|
willbeurdaddy -> RE: The puzzle of life - science versus creationism (11/29/2009 3:31:37 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Silence8
quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
quote:
ORIGINAL: NihilusZero
quote:
ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy
Which still doesnt lessen the appropriateness of the word believe
You already declared that "belief" has no prerequisites for use.
At which point, using it to substantiate the veridical quality of something becomes a disingenuous semantic trick since "believing in purple gnomes from another universe" is just as viable in the "belief" department as "believing in DVDs containing audio and video information".
I declared no such thing.
And your example is nonsense, because there is no evidence of "gnomes from another universe"...ie there is no basis for belief....you are conflating "belief" with "faith" and they are not the same thing.
I leave you with Richard Dawkins, who clearly uses "belief" in both contexts:
"There is a very, very important difference between feeling strongly, even passionately, about something because we have thought about and examined the evidence for it on the one hand, and feeling strongly about something because it has been internally revealed to us, or internally revealed to somebody else in history and subsequently hallowed by tradition. There's all the difference in the world between a belief that one is prepared to defend by quoting evidence and logic and a belief that is supported by nothing more than tradition, authority, or revelation. "
One way to think about is would be along lines of evidence strength.
To put it in quasi philosophical-logical terms, consider there's a function Strength() that weighs the verifiability of the evidence supporting some proposition.
Then, generally speaking, Strength(know)>Strength(believe)>Strength(have faith in).
Yes, there are a ton of exceptions; otherwise, the epistemologists would have nothing to discuss.
Still, this is all a major digression, though interesting, from the original topic...
This still doesnt address the appropriateness of the word "belief" however. A more elaborate version of your proposition is Dawkins Belief Scale, where 1 is "I know God exists" and 7 is "I know god does not exist". In describing the scale however, he refers to the extremes as "total belief" and "total non-belief". Again, use of "belief/believe" does not necessarily denote any degree of uncertainty.
|
|
|
|
