Posted by Mike O on: 12.14.2006 /
This is an excerpt from a talk by Pastor Gary Sinclair of Grace Church in Mahomet, IL. He was talking about the value of providing hope to people and cited this scientific experiment. This is interesting!
People need to sense hope. Because everybody lives with ’stuff.’ With baggage that we carry through life, right? I mean, some of our baggage is really devastating. It’s overwhelming, even debilitating. Again, maybe you came this morning carrying some of that stuff. People today are looking for some hope in the midst of all that, as much as anything. And given the 9/11’s of the world, the wars we’re facing, the natural disasters and just the struggles of life, hope is huge!
A group of behavioral scientists put some wharf rats in a tank of water and observed them to see how long they would survive before drowning. The average time was 17 minutes. But then they repeated the experiment, but this time they rescued the rats just before they drowned. They dried them off and returned them to their cages. They fed them. They let them play for a few days, and then they repeated the experiment. Hey, it’s science, OK? So, I know it sounds a little wierd. This time, the average survival rate for the rats increased from … get this … 17 minutes to 36 hours! One time.
What did they do differently? The scientists explained the phenomenon by saying that the second time around the rats has hope. They believed that they could survive this because they had done it once before!
A few times in the past, it’s come up that the scientific community has different definitions for words than other people. Two that come to mind right away are “myth,” and “ignorance,” both of which I had to learn how to correctly interpret without being offended.
Another one is “faith.” The word comes up frequently and (correct me if I’m wrong) the way I understand the atheist position on faith is that it is a belief in something that cannot be proven. Similar to how the supernatural can neither be proven nor disproven by science, my impression is that faith is at some level a non-factor to the scientific community - that it is nothing more than a belief in something that can neither be proven nor disproven.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines faith this way:
Inflected Form(s): plural faiths /’fAths, sometimes ‘fA[th]z/
Etymology: Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trust — more at BIDE
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
To Christians, however, faith is more than that. It’s almost a tangible thing. The Bible defines faith this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)”
Substance and evidence are words science can deal with. Yet faith is an elusive concept to those who don’t have it. In the story of the wharf rats above, which I’m taking at face value the speaker is telling the truth here, it was said that the rats had “hope.” Did hope extend their lives? I would say, no. Hope did not float them. I believe the thing that prolonged the experiment was that the rats treaded water longer. But how did they do that? They had hope. Hope did not do it, treading water for 36 hours did it. But treading water (the substance, the evidence, the measurable “thing”) was the result of hope.
That is faith in the Christian mindset … the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. It’s the treading water forever because of hope.
Please correct me if my perception is wrong, but when a non-Christian thinks of faith, I suspect they think of something made-up, an idea Christians need to make their worldview work, but doesn’t really exist. I suspect the irreligious see an unsubstantiated belief that something that may or may not be true … is true. But Christians see faith as the manifestation of hope in the physical world … the extended treading of water by rats, if you will.
I didn’t write this to convince anyone that faith is real or that my beliefs are right and yours ar wrong. I wrote it to help non-Christians understand that faith, to a Christian, is more than a belief in something we can never know for sure. I wrote this because I’ve spent a lot of time here on eBay atheist asking questions and trying to learn how and why people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in God. Likewise, perhaps this clarification will help others understand the Christian mindset as well.
And perhaps understanding what Christians mean when we use words like faith will help others understand why faith is something we cannot easily discount or ignore. To Christians, faith is something. It’s more than a mere belief in something we need to be true. It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Kind of like how “myth” means one thing to scientists and something completely different to me, so “faith” likely means one thing to Christians and something completely different to you. And I’m hopeful that maybe understanding the Christian definitions of words we use in this dialogue between Christian and atheist will help you understand the Christian perspective even though you don’t share it.
Leave a Reply
Comment by: Ernie Olson
1 12/14/06 10:31 AM | Comment Link |What an amazing tragedy that so many refuse (to believe and put their hope and trust in life stories. I pray that many will take a step of faith.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
2 12/14/06 10:32 AM | Comment Link |Mike, I agree with you about the power of hope. In my most recent newspaper response I wrote:
I think hope translates into action in the lives of everyone regardless of whether they have religious beliefs or not.
