Dear Craig,

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You wrote :

« Peter is not asking you or anyone to "engage" on the basis that you are willing to agree with him … »

That’s correct. He was just making a commitment to enter into a dialogue with anybody who sought one with him regarding his articles.
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« After Peter goes to some trouble … to point out that he discerns a difference between "faith" and "belief", you … tell him that he must be wrong, citing your researches in the dictionary (… you don't cite your references …). »

When Peter wrote :

« Belief cannot be equated with faith. »

he did not cite any references. I presume he was expressing his personal view. I, in turn, observed :

[ "Faith" is belief where there is no material evidence, only circumstantial evidence or a credible eye witness (or both).

"Blind faith" is belief where there is no material evidence, no circumstantial evidence and no credible eye witness. ]

Like Peter, I too was expressing my own personal view – not some “researches in the dictionary” as you suggest. I have reflected on this question for many long years. I posted it, for example, on OLO on 15.11.2012, as well as on a few other occasions :

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14358#248255

According to Professor of Mathematics and philosopher of science at the University of Oxford, John Lennox: “We all know how to distinguish between blind faith and evidence-based faith. We are well aware that faith is only justified if there is evidence to back it up. Evidence-based faith is the normal concept on which we base our everyday lives.”

For C.S. Lewis, “faith is merely the virtue by which we hold to our reasoned ideas, despite moods to the contrary.”
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You … insult him by implying he has "blind faith"

No. It’s a realistic assessment of the facts. Nothing personal about it. It’s generally true of theists, whatever their religion. “Blind faith” is an intimate conviction not based on evidence. It is a dogma held mainly of Christianity and Islam :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

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Hi Banjo,
Peter has made it clear what he meant by "engage". It is not what you wish to interpret it as.

"Faith" implies trust and trust implies good will based on sound evidence for the existence of that good will. "Belief" implies nothing.

You have made it clear that you think Peter has nothing meaningful to offer you other than perhaps an entertaining sense of your own intellectual superiority at being free of such nonsense as religious "faith", therefore, there can be no trust because there is no good will and hence, there is no point to Peter engaging.

Your comment vis a vis blind faith is I think generally untrue of theists, at least those I have known. Most have been deeply troubled by the idea of a deity and have given a great deal of thought to it. Don't be mislead by the pieticisms of self-serving hypocrites like runner and co.

You see, it's all very easy to poke fun at religion. All you have to do is say "show me the evidence" and "poof" it all disappears in a wondrous puff of logic. Except that it doesn't. Science doesn't have any better a handle on the genuine mysteries of this world than religion does. Even more importantly, for most people "blind faith" is what they have to rely on in their "knowing" about science.

Can you explain to me the "proof" of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle? What about Einstein's General Relativity and the geometry that Minkowski developed from Riemann's work which Einstein used?

Can you prove any of the competing theories of quantum mechanics?

Can you interpret a stream of data from a radio telescope and explain it to me?

Can you explain how the mind works?

If the world was to collapse into chaos tomorrow and the knowledge that is embodied in these things were lost, would these ideas also lose any reality they might embody, for lack of being able to be "proven"?

"Knowing" is not understanding.

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Dear Craig,

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You wrote :

« Peter has made it clear what he meant by "engage". It is not what you wish to interpret it as »

I must have missed that, Craig. I just re-read Peter’s post and I didn’t see anything where he defined what he meant by “engage”. He indicated the sort of comments he did not think “it worthwhile trying to answer”, i.e., what he calls “knee jerk reactions” or “comments that are simply prejudice and betray no or a shallow reading of (his) ideas” – but nothing about what he meant by “engage”.

He simply wrote :

« I will engage with you if you engage with me ! »

I can’t see how I could possibly have “misinterpreted” that. According to the OED “engage” means :

« Involve someone in (a conversation or discussion). Participate or become involved in. Establish a meaningful contact or connection with. »

That is precisely what I understood but you seem to think he meant something else. Perhaps you are suggesting that he did not mean what he wrote.
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You also wrote :

« "Faith" implies trust and trust implies good will based on sound evidence for the existence of that good will. "Belief" implies nothing. »

I presume you are expressing your personal view on that, Craig. However, I am a bit surprised that you consider that “faith” implies trust but “belief implies nothing”. I have difficulty imagining that you would necessarily believe someone you did not trust. Personally, I should be a bit wary of somebody I didn’t trust. For me, “faith” and “belief” both imply trust and confidence.

