when I am going 65 and need to take an exit, I have faith that when I put on the brakes it will slow the car.

when I return home from shopping, I have faith that my wife will not have packed up and departed the premises.

So, faith based on prior evidence.

So, not all faith is a cognitive error - which in a way you were getting at.

Faith in something with utterly no factual basis - that has a long, long history in humankind....we've been reading the history of philosophy, and faith in something huge and amorphous and omnipotent emerged well before BC flipped into AD. So, that kind of faith may well be a feature...or a bug depending how one looks at it

You believe that the brakes on your car will work because they have always worked in the past. The same is true for your wife still being there when you get home. You have evidence for that kind of faith. You could use the word trust just as easily to describe how you see those things. They are clearly based on evidence and repeated experiences.

Still, as you point out, there is another definition of faith, which is the one I'm talking about. This is the Religion Group, after all, so I'm discussing faith with that in mind.

The assertion that not all faith is a cognitive error is exactly correct.

when you say you have "faith" that your brakes will work, or that your wife will still be home when you get back after shopping? None of these definitions speak of the existence of prior evidence.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith

1a : allegiance to duty or a person : LOYALTY
lost faith in the company's president

b(1) : fidelity to one's promises

(2) : sincerity of intentions
acted in good faith

2a(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
clinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return

(2) : complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction
especially : a system of religious beliefs
the Protestant faith

on faith
: without question
took everything he said on faith

That can mean different things to different people.

However the use of the word Faith as in believing without evidence (looking at you Religion), does to my mind imply a true cognitive error.

so discussions of faith here will be with that in mind, I'd think.

I just don't have faith in it ^.^

. . . or want to fit in, or out of fear of what will happen to them if they don't believe.

I'd say having faith means a person doesn't really care very much about the truth,
which is why believers look for confirming evidence, for reasons to believe,
rather than looking at disconfirming evidence which could disprove what they believe.

Is it a cognitive error if the person really isn't seeking truth but something else? I don't know.

tending to attach significance to certain things or events. We seen patterns in randomness, like seeing constellations in the stars. It's very hard to shake the sense of order in randomness, even if you know something is truly random.

For most people, too, exposure to religious faith begins at a very early age, so the concept becomes deeply imprinted and pervasive. I first started attending Sunday school at age six. We sang songs, and music is one of those imprinting things. For a six year old, singing "Yes, Jesus Loves Me" over and over again gets that deeply seated in the brain.

Further, faith is an emotional concept, rather than an intellectual one. We're more tied to emotional information in the more primitive parts of our brains, so a strongly imprinted emotional response often takes priority over other information we process.

Pattern forming, of course, is involved.

This is the paradox of faith in unfalsifiable claims.

You can't prove their faith is false, therefore you can't prove the cognitive error. The same can be said for those who believe in purple people eaters, the Loch Ness monster, the abominable snowman, and leprechauns.

If you believe 1 + 1 = 2 because of faith without any logical basis or understanding there is no reason for 2 + 2 to not equal tangerine by the same process.

Just because the faith gives the right answer in one context does not mean it will in another, it remains a cognitive error.

Your first example will never be an error regardless of the method used to get there.

but in the process used to gain the result.

If you believe 1 + 1 = 2 because someone told you it was, that isn't an error. It's not as if religious belief is made up by each individual. It's all revelation that is passed from one to another.

but I wonder if we are on different tracks, it's hard to say. Oh well. 0430 am gonna go to bed cya later

I would agree that religious faith requires a significant departure from reason, but I don't think that by itself constitutes a cognitive error because there's no way to prove it isn't an error.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1218300888

Reset kept going to 'cognitive error/critical thinking missing'. 😏

Ahm jus' sayin'... 😼

Yours truly,
Folksy 🤠 Hayseed 🌾 Country 🚜 Bumpkin 🌽

Hope y'all enjoying my googly eye thingies. 🤣

Looks like you are going to have reinstall the operating system. The cognitive error will be fixed but you will forget everything you ever knew. I hope you have a backup.

Unless you have Windows, in which case the error is meaningless information.

I yam a yuge ditzy doofus with zero critical thinking skills and yam off the charts in the cognitive error dept.

Gonna blast. My clams are almost done. 😋

Not applicable.

There are ikonic written windows that give a glimpse into other worldly.

One chooses not to apply the same standards one uses to test all other knowledge in one's life, to matters of religious faith.

