Why do people accept faith?

Ps: Actually, I'm curious about people who accept faith (devout believers). Curious about how faith and science go hand in hand.

Explore the history of truth

Ancient Greek philosophy

Philosophy begins with people who look up at the stars.

What is the essence of this world, what is truth and what is reliable knowledge. These problems followed, and the Greeks opened a magnificent history of human thought.

At first, Thales said that the world was made of water. Later, some people said that the world was made of fire, while others said that it was made of soil and water. Then came atomism. Then who is right? No one can convince anyone of these views.

What is reliable knowledge? This question seems to need to be answered first.

It is impossible to obtain convincing knowledge and find reliable knowledge, which is also one of the reasons for the decline of philosophy and the rise of religion. The era of philosophical speculation has ended, and the era of faith has risen in the vast territory of the Roman Empire, marking a historical dividing line that has influenced future generations for two thousand years.

follow conventionality

Christian scholasticism inherited many contents of Greek philosophy. From Pythagoras to Plato, Greek philosophy has a tradition of emphasizing reasoning and deduction. This tradition is carried forward by Christian scholasticism. Bacon has a joke:

The horse outside had a few more teeth, and theologians began to turn over the classics. Just as everyone was arguing, a young monk who was a doorman came in and said, I counted twelve. Then theologians laughed at him and said that he was so easily deceived by Satan's illusion.

Empiricism and rationalism

That is, from the time of Bacon, people began to pay attention to another tradition, that is, experimental observation. Empiricism has since arisen. Galileo began to climb the leaning tower of Pisa and throw the ball, and made a telescope to observe the movement of the moon and Jupiter. After that, empiricism also went to the extreme, thinking that human reasoning is unreliable and human knowledge can only come from experience. But gradually, everyone found that rationalism attached importance to reasoning. For example, Newton can accurately predict the orbit of the planet with his wonderful deduction of mathematics. This shows that the reasoning is also correct.

Positivism, the embryonic form of modern science

Later, people found that when we proved whether the reasoning result was correct, we still returned to experience and observation. So positivism was born. The significance of positivism lies in proving the theory with experiments and acknowledging the reliability of reasoning and experience.

The knowledge gained by this method has amazing predictive ability. For example, the difference between some calculated results of quantum mechanics and experimental results is dozens of zeros after the decimal point. This amazing predictive ability makes us full of confidence in this method. It can be found that, just as religion wins people's trust by prediction, confidence in science comes from the ability to predict, and it is a very accurate and repeatable prediction. )

But is it really 100% reliable?

Dependency model theory

In modern philosophy or physics, Hawking named it "dependence on model" for the viewpoint of why reason and experience can successfully explore the laws of the world. The key difference between this view and positivism lies in:

1, why our rational (mathematical reasoning) conclusion from the premise is effective is still a mystery; [ 1]

2. The operation of the world has unchangeable laws, and those chaotic fields without laws have no providence, which is a hypothesis in itself. And what we do is just to use mathematical language or other languages as tools to build a model of the observed object (phenomenon) in our consciousness.

The significance of the model shows that theory and fact are not 100% consistent. Just like a map is only a description of the real world, just like the apple described and simulated by the word "Apple". A theory is a description of what we observe.

Then, it realized that we could never get the so-called truth.

This description is very successful at present. But it is also possible that the world suddenly becomes uneasy and the established routine becomes very arbitrary, which no one can guarantee. So this is only relatively credible, not absolutely correct.

Because reasoning ultimately needs experience to prove, reason is a boundary, which delimits the exact knowledge within the scope of experience. Because both reason and experience can only be used to build models, we can't get absolutely correct truth, so if there is truth, it must be outside the boundaries of reason. On the contrary, if we insist on rationality and doubt, then we can never 100% believe one thing.

In the process of seeking truth, reason finally condemned itself to death. He tells people that the truth cannot be obtained, and he asserts that there is nothing we can be 100% sure of, and there is no indisputable knowledge. We are not even sure whether the sun will rise as usual tomorrow and whether the laws of the universe will never change. The only thing we know for sure is that the word "sure" is no longer used. We can only say, probably, right. Although we are now very confident in our rational ability and experience and have made great achievements, why they are effective is still a mystery.

