The only possible answer is again bias. You don't see him believing in anything else 100% with no clear evidence either way.

The bottom line is that when you dig into anyones faith based beliefs you will always uncover the following - ALWAYS - a layer of not so great (or truly awful) "reasons" which the believer places way too much emphasis on because he wants to believe for exrtaneous reasons i.e. BIAS.

This is ALWAYS the case, I absolutely guarantee it. Why? Because if the reasons were great that the belief was actually most likely true, then it wouldn't be faith. And if there was no reason whatsoever, nobody in the right mind would believe it.

So is all faith bad?

I think there's one element of faith which is good. And that is the element of optimism. You could easily look at the world and think it's all pointless, and you may as well just enjoy yourself or give up.

Faith in the world, in humanity, in the future, in yourself, in your family: That's all a good type of faith. Even if the evidence shows things might not turn out so well. That kind of optimism is valuable and important.

But while I think it's good to be "optimistic" about the future, being "optimistic" about the past i.e. that past history actually conforms to your religious version of history - well, that's not really optimism. That's just bias.

And bias has 4 letters (in case you didn't get it).