Facts and Faith

I know speaking with secularists that rely on facts they tend to be more even tempered, less quick to judge and more comfortable with themselves. It seems facts can be just as stabilizing influence in someones life as faith is.

So is faith an overblown concept. Do we put to much stock in faith when we should learn the facts to better deal with the world around us? Or do you find facts suspect and use faith as your guide to find answers or truth. Again I think they are not compatible in many instances.

I know plenty of secularists, including radical atheists, and have even attended some of their meetings in the past. Unfortunately they are not always as fact-driven as they’d like to make out.

For example, they will talk about “memes” and “dark matter” as if they were fact. Unfortunately both of these are purely theoretical, and do not have a proven existence. The Big Bang theory seems to hang on this dark matter business. Only problem being that, a) it is supposed to be the majority of the matter in the universe, and b) it doesn’t seem to have been observed, let alone proven. Therefore, it’s a hell of a big “ask”, and I think in such a situation it may be best going back to the drawing board.

I also had an amusing argument with some of them, when I was at a talk about psychic research. Some of the experiments the guy was discussing, appeared to offer slightly positive evidence for telepathy. Of course they were all up in arms, and said that the experiments were obviously conducted in the wrong way. I pointed out to them that if they were real scientists, they would have to work with the data, not with their preconceptions, which is exactly what they were doing.

Philosophically it is impossible to prove ANYTHING exists including ourselves. Even Descartes was wrong when he said “I think therefore I am”. No, just because he “thought”, doesn’t mean he existed. Characters in a novel or a simulation can “think” as well.

Everyone relies on an amount of faith. We have faith gravity will keep us anchored, or that the sun will come up tomorrow. But in the end, most of our conceptions, such as the world being round, or TV signals being waves in the air, are all based on what we’re told by other people (and apologies to any geologists, astronomers or physicists here – you are the exception). We have rarely seen the evidence for any of these things.

Cadence, you’re so open and honest with these great questions! :thumbup: I appreciate your post, it is good to think about and discuss.

In some ways, it reminds me of my undergraduate college days. I was fascinated with the Social Sciences. I was fascinated how they took social trends or behavioral analysis, and tried to fit it into the similar scientific process that the other hard sciences use.

The rigor and discipline used was fascinating, and definitely showed some learnings, but the common theme was that with social beings and behaviors or abstract topics like psychology or philosophy…there are some descriptive facts, but some things that just can never be measured with pure, hard, unchangeable facts. It seemed some things just had to be approached differently, or allowed for more error and less certainty based on our inability to understand or measure them.

It almost feels you are struggling with the same conflict. Trying to get facts to explain faith, so you can have the certainty you desire. It is a difficult conflict I think people have struggled with forever, unless perhaps we change the toolset being used.

What if…instead of seeking facts and formulas that we can rely on in the spiritual realm of faith and belief, we instead measure worth of it all on the scale of happiness or fulfillment or purpose or comfort? Yes, it is subjective to each person in various situations, but the end goal is the same however we get there. It is about growth and fulfillment, not certainty and facts.

Faith, simply defined, is the decision to continue to act in the face of uncertainty. Faith exists as an element of humility; it dies as arrogance solidifies. Therefore, faith never changes in nature; it just ebbs and flows in degree.

That’s vitally important to understand. It’s not faith that changes; it’s uncertainty and certainty that change – through the acquisition of knowledge (facts). Facts move faith from its original focus to a new focus on something else believed but not seen.

Faith is empowering. Faith drives inquiry. Faith drives discovery. Faith drives innovation. Faith drives charity. Faith drives courtship. Faith drives revelation. Faith drives experimentation. Faith drives progress. Faith drives growth.

The lack of faith (the surety of absolute certainty) drives closed minds. It also drives fanaticism. It drives oppression. It drives arrogance.

It’s interesting that Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . meek . . . merciful . . .” – NOT “Blessed are those who know everything.” It’s interesting that he said, “Seek (an action undertaken ONLY by those who understand they don’t know everything) and ye shall find.” It’s interesting that Moroni didn’t say, “He will manifest it unto you . . . Ye may know all things.” Rather, he said, “He will manifest THE TRUTH OF IT unto you . . . Ye many know THE TRUTH OF all things.”

I’m NOT dismissing knowledge, but I am saying that knowledge is only the eternal end goal for me. For me, in the here and now, it’s much more the journey – the pursuit – the seeking than it is a final, completed acquisition in mortality. That’s why my daughter’s poem, written with no input from me, touched me so deeply.

http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3098&hilit=poem

I just find it interesting that individuals will apply faith to explain their absolute knowledge of something when there are no of facts to support it. The facts may even run contrary to their faith yet they cling to the faith above the facts.

Classic example is using revelation for investment decisions. It causes problems when it doesn’t work out, because it often won’t. Even Joseph Smith struggled with investment by revelation, with some disastrous results.

