Re: Faith vs Feelings

Thomas wrote:

By my terms, science produces models which can be compared against measurements and either falsified or retained so it's really not clear to me how you make the above assertion. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking or an attempt to bask in the light of the demonstrable success of the scientific method. Again, you should try not to be too envious of science.

Now remind me again of how faith discerns the truth between contradictory answers to religious questions?

The scientific method effectively looks for consistency in what is said.
Christian faith - I cannot speak for others - looks similarly for consistency in the answers offered. Of course, this is made more complicated by the fact that each Christian has his own ideas of what is being looked for, but the process is essentially the same. Thus I would look for consistency with the broad ideas of Jesus; not just literal agreement but in principle consistency. On that basis, I could never agree that, despite its apparent claims, that the BNP is upholding Christian standards, for example.



Let me try to make it really really simple for you.

It is proposed that humans have the ability to know the value of a random number contained with a sealed opaque envelope. No mechanism is proposed for this but instead it is conjectured that the ability is some innate gift which transcends the natural world and requires nothing more than faith. A group of equally sincere people who claim to have this gift are brought together and asked the value of the number - they give a range of values. Now, do we actually need to open the envelope in order to falsify the original claim?

I think not.



Well, perhaps it should be opened, to see whether *any* of the proffered answers turned out to be correct. But of course, we would still not know whether that was the result of some special ability or just co-incidence. But, perhaps, if a substantial number of answers turned out to be correct, then there might well be some reason to investigate further. And I don't think that number would need to be a majority, just sufficiently large to make coincidence a rather less likely cause.

I'm not convinced by the analogy anyway. I don't know if Phil is suggesting anything about the contents of a sealed envelope. Even if he is, that is not a reasonable picture of what other religious people are suggesting.


--

Revd. Eric Potts

"Faith, hope and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love."


.

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