Atheists have faith in things too.

If you trust people that is a type of faith, If an Atheist trusts in something without hard evidence then that means he has faith in that manner.

You have no proof that your partner has stayed faithful to you unless you keep him/her locked up in a cage. Yet you would have faith they are faithfull despite the fact that you have no evidence to back up that claim.

If a loved one tells you what they are thinking is true and you believe them, you have faith they are telling the truth, because again you can present no hard evidence they are telling the truth.


peace.

 

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Correct-a-mundo.

 

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One may act like they have faith in a partner, but you must know that your faith could be misplaced. Acknowledging the provisional nature of faith isn't something religious people like to admit.

 

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but regardless if it is misplaced, it is still faith held by an atheist. do you see where im going with this?

Im just trying to get people to understand and not be so angry at religious people. some religious people are smart and good people. But to be honest nobody annoys me more than religious people I don't usualy sy that here though. I don't like to spread hate.


peace.

 

Faith in the self's continuity through time.
Faith in reason.
Faith in their own intuition in at least certain areas.
Faith in the existence of other minds.
Faith in their ability to judge character.
Faith in their knowledge of true roots of certain political problems.
Faith in certain moral judgments.


I see few people who do not have faith in these things.

 

I have faith that the moment I think I have things mostly sorted out, I will be made aware of new information that proves me completely wrong.

 

so what????

dont tell me it makes them religious in someway

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The word "faith" covers a lot of ground.

I would differentiate faith in defiance of reason from faith in agreement with reason. For starters.

 

No shit Sherlock.

 

trust is based on evidence.

 

No but you can't be a hypocrite and put religious people down for having faith in god, when you have faith yourself in so many other aspects.


peace.

 

Not hard evidence.

peace.

 

Great insight.


peace.

 

Empty,

Unfortunately this whole frequently presented issue is derived from a misuse of the term 'faith' or a misunderstanding of its dual meanings.

Faith can be used in two ways –

1. A conviction that something is true despite the absence of evidence (this is religious faith).

2. The acceptance that although some things are not certain I have seen the event often enough to know it is likely to occur again. This is a statistical phenomenon more accurately known as inductive logic.

The second version we all use frequently. For example, you assume that when you sit in a chair it will not collapse under you. Most of the time that will be true but it is possible that it might at some point fail. I drive to work everyday and there is a high probability I will arrive safely on my next journey, but there is no guarantee. Your spouse may have demonstrated significant fidelity for a long time, but people can change. In a very real sense you have significant evidence that what has occurred is likely to occur again based on previous occurrences of the same thing. However, be careful, if the sample is small then your faith might not be well placed.

The first version is perhaps more accurately described as blind faith. Here you have absolutely no previous results to show that your faith has any basis for being true at any time.

It is very important to make a clear distinction between the two variations of the term faith. It is perhaps wiser to avoid using the term faith when addressing the second version. Religionists usually confuse the two frequently in the misguided notion that everyone uses faith so their version is no different to everyone else. This is false.

 

It's not the same kind of faith, it's better known as trust. You trust some people because they have not proven themselves untrustworthy. This is a strategy for social interaction, not faith in a fixed model of the world.

 

True, but none of the things that you list (a partner being faithful, telling you the truth, etc.) are particularly outlandish or fantastical, so it's reasonable to take their claim as sufficient evidence to believe it. There's a big difference between believing those things and believing in an all-knowing magical being that controls the universe with his mind. If I asked a loved one what she was thinking and she replied "I just figured out how to build a working time machine," I would probably be skeptical.

If I said that I had a pencil on my desk it would be reasonable for you to simply take my word for it. If I said that I had a brick of plutonium on my desk, you would probably be very skeptical and ask for more evidence before believing me. I could respond to your request for more evidence with "But you believed me about the pencil! Why won't you have faith in this too!?!" but that wouldn't make your request for more evidence unreasonable.

Most atheists don't mock religious people simply for having faith in something; they mock religious people for having faith in something that seems absurd and isn't supported by evidence.

 

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=40171

 

Faith is a belief in the trustworthiness of an idea

 

well i vary the amount of trust i put in someone based on the amount of evidence i have that they are trustworthy.for example i wouldnt lend 10000$ to a complete stranger,vague aquaintence or someone who i knew to be bad at paying people back but i definately would lend it to a close friend.

same thing with medicine we dont just have faith that penicillin is good to cure illness,we know through long experience.there is always the chance that it might kill someone but the fact that most of the time we dont worry about it isnt about faith,its about risk assesment and probability.

 

I see what you guys mean, I guess blind faith is not the same as trust based faith based on your information on the person or thing.

peace.