Faith-based thought vs thinkers Re: [extropy-chat]IntelligentDesign: I'm not dead yet

[Russell Wallace]

On 1/30/06, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:

> By not answering the question I asked you are making it difficult to
> communicate with you.
>

I was trying to, but maybe I didn't do a good job of it; I'll try again.

I was trying to find out what *you* meant by "faith" remember?
>

Okay, I'll define it as belief in the absence of evidence.

I wondered if you were defending some right of religious people to be
> "faith-based thinkers" perhaps because you were yourself a religious person
> or if instead your objection was coming from a different place.
>

Different place; I have no belief in God or the supernatural. Nor do I
suggest that faith can replace reason in science, law or philosophy. But nor
can reason entirely replace faith. Reason can tell you that B follows from
A, but it can't tell you whether to believe A in the first place; the chain
has to start somewhere.

I'm not a religious man, but I believe in love and life and laughter. I
believe in beauty and truth and goodness, and I believe these things are
worth protecting, even though neither I nor anyone else can prove it; at
some point I, like any civilized man, must resort to belief in the absence
of evidence; for people who don't believe in beauty produce ugliness; people
who don't believe in truth produce falsehood; and people who don't believe
in good produce evil.

And if I were to draw a dividing line in the sands of philosophy and choose
one side to make a stand against the other, I wouldn't draw it between those
who believe in God and those who do not. I would draw it between those who
believe in beauty and truth and goodness - whether or not God is part of
their belief system - and those who do not.

Does that answer your question?

- Russell
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