RE: virus: Scientists and Philosophers

Richard Brodie (richard@brodietech.com)
Tue, 9 Feb 1999 17:51:41 -0800

I don't see that faith and trust are very similar. When we're arguing about faith here, the usual issues are:

  1. Is there a "good" faith and a "bad" faith, or is all faith bad?
  2. Do scientists have faith in science or is science a special belief system that does not require faith?
  3. Is it faith if you believe something without evidence, or do you have to believe something IN SPITE OF evidence?

I think those are the main issues.

The answers:
1. Faith is bad if it leads you away from your life purpose; good otherwise. 2. Scientists may or may not have faith in science. If they think science is True, they do.
3. It's a difference of degree. Faith is more like not wanting to look at evidence; the issue is closed in other words. This can be extremely useful in human ventures such as marriage.

Richard Brodie richard@brodietech.com http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/ Author, "Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme" http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/votm.htm Free newsletter! Visit Meme Central at
http://www.brodietech.com/rbrodie/meme.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-virus@lucifer.com [mailto:owner-virus@lucifer.com]On Behalf Of Bob Hartwig
Sent: Tuesday, February 9, 1999 5:23 PM
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: RE: virus: Scientists and Philosophers

>
>Some friendly advice from someone who survived the Great Virus Faith Wars:
>when you see "faith", read "trust". It may not be a perfect translation,
>but it will almost certainly help communication (assuming that's the goal).
>

Not only is the translation imperfect, it's terrible! Why load the language like that? Is it because loading the language is a successful memetic device? It must be a very good device to earn a place among Lifton's 8 criteria for thought reform.