Is it true that if you have evidence for something then you don’t have faith, you have knowledge?
Why would faith not be knowledge and knowledge in faith?
Because that would be confusing as hell… 
As for if it’s true… that depends on how you define those terms “faith” and “knowledge”
people have very different ideas about the meaning of those words…
Evidence isn’t proof. Evidence supports a supposition or hypothesis, but it doesn’t guarantee that it’s a legitimate truth.
I think the more evidence you have, the less reason there is to have faith, and vice versa. Even with loads of evidence, you still have to have faith. But when you have knowledge of something, there’s really no room left for faith.
Faith is belief without proof. If there is no proof, then knowledge cannot be logically existent.
“I believe” does not precede “I know”
You have to actually know something before you can logicaly believe it.
You are right in saying that you still need to have faith even in the presence of lots of evidence. That goes along with “theres no such thing as an absolute”. But you have to admit, that there comes a point where the situation switches from “believing in truth of something because it seems right” to “believing in truth of something because its pretty much dead on right.”
It all goes back to probabilities of correctness versus incorrectness. But yet even if it appears that the probability of correctness is really high, the scientific method is designed such that mistakes are accounted for, and hypotheses and theories are rewritten to match the newest and most accurate data.
The SM doesn’t just apply to laboratories and men in lab coats and test tubes and stuff. It applies to your every day life. You use it all the time.
Yeah, thats what I was trying to get at. There’s ‘reason based on faith’ and ‘faith based on reason.’ The latter wins, always.
lol, so true.
Assuming that there are absolutes and the universe is for the most part existent and as it seems…
If you know that God exists because, for instance, you saw it (I’m not getting into any discussion about how you might have made a mistake; I’m saying, for the most part, you are as sure as you can be that he exists), then would it be knowledge that he exists, or faith?
I don’t want to get into a denihilistic argument about how we don’t know the universe exists, and since we don’t know that, we don’t know we actually saw God. I’m just looking for an answer to the question.
Why …who says?
belief without knowledge is assumption.
Faith exists even in atheism.
Here’s how:
(1) Even if one does not believe in the existence of God, one needs faith that the universe did not just pop into existence five minutes ago (Bertrand Russell’s Five Minute Hypothesis)–with all history and memory intact from the universe that suddenly faded from existence 6 minutes in the past.
(2) That the four forces of nature are not God-forces “pretending” to be the four forces of nature
(3) That consciousness other than one’s own personal consciousness exists. For all we know, everyone around us could only be bots–or functioning brains and bodies without consciousness.
(4) That a mind-independent physical reality exists beyond our subjective experience of the world. Existence only “knows” that it exists through the existence of conscious and subjective points of view. Is everything a simulated reality with no underlying reality beneath?
Despite the fact that atheism is reasonable, reasonableness does not equal undeniable certainty of the truth of atheism. It is simply a plausible observation of the world that might be belied by an indistinguishable counterpossibility.
Nuff said.
Jay M. Brewer
superchristianity.com
blog.myspace.com/superchristianity
(A working hypothesis of what might have been going on within the mind of Jesus Christ while dying upon the cross)
The only reason people have to take into consideration that it “might be god related” is because someone had to originally come up with the idea of “god” (in whatever form it was first devised. Consider the native american story of the world resting on a turtle’s back. Before the story was told for the first time, people didn’t have to worry about “having faith that there is no turtle” because the story didn’t exist. There are no a-Xists until X is presented.
Your #1 and #2 statements fall prey to the assumption that the idea of “god” has ALWAYS existed, even before the first human consciousness. The only reason people had at the time to accept the idea that it might have something to do with a god is because “god did it” sounds a lot easier to accept and teach than “I don’t know”.
Your #3 statement also requires an assumption, however it is an assumption about something you can physically interact with. You can’t test things like “god”. Well you can test it, but so far in all of human history, it’s never been proven to exist.
This whole discussion goes back to the burden of proof.
Person A and B exist at t=0. At t>0 B claims to have acquired some knowledge. Person B is then responsible for presenting evidence for this knowledge to person A. It is impossible for A to prove that B’s knowledge is false.
Good post.
I think that objective reality supercedes knowledge of that reality, and that one can posit a logic that supports this in belief in the existence of God.
