Here are the 6 general classes of meanings for the word “faith” with some examples:
1. Beliefs based on confidence or trust
- confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, an idea, or a thing.
- confidence or trust in a person or thing
- something that is believed especially with strong conviction
2. Belief without Evidence
- belief that does not rest of logical proof or material evidence
- belief that is not based on proof
3. A set of principles or beliefs
- the body of dogma of a religion
- a system of religious beliefs.
4. Obedience and Loyalty
- the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement
5. No Meaning – Discussing the word itself
- Example:
- “When speaking about “faith” ….”
6. All Meanings – Vague
- Example:
- “Faith is very important to me”
- “Atheists just don’t understand Faith”
- This use is very common. It is actually talking about the word itself or talking about all these notions at once. Such use is very unproductive unless the two people talking already agree on everything. Number 5 and Number 6 are often blurred together.
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I tire quickly of word arguments and one of the most common between atheists and religious folks is over the word “faith”. Come on folks, it is a word. Words are created by humans to facilitate communication. Words depend on common concepts. An important part of discussion is to have common definitions.
I looked at several dictionaries and came up with these general groups so as to facilitate discussions in the future. Please help me tweek this list if you have suggestions.
You can see by this list that Atheists certainly have faith in the sense of # 1 and # 3. I think Theists have all 4 wrapped into their understanding of the word. By jumping between the meanings, conversations often go nowhere. I hope this helps.
Nate, over at “
I was listening to an economics lecture and heard about this fallacy. It one of the many foibles of human reasoning that shows how difficult it is for us to be rational — AKA “
My first year at Cornell University I studied Greek even though I was in the Engineering school. I did it because, as a newly converted Christian, I was tired of Pastors using the phrase “in the Greek” during their sermons as a way to add validity to their conclusions. For already, in those days, I was doubting. But I was impressed with their knowledge of Greek — I really knew no foreign language yet. “Heck,” I thought, “They know the original language, They have to be closer to God.” But diving into Greek if anything, showed me what a head game I was shooting for.
Islam and other false beliefs
I must mention a vital caveat: Not only are some bad ideas better than others, but even good ideas can be used poorly. So deciding the truth value of a belief held by someone is not suffice when trying to understand the person. For what matters is how a person weaves their beliefs into their lives and thus uses them to support their actions and relationships. Even though a given Christian may hold a theological belief I hold in low regard, they may actually weave that belief into their life in a healthier manner than they would hold better versions of that belief if they changed abruptly. Ooops, I can tell that is too abstract and may need another post.
The movie opens at the funeral of Walt Kowalski’s wife. Walt, a cantankerous, bitter Korean War vet now lives alone in a neighborhood with very few fine White folks like himself. His bitterness has alienated him from his neighborhood and from his own family. The only beauty remaining in his world is his own troll embellished neurotically manicured lawn. Walt’s only remaining past-time after fixin’ up the house is to sit on his porch and drink 8 cans of beer out of a cooler bad mouthing everything his sees.
Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) from Wales (like my family !). One of the founders of analytic philosophy, anti-war activist, free trade and anti-imperialism champion. Oh yes, atheist. He was the guy quoted in the previous post.
Well, I guess it is all relative. Heck, even atheists can be delusional. But Tom Rees, reviewing an article at his fine site: 
The word “religion” is vague and used in many different ways. I think attempts to generalize about religion and define religion are doomed because the notion is rather artificial. My answer to this is to create a syndrome definition of “religion” and then, instead of discussing religion per se, explore each of the elements of the syndrome in a focused manner.
I am an adult and I still feel magic power in me. I put my hand out and open the automatic doors at grocery stores and hospitals. Sure, most of me knows that the doors are automatic and it is not me opening them. But parts of me still likes to pretend that I open them magically with my force of mind. My hand gestures in front of me to open the door. Sure I tell myself that I put my hand out to trigger the motion sensor but another fun part of myself feels the force open the doors and smiles.
