My conclusion on the matter (page 7)

PetrW

@Cofty

You may not like it, you may even disagree with it, but that's about all you do with it. Trust me!😎😊😇

cofty

Not many succinct answers to simple questions in this thread. It's almost as if obfuscation is being used as a convenient cover.

stan livedeath

i'm sure the world is flat--so i wont go to near the edge in case i fall off. But i also have faith that an angel would catch me if i do.

TonusOH

We do trust in others to some extent (often to a great extent) when it comes to what we know or understand about our world or universe. The level of that trust is dependent on a number of factors.

Some factors are unreliable. We may trust in something if enough people tell us it is so. Other factors are much more reliable. We will trust in knowledge whose application confirms what we are being told. The latter is even more useful if there is a way for others to confirm it as well.

Science is the latter. The scientific method sets out the ways in which knowledge and understanding can be reliably pursued. Observation, hypothesis, research, experimentation and --most important-- documentation. Showing others your work so that they can replicate it and prove, disprove, or improve it. Keep what works, discard what doesn't. Rinse and repeat, so that over time mistakes and human biases can be gradually filtered out.

Religion is the former. Without an agreed-upon method of determining what is true and what is not, we are stuck at the observation and hypothesis stages, and we cannot progress from there. This is why science can reach global consensus on issues, given enough time. And why religion cannot, and is so fragmented that even specific religions are split into many different denominations, some of which are irreconcilable even though the primary tenets are not in dispute.

What I'm trying to say is that trust is not an equalizer here. Some things are much more trustworthy than others.

PetrW

@ TonusOH

We do trust in others to some extent (often to a great extent) when it comes to what we know or understand about our world or universe. The level of that trust is dependent on a number of factors.

Some factors are unreliable. We may trust in something if enough people tell us it is so. Other factors are much more reliable. We will trust in knowledge whose application confirms what we are being told. The latter is even more useful if there is a way for others to confirm it as well.

Science is the latter...

*

I totally agree with you. But speaking of validity tests: try applying your above statements to the arguments of the opponents/supporters of the Covid-19 vaccines! Just touch lightly on the subject of vaccines to see who was scientifically correct...!

(I do think there would be such a battle of opinion, not unlike whether evolution or Creation, that you'd better not do it...it was just a rhetorical allusion to the fact that the inter-scientific disputes closer to us, are not as clearly fought as one might suppose...).

TonusOH

PetrW: it was just a rhetorical allusion to the fact that the inter-scientific disputes closer to us, are not as clearly fought as one might suppose..

It's a good example of that, yes. The scientific method yields results that become more reliable over time. In the case of COVID and vaccines, we can see that it isn't just biases at play, but also political considerations which play an outsized role, as well as our unhelpful need for certainty. I think that our minds are wired so that we prefer to be certain about things we cannot yet know, than to accept that we need to wait and learn more.

PetrW

@Cofty

I don't want to psychologize the problem. But it's clear why I'm talking about trust. Because many people treat the statement "I believe in God" with disdain, especially when their own belief - often due to the guilt of others - has resulted in unbelief.

But if we look at just what modern human science knows about trust, then we can discover just that common, human basis. The basis for someone to have faith in God is that they have, as other people do, trust. (The disturbances in brain activity in e.g. paranoid anxiety suggest that these people suffer from just non-trust, and it suggests how important trust is...).

The principle of trust (its static description) is quite primitive: trust is the cognitive ability to consider something as real/certain without having direct sensory input about it (seeing, hearing, touching, etc. - see cognitive psychology). So trust is related to e.g. imagination or learning (repeated experience), but also to emotions...

This trivial description, we can apply to any small thing in our lives. You, for example, here https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5635621699715072/evolution-fact-15-robinson-crusoe

you're describing some scientific observations in the Galapagos Islands. I assume that you, and I certainly, have not been to the Galapagos. I have no direct, immediate cognitive perception regarding the Galapagos. Only vicariously - internet, library or school atlas. Or I can go to a lecture by people who have been there, etc., etc. And to take the Galapagos as fact, as real, then I use the principle of trust: although I have NO DIRECT cognitive perception of the Galapagos, I am able to CONCLUDE the subject of the Galapagos as fact, based on several different verified sources. I use the principle of confidence, and label the cognitive result as a certainty.

I believe, or am certain to that degree, and so my constructed awareness of the existence of the Galapagos, does not prevent me from accepting the additional - successive - claim that there are some monsters living in the Galapagos, whose existence proves or denies something...

I am deliberately writing this using a trivial "school" example. But anyone can put anything else after "Galapagos", or deal with multiple "Galapagos", or even compare "Galapagos 1" with "Galapagos 2", etc. etc. And that's how trust works. It is a very influential instrument that affects our construction of the world. But it is not alone! Such emotions can do even more!:-)

cofty

The degree of trust required to believe in an omnipotent, omnipresent, loving creator is infinitely large.

The trust required to accept the overwhelming body of evidence for evolution by natural selection is trivial.

To try to make any sort of epistemological equivalence is intellectually dishonest.

PetrW

@TonusOH

Amen! I have nothing to add. I think trust the size of an atom* that God exists can't hurt anyone ... 😊

*someone once talked about trust the size of a mustard seed, but I think that applies to religious heroes, not us normals 😊

PetrW

@Cofty

Cofty, it's not that we should just trust. On the contrary, we have - I would say an obligation - to verify some facts, whether they are really so. Verification of what appear to be facts is a powerful engine of science... But it was also certainly our personal motive, which is why we are ex-JWs. On the other hand, it is also true that from a certain point - and this is very individual and depends on many circumstances - we are simply forced to trust more. That transition between trust and evidence-based certainty is not somehow sharply defined. Generally speaking, you don't want to trust, you want to be sure, but that is very difficult, so you often use trust, and trust has enormous advantages: it simplifies everything. Irenaeus of Lyons had a saying: I don't have to drink the whole sea to know that it is salty.

My conclusion on the matter

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