Faith

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What about beauty? I have seen pictures I thought were beautiful that others thought simply paint smears.

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And are you right about them being beautiful, or are they right about them being just smears? I'd say neither of you are right or wrong since it's entirely a subjective opinion. Only objective things can be tested, things that aren't tied to a single individual. Love is subjective, the condition of someone else loving is not the same as the condition of you loving. There's no objective standard to judge if two people are in love since it's totally subjective to them. I don't think that "faith" comes into things like that at all.As has been mentioned before in this thread I think there are two fundamentally different definitions of faith being put forth here. Religious type faith and experiential type faith. I'm often asked why I don't believe in god, and when I say that i've never experienced anything that makes me think a god exists i'm told to have "faith". Since i've already stated that nothing i've experienced has led me to think a god exists the only possible definition of this faith i'm told to have is something like "belief without or despite a reason", and it's this type of faith that I (and i'm sure most atheists) don't have or want.That doesn't mean i'm saying that all believers are doing so without or despite a reason, just that this is what i'd be doing if I did as I was told and had faith. The other things (such as the sun rising tomorrow etc) I leave to experience. The sun has never failed to rise in my lifetime, and I know that the only things that could stop it rising would be the earth being tidally locked with the sun, or the sky being covered so I can't ever see the sun. Since these two occurences are very very unlikely I think i'm justified in discounting them. I don't call this faith because then that get's confused with the definition of faith I mentioned above. It's more induction, which is no different to what happens in the scientific method. I accept it provisionally because I would be going against a whole load of evidence not to

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So what your saying is because Love is subjective, and cannot be tested it is therefor untrue?

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Not at all, i'm just saying that love is subjective and not objective. There isn't a definition of love that I can objectively test to determine wether or not someone else is in love.

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So the sun doesn't actually rise, its always in the same spot. Now what?

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Not sure what you mean here. I was just saying that I do not have faith the sun will rise as such, I just know that the conditions that would need to be met to stop it rising are so very unlikely as to be not worth thinking about.

no, i never said it made it untrue. I just said that it is a personal(subjective) opinion. You can't apply an objective test to see if i'm in love because it is different for everyone.

I was using "rise" figuratively. The sun stays (relatively) fixed and the earth spins, but the end result is that the relative position of the sun in our sky rises. I simply used that out of force of habit!I agree that something could stop the apparent rising of the sun, although I highly doubt that anything could ever catesrophically stop the rotation of the earth relative to the sun. That would require something so precise as to be pretty much impossible. As to me believing the sun will rise tomorrow, I simply accept it as the most probable occurance (most probably by a very very long way).

no faith needed at all because I don't say that the sun will definately rise (still speaking figuratively here! ). All I say is that it is much more likely to rise than not rise, and that statement is perfectly true. No faith whatsoever involved anyhwere in my reasoning, unless you think probability theory is faith

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Tell me, think there is any truth to Murphy's law?

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no, I don't believe there is any truth to murphys law. I just think we selectively remember when things go wrong more than when things go right. There is nothing memorable about a day when things go right for us, but if we have a particularly bad day and some things go wrong we'll be going on about it for ages.

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Just because the odds are a trillion to one, what are the odds that the one may happen this year?

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If the odds are a trillion to one then the odds of it happening this year are a trillion to one.

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First, it would take something bigger than Jupiter and a whole bunch closer than Jupiter to have any measurable effect on the earth's rotation.

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REally? You mean an object the size of Texas traveling with enough kenetic energy wouldn't have an affect on the earths rotation if hit in the right spot?

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So yes. I can say, even with my limited knowledge, that there is nothing out there close enough to be a threat to stop the rotation of the earth.

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No you can't jar. You just don't know or understand the physics involved, or the possibilities.

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Actually I think you're the one missunderstanding here. Jar is very clearly talking about the tidal effects of a large body on rotation. For example, the earth has slowed the moons rotation to such a degree that it is tidally locked with us (it only ever shows one face to us). Now Jar was saying that for something moving close to us to have ANY noticable effect on our rotation then it would have to be quite massive indeed. The sun is huge, and we're pretty close to it, yet it has no noticable effect on our rotation. It simply makes high tides slightly higher or slightly lower depending on it's alignment with the moon. Jupiter is huge too, but has no effect on us at all tidally. Something moving close to us could theoretically effect our rotation, but it would have to be huge to do anything noticable in the brief time it was near us. That kind of object would not sneak up on us. Therefore since a near miss is much more likely than a direct hit, it is certainly extremely unlikely that anything out there will alter our rotation (ignoring the moon, which is already slowing us down).A direct hit would certainly not stop the rotation relative to the sun though, so it wouldn't stop the sun rising anyway

but the whole point is that I don't have "faith" because I don't say that something is definately going to happen. I don't say "the sun is more likely to rise tomorrow than not rise tomorrow, therefore it definately will rise tomorrow". That would be faith.

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Please try to convince all the insurance company's of this nation that same thought, and maybe our insurance will go down.

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I'm pretty sure accurists don't utilise murphys law. They DO utilise a good deal of probability theory though I would think.

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OK, Riverrat.

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Go to the nearest highway overpass, and dive off head first.

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The odds are very good, although not 100%, that you will hit the pavement, crush your skull, and die.

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If "the results will change, no matter what the odds," then you must therefore believe that your odds of floating down to the ground unharmed are just the same as hitting the ground and dying.

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What kind of silliness is that?

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The one time he floats to the ground and lands unharmed, he's guarenteed to get run over by a bus straight after (murphy's law may be real afterall )

I don't have faith in anything. I don't say that anything is 100% true, I just say some things are more likely than others. Since I can't prepare for every eventuality (there are an infinite number of things that may happen), I only take into consideration the ones that are actually likely to occur in my lifetime. If something cataclysmic happens it is completely beyond my control. I will likely be dead and won't need to worry about it. I don't have faith it won't happen though, i know full well there's a minute possibility it will.

i'm not saying it wouldn't alter the rotation, i'm saying it wouldn't stop the rotation relative to the sun. As long as the earth is rotating relative to the sun, the sun will appear to rise.

someone who believed what scientists said to the extent that they relied on what they said being true in a cruicial situation would be being very silly. All scientific work is open for scrutiny by anyone who wishes to look at it. Scientists sometimes get things wrong, so I for one wouldn't believe something to the extent that I relied on it without at least seeing for myself that what they said is likely to be true.

I think the best definition of faith we can glean from our discussion here is that faith is believing that the outcome you desire will happen 100% even though it's not certain that outcome will happen. It's pretty clear that no one here believes that the outcome they desire will happen just because they want it to. From what I can tell, everyone accepts the possibility that something other than the outcome they desire could occur, no matter how improbable. That to me means that no faith is involved.