Why have you rejected all forms of faith?

by AlmostAtheist 79 Replies latest jw friends

googlemagoogle

i find the "do you believe in love" thing funny. and how it's used to make faith appear more rational.

someone does not "believe" in love, someone loves or does not love and sees other people love. thus everybody knows love exists.

and someone does not believe in faith either, someone has faith or hasn't or sees other people have faith. thus faith also exists.

BUT that's got nothing whatsoever to do with if faith is somethin rational or not. it's a strawman.
funkyderek

AuldSoul:
FunkyDerek, an emotion is a feeling, a feeling is an emotion.

A cat is a feline; a feline is a cat.
That is a circular definition and therefore a fallacious definition, a word cannot be defined by its synonym.
You defined it that way, not me.
To me an emotion is "a mental state that arises spontaneously rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes." Such emotions exist and can be measured.
Even reproducible emotions (like anger, or happiness) are ultimately subjective because they rely on the one who is experiencing them to relate that experience, they cannot be assessed in a NPOV fashion in any respect.
See above.
I believe that no emotion is falsifiable
You can tell I'm not angry by measuring my heart rate, blood pressure and brain activity.
no emotion is exclusive of other emotions, and no emotion is singularly experienced.
Agreed. The same is true of colour.
In my opinion, you are confusing a description of ;the experience with a definition of the experience.
You can't have it both ways. If you can't define a word by using synonyms, then you can only define it by describing it.
You can define a (domestic) cat as Felis catus (a synonym) or as "a small carnivorous mammal with whiskers" (a description). How else would you define it?
But that is the difference. I am stating opinion as unproven opinion. You are stating opinion as proven fact.
No, you're stating my opinion (that love exists) as being untestable. I am claiming it is testable.
AuldSoul

FunkyDerek, to me it is:
Merriam-Webster Online
Main Entry: emo·tion
Pronunciation: i-'mO-sh&n
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, from emouvoir to stir up, from Old French esmovoir, from Latin emovEre to remove, displace, from e- + movEre to move
1 a obsolete : DISTURBANCE b : EXCITEMENT
2 a : the affective aspect of consciousness : FEELING b : a state of feeling c : a psychic and physical reaction (as anger or fear) subjectively experienced as strong feeling and physiologically involving changes that prepare the body for immediate vigorous action
or
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Editionemotion (î-mo´shen) noun
1. An intense mental state that arises subjectively rather than through conscious effort and is often accompanied by physiological changes; a strong feeling: the emotions of joy, sorrow, reverence, hate, and love.
2. A state of mental agitation or disturbance: spoke unsteadily in a voice that betrayed his emotion. See synonyms at feeling.
3. The part of the consciousness that involves feeling; sensibility: "The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect" (Isaac Bashevis Singer).
But that is just the dictionary talking. It is impossible to remove the subjective from any emotion therefore it is impossible to falsify emotion, because it is imposible to clinically falsify the subjective. What was the source of your latest definition that did not include subjectivity in its definition? You didn't just make one up or edit subjectivity out, did you?
AuldSoul
AuldSoul

FunkyDerek, with your cat analogy I get the intensely humorous idea that you are trying to assert that love is an objective thing. Objective things can be defined by description. However, love is not an objective thing. It is a subjective things. Therefore it is appropriate to define the subjective experience, but it is not appropriate to then assert that the definition of the experience turns a subjective thing into an objective thing.
BTW, love cannot be tested, weighed, evaluated, measured, or falsified. It cannot clinically be proven to exist. It is and always will be subjective, because researchers will always be dependent on the experience as related by the subject.
AuldSoul
funkyderek

AuldSoul:
What was the source of your latest definition that did not include subjectivity in its definition? You didn't just make one up or edit subjectivity out, did you?

Of course not. Dictionary.com, first definition. I used it verbatim (should have provided a reference, my bad.)
In any case, I am well aware that the experience of an emotion is subjective. There is still no problem identifying them and objectively defining them
It is impossible to remove the subjective from any emotion therefore it is impossible to falsify emotion, because it is imposible to clinically falsify the subjective.
We don't seem to be getting anywhere with this. For the sake of argument, I'll concede your point. I'll say emotions can't be defined, tested for or falsified. Now what?
skinnyboy

faith? that most human of distractions.