(Some go one step further and refuse to allow ANYONE to question matters of religious faith.)

Especially since they often choose not to apply the same standard to their religion that they apply to every other religion.

Last edited Fri Jan 18, 2019, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Wow cognitive error sounds so damning. But I suppose a lot of things that humans do and believe could be seen as cognitive errors. Assuming that I am in any way different than any other human being and entitled to more resources based upon being born on the North American continent is probably a cognitive error, so patriotism is probably also cognitive error. But if there is nothing to have faith in, and humans are just the result of variations in DNA replication, resulting in natural selection (I am not a "creationist", whatever that means) then is there really such thing as "error", at least from an ethical standpoint?

I am not a member of a religious group, personally, but I do count myself as one of the growing class of people who consider themselves "spiritual, but not religious." So I do have a faith, but I don't have a religion. I see the Bible, the Quran, the Sutras and etc. as mythical writings. Many want to take everything in them literally, even that which defies historical and scientific evidence. Utilizing scientific method, it would therefore be an error to believe that, for example, Moses parted the Red Sea (or even lead a nation of Israelites out of Egypt for that matter).

But there is great value and power in myth from a spiritual standpoint. Anyone who reads and appreciates Joseph Campbell would probably agree. So I could believe the lessons and truths about us behind biblical stories or stories of the Buddha without having to actually believe that they happened, or that they happened as described in texts originating from at least as early as the Bronze Age. So reading and studying such texts, which are full of errors and inaccuracies is not an error for me because I can still learn and understand things about human nature and spirituality from them. Because they are human attempts at describing a divine, if there is a divine, I personally doubt that every single thing in them has value.

My personal, non-religious faith is that there is something greater, something powerful that I can tap into emotionally and psychologically. It is not scientific, but based upon my personal spiritual experiences. I have found strength in spiritual exercises, hope in prayer and ethical guidance in meditation. I can't explain it, I can't say everyone would experience the same, but I just do. I don't say others need to do the same, but I feel like there is a universal good that I can tap into that has helped me deal with my problems and difficulties. Is it a psychological trick? Maybe, but it works for me and I have seen it work in others.

It may not be what I think it is, or it may not prove the existence of the Divine, but it works nonetheless. I do not personally need a better explanation, nor do I personally believe that I could begin to explain it. Humans are not solely logical, they are also emotional and, I believe at least for me, spiritual. So if it works, to make me and my life happier, more peaceful and more ethical, I subjectively believe even if it is an error, it is not a mistake.

Like you, I've had several personal spiritual experiences, believe in the power of prayer and through faith, have gotten through many dark times in my life. As a result, I too am much happier, more peaceful as well as being more ethical and understanding of others. I do not believe that my spirituality is an error and it is most certainly not a mistake.

Most of the brain functions unconsciously. I think spiritual practices are ways we can contact these unconscious functions and feel more in tune with ourselves and our environment. Could be just our own brains generating feelings, could be we are tapping something more. Either way, the explanations are secondary to the experience and are called "beliefs." People attack other people's beliefs without ever asking about the experience behind the beliefs. Even if we have the wrong beliefs, it doesn't change the experience or the value of it.

Seriously, though, I will waiver back and forth at times between faith and some degree of agnosticism, but then I just try to focus on spiritual principles rather than try to figure it all out.

And faith or lack thereof is a choice as well. I do not challenge those that choose to believe there is no God, that is their personal choice and should be respected. But that should work both ways; Mutual respect between those that are spiritual/religious and atheists is sorely needed.


Tolerance of others is important to the well being of everyone regardless of race, gender, nationality etc. Though I really struggle to be tolerant of Trumpers in light of all the harm being caused to our nation.


To paint with a wide brush though that anyone that has faith suffers from an error in thinking, that's just unfair. You cannot take an entire group of people, without understanding why they made the choice they made for various reasons and marginalize them to feel better about your own beliefs.


As for myself, I am a very spiritual person through several spiritual experiences and as an earlier poster mentioned, As a result, my faith has helped to be a happier person, brought about an inner peace and to make ethical choices in dealing with my fellow man.

But some are not content with their own choices, and must paint those who make different choices as subject to error, or exhibiting a lack of cognitive ability.

Some people believe the earth is flat. Some believe homosexuality is a tool of the devil. Some believe women shouldn’t have control ever their own means of reproduction.

Just because I must tolerate the people who hold those warped beliefs doesn’t mean I have to respect the belief itself.