Mike I think your point is well-made (if I’m understanding you right) that faith is something that does change peoples’ lives - it is not just something that lives somewhere in their head and leaves them unchanged.
Comment by: Tom
3 12/14/06 10:37 AM | Comment Link |From my meager web research, it is my understanding that the FST has been used in the past as a model for human depression (usually in drug anti-drepression drug trials) rather than an example of hope in animals, and that even that is still debated. According to the following article, it is now thought to be more of a “learning immobility” indication. It seems obvious to me that immobility and floating without expending energy swimming is a much better strategy for survivial.
I understand your point though, that “Faith” means something very different to Christians than “faith” means to “non-believers”. However abusing science to back your religious beliefs seems pretty desperate. I note that the story also demonizes the rat murdering scientists (it’s also my understanding that the rats are not usually drowned).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2602464&dopt=Abstract
Comment by: Mike O
4 12/14/06 10:52 AM | Comment Link |I’m not sure I get your point. Where’s the abuse of science? There was a study done, and results were measured/documented.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
5 12/14/06 11:54 AM | Comment Link |Thanks for the link, Tom.
I don’t think it’s that far-fetched to use an experiment scientists have used to model depression in a discussion of hope/faith. Thanks for pointing out that link which suggests a different reason may explain the results of the experiment.
I sympathize with where you’re coming from in general because I have found that some Christians are very careless about the way they use this or that story or experiment to support the point they are making. They should do much more research than they do to check that a) the account of the story/experiment they are using is accurate b) it supports their point in its original context i.e. they have not had to do something inappropriate to it to get it to back up their point.
It’s fascinating what a little research can uncover about some favorite Christian sermon illustrations.
But I don’t see the rats experiment as being wrested way out of context since depression and absence of hope/faith are strongly linked.
Comment by: Siamang
6 12/14/06 11:57 AM | Comment Link |Mike, buddy, you’ve given me a lot of yarn with this one.
Okay, ever the curious and skeptic, I checked up on this experiment. I find lots and lots of links where other religious people have woven this point into sermons, but none of them cite a source or the experiment itself.
Furthermore, there are things about the various stories that contradict each other and reality. The stories seem vague and light on the scientific details I would need to be able to validate the claim. The stories seem to hold this up as scientific proof of the need for “hope.”
For example, rats are exellent swimmers. I don’t know what they could do to a rat to make it swim only 17 minutes, but rats can swim anywhere between 50 hours and 72 hours in 35 degree water. It makes me skeptical about the factual accuracy of the rest of the story.
I searched this story all over the internet, and found many variations. Some placing it at UC Berkeley in the 1990’s, some at Johns Hopkins University in the 50’s. Some replaced “wharf rats” (shouldn’t they be the BEST swimmers?) with the standard lab rat, the norwegian rat. Some versions of the stories added quotes by the ’scientists’, who are not named. Which makes me wonder about the accuracy of the quotes.
According to elbourne.org, one scientist said “They were able to survive because the had been SAVED”.
Well, eventually I found a version of the story which named the scientist (someone making some political point which similarly isn’t really supported by the experiment). It turns out that there was an experiment, performed by Dr. Curt P. Richter in 1957.
Here’s a link to the published results:
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/reprint/19/3/191.pdf
Now this is the stuff I like. Real information, and he tells us what he did and how he did it.
He used wild rats and domestic rats. The wild rats had more tendency to die instantly upon being put in the enclosed water vessels. Wild rats that had had their wiskers clipped died everytime they put them in the vessels. Some domestic ones did too, but in lesser numbers. The rats that died, died suddenly when their hearts slowed down. Which he attributed to an overfiring of their parasympathetic system. These rats didn’t drown. They died from their hearts slowing down.
Was it a loss of hope? Or were they literally scared to death?
