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Originally Posted by Traveler
As a scientist (math and physics background) and a person deeply devout in the LDS faith – I find you question most interesting. I will define faith first from my scientific background. Faith is the engine to pursue an idea one believes but lacks empirical evidence. Let me give you an example. It should not take a great deal of study to realize that the model taught in most high school and college classes concerning electrons lacks both detail and accuracy.
Yet by faith most will turn on a light and expect it to operate. Even if the light does not come on few doubt that it is because the concept is wrong. Why then would someone with a scientific background expect that non empirical things (spiritual) are to only be measured by empirical methods?
Again let us consider an example. Do you love your wife? If you do how can you quantify (by scientific method) your love? In order to experience love and loving; one must take a leap of faith. Such faith causes one to be kind even though such kindness creates vulnerability – which is anything but logical. Such effort is faith. To know G-d one must have faith to become vulnerable and loving not just G-d but accepting his love towards us. Faith in G-d therefore becomes faith of what is possible.
Now I would like to take faith a different direction and ask the question – what is real? Most of us think we can look around us and see and touch that which is real. Such reality is really illusion because the dimension of such experience is temporal. 20 billion years ago what you think is real did not exist and if our understanding of temporal effects is any indication in several trillion years none of what is claimed to be real will still exist. Why then do you have faith and believe in that which is not real? What then is there that is worthy to believe? What can last? Only that which is eternal – but that reality cannot be measured with temporal means. Is love something that is not temporal?
If you cannot distinguish that which is light from that which is dark – no one will ever be able to help you understand what is day and what is night.
The Traveler
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I like your approach to the subject but it still seems somewhat flawed to me, so let us debate this further.
When I flip a light switch, I don't have "faith" that it will turn on and that the concepts behind incandescent lighting are sound. I have simply observed that when I hit the switch, the vast majority of the time the light will turn on. The same logic can not be applied to faith in religion. I have observed that when people pray using any religion, this does not improve their chances of anything. Good things and bad things happen just the same... if good things happen, they assume their prayer was answered, if bad things happen they justify it by saying either they didn't have enough faith or it was God's plan. This gives me no precedence to rely on as I haid with the lighting analogy.
Yes it is true that I love my wife, but I don't believe it required a leap of faith. I didn't bare everything and leave myself completely vulnerable to her the second I met her, just as she didn't bare everything to me. As we got to know each other better, we slowly opened up to each other as new levels of trust were reached. Again, applying the same philosophy to religion yields no results. I have prayed many times and received nothing in return. No imperical evidence or even feelings of the divine.
Reality is subjective. We each create our own reality through our unique neural mappings in our brain. All any of us have to go on is what we see and touch, so that's what I draw my conclusions from, and so far none of my observations have lead me to believe in a religion.
Now let me pose another question to you. People believe in religion based on feelings, right? Arguing which religion has more emperical evidence is fruitless because because they are all meant to be taken on faith. But the problem I see with this is that there are many religions out there all with people that claim to have received divine feelings leading them to their particular religion. I've met people from different faiths, all extremely devoted and claiming to "know" their religion is true. Obviously all of them can't be right as many of them have conflicting messages, so how can these divine feelings be trusted if they obviously have the capability to mislead people?