How does one distinguish faith from delusion?

How is Atheism faith? You seriously think faith can be defined in not believing in something? Atheism is the lack of faith.Let me make it easy. Faith is believing in something without any evidence.Atheists follow the evidence. Which makes us not have faith because there is no evidence.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Hi Stile, I couldn't pass this one up.You are correct when you say, "with faith, we have no 'working clock' to compare any claims against."But when you say, "we are left with no way to know if the claims are ever true." I disagree.I believe there is a God and I must be judged one day by Him.You do not believe there is a God and you must be judged one day by Him.One of us is correct the other is wrong.If when I die there is nothing but death I will never know anything. I will not even know that I was wrong.But if when I die I find myself before God being judged by Him I will know I was right whether I got my preparations right or not.If when you die there is nothing but death you will never know you was right.If on the other hand you die and find your self standing before God and being judged by Him you will know you were wrong.Yea I know some kind of gambling thing. But who has the most to lose?God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

RAZD, I was particularly intrigued by something you said:

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And one of the questions I have tried to pursue, is the one about how one can determine the relative validity of concepts, once you have run off the scientific methodology mapping and into areas where the method cannot be applied. Once we have run off the mapped area of verified evidences we are left with non-verified evidence and logic, and concepts extending into areas where there is no evidence and logic does not help - like art.

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Try as we might, we can't fit life neatly into boxes. It's messy and it can be confusing. Empiricism can teach us much but it cannot be the correct approach 100% of the time. Here is where fear and uncertainty can lie, because using evidence and logic to explain everything can be a comfort for some (perhaps like religion is a comfort to others, as it also pushes fear and uncertainty aside). I hesitate to say here that sometimes you can "just know" that things are right, as true as that is to me. Anyone can claim this and be wildly, catastrophically inaccurate. Gut instincts can be helpful guides but they need to be coupled with the power of our brains. And I don't see an easy formula for any of this. You can't write in a scientific paper that you just had a feeling something was right -- but you can use that feeling to guide your ideas when formulating and testing hypotheses.I think that wisdom and experience count for a lot. When you have both of those, it gets easier and easier to approach life from different perspectives and to choose which one to use depending on the situation. Who ever said that getting old was a bad thing?

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How is Atheism faith? You seriously think faith can be defined in not believing in something? Atheism is the lack of faith.

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Let me make it easy. Faith is believing in something without any evidence.

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Atheists follow the evidence. Which makes us not have faith because there is no evidence.

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Atheists have faith that there is no god, or gods, or anything transcendent. You cannot prove that this is the case. You are not the null set, you're in a certain set of presuppositions and beliefs just like most other people. If anything could be defined as being close to the absence of faith, I think it would have to be agnosticism. Just like the scientist who has to be as objective as possible in his/her work, an agnostic is also tentative and rules nothing out completely.Edited by LindaLou, : No reason given.

But, I don't find that galling at all. Or, at least, I find them equivalent for the context of this discussion.We must remember that the context here is NOT "the amount of displayed paranoia" or "social acceptance of the behaviour."The context I'm talking about is how each one believes in something that they have absolutely no objective evidence for, yet they insist that it be taken by others as absolute truth.Do you agree that the person scared of the KGB believes in something that has absolutely no objective evidence, yet they're insisting to others that what they think is true?Do you agree that the person professing their faith believes in something that has absolutely no objective evidence, yet they're insisting to others that what they think is true?I say yes to both.The aspect of both scenarios that is being discussed here is exactly the same for both. Unless you can show me a difference?

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The context I'm talking about is how each one believes in something that they have absolutely no objective evidence for, yet they insist that it be taken by others as absolute truth.

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Well that's a caveat that didn't exist in the OP. As I recall, it was asking about how you tell the difference between faith and delusion.

The problem with the "no contradictory evidence" approach is that there are a near infinite array of unprovable irrefutable concepts. Immaterial Unicorns, ghosts, fairies, undetectable goblins that live in your toilet, ethereal squirrels, incorporeal iguanas and the usual host of immaterial gods and deities that theists and deists more commonly believe in on the basis of "faith".Do you accept all of these as reasonable possibilities? Or are you agnostic towards some and atheistic towards others? On what basis do you make your distinction? None are contradicted by any evidence after all. And that is your stated criteria for acceptance is it not? Because our knowledge of any reality external to ourselves is necessarily limited by our ability to perceive that external reality whilst internal experiences are limited only by our imagination.Do you not think we should attempt to differentiate between the two? Does this distinction between imagination and reality not lie at the very heart of what is delusional and what is not? I don't really claim to know anything for sure. This is not about certainty. This was about faith and is rapidly turning into a discussion about evidence. That is fine by me as long as we are both aware of that fact. The fact that "some people believe" or "some people feel" that internal experieces must relate to some aspect of external reality does not answer the question as to HOW this can possibly be the case? Conviction is not evidence.Are you advocating a sixth sense? How else can we possibly experience any aspect of reality that is not ultimately material and empirical in nature? How? That is the question I have asked of RAZD in similar related discussions. That is the question he has failed to address.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Er no.I don't have faith. I accept the philosophical possibility of such things existing. But given the highly evidenced human prediliction for inventing supposedly irrefutable concepts for reasons of explanation, comfort, higher purpose or whetever else, I think the default position has to rationally be that such things are far more likely the product of human invention.No faith involved. Only if you deny the very strong objective evidence in favour of humans having a strong tendancy to invent gods.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

