Wednesday, July 8, 2009

"About Faith & Objectivity"


Faith and objectivity will always be at odds. This is because a thing must be verifiable with evidence in and of itself to be objective, at the very least, and while faith can be verified with evidence, it is not in and of itself verifiable by said evidence. That is to say, faith can be backed by evidence, but faith itself implies a gap of evidence that eventually leads to the conclusion one then is able to believe in. Faith is the glue holding something used as evidence to the belief at the end of the connected dots. Faith not only implies belief, but belief as truth, in the face of things that contradict it and show otherwise with equal or more validity. This differs from a belief based on the highest available validity that is subject to learn and admit fault (most importantly admitting fault outside the boundaries of any faith), which is required of objectivity.

While faith can be defined any number of ways, let us not restrict ourselves to any one definition of it, but on the other hand let us not be so semantically open that we allow it to define all of belief, for there is a reason that it differs from other belief based words such as hope. Faith can be based on evidence, it can be based on no evidence at all, and faith can be rational or irrational, faith can be hopeful but not hope itself in that hope does not imply belief, only a wish. One has faith that their evidence, be it the bible, or the Qur'an, or the Talmud, or perhaps the Samhita, is the truth over all the others, this implies that in face of the same basic amount of evidence given by each of the other religions, the person of faith has chosen one absolutely over the others and declares it as truth, absolute truth nonetheless. One has faith that their god died and rose from the dead because a book tells them so. One has faith in 72 virgins awaiting them after death. These are the gaps in evidence that faith accounts for.

Faith is textbook subjectivity. Not only is it an explanative statement for the unknown, be it connecting dots of evidence or not, it is not repeatable or verifiable by any other means than the self through choice. Faith is rooted in the thoughts and interpretations of the self, be they rational and well formed out, even perhaps correct, it matters not for they are by definition interpreted by the self. Ask any person about religion, they will tell you of many gods, each of them, all of them perhaps good well-intentioned people. Ask any Christian about god and they will tell you of many gods, each of them, all of them perhaps good well-intentioned people. There are always idiosyncrasies in belief, most Christians even of particular denominations will pick and choose what they believe in. Now to the opposite side of the spectrum, faith from the fundamentalist, who go by the word presented them, and who lets face it are the more honest of believers and more honest and rational in their faith, because they follow to the letter the evidence they claim to be true. The problem is, be it true or not, still they choose to believe and choose to have faith over any other answer of equal or more validity, and as such they still require faith to declare it as true. The questioning has stopped, belief has set in, and other explanations are nil. Objectivity does not deny critique, nor does it deny complete disproof.



I personally have no need for faith, I use to see it as irrational and had stayed away from it based on such, but after several blogs on the subject I have come to see the many sides of it and am not so nauseated by the thought of it any more. I can see it’s healthy side, faith in oneself, faith in recovering, in persevering, these can be inspirational, beyond just a sense of hope on the matter. All to often though what I see is it’s harmful side, people declaring themselves right and others damned because of ‘x’ difference; such division really. I think it healthy to just keep moving forward and gathering, sharing, welcoming critique. I just want to keep looking for answers, instead of choosing to believe one.

13 comments:

markja said...

THIS WAS STOLEN FROM WWW.MYSPACE.COM/MJEGAR

THIS NEEDS TO BE TAKEN DOWN AND WILL BE REPORTED.

Cypk said...

True,word for word... This is not legal. I don't think so. I believe you did not have Mark's permission to copy/past this onto your own blog.. You should be ashamed of yourself Rinrin.

StillS said...

THIS WAS STOLEN FROM WWW.MYSPACE.COM/MJEGAR

THIS NEEDS TO BE TAKEN DOWN AND WILL BE REPORTED.

Isegoria said...

THIS BLOG IS A BLATANT RIP OFF OF WWW.MYSPACE.COM/MJEGAR!

You might consider writing your own damn blogs instead of stealing them from someone else. Your flat out stealing of this blog is inexcusable and despicable.

You are lucky Mark is nicer than I am, I would sue you and win. Why don't try it, I could use the money.

Ma'ña Bräu said...

are any of these blogs yours?

shewhowouldprevail said...

Apparently the abundance of life is found by stealing things from other people.

This is blatantly disrespectful. If you are a fan of markja's work you should have requested permission to use his work and given him credit for it.

KansaiTeacher said...

Rinrin, these are NOT your words. You must give credit to the author instead of passing this off as yours!

Katie said...

Sad sad sad.

Blogs are about creativity and self expression.

Quit using other's words and think for yourself!

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=93063856&blogId=498728826

Oh look, there's your source!

Vincent Truman said...

Thief.

Shogun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shogun said...

Ignorance at best, plagiarism at worst. Your posted blog content is a word-for-word copy of a blog posted from the erudite mind of both a friend and MySpace blogger.

Now maybe someone liked the blog and sent you a copy which you so naively displayed on Blogger or you are a talentless illiterate lacking the capabilities to express original ideas and are merely attempting to prop up your high temperature atmospheric ego.

Either way, you should contact the author of these pennings and offer an apology, and either de-blog this work, or attribute proper authorship as would be appropriate in the literate community.

Blessings,
Shogun

Angela Chapman said...

I too have been a victim of Rinrin's copy and paste procedure. One of my dearest most heartfelt blogs was stolen from my Myspace blog and put on this blog. MY words, MY thoughts, MY feelings. I am appalled that someone would do such a thing.

Rinrin: Get your OWN feelings instead of stealing mine/ours. You are an empty, worthless soul.

Justin Shepherd said...

Rinrin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Bad Doggy!!!!!You know better than to plagiarize. I'm going to tell your mommy!!!! And no donuts and cake for a week. All you had to do was site your source and give Mark the credit, and the world wouldn't be raining down on you right now. Repent!!!!1