[MD] Faith

[Peter Corteen]

Case,

I understand better now your position re faith. You referred to a common
origin of religion and science which makes sense; religion is like old,
outdated science. I suppose that ages ago people noticed the regularity of
the rising sun and how it brought life to them; they sought to understand
and use that knowledge and they theorised God. As man's mental ability
evolved he then theorised the universe and that God is within and without.
Later still he theorised that there is no God, and no 'I', and that the only
reality is experience.

Cheers

Peter

On 29/07/06, Case <Case at ispots.com> wrote:
>
> Gene said to Ian:
> I would readily agree that science is a much better structure than
> religion.
>
> The point I am trying to make is that they are both based on Faith.
>
> dmb quotes from Pirsig's annotations on Copleston...
>
> [Case]
> So are we now the Church of the SubGenious? This is what Bob says...
> Sheesh,
> cut me some SLACK.
>
> Pirsig seems to be reacting, as you suggest, to the dogmatic connotations
> of
> "faith." I have tried to make it clear that this is not the sense I have
> used the term. BUT since it is the word itself that bothers you I have
> offered up "Trust" to make you happy. Faith and Trust are closely related
> terms that describe attitudes towards uncertainty.
>
> I like the word Faith because using it in the sense I have tried to use it
> pisses of the "faithful" even more than it has pissed off you. It
> acknowledges the underlying uncertain, read illusory, nature of existence.
> It points to the common origin of both religious and scientific attitudes.
> When you admit that you have taken a leap of faith you can discuss how far
> one should be willing to jump. You can compare the 'betterness' of one
> over
> the other in terms of how much irrationality you can tolerate.
>
> But this argument, at least from my end, has been reduced to analysis of
> the
> connotation of meaning. I am ready to move along.
>
> [dmb]
> I mean, despite the fact that the MOQ is pragmatic and empirical, it can
> still manage to include mysticism.
>
> [Case]
> Isn't throwing out theism and retaining mysticism a bit like trying to be
> a
> little bit pregnant? Aren't theism, mysticism and science all in responses
> to uncertainty? They are attempts to contain it; to minimize its negative
> effects or maximize its positive effects. Mysticism urges acceptance of
> uncertainty either through elimination of desire or identification with
> the
> infinite. Theism urges acceptance of the will of God. Science urges
> reduction of uncertainty through improvement of our powers to predict and
> control.
>
> We can argue about which is most effective but would you agree that this
> is
> what is happening?
>
> Here is one of my favorite examples:
> http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Skinner/Pigeon/
>
> The way I heard the legend, B.F. Skinner was conducting a series of
> experiments and wanted to leave the equipment on over night. When he got
> back to the lab the next morning he found that the equipment had
> malfunctioned but the results where so interesting that he pursued them
> and
> published the paper above in 1947.
>
> Basically it shows that given periodic reinforcement regardless of their
> behavior, pigeons adopt ritualistic responses.
>
> This example used a fixed time schedule of reinforcement to produce the
> ritual behavior. I had not looked at this in a long time and am really
> disappointed to see that there does not seem to have been much follow-up
> research in this area. For example, I could not find anything on
> superstitious behavior being produced by noncontingent random schedules.
> But
> you can see a lot of it informally if you visit Vegas.
>
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