He found that by systematically handling them, and introducing them into water, they didn’t die immediately upon contact with the water and enclosure in the swimming capsule, and swam normally (until they later died from drowning after 50 or so hours of swimming until exhausted.)
I don’t know that these animals had “hope”. He calls it hopelessness in the study, although I think that’s an anthropormorphism that woudn’t be found in a modern scientific paper. The internal mental state of the rat’s understanding of his survival options just wasn’t being tested. I personally think they just didn’t have a lethal amount of fear.
Why do I think it was fear? Most of the domestic rats didn’t die upon their first placing in the vessel. They hadn’t been trapped in the wild. They were used to being handled. They weren’t “hopeful” rats. They just weren’t outside of their element in a lab.
Now, this experiement was in 1957. Perhaps some more science minded readers here can inform me if this is indeed the latest and most specific experiment in the subject. Perhaps more recent and more thorough experiments have refined or disproven it.
But I do think that the people citing this as some kind of proof of the need for “hope” have wandered far from the substance of the actual experiment. I think they’ve taken a broad brush approach to its much narrower actual findings.
They took a small experiment on desensitizing rats to danger and stretched it out to a broad conclusion about human spiritual health.
And if I can get meta for a moment, it points to some criticism I have of religion.
I think there is a general lack of proper scholarship in religious teaching. This sermon you quoted, and I saw quoted multiple places online, does not cite its source. It does not give any specifics that aren’t germain or may even undercut or contradict the thesis of the speaker. It appropriates a scientific study for a homily, and to some extent appropriates the good name of science in support of a position that the experiment itself did not set out to prove. Within the sermon, the description of the expriment doesn’t include any caveats, any cautions, or indeed any way for the audience to examine the evidence or evaluate the claim. The anonymous nature of the cite cuts off further examination by the audience. A homily doesn’t need to be factually accurate to work its inspirational magic on an audience. I think this has fostered a culture where fact-checking is an alien custom.
Now you might say “geez, you’re taking this way too seriously, lighten up. It’s supposed to be an inspirational story.”
And that’s exactly my criticism.
Mike O wrote:
This is my problem with this. This experiment is not made up, but it has been embellished beyond the ability for the science behind it to support. It’s evolved into an urban legend, with quotes possibly pulled out of thin air, and conclusions drawn that aren’t supported by the data.
What if religion is the same way? That’s my question as an atheist. What if there was once a kernel of truth, but this culture of homily has caused the urban legends to grow and grow to the point that the sermons preached now bear little to no resemblence to the actual events that inspired them?
Mike has made this point about faith: that it’s something that is sustaining to believers.
But this is the very thing that irks me about this “culture of homily.” If it
“feels good”… if it is “sustaining to believers”… then it can go in the sermon. Fact-checking’s for those linear thinkers and skeptics.
In this way, in this experiment, in this homily and perhaps in religion as well, the hope may actually be false, and its ability to sustain may be merely an illusion.
For in the real experiment, all the rats eventually did die in the water, “hopeful” and “hopeless” alike.
And that AIN’T in the sermon.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
7 12/14/06 12:00 PM | Comment Link |Siamang thanks for doing this research. As I just wrote, I share your frustration about how sloppy religious teaching is.
But do you agree with Mike’s point that hope is powerful and changes lives? I think that’s true of atheists as well as theists.
Comment by: Siamang
8 12/14/06 12:10 PM | Comment Link |Yes, I do think that hope is powerful and can change lives.
I don’t know that rats are a good indicator of human hope.
(oh, and for some reason I can’t read people’s names on this new board. Perhaps people should sign their posts. I don’t know who I’m addressing!)
-Siamang
Comment by: Siamang
9 12/14/06 12:11 PM | Comment Link |Oh wait, you’re Helen!
Your name is invisible until I hover my mouse over it….. wierd.