The boundary of truth

As mentioned earlier, although rationality and experience are very successful, they still can't acquire 100% confident knowledge, and there is always a gap between the circle they draw for themselves and the truth. Faith is in this gap, which has stabilized its shelter.

In the picture above, the outermost circle is surrounded by the truth, which we can be 100% sure of.

The innermost circle is a theory that can be proved by experience, and the boundary of this range is rationality.

Faith is to break through this rational boundary, fill in the blank, and make people 100% sure.

The meaning of the word rationality is not immutable. Since Descartes, its core meaning is doubt. Doubt everything until there is no doubt. Descartes said that the only thing I can't doubt is that I doubt (think) the thing itself, so I think, therefore I am.

Faith is a choice.

Whether to jump out of the circle of rational definition is actually a choice. People who make different choices have different desires.

Doubt and no doubt are two different psychological States, which can be chosen. People who choose faith, they don't have high requirements for reliability, but they must want to find the feeling of 100% faith. Because they think that even if you use rational logic and experience, you just want to find something to make you believe (find a dependency model), so you still aim at believing. Because they aim at faith, when choosing faith or rationality, they take the degree of faith that they can make people reach as the standard. Since reason can never be fully believed, we must rely on faith if we want to reach the outermost circle. Therefore, by giving up and no longer doubting, they walked out of the circle of rational definition and gained a 100% certain psychological state.

Those who believe believe, and so do those who ask.

Faith deals with experience by bringing it into its own domain. Fortunately, it can also fill the "belief" gap that experience can't reach. However, is it really necessary to pursue 100% trust Do we have to fill in this blank to reach the limit of 100% letters? Or is it more rational to stay in the circle of empirical rationality carefully and stop at 99% letters with a little doubt?

Why can't 100% be sure of the theory and choose to believe it instead of the belief that can make people 100% believe it?

He who does not believe is reliable in asking.

It is probably an eternal choice to reduce your fear of being at a loss, or to stand in a reliable circle with fear.

1, monotheist (it grants eternal happiness to everyone); 2. Dualism (it rewards some voters with happiness, while everything else is punished forever) [2]

This part is a bold idea based on the content of "The End of Everything" in Critique of Historical Reason.

Christian miracle

Of course, if you just want to believe, then so many religions in the world claim to be truth. Why do you believe in Christ? The reason why the Christians I know at present are so convinced is that all the predictions in the Bible have been accurately realized, and that Christ has shown miracles.

On the one hand, establish believers' beliefs from the perspective of pure reason, such as immortality of God, immortality of soul and free will. On the other hand, the Bible is used to prove the above viewpoint, and at the same time, it is proved that after God came to the world, he proved his existence through some wonders and the blessings of believers because of his faith. [3]

Miracles are not unique to Christianity, but Christian miracle propaganda has played a greater role than other religions. Why? Because they have a Bible, which is a history that runs through the whole world, this is also the advantage of Christianity over other sects. [3]

Science cannot find the meaning of life, but religion boldly promotes it.

On the other hand, science cannot tell people the purpose and meaning of life. But people always need to know the purpose of all their actions. Since science is powerless, it needs a divine master to tell himself what to do and what not to do, and to tell himself the purpose of this life.

Before the knowledge of evolution and genes came out, people would inevitably think that since such a complex creature as human beings has appeared between heaven and earth, since we have raised the question of why we are alive, it means that all this must exist for a purpose. How can a purposeless universe produce creatures like us? Why do creatures like us come into being? There must be a creator's will behind this.

Even more than 200 years after the advent of evolution, some people are still unwilling to accept it. Because their thirst for meaning makes them unwilling to accept a life without goals. But this rejection does not come from reason, but only from perceptual resistance.

"Life must be meaningful, so there must be God, and there must be God, so life must be meaningful." These two articles form a circular inference. Because for some people, life without purpose doesn't know how to live. Too much freedom and contradictory nature make people need a reason for self-reconciliation. They think that human nature is evil, and people will not love each other without the help of the Holy Spirit.

But is human nature evil? Is there no morality in people's hearts? Is there no morality without God? See my other article on morality for details.

Peel off goodwill layer by layer.

Source:

[1] Feynman lecture;

[2] "Historical Rational Criticism Collection" Kant Tsinghua University Publishing House;

[3] The History of Western Philosophy Russell Business Press;