Sunday, June 17, 2012

Alas, once again.

I recently happened across a CNN interview that explains faith and religion remarkably well: [1] 

The whole point of having faith is that you don’t really have proof. If you had proof, you would have knowledge. When you know something, you no longer believe you know something. Well, sure, one could argue that all knowledge is merely an illusion, in which case you cannot ‘know’ anything, or that you can know something that is actually not true, in which case you cannot ‘know’ it. But let’s leave Gettier’ problem aside for now and explain things in layman’s terms.

Claiming that there is no such action as ‘knowing’ is as arbitrary as saying that nothing is random[2] – it is language philosophy that means nothing. It is a play on the definitions of words to muck about, there is no purpose in it. Sure, you can say that you don’t actually ‘know’ anything, but how can you really know that? We’ll still be using the word in its proper context, whilst ignoring the specific definition in its every shiny detail.

Knowing something that isn’t true is still knowing. As far as the observer, you, are concerned, you have no or very little doubt that something is true, hence you ‘know’. I believe all people can behave logically, but I have no real proof. Still I do not doubt and I believe this to be true. I have faith.

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