What a fascinating thread! Just wanted to add my thoughts:
1) In what way is faith not self-deception?
As nvrgnbk mentioned earlier in the thread, I have had some personal experiences that I consider a personal proof of God's existence, and which forms the basis of my faith. I accept though, that this is subjective, and have the utmost respect for atheists who have spent time analysing the world and come to different conclusions to me, based on the evidence they have at hand, having gone through an agnostic period myself! However, for me, I've had experiences that were as real as anything else I've ever experienced, my meeting with the divine as real as any meeting with any person, and for that reason, I have to say that to deny those, and thus to deny my 'faith' would be the real self-deception, personally.
2) Is a person who has faith in a God that you do not believe in, say for example Siva, practicing a form of self-deception?
I believe there is one God, and that none of us mere mortals are really capable of fully understanding God. You've probably heard the story of the blind men and the elephant. Each one was feeling the elephant, all felt a different part, and afterwards, all had different ideas of what the elephant was. Each blind man was touching the same elephant, and elephants are real, it wouldn't mean the elephant was not real, as there's still an object there. When it comes to God, I think we're like those blind men touching an elephant! I think the object of faith is the same for each, (since I view faith as the experience of the divine) however the details can be subjective, and thus could be interpreted incorrectly, I wouldn't be so arrogant as to claim all my interpretations are right, and everyone elses is wrong. I don't believe God is so small that it is only able to have one name. Back to the answer:
If somebody prays to Siva, and what follows is a subjective, experience of the divine that is real to them, and then come to the conclusion that the experience was a meeting with Siva, I see no reason to suggest they're lying to themselves. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Regards,
Zico
Self Deceit and Faith.
by hillary_step 208 Replies latest jw friends
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Zico
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hillary_step
Zico,
Thank you for your post.
If somebody prays to Siva, and what follows is a subjective, experience of the divine that is real to them, and then come to the conclusion that the experience was a meeting with Siva, I see no reason to suggest they're lying to themselves. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Interesting.
Might I ask, both of yourself and other believers in a personal God, whether their can be in the faith of any believer an element of self-deceit and if so how you can tell? Though BA is willing in other threads to decry the Islamic God and its followers for example, where Shiva is concerned he takes the viewpoint that "time will tell". This strikes me as self-deceit in action.
For example. Islamic extremists on a suicide mission have complete faith that at the moment of dying a martyrs death at the hands of the enemies of Islam that they will be transformed into a heavenly realm. Do you believe that this is possible. If not why not?
I have to ask. Is there a stage of a persons "faith" where there is a possibility for self-deceit and if so where do you and other believers draw this line? I have great trouble in understanding that once the possibility of God existing raises its head, anything outside of this concept that believers add cannot function without an element of self-deceit.
Cheers - HS
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VoidEater
Might I ask, both of yourself and other believers in a personal God, whether their can be in the faith of any believer an element of self-deceit and if so how you can tell?
Of course there can be an element of self-deceit. The mind is constantly filtering evidence and experience through core beliefs that color perception and memory. Seeing that filtering is like a microscope trying to examine itself. You cannot generally tell when in a vacuum, but you can gain consensus with the help of the perspective of others ("Whoa, dude, I just saw Krishna!" - "Dude, that was Johnny in blue makeup.") Internal experiences are more difficult to evaluate for obvious reasons.
It comes down to some part of your psyche making a choice to validate or discount evidence or experience, and then to assign meaning. Self-deceit can often only be monitored through an external agent providing feedback from another view. This is why JWism is so isolationist - external viewpoints make self-deceit noticable.
For example. Islamic extremists on a suicide mission have complete faith that at the moment of dying a martyrs death at the hands of the enemies of Islam that they will be transformed into a heavenly realm. Do you believe that this is possible. If not why not?
Yes, I believe it's possible. But I choose to not believe it.
I have great trouble in understanding that once the possibility of God existing raises its head, anything outside of this concept that believers add cannot function without an element of self-deceit.
I could say that God or my dad loves me. Or does not love me. Either can be a misconception. I can line up what I claim is evidence for both. I can refer to internal experiences for both. I can choose whichever is more useful to a satisfying life.
Perhaps there's a distinction between self-deception and wishful thinking. Wishful thinking plays into our lives a great deal; and the subject of wishful thoughts may also be true.
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Leolaia
hillary_step....I think it would be helpful first to distinguish between "a" faith, a particular belief system that is culturally and socially learned (and which may involve a specific form of theism), from faith -- which I regard as a universal cognitive principle underlying belief formation. Faith is anterior to the acquisition of such cultural systems; an infant learns to trust its own senses and trust in the validity of information that it encounters. In our everyday life, we make countless cognitive short-cuts in our thinking that necessarily cut down on the processing of information; faith here is not irrational, and while it can mislead one into erroneous judgments, it is fundamental to our subjective experience. And so we have to continually revise our beliefs, expectations, etc. as we encounter new information. So any particular "faith" -- theistic beliefs included -- can (and should) be questioned or tested against one's developing knowledge base, if they make claims that can be tested or evaluated.
