RE: Faith: rational or irrational

["Elaine Yeadon" <elaine.yeadon@lineone.net>]

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I've just realised the following message from Jonathan Cameron was sent to
my address alone (i think) so have posted it here.
Elaine

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I heard a guy give a talk on the relationship between science and
religion, and to be honest I can't really remember what he said, apart
from that Wittgenstein had said something to the effect of: science is
concerned with the "howness" of the universe, whereas what is
mysterious is the "thatness". What I took that to mean was that an
appreciation of the "thatness" of the universe (*that* there is a
universe at all) is bound to be ineffable, because, well, in the face
of nothingness, what is there to say? That sounds like a lame-o thing
to say, but I want to say that there's a parallel between deep
religious *faith* (NOT belief) and deeply humanist, atheist
existentialism (sorry for probably gross abuse of technical terms.)
The parallel is this: if you're religious, I'd imagine you have a
faith in the deep fact that things are out of your hands, and this is
comforting. If you're existentialist, you really ought to have been
confronted with, and attempted to overcome, determinism and your
impending annihilation you-know-not-when. Now, if your dealing with
death wasn't merely narcissitic angst, then you should, by my
calculations, arrive at a sense of peace that things are out of your
hands, you could die at any second, and will know nothing about it
whatsoever (and so better make the most of what's present to one's
senses). That takes care of the 'thatness' of life - or the universe,
if we're being Zarathustrian about it. So now you're free to draw all
the connections between ideas and concepts etc. you like - which
amounts to science. You can pick a phenomenon you want to explain, or
a goal you want to achieve, and manipulate ideas/the universe to fit
your needs - that's the "howness" (*how* the universe happens to be/is
truly in itself/how we carve it up etc.) So I think faith isn't really
'intentional' - if it's a conscious 'belief' I personally don't
recognise it as faith - I'd call that kind of 'belief' in god
Otherworldsmanship, after Zarathustra. These beliefs are open to
debate, factual questioning etc, and are really about Howness. Thus, I
don't see why religious faith and existentialism have to be
incompatible: You can explain "thatness" any way you like, but
underlying it is the awareness (faith) that it doesn't make the
slightest bit of difference what story you tell - you'll be annihilated
at some point, better make the most of what's present to my senses...
It just occured to me that most 'religious' people want an afterlife,
and so probably aren't posessed of faith as I've described it. Or are
my statistics off?

Right - can anyone unpick anything of interest from the above?

Jonathan

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