"Faith: Pretending to know things you don't know" by Dr. Peter Boghossian

Dr. Peter Boghossian's May 6th public lecture, "Faith: Pretending to know things you don't know"

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[ma1k3ru01]

The people that should watch this won't.

[Untoured]

If you don't have good reasons for believing X then you don't know it. And if you pretend to have good reasons for believing X when you don't then that is a way of pretending to know X when in fact you don't. Sometimes you have good reasons for believing that other people know things that affect the validity of X and that can be part of what gives you good reasons for believing X. But if you pretend that they know things when you don't know that they do, then that is also a matter of faith.

[jacopman]

We are in agreement and you are correct.....

......I was being sarcastic by pointing out the futility of faith that some believers claim as an evidentiary foundation.

Of course we have empirical evidence of all gravitational laws........but nothing exists that is empirical in nature to validate any belief of ancient manuscript claims of absolute true revealed by the supernatural................

[EebstertheGreat]

Your analogy is really bad. Various aspects of gravity, including the inverse-square law itself, are tested on a frequent basis. Not only do we make plenty of informal daily observations that could qualify as "tests" of a sort, there are numerous extremely precise laboratory and cosmological studies published on the topic every year.

There is no "foundation" for faith. Faith, by religious definition, requires a "leap" that cannot be proved. Why this is considered virtuous, I have no idea.

[TimSurrey]

The US is not a democracy? Er, no. Who cares whether WW2 was just or not, that was not the point I was making.

I did not say the science was absurd. I said your sweeping statement was, and it remains so. This does not mean there is zero evidence to support your position.

You seem unable to understand even the most basic ideas, yet you post attacks on scholars and intellectuals. Amazing.

[Dave Burrows]

The US is a republic, not a democracy. WWII was probably the last just war in which we've been involved.

On England's Salisbury Plane not far from it's border w/ Wales stands a monument left by ancient humans called Stonehenge. Very near there is a much larger stone circle called Avebury & within it, two additional, smaller stone circles. The Avebury complex also includes West Kennett Long Barrow & Silbury Hill. Check out the relationship between these sites & then call the science there absurd

[TimSurrey]

We (democracy) needed to defeat Them (the Nazis) - there's one example. I could think of thousands of others where a we-them position was essential.

Ancient people came together to trade technologies? What an absurd sweeping statement. Yeah, and they also hacked each other to bits quite often too.

The our side/their side thinking absolutely does not hold back progress. What does hold it back is glib, banal attacks on thought that you have taken to posting on You Tube.

[Dave Burrows]

Please explain to me how the we-them mentality has ever moved our species forward? Ancient people came together, possibly annually, to trade technologies among other things. It was that cooperation that brought us into what we now accept to be a civilized human condition. The our-side / their-side thinking only holds progress back. It reminds me of high school rivalries.

[Dave Burrows]

I am agnostic, but this inflammatory approach is childish; both sides have their own brand of it. It is antithetical to facilitating dialog & dialog is necessary to gain insight, & understanding. To that end, agreement is unnecessary. The world is fractured over religion. It's time that rational folk end the pissing contests & put some effort into reconciliation. It's time to bring lasting peace to our world. It's clear that neither churches nor governments care to do that. Therefore, ~we~ must.

[Okang Bandele]

I Totally Agree _ Cause To Them They Have Enough Faith In Themselves To Know What Videos Not To Watch _ Lol

[HellboundApostate]

Sad but true.