But faith is something much deeper and it plays a role in the use of beliefs to account for elements of one's subjective experience that would otherwise be unnamed or unratified. The specific beliefs are culturally constituted and acquired in a religious social context, but that does not minimize their psychological role in relating the subject to the world at large. One may (rightly) critique the epistemological basis of these cultural constructs all one wants, but none of this criticism would ever address what subjective meaning these constructs have for the person -- like criticizing someone's grammar without paying attention to the message itself. That is why I feel many of these "debates" between atheists and believers completely miss the point. I feel it is rather like mutual misunderstanding between two cultures in contact, one side not recognizing something of "emic" importance to the other culture, while both sides missing out on common ground because they use different constructs and labels to refer to the same thing. There may not be a "God" in ontological terms, but "God" is a construct that gets at something in the experience of the believer that a non-believer either may not experience, or recognize, or calls under a different name. Proving that "God" is unlikely to exist does little to address the part of the believer's experience that a belief in "God" currently satisfies. What is that "thing" in a person's subjectivity that a belief in "God" addresses? I don't think it can be fully described without resorting to the use of religious language that was designed to talk about it. But let's say one facet of it is the human capacity to see oneself as small compared to everything else. That there is something bigger than us, that there are limits to our own power, that we are connected to the greater whole. And I am sure I am only barely scratching the surface, and that I don't even understand what spirituality or religiosity means to some people (especially considering the pluriform expression of spirituality in so many cultures). I am reminded of what Dansk wrote today on another thread about what constitutes valid arguments for creationism, and saying that "Look at how beautiful and grand everything is" doesn't count. Well, of course, it is very inadequate as an empirical proof of a particular theistic belief, but could it be that what the person is really saying is that the "no God" null hypothesis fails to address what I (subjectively) experience the universe to be? While one could critique quite ably the inadequate empirical grounds for the belief, there is still that subjective experience that lies unaddressed -- and which ultimately lies beyond the reach of objective inquiry.
I am glad that you are not implying such Leo. Philosophy is not a scientific discipline and part of the concept of phenomenological "realities", depends on the progress of a directional mind for which measurement of direction has to rely on scientific or social measurement.
Of course. I wanted to be very clear that I was not equating phenomenology with reality, and I especially did not want to substitute philosophy for science....as that would be a poor misreading of what I was saying. I was mainly pointing to the social implications of characterizing faith as self-deceit, that it "erases" part of the subjective experience of faith by treating the beliefs (i.e. faith as "a faith") as the only relevant component.
Little Toe and a past poster Ros, are two people who can easily move in and out of their paradigm of belief with attractive ease.
Yeah, this thread is right up LittleToe's alley, I haven't seen him around much of late. Also, jgnat comes to mind as well in openly discussing issues from different perspectives.
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hillary_step
Hi Leo,
Many thanks for your post. I am on the way out and but will return to it as soon as possible.
Little Toe and a past poster Ros, are two people who can easily move in and out of their paradigm of belief with attractive ease.
Yeah, this thread is right up LittleToe 's alley, I haven't seen him around much of late. Also, jgnat comes to mind as well in openly discussing issues from different perspectives.
Yes, absolutely. Jgnat is certainly another believer whose belief system is not enclosed in a conclusion. Who can forget her gargantuan battles with the Fundamentalist Christian whose name I forget but who continually warned her that she would we toast in Hell for being a "fake" Christian....lol
As for LT I suspect he is working overtime to pay for Xena's cocaine habit.
Must dash - HS
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Deputy Dog
h_s
1) In what way is faith not self-deception?
Every way! The "self-deception"comes from the object that one has "faith" in.
2) Is a person who has faith in a God that you do not believe in, say for example Siva, practicing a form of self-deception?
Is a person who has faith in men, say for example himself, practicing a form of self-deception? It all depends on what or who we put our faith in. We all start with presuppositions.
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Carmel
faith allows me to drive to work, assuming other drivers will stay on their side of the road. Faith assures me that adhesion and cohesion will continue tomorrow and that phototaxis will be around too. Faith inculcates in me the confidence that water will continue to seek its own level, that grease will lubricate, that heat will coagulate protein. Faith is a part of all my reasoning processes. Faith it the foundation of deductive and inductive analysis. Faith is the balance that meters emotion with reason. I have faith this will engender. carmel of the "faithful"
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hillary_step
Carmel,
faith allows me to drive to work, assuming other drivers will stay on their side of the road. Faith assures me that adhesion and cohesion will continue tomorrow and that phototaxis will be around too. Faith inculcates in me the confidence that water will continue to seek its own level, that grease will lubricate, that heat will coagulate protein. Faith is a part of all my reasoning processes. Faith it the foundation of deductive and inductive analysis. Faith is the balance that meters emotion with reason. I have faith this will engender.
This is not the process of faith that you describe. What you describe is empirical and measurable in one way or the other. When a sign tells a person to drive to the right on the highway, they do not do this as a measure of faith but due to measurement. All the examples you give above lend weight to the scientific process.
What faith may instruct you to do is to drive in the left lane and expect not to hit oncoming traffic, or to walk on water, or to expect grease not to lubricate, or to feed thousands of people from morsels of food, or to raise people from the dead. I am sure you follow.
Science and faith are in unison until faith becomes unmmeasurable.
HS
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Deputy Dog
h_s
Science and faith are in unison until faith becomes unmmeasurable.
You mean when science becomes "unmmeasurable".
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LouBelle
I've read some of these posts and some come across extremely intelligent, I'm not even going to try "compete" with them.
I haven't done extensive research whatsoever - all I know is what I know - is faith self decept?perhaps, but for me - no. I can't prove to anyone that God exists, I can't prove evolution - i haven't seen anything evolve personally. All I know is what has happend to me, in my life and the reasons I have faith in a God - whether that God be Jesus (he's the one I'm more familiar with) or buddah, or Allah - I don't really care - I can only speak of my faith and I think that is all we can only do. You know in your deep dark recesses of your heart if it's self deceipt or not - you'll have your reasons either way.
As to the second question: The way I see things means this would be a no.