Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Response to a student on the use of the term "faith"

 Whenever someone brings up the word faith in this class, I am going to ask them what they mean by it. Some people mean by faith simply confidence, some mean confidence without immediate perceptual evidence (faith as opposed to "sight"), some people mean faith without proof, by which I take it they mean, I take it, evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, and some see faith as belief absent any rational support, and perhaps even holding on to a belief in the teeth of a mountain of counter-evidence.

If you say that atheists like Freud and Dawkins are really religious because they have faith of some kind, the whole issue of how you define faith hits you in the nose.

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