You say you beleive in aliens/UFO's etc and people laugh at you. Say you believe in God and your patted on the back! Their both the same, yet i'd be more inclined to belive in aliens because of the sheer probability in our massive universe (which by the way just happened to exist one day :)
googlemagoogle

pain also is subjective. you can't prove that something hurts, you can only prove that nerves are sending signals to the brain.

love in this sense is also subjective, but it can indeed be tested (to some extent). how many people on this world have ever said "show me that you really love me"... what then?

faith also is subjective in this sense, but also can be tested... like the JW's faith was tested in the concentration camps.

but what does that prove? that you have faith. or love. or pain. so what? i don't know anyone who denies the existance of "faith".
AuldSoul

FunkyDerek, thank for the "concession." That was big of you, especially since we are dealing with a fact of reality. "Subjective" is the antonym of "objective" therefore it is impossible to confer properties relating to objectivity onto the subjective merely by describing the subjective. A subjective experience (such as love) is not objective in nature, any definition that arises is perforce also a subjective definition, that is, a definition entirely open to the discretion of the one experiencing the thing described.
Merriam-Webster Online
Main Entry: sub·jec·tive
Pronunciation: (")s&b-'jek-tiv
Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or constituting a subject : as a obsolete : of, relating to, or characteristic of one that is a subject especially in lack of freedom of action or in submissiveness b : being or relating to a grammatical subject; especially : NOMINATIVE
2 : of or relating to the essential being of that which has substance, qualities, attributes, or relations
3 a : characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind : PHENOMENAL -- compare OBJECTIVE 1b b : relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states
4 a (1) : peculiar to a particular individual : PERSONAL <subjective judgments> (2) : modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background <a subjective account of the incident> b : arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli <subjective sensations> c : arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes <a subjective symptom of disease> -- compare OBJECTIVE 1c
5 : lacking in reality or substance : ILLUSORY
Main Entry: ob·jec·tive
Pronunciation: &b-'jek-tiv, äb-
Function: adjective
1 a : relating to or existing as an object of thought without consideration of independent existence -- used chiefly in medieval philosophy b : of, relating to, or being an object , phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind <objective reality> <our reveries... are significantly and repeatedly shaped by our transactions with the objective world -- Marvin Reznikoff> -- compare SUBJECTIVE 3a c of a symptom of disease : perceptible to persons other than the affected individual -- compare SUBJECTIVE 4c d : involving or deriving from sense perception or experience with actual objects , conditions, or phenomena <objective awareness> <objective data>
2 : relating to, characteristic of, or constituting the case of words that follow prepositions or transitive verbs
3 a : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations <objective art> <an objective history of the war> <an objective judgment> b of a test : limited to choices of fixed alternatives and reducing subjective factors to a minimum
synonym see MATERIAL, FAIR
- ob·jec·tive·ly adverb
- ob·jec·tive·ness noun
- ob·jec·tiv·i·ty /"äb-"jek-'ti-v&-tE, &b-/ noun
The fact that a thing is subjective (such as faith, love, God, respect, humility, pride, etc.) doesn't prevent these things from being believed in.
skinnyboy

^^^^ what he said.

faith - fairys.
belief -fairys driving cars.
AuldSoul

skinnyboy, and that wouldn't even be a delusion if the one experiencing it realizes that their belief cannot be proven.
I think it is important to point out that faith is based on subjective experiences. Faith in God is likewise based on experiences. These experiences are subjective. It is entirely possible for someone to believe in something they have never had any experience with. For instance there are many people who have never experienced love and believe it exists, anyway.
On the other hand (you have five fingers...ba-dump--pshh!) it is also true that many who have experienced love question its existence at later points in their lives, question whether they ever really experienced it.
AuldSoul

Why have you rejected all forms of faith?

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