Now here is my point — I think it is natural for children and some of us slow learning adults to perceive things like this, but as an adult, the question is, when do we stop believing it.
I had a Buddhist friend who was very fond of his Tibetan guru (teacher). He would brag to me of what a unique opportunity he had to study with this man. He was convinced that this man was an incarnation of a previous very famous lama (monk). Then one day, he got news that his master died – smashed by a truck on a chaotic India road. My friend was distraught with grief. I felt sorry for him. However, after two days of grieving he appeared more cheerful. He told me that he realized that his Master was probably died like this for a reason and would soon re-incarnate and return to teach at a higher level.
I lived for years in countries where wiping after defecating is done very differently than in the USA. In India, like many countries, we stooped and pooped. And after relieving ourselves, to clean up we would take some water on our hand from a nearby faucet or little pot and splash it on our anus several times while wiping until beautifully clean. Afterward, we’d rinse of our hand in water. Only the left hand was used for this wiping — thus the Indian custom of only eating their food with their right hand.
Tibetan Buddhism has many methods of nurturing positive emotions and avoiding the above negative emotions. One method is by trying to obey simple ethical imperatives in their daily lives — not killing, stealing and lying. Another is wisdom training to see behind the illusion of self which they feel feeds such emotions. A third method is contemplation of positive emotions. For example, the meditator could imagine her love for her children, parents or favorite teacher and then generalizing that love to acquaintances, strangers and finally to enemies. Tibetan psychology’s main teaching is that best way to fight negative emotions is to cultivate the emotion’s “antidote”. For each of these negative emotions above is felt to have an opposite–an antidote. Cultivating the antidote weakens the negative emotion. “Thus love is a direct antidote of hatred. In the case of jealousy, on can try to rejoice in others’ qualities. For pride, we try to appreciate others’ achievements and open our eyes to our own defects to cultivate humility. … [It is by such methods that] we are no longer enslaved by negative emotions, and we progress toward freedom.”
Christian Emotions
Naturalists can get frustrated talking with Creationists, emoting as follows:
Naturalist should not under-estimate the task needed to learn science. Many Naturalists are naturally bright in the analytic sense and really have not had to make much effort to learn this way of thinking. Others have been born in fortunate surroundings and circumstances and have been given much time and resources to learn. These Naturalists should not take credit for their fortune or assume their own traits to be hard earned virtues. But some Naturalists have worked hard to build these new modules in their minds. These un-natural Naturalists are perhaps, more than others, better able to understand the effort needed to learn real science.(3)
My view of mind, beliefs and life claims that false beliefs can still be used well and serve what people of diverse views agree to be good. Thus not all religion is bad, not all religious practice is bad and perhaps at any given time a wrong belief does more good than a correct belief.
And can it be that I should gain
So if humans can die for each other, why not a god? Heck, it is even easier for a god if they know they can pop right back and walk around and meet their old friends 3 days later (picture to right). Heck, they are a god so they are absolutely sure of that because they made the rules.
Please take the poll at the bottom ! As of Nov 1, 2009:
Our new home was a classic Japanese house – with sliding shoji doors, tatami floors, a large court yard, a tokonoma and simple, clean woodwork. The house had a large attached building where the Obaa-san (grandmother) lived downstairs and we lived upstairs.
me even more. I finally realized that I should lay down and sleep and maybe the confusion would leave. I fell asleep and woke the next morning remembering the whole incident vividly, as did my girlfriend. On going to our bathroom I was surprised to find the grandmother’s slippers. We had no clue how her slippers got into our bathroom because they were always kept in her side of the house. We returned them to the parents next door who thanked us for the slippers and for our patience with the funeral. We all bowed.
I love taxonomy — classifying objects, people, ideas and such into categories. It is the shameless habit of the empiricist brain. I realize its limitations, of course, but with those limitations in mind, taxonomies can offer much insight and progress in knowledge.
Supernatural thinking is with us from birth and persists into childhood. Bruce Hood’s new book “
