Re: Testing Faith
Fred Askew's Response
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Re: Testing Faith (to Debutante, Ellen, Clinto)
Tuesday, 03-Oct-00 09:35:18
216.178.212.94 writes:
This one comes up a lot. I think part of the problem is that the word "faith"
has so many meanings. Here are a couple from the dictionary that I think fit the religious
use of the word.
- firm belief in something for which there is no proof.
- complete trust
- something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially: a system of
religious beliefs.
In your examples of surgery or flying in a plane, you're using faith to mean a form of
trust, but I don't think you meant “complete” trust. For example, I know I have
x amount of money in the bank, but I also know that bank employees can make mistakes. It's
up to me to check my bank statements and watch for errors. I trust the bank, but I don't
have complete trust in the bank, the airplane, the doctor, etc., so, to me, that’s
very different from having faith. None of the day-to-day technology that we take for
granted involves faith. It does involve limited trust, but that’s based on provable
data, past experience, and so forth. Some people, me for example, don’t have any
faith. I don’t have faith in science or anything else. But I do have limited trust.
When asked for a demonstration that their faith is more than wishful thinking, we hear
the usual “you can’t test faith” response. Which is fine, so long as
believers are not making claims that their supernatural masters can somehow interact with
the physical world. But when believers say that faith can cure illnesses, produce
miracles, or otherwise alter the laws of physics and medicine as we know them, they cannot
be permitted to use the can’t-test defense any more. If faith (or supernatural
beings) can produce physical phenomena, then faith (and supernatural beings) can be
tested. In other words, believers can talk to themselves and daydream all they want, but
once they cross that line into the physical world, they’re subject to the same rules
of reality as the rest of us.
Like the old saying goes, don’t let your mouth write a check that your ass
can’t cash. What this means is practice is that believers should be very careful
about what claims they make for their masters and should be called on it when they try to
use the can’t-test-faith refuge to avoid supporting a nonsense claim with evidence.
If you want to play the game of science, you have to stop cheating.
Fred Askew
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Last change 1-13-2002 dh
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