(1) Sure, the existence of God existing eternally before the first human consciousness is an assumption, but one can argue that it’s truth cannot be ruled out simply due to the fact that God is conceived by the human mind. For all we know, despite the fact that someone in history originally “came up” with the idea of “god”—the Judeo-Christian God actually existed despite this.
This is the notion of fortuitous objectivism–or the notion that an entity might objectively exist, despite it being dreamed up on the spot within a human’s imagination.
In my statement 3 concerning other humans being bots. This is the most obvious implication of empiricism when it comes to other-consciousness (the consciousness of other people). We can see physical brains and measure their function, but we cannot sensorially perceive the first-person private subjective experience of others.
We thus have no empirical (experiential) proof that other-consciousness exists. The existence of beings with similar physical structure and function to ourselves only yields a super-strong belief that they are indeed conscious. Independent of empirical knowledge of the fact, objective reality might prove us wrong despite the strength of our belief.
And, while there is a responsibility for person B to present to person A evidence that one’s knowledge is true, some “evidence” resists this method. For example, the existence of other-consciousness cannot be shown to exist, and yet we believe it does.
A correlary to this is that things that cannot be presented to exist are not necessarily non-existent. We cannot present a mind-independent physical reality, as the only “reality” seems to be in the form of subjective points of view. However, there is unwavering belief that it nonetheless exists.
Nuff said.
Jay M. Brewer
superchristianity.com
Nobody believed the world was round, and none of those people could see the other side…
I’m sorry, but atheism is a matter of faith, like theism and deism. The only safe belief in God is agnostic.
Hi Everyone,
Faith doesn’t have a connection with knowledge at the outset. Faith essentially comes from experience (the seed of knowledge) and knowledge grows from that. However, faith does not primarily seek knowledge but experience, which is why faith has to do with trust. Keeping the faith is about staying with it, despite adverse circumstances.
Faith is leading us to purity rather than to knowledge, although knowledge is a bye-product that grows from experience. It is the pure and simple that we are rediscovering when we really devote ourselves to Christ – and a confrontation with our dualistic ego, which has to be overcome by seeing it for what it is and comprehending who we are.
Most people seem to stick with the morality or ethical question, but that is superficial and in great danger of being utilised by our ego. Enlightenment comes from the “inner chamberâ€, from the pure and simple, and from humility. All else is illusion and in so being, sin.
Shalom
Then I’ll assume you’re also agnostic about the teapot flying around the sun.
It seems to me that the question of faith lies in the realm of probabilities if one is seeking credibility. In what should I place my faith? That is the question. As Bob has suggested, experience is the underpinnings of faith. I have faith that the sun will come up tomorrow. It has a high degree of probability. My car will start when I turn the key in the ignition. Probably, but on occasion… I won’t get run over by an 18 wheeler on my way to work. If I’m lucky… 
But each of these examples fall along a continuum and are testable. They are taken on degrees of faith from empirical experience.
What is religious faith is not testable. Even religious experience, no matter how “real” it seems is subject to illusory interpretation. We ‘see’ signs of God at work, miracles and prayers answered. But this could easily be our minds assigning agency where there is nothing at all, and the problem is always, that there is no testable referrent. One chooses religious belief>faith not because of evidence, but in spite of it.
One must finally ask, what is probable. How ‘likely’ is this to be an accurate assessment of the state of the universe?
Given that there are a few things we do not know, we may not dismiss the possibilities. But it seems reasonable with just a modicum of common sense, that we attempt to align our beliefs>faith in keeping with that which appears probable.
When we know absolutely everything, then faith will disappear from the lexicon. I don’t think I’ll hold my breath waiting…
Well, I’ve never seen or heard of a teapot flying around the sun, but I’ve never bothered to float in outer space to see if there wasn’t a teapot flying around the sun.
However, I can assume that it doesn’t exist based on the fact that no one has bothered to put a teapot into orbit. No less tried to get it pass the exosphere. Then again, if the hypothetical teapot has always been flying around in space, I can reason why and how it got there.
Yes, I sound crazy defending the existence of rotating, cosmic kitchen appliance, but only for one reason; it’s possible.
Possible and likely seem to be confusing you. Just because it’s possible doesn’t mean we can’t assign it a probability.
Of course, absolutely right. I just personally don’t think the improbable should be an excluded factor.