Void Eater,
and back to Hillary's questions...
Thank you!
1) In what way is faith not self-deception?
As much as I resist giving some credit to BA, he does make the point I would - faith can only be assigned to the "misconception" category when that which is believed can be proven or disproven. God being unnecessary in this case does not make him/her/it not exist. Until then it may be valid, and it may be a misconception. Schroedinger deals with this in his famous "cat in the box" thought experiments - until you open the box, the cat is in an unkown state, equally alive and dead. In this case, we cannot currently open the box.
Yes, but perhaps we should widen this concept a little. For example, one might state the case as you have regarding the entity of a "God". One might then go on to assign other characteristics to this "God". This God, loves me. This God created me. This God provides me with my wants. This God answers my prayers. This God looked after a book called the Bible to make sure it spoke truth to me. This God looks after the orbit of the sun so that it brings me life.
You see, the concept of a God may not require self-deception, but all appendages applied to this concept do. They require that a person go further than a provable/unprovable concept, as BA clearly intones in his posts. It is this element of the issue that I wish to address.
I have faith that my father appreciates me. I cannot in this moment prove it nor disprove it. It may well be true or a misconception. But it being possibly a misconception does not make it definitely so, and my faith may be well placed.
This is not sound reasoning in that it suggests that you are dealing with a concept that cannot be proved, whereas you can ask your father whether he appreciates you and he will answer in some way. We have no evidence that God has ever given, or been able to give a direct answer to any person asking such a question.
The answer may be different if we had the same careful definition of "faith" as we do of "self-deception" included in the question.
I trust that this aspect has now been answered.
2) Is a person who has faith in a God that you do not believe in, say for example Siva, practicing a form of self-deception?
Perhaps I can't asnwer this because I do not disbelieve in Siva. Siva, to me, equally exists or does not exist. I do not have faith that Siva does or does not exist. I do not have evidence that Siva exists or does not exist.
No, this is a question asked of those who believe in a different God than Siva, such as BA. It is religionists such as himself that would need to answer such questions.
Thank you for your comments.
HS