IMHO, belief and faith are largely interchangeable but there is a subtle difference which can, perhaps, best be apprehended by comparing "faithful" to" believable".

Faithful means loyal or reliable (with particular relevance to all living species as well as so-called supernatural entities).

Believable means most likely, given the circumstances (with particular relevance to hypotheses).

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(Continued ...)

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You then wrote :

« You see, it's all very easy to poke fun at religion. All you have to do is say "show me the evidence" and "poof" it all disappears in a wondrous puff of logic. Except that it doesn't. Science doesn't have any better a handle on the genuine mysteries of this world than religion does. »

I was not aware that I was “poking fun at religion”. It was certainly not my intention. My definitions of “faith” and “blind faith” are not specific to religion. They apply to anything, whatever the subject, including science. You will note that “religion” is not mentioned anywhere in the definition.

I am inclined to agree with you that “science doesn't have any better a handle on the genuine mysteries of this world than religion does”, though I can speak neither for science nor for religion.

However, I note that the relationship between science and religion was highly conflictual for nearly 2 000 years before the latter finally took the wise decision to no longer oppose its dogma to the revelations of the former, but to content itself to providing an explanation of the vast unknown.
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You conclude :

« "Knowing" is not understanding. »

Quite right, Craig. “Believing” is not understanding either. But, personally, the more I “know”, the better I understand.

Experience has taught me to keep my beliefs to a strict minimum. They tend to cloud my vision. And, quite frankly, to the maximum of my feeble capability, I prefer to see clear.

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Banjo,
sophistry is a fun game, but it is not indicative of good will.

I grew out of playing that game a long time ago. Making the effort to come to a genuine meeting of minds is much more rewarding.

On the subject of science vs religion, the conflict has only been a real one since the Enlightenment. Prior to that there was no such thing as "science", just a quest for knowledge, which embraced all forms of understanding. "Science" is derived from the Latin "scientia", which means "knowledge".

Post-Enlightenment it was made a real one by a Catholic Church that was scared stiff of any challenge to its (secular) authority, and so it created a division where none exists. The current Pope is fast taking steps to redress that, after the work of Teilhard de Chardin.

My personal bugbear is the "scientism" of people who "know" that scientific "fact" is real, but have no idea why or what that means and will happily admit to it being "too hard" for them to understand, yet will deride those who claim to be able to grasp some understanding from religious knowledge or experience.

Dawkins and a few others have a lot to answer for. They are not the semi-literate priest class of the pre-Enlightenment, or the political priesthood of the Vatican, they are supposed to be scientists.

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Dear Craig,

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You wrote :

« sophistry is a fun game, but it is not indicative of good will.

I grew out of playing that game a long time ago. Making the effort to come to a genuine meeting of minds is much more rewarding. »

That’s a very sweeping statement, Craig. I presume you are referring to something I wrote. Perhaps you could be a little more specific in order to allow me to identify exactly what it is you consider to be fallacious in my reasoning.

I do not pretend to be able to “meet” anybody’s mind. But I do my utmost to get the facts right and to express my opinions as openly, precisely and honestly as possible. I have no hidden agenda.

I am not here to cheat, nor to attempt to manipulate anybody, if that is what you are inferring. I am here to exchange ideas, to learn from others, and to refine, revise and, possibly modify my own. I have no axe to grind and do not seek to proselytise my ideas. What other people do with them is their business.
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You observed :

« On the subject of science vs religion, the conflict has only been a real one since the Enlightenment. Prior to that there was no such thing as "science", just a quest for knowledge, which embraced all forms of understanding. »

Quite so, Craig. Thales (624-546 BC) and Democritus (460-370 BC), each accredited by some to be “the father of modern science”, were known, not as scientists, but as ancient Greek “philosophers”. As you rightly point out, theirs was more broadly a “quest for knowledge”.

But, of course, in those days, knowledge was very much considered a “forbidden fruit”. Not just the later scientists, but even the philosophers, before them, were persecuted by religion. The list is particularly long :

http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gbh_philosophers.htm

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