Quite so, and as HLJ points out here, that problem will be with us forever. Its just really discouraging when even our government encourages it as has happened with the Bush administration.

Hmmm. Good point. Another aspect of that problem is that its hard to trust the motivations behind the people or organizations that are coming up with all these 'new knowledge' bits and pieces....for instance how one day a group of food is considered bad for you, and then the next day its great for you - you just wonder how much that particular food lobby paid for that bit of reporting. Just like the fundies would assign motive to the people who espouse evolutionary theory.

Impeccable, irrefutable, logical, self-actualized reasoning. Who can argue with that?

Well, at the risk of arguing semantics, I disagree. Faith is jumping right in and believing something without any proof that the belief is valid. Science, on the other hand, demands proof. I can say that I place my faith in science, but what I'm really saying is that logical reasoning leads me to accept the conclusions of science.

Absolutely. Scientists are only human and the quest for funding can be desperate. Its always interesting to see who funded the latest and greatested scientific study and what that study "proves". When I went to grad school, one of my favorite courses was one I came to call "Lying with Statistics." The University called it "Biometry." I was very impressed how a change of sampling technique or statistical model could completely skew the results of a study 180 degrees from what a different method would show. Its no wonder that the public is skeptical.

So what's the problem? Are you incapable of determining where faith vs proof should be applied?
I will grant you, some people seem to have that handicap, but it's not by any means mandatory. Therefore I disagree with juju's assertion that science and religion are mutually exclusive.

The problem is that there is no way to determine a situation where faith *should* be applied, ostensibly because there isn't one.

Faith-based people and proof-based people start out thinking in similar methods. They observe the present (lets say we are looking at a bird), and both attempt to determine the reason for its existance.

A faith-based person concludes that God made it, while a proof-based person attempts to deduce a chain of events which would bring about such an end result. The proof-based person requires that this chain of events have clear causation between them, while the faith-based person requires no evidence.

At this point the problem with the faith-based approach becomes painfully clear. If proof is not required to conclude God is responsible for the bird, it is equally valid to conclude that the bird was brought into being by a cinder block. A faith-based approach is in essence the decision that answers do not matter, and fantasy is as equally valid as reality.


What astonishes me the most is that society functions as well as it does with large swaths of the population choosing to be selectively bat-shit crazy.

There is no faith (as in religion) without serious indocrination....or as I like to say, brain-washing.

I must disagree. I can only speak for myself. I am not a Christian, nor do I attend any religious services or formal training and indoctrination. I do have an active spiritual life, and have much in the way of spiritual experience. I am not driven to convince anyone that if they do not have what I have they will rot in any kind of a hell. My experience is what drives any faith I may have in the spiritual. Much like my parents once telling me that if I put my hand on the hot stove it would be burned, I had to have the experience to build the faith that I have today that my hand will indeed be burned on the hot stove. I need not put my hand on the stove anymore, once was enough.

It is my observation that people without faith are people with out experience to build any faith. That's ok, in my way of thinking I could not expect someone without the experience to have any faith, and I don't. How could I?

It would be a mistake though, to believe that my spiritual life detracts and is incompatible with anything I find in the scientific world. I, myself, find no conflict between the two.

I don't think I understand what you're saying here... and I would like to.

RJ, let me soften what I said a bit. Take out the words serious and brain-washing first of all (although, that is how I feel about most religion). Faith is based on experience, it does not come from nothing. Nobody ever really 'jumps right in and believes something without any proof that the belief is valid'. First there is an experience that provides a basis for the belief which reinforces the faith in it. For instance, your experience has helped to build your spirituality. However, I think that most people are basing their faith on their upbringing and, perhaps in part, societal peer pressure.

This is a classic logical fallacy, that someone who disagrees with you must only do so because they have not examined the evidence. You have just met someone who you can see has examined the evidence and arrived at a different conclusion than yours... and yet your response is that he is the exception, all the rest of the people who disagree with you still must have not actually thought about the issue for themselves. "Soften" the words all you want, you just readily admitted that you're not willing to be wrong.

But you can have a bonus point for not using the word "sheep" yet. Congratulations. :rolleyes:

I disagree.
No, I say that bird evolved from a dinosaur, because that's the way God set the system up.
No, I require evidence that the bird evolved from the dinosaur, and not a platypus, but that doesn't affect my faith.
The only thing that is "painfully clear", is you are trying to pigeon hole billions of people into the constricts that you've formed in your head, on how anyone with faith should think.

Then by your own reasoning, maybe it's you that's "bat-shit crazy, for assuming you know what that large swath of the population thinks.

So if your agree it's education, and if you don't it's brain washing.:rolleyes:

People most certainly do jump right in and believe. That's why its called faith. I'll agree that people do have spiritual experiences, but not every "true believer" necessarily has seen a burning bush. Nor do people who are raised in a certain faith always stay with it as adults. In fact, many people's early experiences with religion turn them off completely to any kind of spirituality. This was true in my case for a long time, and I have met many others who felt the same as I did. As far as peer pressure, it seems to me that modern society influences people more toward atheism or agnosticism than belief.

I also don't think that people who attempt to follow a spiritual path are "bat shit crazy." There are many intelligent, thoughtful and moral people who seek a path that transcends the self-seeking, amoral society that we live in. What's so bat-shit about that?

A crazy person believes that the cinder block created the bird. A really crazy person believes that because they know the bird came from an egg, their belief that the egg was created by a cinder block is the better for it.

The point isn’t *where* you choose to fill in reality from your imagination, the point is that you are doing it at all. There are many things in this world we do not yet know, and many more things that we will learn. Filling in the gaps in our knowledge with make-believe for no good reason is counterproductive to say the least.

Are you suggesting that large swaths of the population hold unfathomable beliefs? Or perhaps that faith itself is unfathomable and so immune to question? I don’t know what the term is, but I am pretty sure calling a logical “no man’s land” like that isn’t sound debate.

Since you're the only person I've ever heard say a bird comes from a cinder block, I have to wonder about your thought process. :eyebrow:

If I remember correctly, you are the one saying, "that large swaths of the population hold unfathomable beliefs". If they are unfathomable to you, but you choose to deride and belittle them anyway, that's not debate, that's ignorance.