On 4/25/2011 14:24, Warp wrote:
> Certainty (which can be either positive or
> negative, so technically speaking there are actually four options).

No. "I no longer believe the sun is up" is not equivalent to "I believe the 
sun is not up." The latter would be disbelief.

I believe evolution is true. I believe I'm sitting in front of a keyboard 
right now.

Do you believe Elvis is alive?  Do you believe Elvis is dead?  Can you 
really answer no to both of those questions?  I don't think that's how a 
normal person would treat the word "believe" in everyday English. Except in 
a discussion of religion where one side or the other is intentionally trying 
to change the meanings of words in order to make it difficult to express the 
opinion with which they don't believe, in much the same way as someone will 
say "How can you not believe in God when God is Love?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/25/2011 14:10, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:09:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> On 4/25/2011 10:35, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:31:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>>
>>>> If it doesn't stop being
>>>> faith just because you're right, it doesn't stop being belief just
>>>> because you have justification for the belief.
>>>
>>> But it does stop being faith when you have knowledge that you are
>>> correct.  Faith is by definition trusting rather than knowing.
>>
>> Right. Just like you can have faith in something that turns out to be
>> true, you can have a belief in something of which you are certain.
>
> But it's not necessary - because you are certain, right?

Certainty is a measure of the strength of your belief. Your belief doesn't 
stop being a belief when you're certain, any more than a fact stops being 
true when you obtain evidence to support it.

I believe the sun is up *because* I have evidence. If I didn't have evidence 
(or I had evidence to the contrary) I would believe the sun is up because I 
have faith. I might have that faith and belief that the sun is up even if I 
was in a closed room, and regardless of whether the sun actually was above 
my horizon or not.

Belief and faith describe mental states. Those descriptions don't speak 
about the truth of the belief. The difference between belief and faith is 
not whether it's correct, but whether there's evidence available to the one 
doing the believing to support of contradict the belief or faith.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/25/2011 14:16, andrel wrote:
>> That's weird to me.
> Oh no, not again!

I wasn't planning to discuss it further. I just wanted to be sure I had 
understood your objection was to a deity, rather than a particular deity 
interested in the doings of mankind.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/25/2011 14:33, andrel wrote:
> Only if it is nor was at any time able to interfere in this universe. (my
> feeling is that this is correct English, my brain says 'huh, aren't you
> missing a negation', but where to put it?)

As a native english speaker, I'd say

"Only if it isn't nor ever was at any time able to interfere in this universe."

So, yeah, negate "is" as well.  I can't say I could actually express as rule 
why that's right, tho.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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On 4/25/2011 2:24 PM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> If I open my eyes and say "I believe the sun is up already", and then I get
>> out of bed and open the curtain and it's all bright and blue sky out, would
>> you really say "I no longer believe the sun is up"?
>
>    Basically you are stating that there are only two options: Belief and
> disbelief. However, it's not a dichotomy. The third option is what you
> yourself stated in your post: Certainty (which can be either positive or
> negative, so technically speaking there are actually four options).
>
See, this is just like the argument over theory. We are going around and 
around here, over what is a trinary problem, because someone wants to 
define it as a binary one, by conflating 'certainty' with some sort of 
'belief'. It doesn't matter if certainty is a belief or not, in terms of 
internal states, what matters is that their is a clear delineation 
between what you are certain of, and to what degree you can apply such 
certainty, and what you only assume to be true.

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On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:48:36 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 14:10, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:09:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/25/2011 10:35, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:31:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> If it doesn't stop being
>>>>> faith just because you're right, it doesn't stop being belief just
>>>>> because you have justification for the belief.
>>>>
>>>> But it does stop being faith when you have knowledge that you are
>>>> correct.  Faith is by definition trusting rather than knowing.
>>>
>>> Right. Just like you can have faith in something that turns out to be
>>> true, you can have a belief in something of which you are certain.
>>
>> But it's not necessary - because you are certain, right?
> 
> Certainty is a measure of the strength of your belief. Your belief
> doesn't stop being a belief when you're certain, any more than a fact
> stops being true when you obtain evidence to support it.
> 
> I believe the sun is up *because* I have evidence. If I didn't have
> evidence (or I had evidence to the contrary) I would believe the sun is
> up because I have faith. I might have that faith and belief that the sun
> is up even if I was in a closed room, and regardless of whether the sun
> actually was above my horizon or not.
> 
> Belief and faith describe mental states. Those descriptions don't speak
> about the truth of the belief. The difference between belief and faith
> is not whether it's correct, but whether there's evidence available to
> the one doing the believing to support of contradict the belief or
> faith.

