Comment

Comment by Richard W. Symonds on January 20, 2011 at 11:46am

Jaume, the words "faith" & "trust" mean much the same to me - interchangeable.

Comment by Richard W. Symonds on January 20, 2011 at 11:19am

"Faith in nothing is not valid, Richard, it is just silly"

Let's take that statement from you doone, to illustrate

what I am trying to say :

You cannot know, with 100% certainty, that your statement

is correct. 

It might correspond with the truth more than someone

else's opinion - but that's all you can say. 

Comment by Jaume on January 20, 2011 at 11:17am

A dangerous illusion? I beg to disagree. 'Believing' is necessary to us, or we would waste our time trying to 'prove' everything that's been 'proven' countless times before. Generalized absolute skepticism would be much worse than relying on 'belief'.

What you missed is there are two ways to believe: faith and trust. The latter is corroborated by evidence (the more I eat omelettes, the more I believe the best way to cook one is to break some eggs first), while the former is not.

Comment by Richard W. Symonds on January 20, 2011 at 11:05am

That "epidemic of certainty" can afflict both Theists & Atheists alike - and that "feeling of knowing", to my mind, is a dangerous illusion.

 

Nobody knows anything with 100% certainty - scientists & non-scientists alike - because we are fallible human beings, with fallible brains. Cocksureness is a function of human ignorance

 

Essentially, life is a matter of faith - whatever you believe in (or don't believe In). 

Comment by Richard W. Symonds on January 20, 2011 at 10:19am

"If we can deny our own stubborn human nature, we can block out any information that contradicts what the author Tamim Ansary calls "the fruitless longing for transcendence" that drives much delusion".

I find it a constant source of fascination and amusement to read the lengths to which people will go to try & 'explain away' - in great detail - their belief (faith?) in the non-existence of a 'transcendent' reality.

There's something obsessively pathological about it - rather strange and unhealthy sometimes, it seems to me.

Comment by Richard W. Symonds on January 19, 2011 at 4:24am

Thought this might be of interest - not sure where to post it though :

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/philosophy_east_and_west/v0...

Comment by justin gold on January 17, 2011 at 12:34pm

I'm so Sorry Don,That was ment for Herk not yourself.my mistake.

Comment by justin gold on January 17, 2011 at 12:30pm

I disagree Don,Dogs are smarter than we give them credit for if they can smell cancer tumors on people and sense all sorts of other things i'm sure death would be another scent they would pick up and relate it to its owner.

Comment by Don on January 16, 2011 at 9:25pm

I have a much harder time with the death of a dog than I do with the death of a human.

When he was going over my first novel, published long, long ago, my editor made it a point to tell me he was pleased that the instigating incident to my narrator's running away from home was the killing of his loyal dog.  He said, "The undeserved death of a dog is much more compelling than the death of a person."

Comment by Herk on January 16, 2011 at 8:56pm

The dog's thinking, "surely she'll get out of there and feed me soon . . ."

 

You have to be careful anthropomorphizing animals. That said, I have a much harder time with the death of a dog than I do with the death of a human.

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