Comment by: Mike O
10 12/14/06 12:28 PM | Comment Link |Siamang, I have GOT to meet you some time. You raised a couple of points that occurred to me as well, namely that all of the rats did eventually drown and even that the thing they hoped in, that they would be rescued, was a false hope yet it sustained them (assuming, as you pointed out, that hope was even a factor). I understand the points you and Tom are making as to the validity of the findings regarding hope, yet this question remains - haven’t you experienced in your own life, personally, the impact that hope can have on you? Haven’t you put in a litte extra effort at work to meet a deadline when you thought you could make it, versus saying “screw it” when you thought you thought meeting it was hopeless? Haven’t you run to catch a bus you probably shouldn’t have been able to catch, but you were convinced you could, so you did?
I remember a couple of years ago in a softball game, I was running to catch a long fly ball, and actually made the catch even though there’s no way I could run that fast. But I just KNEW I could get there, and I did. And I’m not a little guy!
So while the scientific intricacies may be there as you pointed out, the “moral of the story” holds true. When you read your daughter a nursery rhyme, do you go to great lengths to invalidate the moral because it was scientifically inaccurate?
I don’t mean to belittle the need for accuracy … your points are well made as they relate to science. I didn’t research it myself because the point would be valid regardless of the scientific data. And maybe this is another “Christian” thing … Jesus often taught in parables … natural stories that conveyed a spiritual truth. I am used to catching the moral of the story even though the story, itself, may or may not be true.
I accept that the rats study was not studying the effects of “hope.” I accept that it’s possible that as Tom said, the rats merely learned that it was more effective to remain immobile. But the moral of the story is still there … hope helps. And in an effort to define the Christian perspective on faith, a story is the best way I can think of to describe how important faith is. Describing faith to an atheist is like describing sound to a deaf man … how do you describe someting that is real to you, but unperceived to the person you’re describing it to?
And besides, the moral didn’t contradict the science. It’s not like the findings were disregarded so the moral could hold true.
Oh, and the sermon excerpt I took this from also had the “the rats had been SAVED once” line in it, but I omitted it here because it seemed too deliberately Christian.
Comment by: Mike O
11 12/14/06 12:29 PM | Comment Link |I can see everyone’s names except Helen’s.
Comment by: Todd Hiestand
12 12/14/06 12:38 PM | Comment Link |hey guys, thanks for noticing the name issue. I fixed it so everything should be all set. Thanks for your patience with the new design. Hopefully that is the only bug we have.
Feel free to let us know if you see anything else that doesn’t work perfectly. Hopefully the site is more enjoyable and easier to use now. If you have any suggestions, feel free to share them with Helen.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
13 12/14/06 12:46 PM | Comment Link |Thanks for fixing the name thing, Todd.
Comment by: Mike O
14 12/14/06 12:48 PM | Comment Link |That’s wierd, I can’t see Todd or Helen unless I mouse over the name field. I wonder if it’s an authorities thing where you guys have something set as hidden for security reasons, and it’s affecting how your names display.
I can see me, Siamang, Tom and Ernie (my dad). I cannot see Helen or Todd.
Comment by: Marty
15 12/14/06 1:44 PM | Comment Link |I can see the names Helen, Todd and everyone fine. Might it be a difference in web browser and/or Version? I am using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0
Comment by: Siamang
16 12/14/06 1:50 PM | Comment Link |Mike O wrote:
Yes, of course. We all have. In fact, I think personal stories are wonderful inspirations. I’d have nothing to say if Pastor Sinclair instead of telling the stories of the rats, told a story from his life that illustrated his point.
No, because when I tell my daughter a nursery rhyme I start with “once upon a time” I don’t start it with “Scientists did an experiment.” I want to raise my daughter with a deep understanding of science, and when I tell her about a scientific understanding, I want it to be accurate and factual. I’m sure it will happen that eventually I’ll tell her something that I’ll later find I was wrong about. I have been corrected on this board recently about the phylogeny of the icthyosaur. If I had mistakenly told her that this animal was a dinosaur, I’d take that opportunity to sit her down and correct my error.
