Fact and Faith

[palefrost]

I had this long discussion with a christian friend of mine a while ago about the nature of knowledge about faith and about the world.
It went something like this knowledge as prescribed by philosophical stand point is Knowledge is Justified True Belief. It has to be justified to some standard or held and to some light of reason and the person has to know its true to themselves and have a belief in it.
Faith on the other hand answers that by removing the Justification for it has no evidence or can not be compaired to anything by a standard in some light of reason and replace it with Faith turning a Faith True Belief, it took some time to argue my points before he accepted it. But what do you think?

[TinyStar]

I've always thought of it like this.
Fact is something you can back up. Faith is not.
We're often told to have faith in a person or thing when there is little evidence that that person/thing will work out. Sometimes we're giving proof to back up our faith - but by and large, faith is something that you either have or you don't. You CAN develop faith, perhaps when you're proven wrong or you learn more about something or someone.

Fact, on the other hand, is a much more sterile and less emotion-based thing. Fact is simply that - facts. It's things you can prove in one way or another. It's a fact I have a toothbrush because I can show you the toothbrush. I have therefor backed up my claim that I have a toothbrush with facts.
Facts can get tricky as well though.

[palefrost]

What you replied there Tinystar touches on so many angles of the subject of knowledge. It is true, knowledge can sometimes be very difficult to validate. You can accidently belive something is true and it is but it is not enough to make it true. Or that you belive it to be true and it simply isn't.
Take this thought experiment: You stand looking at a wall which in front of it is a red light and the wall looks red and to your own perceptual evidence the wall is red and when you shone a white light on the wall, you find it is red. It could just as well have been white' that is acidental knowledge.
Perception is our tool to gaining knowledge and it is very subjective and unique to our own self.

[Melos]

Faith can turn into a justified true belief if something occurs that convinces the person that it is true. This doesn't have to be factual in the literal sense though.
I tend to think that collective perception equals truth, and that does encompass faith, fact, and justified beliefs.

[palefrost]

Faith can turn into a justified true belief if something occurs that convinces the person that it is true. This doesn't have to be factual in the literal sense though.
I tend to think that collective perception equals truth, and that does encompass faith, fact, and justified beliefs.


Yes but Justified True Belief is a three parter and it has to meet all the criteria to be knowledge thats where religion doesnt meet it, it is True to the person and they have belief in it but it has no justification. Justification is for the potential knowledge to be held as knowledge would be to be held in the light of some standard. Without that it simply doesn't qualify IMO.

Collective perception doesn't equal truth say for example ten people decided to believe that an orange was god, it wouldn't make it so no matter how feverently the believe it is or how true it is to them. We tend to reffer to those people as nuts:P

Organised Religion is just that collective perception on a large scale. I don't say its not real which is the funny part its just Truth. There may be a god/goddess/bowl of putunia's that is the all powerful ominpresent omnicent being im just wise enough to say i dont know enough. But im open minded:)

[teenwire]

if you think about it, fact is true because of the faith that you put in the various conventions that establish it as factual. I am not a fan of relativist reasoning, but to a degree I concede that there is a way to reason against absolute realities.

[palefrost]

Quite right to say that, there are little absoloute certainties as we are still learning as we go. Its like when you get a new tool set with a 500 pieces which can pretty much open anything then there comes along a 1000 piece tool set that does it much better. Same with philosophy we are still discovering those mental tools.

[TinyStar]

if you think about it, fact is true because of the faith that you put in the various conventions that establish it as factual. I am not a fan of relativist reasoning, but to a degree I concede that there is a way to reason against absolute realities.

In order to have facts, there has to be some amount of belief in the things that can prove those facts. Take my toothbrush for example. I believe it's a toothbrush because the people who manufacture it call it that. And the packaging said 'toothbrush'. Because of language and words, I have branded this object a toothbrush.
I could just as well make up another name for it and begin calling it that. So to me, maybe my toothbrush becomes a horlwhir.Facts are relative and dependent on other 'facts' to prove them. So yes, at some point, you must simply have faith in something that the fact is true.

But we do that often with people like doctors and other technicians. How many doctors have come out saying something was bad for us - salt, perhaps, or one of the other foods that's on the 'bad for us' list now - and then years later, new research dismisses the evidence.
How many people have taken a car to one mechanic and had him quote outrageous prices or recommend drastic repairs. Then you take the same vehicle to another mechanic and they recommend maybe a part of two needing repair and quite a far bit cheaper than the former mechanic.

Where we lack knowledge, we try to substitute by looking for others with that knowledge.

[palefrost]

We do accept alot of basic knowledge as evident because otherwise every person everywhere will have to invent and name everything again. Probably from day to day. We build on our knowledge but the great thing about it is once it is disproven or altered under the light of reason and becomes either obsolete or modified we learn to use that to our greater advantage.

[hokeshel]

Fact can be scientifically proven.
Faith is to believe in something as if it were fact but, it is not necessarily scientifically proven.

[TinyStar]

Fact can be scientifically proven.
Faith is to believe in something as if it were fact but, it is not necessarily scientifically proven.

Exactly. That's a very nice and concise way to say it, so much better than I did before haha.