Leo,
I would question on philosophical grounds whether one could assert objectively that (abstract) faith can be equated with self-deceit or irrationality when the latter involves other people's subjectivities which generally lie outside objective inquiry. Self-deceit may be inferred from objective evidence generated by a person's subjectivity (i.e. "etic" evidence of another's experience), and indeed self-deceit is inimical to its own recognition in the mind of someone who experiences it, but neither is it possible to know whether a person has access to "emic" knowledge (such as what a person knows from his/her own experience) that is not available to the observer for evaluation.
Yes, I understand this viewpoint, but where I would part company, and not on a philosophical but empirical level is where a person believes as a result of faith", in a reality that requires more than the concept of a god, hence my second question. Faith becomes measurable against common social experience and historical development.
As I noted, this may show itself in such reasoning:
A god may exist. My faith instructs me that it is a god that cares about me personally. I offer in evidence the fact that I prayed to god to help me beat my opponent in tennis and I won. One statement is based on a philosophical, or abstract concept, the other on a personal conviction. One cannot be proved or disproved, the other can be measured against common experience. It just so happened that I practiced harder than my opponent.
For example, the existence of a god cannot be proved by evidential means, regardless of the claims made by religionists to the contrary. In such discussions the "evidence" of faith and its appendages are soon manifest. It is these appendages to the 'concept' of god that can and do lead to self-deceit.
I am not here discussing the philosophical concept of god. I am here discussing the appendages that are attached to such a belief.
I do not mean to imply that emic evidence that is phenomenologically present is necessarily "real" (cf. Searle's phenomenological illusion), nor is it valid as evidence used to empirically establish objective factual knowledge, but I feel that it should be openly recognized that the premise of the OP (i.e. that faith is necessarily a result of self-deceit) attempts to designate a group of people as subjects -- not from any objective position but from another subjective point of view.
I am glad that you are not implying such Leo. Philosophy is not a scientific discipline and part of the concept of phenomenological "realities", depends on the progress of a directional mind for which measurement of direction has to rely on scientific or social measurement. Apart from this it can only rest in the realms of the mystical, possible and probable until it is underlined by empirical evidence.
I think that much can be shown regarding the thinking of those who have had their "faith" proved in my question regarding whether a believer in one god might view the believer in another god as a victim of self deception.
Those that have been brave enough to answer the question BA and BurnTheShips have provided the following answers, both of which I am sure you will agree are logically flawed:
I already answered this truthfully in my first reply on this thread, but it went over your head. The only truthful answer to the question is "time will tell" who has been decieved, by themselves or others, and who has been correct.
BA seems to be expecting a Biblical judgement day at which time this question will be answered. His faith is measured by his belief in the words of a book. No phenomenological objectivity neccessary. His faith can be measured against the statements in books. When they fail, as they have on numerous occasions, at that moment his faith becomes self-deceit. What he is not prepared to do is answer the question himself.
HS- 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?
BTS - Yes--up to a point.
BurnTheShips, as ever the more honest of the two is prepared to comment, as usual without explanation as to why he believes that those who adhere to a god not of his making are "up to a point" self-deceived. I am sure that he will explain. ;)
Cheers Leo - HS