Yes, it does “feel true” that icthyosaurs were dinosaurs. But it ISN’T true.
If I want to tell her something that “feels true” that isn’t, I’ll inform her that I’m telling her a story. I feel I have a responsibility not to misinform her, or to pass on my own misunderstandings because of a lack of rigor.
I’d be sad to tell her something that turned out to be wrong. I’d be much more sad to learn that her opinion of me turned out to be lessened because I had a cavalier regard for when I was telling her facts and when I wasn’t.
Telling the truth requires knowing the truth. And caring that there’s a difference, and a way of knowing the difference.
Then let’s turn it on its head. Would it be okay for me to preach a sermon that said: “One day Jesus was walking around the holy land and the town elders approached him and said ‘Rabbi, this man was caught selling children into slavery.’ Whereupon Jesus said ‘These children are the property of my Father. Free them. Depart from me and sin no more.’”
Doesn’t it “feel true?” Sure, Jesus never said that. But doesn’t it sound like the kind of thing He might have said? Isn’t it an accurate and true moral point, one that agrees with the Gospel? Does it really matter that I didn’t look it up and cite chapter and verse?
Hey, the story may be true. Nobody says that everything Jesus said got written down. For all I know, it is true.
Preaching a sermon and saying “Scientists say” or “Jesus said”, you really should follow it up with a cite, and a chapter and verse. And context. And perspective.
Pastor Sinclair could have easily found a true story from his life that illustrated his point about hope. Or he could have taken a passage from the Bible that illustrated his point, and cited chapter and verse. Or he could have written his own parable that started “there was once a man who…” or even “there was once a rat who….”
But he said “a bunch of behavioral scientists…”
And it feeds into my criticism of this idea of a homily not needing to be factually true in this kind of fast and loose treatment.
It makes me wonder… if they play fast and loose with this stuff, what else does religion play fast and loose with? Why should I believe anything they say?
Comment by: Siamang
17 12/14/06 1:51 PM | Comment Link |I can see everyone’s names now. I’m running Safari on the Macintosh.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
18 12/14/06 1:57 PM | Comment Link |Marty, there was a problem earlier but I think Todd’s taken care of it. Mike, I think rather than ‘authority’ - the issue was that names linked to URLS didn’t show up.
Comment by: Mike O
19 12/14/06 2:09 PM | Comment Link |And they still aren’t for me. Siamang, did you change something to get yours to work?
Comment by: Siamang
20 12/14/06 2:17 PM | Comment Link |Nope.
Comment by: Siamang
21 12/14/06 2:28 PM | Comment Link |Oh, and Mike…
Thanks for the yarn! ;-)
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
22 12/14/06 2:30 PM | Comment Link |Mike are you saying you still have invisible comment names? Could you try ‘refresh’/F5 to be absolutely sure?
Comment by: NCxian
23 12/14/06 5:55 PM | Comment Link |Folks, I don’t think Mike is offering the rat story as scientific evidence of faith. I think he is using it as a kind of parable to describe something that is hard to describe because it is about something personal, internal, not shared. By necessity, we talk about mystical things in metaphor.
Whether wharf rats can swim or not, I think the analogy you are making is a good one, Mike. My perception is that people of faith believe that their faith “works” for them. That it has a benefit to their lives that is significant and tangible enough for them to continue to adhere to it.
Dang, this preview is cool!
Comment by: Siamang
24 12/14/06 6:23 PM | Comment Link |I don’t take it as an attempt to provide scientific evidence of faith.
I used it as a jumping off point for my own object lesson, …a parable if you will. ;-)
Just outlining and exampling differences in what I value. I’m happier with a well-referenced set of facts. I’ll let Mike O characterize for himself what he likes about this use of a story about an experiment.
I don’t like the squishy, impossible to pin down nature of it. In the sermon, it’s an attempt to be specific. It’s not phrased as a parable, it’s phrased as an actual story about a real scientific experiment. It references a real experiment that really happened. It gives VERY specific results, 17 minutes to 36 hours.