Now I'm going to have to think about this one a bit. :)

Jim

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On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:40:37 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 14:13, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But if I were to describe the change in state, it would be "I no longer
>> need to believe that the sun is up - I know it is."
> 
> So if evidence obviates belief, and evidence obviates faith, what is the
> difference between the two?

Faith is less justified than belief, perhaps?  Similar concepts, but at 
different places along the scale.

>> IOW, it's not that finding out causes disbelief, it removes the need
>> for belief because it's demonstrably true.
> 
> We're just using the words differently. Knowledge is justified true
> belief. It can be demonstratively true yet not believed (a creationist
> and evolution) and it can be demonstratively true and believed (a
> scientist and evolution).

Again, going to have to give this more thought.  I *really* like 
discussions like this because they give me a chance to stretch my 
brain. :)

Jim

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On 4/24/2011 9:12 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I know some people in this group have trouble accepting that I am a
>> religious atheist, but that is what I think too.
>
> I can see that, but for my view, I see 'religious atheism' as being self-
> contradictory, because for me atheism has to do with rationality, and
> rationality is more or less the opposite of religion.
>
> So I find your position quite interesting, and am interested in hearing
> more. :)
>
I tend to suspect he may be describing what some might call "spiritual 
non-religious", since spiritual is more or less a state of mind, and 
perception about connections, real or otherwise, which everyone 
experiences to one degree or another, whether they use the term or not, 
where as religious.. tend to presuppose either ritual and tradition, or 
belief in the supernatural. Mind, Secular Judaism would fall under the 
category of atheist + ritual and tradition, so.. its not certain.

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On 4/25/2011 9:08 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 4:03, andrel wrote:
>> - I don't see how I can base any ethics/morality on the existence of a
>> God.
>
> I think if the god in question has scientifically-backed evidence, it's
> unlikely to be a god that has anything to do with human ethics or morality.
>
> I.e., I'd agree with you with the god of the bible, but I can't imagine
> what form scientific evidence in support of that god might be. But there
> are lots of ways one can imagine to find the creator of the universe
> exists that hasn't anything to do with specifically creating life on
> earth or morality. For example, the "fine tuned universal constants"
> argument, if actually supported, would be evidence (not proof) of a
> creator that maybe was aiming for carbon/water based life, but saying
> nothing about Earth, morality, humans, etc.
>
Mind, it only implies carbon based life due to lack of evidence "here" 
that you could have anything else (and since dominant life tends to eat 
anything that might be different...) You could make a similar argument 
for DNA needing to be the way it is, only.. maybe not, since you can 
insert DNA that uses different coding into an animal, and have it 
replicate. Its just not certain yet if it could a) form in that 
alternate way from the start, or b) function as a genome, not just as 
non-functional insertions.

So.. More information needed before you can make a coherent claim as to 
what defines, "fined tuned to produce us", even assuming you got as far 
as, "fine tuned to produce life at a rate of 
1:254257429872394634632496234 places in it. lol

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On 4/25/2011 12:28 PM, andrel wrote:
> Thou shalt not kill. Ok, but is that in
> general or only humans?

To be clear, the term actually used in the less mangled Jewish version 
is "Murder", which specifically refers to something you do to other 
people. Mind, "people" may be a bit uncertain a term, since it can often 
be "chosen people". Or, as one person put it, "Love thy neighbor 
literally meant the person living right next door to you, not 
always/ever the one living in the next village."

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