Faith is empowering. Faith drives inquiry. Faith drives discovery. Faith drives innovation. Faith drives charity. Faith drives courtship. Faith drives revelation. Faith drives experimentation. Faith drives progress. Faith drives growth.

Well said.

…facts and faith are pitted agains each other. I use to be a very faith driven individual. I believed faith could do almost anything. Then my faith failed me or maybe I failed my faith I am not sure, but in todays world facts are so much more valuable to me…Facts explain things to me, faith is ambiguous at best. facts bring me some conclusions to questions, faith leaves me wondering…I know the immediate response of some is that facts and faith are not opposed to each other, but I must say in many many instances they are…So is faith an overblown concept. Do we put to much stock in faith when we should learn the facts to better deal with the world around us?…I think they are not compatible in many instances.

I was going to respond to this topic before but I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to say about it at the time. After thinking about it some more I still don’t believe that anyone should ever be required or expected to choose faith over facts. Personally I think facts and faith actually complement each other quite well and the best approach to dealing with them would generally be to simply start with what you already accept as facts and then use “faith” (or personal beliefs) to fill in the blanks. It looks to me like the human mind was basically made to fill in the blanks and make decisions based on incomplete, confusing, and/or conflicting information.

What it comes down to is that people typically have a limited amount of patience for dealing with the true level of complexity and uncertainty they will actually encounter in the real world when looking at every angle and consideration possible for any non-trivial questions. So instead of just sitting around essentially overwhelmed and unsure what to make of it all people are just as likely to select an answer that makes sense to them and go with it until they see sufficient reasons why they shouldn’t anymore. I see human history up to this point as being a long process of trial and error where leaps of faith have actually resulted in far more overall progress than everyone playing it safe to the extreme by only trusting their own personal experience and/or the majority of recognized experts at any one time ever would have.

We don’t always refer to these similar judgment calls as faith because faith has religious connotations so for other non-religious examples they will often be called what they really are basically just opinions or personal beliefs which implies that not everyone should be expected to agree with them. Even arch-skeptics like Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins are not typically complete nihilists because they will generally still have their own values and personal beliefs about things like ethics and politics that cannot be proven any better than the existence of God. So why is it that personal value judgments and unverifiable beliefs are apparently acceptable to them in some cases but not others? Personally I think some guesswork and different personal preferences are and always have been unavoidable because there are definite limits to what questions science or careful investigation and analysis can ever really answer in a conclusive way.

I know speaking with secularists that rely on facts they tend to be more even tempered, less quick to judge and more comfortable with themselves. It seems facts can be just as stabilizing influence in someones life as faith is.

So is faith an overblown concept. Do we put to much stock in faith when we should learn the facts to better deal with the world around us? Or do you find facts suspect and use faith as your guide to find answers or truth. Again I think they are not compatible in many instances.

I know plenty of secularists, including radical atheists, and have even attended some of their meetings in the past. Unfortunately they are not always as fact-driven as they’d like to make out.

For example, they will talk about “memes” and “dark matter” as if they were fact. Unfortunately both of these are purely theoretical, and do not have a proven existence. The Big Bang theory seems to hang on this dark matter business. Only problem being that, a) it is supposed to be the majority of the matter in the universe, and b) it doesn’t seem to have been observed, let alone proven. Therefore, it’s a hell of a big “ask”, and I think in such a situation it may be best going back to the drawing board.

I also had an amusing argument with some of them, when I was at a talk about psychic research. Some of the experiments the guy was discussing, appeared to offer slightly positive evidence for telepathy. Of course they were all up in arms, and said that the experiments were obviously conducted in the wrong way. I pointed out to them that if they were real scientists, they would have to work with the data, not with their preconceptions, which is exactly what they were doing.

Philosophically it is impossible to prove ANYTHING exists including ourselves. Even Descartes was wrong when he said “I think therefore I am”. No, just because he “thought”, doesn’t mean he existed. Characters in a novel or a simulation can “think” as well.

Everyone relies on an amount of faith. We have faith gravity will keep us anchored, or that the sun will come up tomorrow. But in the end, most of our conceptions, such as the world being round, or TV signals being waves in the air, are all based on what we’re told by other people (and apologies to any geologists, astronomers or physicists here – you are the exception). We have rarely seen the evidence for any of these things.

:thumbup:

I have been this board for a while, even though i rarely post. I have also seen this topic on another board – i complete ran therefrom (maybe i’ll a peep now.)

That being said, i really think that every “truth” is independent in its own sphere, and serve it purpose in that sphere. Both religious “truth” – especially LDS revelations, and scientific “truth”, changes over time: hence both “fact” and “faith” of any given issue (in my own view), are subject to changes.

So, for me personally, when i find myself in the spot of having to make a pick, i evaluate which choice serves the greater good (for the moment) – you know that line in the bible about “line upon line”.