It’s presented to give the impression that this is an actual scientific finding. It has the weight of scientific credibility behind it.
Which makes me say, “okay, which is it?” Real example or parable?
Anyway, that’s something that bugs me about it.
Comment by: NCxian
25 12/14/06 6:44 PM | Comment Link |I can see that. Now that we are all in agreement that MIke did not offer the story to prove its truth, or lack thereof, what do you think about the point that Mike was attempting to make with it, as a metaphor?
Comment by: Eliza
26 12/14/06 8:35 PM | Comment Link |Siamang wrote:
These days, tech savvy is 99% of finding stuff like this - way to go in finding it, Siamang!
I pulled up the citation in Pub Med, which offers a look at “Related Articles” - on quick scan, all 5 pages of related articles were about the parasympathetic system, none about drowning rats, or hope, that I could tell. But those articles are probably only related because they all have the same key subject word. Science Citation Index would be the way to find articles which reference Richter’s 1957 article in Psychosomatic Medicine, but it looks like access to SCI requires purchase.
This preview function is wayyyyyy cool (and distracting!!)
Comment by: Mike O
27 12/14/06 10:21 PM | Comment Link |Helen, I can see the names fine from home (where I am now), but not from work (where I was this afternoon). I’ll check it again tomorrow, but if I’m right, the problem is on my end, not yours.
It does seem to have something to do with whether or not the name has a link on it, though.
Comment by: Mike O
28 12/14/06 10:29 PM | Comment Link |Hey, I don’t claim to be the brightest bulb on the porch. I’m just trying to give some insight into the workings of the Christian mindset. I’m sure there’s more yarn where that came from!
Thanks NCxian. You’re right, I’m just trying to explain a difference in how Christians see faith compared to others. It’s not my intent to prove it, just to try to define it from my perspective.
Comment by: MTran
29 12/15/06 2:02 AM | Comment Link |Mike O.,
I think you are right that there are frequent misunderstandings between believers and non-believers about the definitions of words and phrases. It can be self defeating to try to discuss anything when key concepts are understood quite differently by the parties. So I think you have a good idea about trying to describe your understanding or experience of faith.
Do you have a preferred definition of “faith” that you can point us to? And can you describe how widely your definition is accepted among the denomination(s) that you are most familiar with?
Since most atheists were brought up in families that subscribed to one or more theistic belief systems, you’re likely to find that atheists have a pretty good idea as to the meaning of faith as it was represented in their earlier theistic surroundings. But there may well be a bigger barrier to understanding this concept than I would expect.
As to Siamang’s and Tom’s references to the experiments that were supposed to have inspired the original tale of rodential aquatic hope: thank you for the effort of finding and bringing the real data to our attention.
The “science” aspect of these types of religious inspiration stories has always puzzled me. It seems to be rather pointless, even self defeating, to try to use science, even in a most tenuous manner, to validate a religious belief, especially a deity. I realize that you were using the sciencey story as a means of description rather than as a basis for validation, but I have heard a lot of similar anecdotes that were told precisely to validate a religious belief.
Any insight you can give me as to why believers would seek some sort of scientific support for their deity of choice would be most welcome.
Comment by: David S
30 12/15/06 9:42 AM | Comment Link |What does the experiment have to do with faith? The rats had an expectation based on previous evidence and that gave them hope. Faith is not hope. Faith is more like blind hope.
Comment by: David S
31 12/15/06 9:48 AM | Comment Link |That and I’d like a reference to this supposed experiment. In my experience a lot of faith promoting material that is passed around can never be traced to anything that really happened.
Comment by: Siamang
32 12/15/06 10:52 AM | Comment Link |Look at my post above for the actual published experiment.
Comment by: Karen
33 12/15/06 12:01 PM | Comment Link |In thinking about the larger question, I agree that hope is somehow essential for a full life. But I don’t equate “hope” with “belief in the supernatural.”
Most atheists have hope and believe in lots of things - the kindness and loyalty of their loved ones, for starters - without believing in religion.