What about voices in one's head? This is inherently unprovable and unfalsifiable. The voices could very wsell be coming from some external source and we could simply be unable to detect it.Is a person who believes he hears voices in his head delusional? Why or why not?If a person believes he is the reincarnation of Napoleon Bonaparte, and insists that everyone address him as such, his claim is inherently unprovable and unfalsifiable.Is Reborn Napoleon delusional? Why or why not?In cases like these, there is absolutely no objective evidence contradicting the claims being made.Similarly, are beliefs in the Great Raccoon Spirit, or the Holy Squirrel Ghost delusional?What about the Frog Prince? According to fairy tales, there was once a prince who was transformed into a frog by a witch, and was returned to human form by kissing a princess. This is inherently unprovable, and there exists no contradictory objective evidence to falsify the claim. Magic could exist. A witch could have transformed a prince into a frog. The story could be true.Is such a belief delusional? Why or why not?

I do not believe there is a Christian God as depicted by the Bible.
"A God" is up for grabs, but largely irrelevent anyway (going by the amount of verifiable information we currently have available). You seem very concerned about what happens after we die. What about what happens while we are alive?If you are right, then I will simply apologize for my inability to honestly discern whatever it was God was trying to tell me, if indeed He was trying to tell me anything at all.I have nothing to fear except for juvenile, arrogant, stupid deities. But, if they exist, I doubt that anyone will have an afterlife worth looking forward to. Not me. I'm simply banking on an honest, benevolent, intelligent God. If one exists that fits those 3 criteria in even a minor extent, I have nothing to fear.I would change your tactics, ICANT, no benevolent God (especially one similar to Jesus in any way) would respect an attempt to bully others towards their cause through the use of fear. Do you really think such a thing is worthy of praise when attempting to reflect a Christian attitude?

Thanks, I believe this covers my beliefs very accurately. And the fact is that most major religions belief their faith is an accurate representation of reality.

You are correct.But, you didn't reply to the OP. You replied to my post, and made comments off of things I said.It is obvious that I certainly did include such a caveat in my post, for the things I was talking about. I even explicitly re-stated it as a conclusion to the message you replied to:

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The term "delusional" is only being used to describe individuals who adamantly believe their faith is an accurate description of reality, and they attempt to force others into thinking the same.

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It's okay to make mistakes, no one is going to hunt you down and hurt you.

If a belief lacks evidence that can be shared with others, how can one verify its accuracy, given that delusions do occur?Further, since religious experiences can be evoked electrically and by drugs, how can one verify that such an experiences is from an external agency? Here, since all people share a common biochemistry, even common experience is no indication of accuracy.If a belief cannot be tested, how can one justify going farther than not knowing if it is accurate?I do not see that absence of contrary evidence justifies beliefs.

Do you have anything other than personal incredulity to back that up? I understand why you would think that way. Growing up in a Christian society where religion and its faith are treated as special ideas somehow in a different category than other beliefs may make one recoil at the idea that it is just a delusion, but that does not make it untrue. Most Christians believe their faith is an accurate representation of reality which everyone else should follow, this is a delusion. While someone theoretically could have faith in atheism, atheism is not inherently a faith based idea. Weak atheism, for instance, is most definitely not a faith. Weak atheism is simply the lack of belief in a God. That does not mean they believe God exists, simply that there is no reason to believe he does. I dont know any atheists who 100 percent believe there is no God, most simply find his existence unlikely or have no reason to believe in him. That is not faith. Thus, I dont believe an athiest can accurately be described as delusional or faithful.Negative and positive atheism - Wikipedia

Hi ICANT,You are describing what is known as the Pascal Wager.I like the addressal done of that here.http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/pascal.htmlEssentially, the problem is you are acting like there are only 2 possible options. The Christian God exists or no God exists. Thats simply untrue. There are an infinite number of possible gods. The God that exists could be one that wants us to follow rationality and evidence and punishes faith with eternal damnation. At which point, you have as much, if not more, than I have to lose. And anyway, based on this logic, the Christian God is not the right one to worship. Assuming like most Christians you believe God is just and merciful, then you are going about this all wrong. You should worship a cruel and vindictive God who will inflict infinite suffering on anyone who does not worship him regardless of their actions, because if you are wrong about this god, then you have allot more to lose than if you are wrong about a just and merciful god, who will punish you more lightly. The bible is not that clear about hell in the first place( http://www.what-the-hell-is-hell.com/...ellsEternalDeath.htm) and a just God would likely not inflict eternal torment on people for a finite punishment, but an evil god would. So your best bet is to worship the evil God under Pascal's Wager, because you have allot more to lose if he exists than if God does.