For instance, people hope that medical research will provide treatment for their disease and often that hope keeps their spirits up enough to survive until that treatment is available. They’re not necessarily hoping for a supernatural intervention, however.
Believing or hoping you can do an athletic feat - like making a tough catch in the outfield - can be essential to actually accomplishing it. But that hope/belief isn’t that there’ll be a miracle and an angel will guide the ball into your glove.
Comment by: Mike O
34 12/15/06 1:08 PM | Comment Link |When I posted this, I was thinking this: The word ‘faith’ comes up on these blogs from time to time, and the sense I get is that non-believers tend to discount it, while believers don’t … in fact they rely upon it. Also, having run into a couple of vocabularical (heh heh) misunderstandings myself here, I thought I would try to clarify a potential difference in understanding in the word “faith.”
I would agree that faith, as it has been defined by non-believers in general, and David S specifically here, holds no logical, argumentative or scientific value. It’s just ‘hope’ or ‘belief.’
I think it was Siamang who said somewhere, “If I told you a dog’s tail was a leg, how many legs would a dog have?” And the answer is four - believing a dog’s tail is a leg doesn’t make it a leg. And actually, that’s a pretty good example of the difference in the atheistic definition of faith, vs the Christian definition. The atheistic definition of faith would be that faith is believing a dog’s tail is a leg, but a dog’s tail isn’t a leg, therefore faith is a non-factor.
But to a Christian (at least, to me), that is not faith at all.
That is simply what David S called “blind hope.”
Anyway, I started with this idea that in a dialogue like this, parties often misunderstand things because of different interpretations of the words used. And if those differences are just left there unaddressd, they will hinder clear communication.
With that thought in mind, I took this word, faith, and applied the biblical definition … the one I accept - “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I keyed in on the words “substance” and “evidence” and said to myself, “Those are words the scientific community understands.” I remembered the rats story which used to be one of my favorites, by the way, thanks for nothin’ ;/ and tried to make the connection that the evidence and substance of faith is the manifestation of hope - which brought me to the treading of water for 36 hrs.
Faith is more than belief … or at least it should be. Belief has no substance or evidence. But faith somehow does. It’s a sort of cause/effect relationship - For a Christian, belief/hope are the cause, and faith is the effect. Maybe for an atheist, faith is the cause and ignorance (lack of understanding) is the effect.
Does that work?
Anyway, that’s the thought process that brought about the post.
Comment by: Mike O
35 12/15/06 1:27 PM | Comment Link |MTran said
I guess what I posted above is my preferred definition. But how widely is it accepted among denominations? I think it’s widely accepted, but not at all widely understood. Virtually any Christian who has heard the verse I referred to would say they agree with it, but I doubt many really think critically about what they say they agree with … perhaps a valid rip on the Christians that I hear from atheists here.
This is kind of a catch-22. Another (valid) rip on believers is that we aren’t critical thinkers. “Damn the science, I believe in God!!” On the other hand, the ones that don’t say “Damn the science” are now categorized as people who use science to validate God, which may be true, but that’s not the right answer, either. What if, like me, someone believes in God and they are a critical thinker? What if I’m not using science to explain God, but rather just say that it fits?
If there is scientific support of my deity, not that I require it (other than one should not discount or ignore science … science is the search for understanding, is it not?), it is in the sheer volume of necessary occurances I see. It’s in the balance of everyting. It’s in the completeness of the puzzle. I see, and evolutionists see a zillion pieces to the puzzle. To me, the pieces would be scattered across the table if it were not for God. I can’t prove that, it just makes the most sense to me. The completed puzzle doesn’t prove God, but it does provide a likely explanation for how the pieces all came together right.
Comment by: Mike O
36 12/15/06 1:35 PM | Comment Link |That last two paragraphs in #35 was a longwinded way of saying that maybe science doesn’t explain God - maybe God explains science. I’m saying this without spending a ton of time mulling it over … but it resonates with me right now.
Comment by: MTran
37 12/15/06 4:25 PM | Comment Link |Mike O., Said: This is kind of a catch-22.
That may well be, perhaps it depends on how you define “god” and what makes you believe in that god.
The reason I asked the question about using science as validation for god is that I often hear creationists insist that their version of science is right and that science’s version is wrong. Not because the science is done poorly, but because it contradicts what they believe the Bible has said about some part of the natural world. I’m thinking of the Young Earth Creationists in this instance.
Other times I read about someone from the Discovery Institute in Seattle or Michael Bede in Pennsylvania claiming that there must be a god because they cannot figure out how something in biology works.
These types of validations of belief seem to paint a portrait of a mighty small god, one that is referred to as the “God of the Gaps” It relegates god to inhabiting the gaps in our understanhing, to the corners of our ignorance. I don’t know about you, but the faith I was raised in did not consider god to be the equivalent of ignorance.
Mike O. also said: maybe science doesn’t explain God - maybe God explains science. I’m saying this without spending a ton of time mulling it over, but it resonates with me right now.
I dont’t think that is such an unusual approach, and I believe that’s the understading of god that many of the believing scientists look to. It does seem to resonante with quite a few thoughtful people. It sounds quite a bit like a Deist approach to me, (though it’s been many years since by last theology class so any Deists out there can correct me on this).
Deism appears to be the religion of choice among America’s founders and I think a lot of believers slip into Deism without realizing it. I recall Deist friends who would say that their god was whatever the ultimate cause of the univers was, that their god was the ultimate reason behind the laws of science and that from time to time, there were particularly astute moral observers (such as Jesus or Buddha) who explained ways in which humans could best live ethically in a world that came into being through the laws of nature. For them, science simply uncovers the workings of “nature” and therefor of god.
I’ve taught regularly at a handful of state and church afffiliated universities and the Deist model seems to be very much alive among many of the students and faculties. But for those who strongly believe in a specific god or religion, many have told me, after long discussions, that their belief is one of “credo consolans”. That’s pretty hard to argue against. And so long as their credo encourages benevolent behavior and does not include hateful treatment of other people, I really have no interest in dissuading them.
Talk about long-winded! I think I beat Mike O. on the wind scale!
Comment by: Mike O
38 12/15/06 10:40 PM | Comment Link |Well, one problem with this statement is that it assumes that god is only the god of the gaps. By that I mean that this statement seems to be saying that where the gaps are (in the ignorance of science), that’s where god is. And were there are no gaps, that’s not where god is.
But I believe that God is god of everyting, that within everything created by Him, science works. God is not merely a god of the gaps, but it is in the gaps that he perhaps becomes more visible. It’s in the gaps were there is no other known explanation (at least it’s a gap) that God must be at least considered as the cause. But that does not imply that God is not where there are no gaps.
Comment by: benjamin ady
39 12/20/06 8:14 AM | Comment Link |Thankyou Siamang for tracking down the source. I find it interesting that I felt *enormously* annoyed to see that source being quoted with no citation. It led me to immediately almost completely write Mike off. Sorry Mike. I think perhaps we just think very differently about things. It just felt so typical of my interactions with churches and Christians in general. I’ve come to realize over the last while that I’ve kind of come to be a member of the church of reason. Quoting sources without citing is heresy in this church–we get in trouble for–it’s called plagiarism.
I felt the story touched on a great truth. As Jack Lewis said
That is, it often feels to me like god is a bit like this cruel experimenter, who provides one instance of salvation to give us the hope, and then puts us back in again to see how long we’ll keep trying before we finally succumb. He somehow incites hope in us, when it’s clearly not warranted. I rather hate that, and yet even I can’t seem to escape his cruel hope incitement.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
40 12/20/06 8:22 AM | Comment Link |Benjamin, I’m glad you didn’t quite write Mike off.
Unfortunately this seems to often be ‘the Christian way’ - to quote things without attribution. If Christians called each other on it more diligently maybe the practice would become less common. Which in my opinion would be a good thing!