On the other side of that coin I could care less if you think it’s silly or misguided to reject belief in deities. I actually expect most people do.

and simply ask for the same respect in return. Also, I never said "it’s silly or misguided to reject belief in deities". Everyone has the right to believe whatever they wish.

And for the record, I am pro-choice and have no problems whatsoever with the LGBT community. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is NONE of my business nor should it be the governments or religious groups.

You said “I do not challenge those that choose to believe there is no God, that is their personal choice and should be respected.“

While it’s true that some atheists choose to believe there is no god, most do not take that position. Now some people just don’t know the definition of atheism, and some deliberately define it in just the way you did with the specific intent of being disrespectful. I take no offense either way but it’s worth mentioning.

I wouldn’t expect you to subscribe to any of the beliefs I mentioned and as a DUer I would assume you don’t. The point was that just because someone believes something, or doesn’t in no way obligates anyone to respect that belief. Tolerance demands I respect your right to believe whatever you want. I won’t even go as far as to say you are wrong for whatever it is you believe. But tolerance doesn’t mean I have to respect the belief, and whether it applies to you or not belief does go into some places that deserve no respect whatsoever.

Nor did I make the quote you're attributing to either of my posts.

As for the definition of atheism, link: https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/about-atheism/

To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

Either way, I take no offense as well and simply ask that you please not misquote me.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=305671

The only edit I made was the addition of quotes around what I cut and pasted from your post. I'm not sure how I could have misquoted you.

At any rate regardless of how you define atheism, it is no more than an idea and like all ideas it's entirely possible to disrespect the idea without disrespecting those who may subscribe to that idea. That's a very important concept to understand if you want to hang around here because you'll see lots of disrespect towards various ideas. I understand many religionists have a serious investment in many of their ideas, but at the end of the day they are still nothing more than ideas. So if you take personal disrespect from an instance where someone merely disrespected an idea you happen to like, you might want to consider if it's because maybe you aren't as sure of that idea as you might wish. If you believed in it strongly enough, criticism of it shouldn't affect you.

Comparing atheism to religion is by no means nothing more than a binary choice. As you said, atheism is a lack of belief in gods. Some atheists go one step further and believe there are no gods. Even in the 2nd instance that's the extent of atheism. OTOH, religion isn't just the belief that one or more gods exist. It incorporates various mythologies, philosophies, moralities, dogma, and doctrines to varying degrees. That's a lot of ideas you are asking others to respect and in return you can only offer respect of a very basic idea that I'm pretty sure most atheists wouldn't care if you respected or didn't.

The bottom line is if you want to believe one or more deities exist, I can certainly respect that much and I won't say you are wrong. The problem is religion brings a shitton more baggage with it and asking anyone to respect all of it is a bit too much, IMO. There's a lot of things people file away as intolerance that has exactly shit to do with tolerance.

It isn't for me, at any rate.

Is it really different for you? If it really is a choice for you, would you describe how you go about doing that? How exactly do you convince yourself to believe something that you don't believe? Thanks in advance.

We start off young, basically choosing to believe our parents most of the time, except when they spout apparent nonsense like "too much candy will make you sick." Then as we get older, we gather more evidence, perhaps getting sick from candy and changing our beliefs. Or perhaps determining we got sick from something else, then, for totally unrelated reasons, becoming fat.

We may one day hear of a relationship between candy consumption and fatness. Despute it's patent absurdity, we decide to test the candy-fat relationship for 3 days or so, feeling crappy and losing no weight, thereby disproving the ridiculous and harmful theory. Or we go on a diet for a year, losing 30 pounds and think that there might actually be some connection and thereby become an acandist. Sadder but skinnier, we continue our lives without the comfort of candy.

Alternatively, we may simply dismiss the idea that candy causes fatness and remain a candist for the rest of our short but happy lives.

So it's not like we suddenly choose one belief or another, but a series of small choices along the way, whether we going to accept what we we always thought, or try out new ideas to explore and eventually adopt.

I don't think anyone believes anything without evidence of some sort. The issue is what constitutes evidence. Often the evidence is "my parents told me" or "it make me feel good." Not scientific evidence, but still a type of evidence.

Some of us aren't indoctrinated and no choice is required or optioned.

But presumably you've thought about what you think in general right? And you don't think the same things as when you were 6 or 18 years old? So there is some sort of process going on there, right?

Presumably we are or should be talking about religious belief, which has a decidedly different connotation than believing something outside that context.

In regards to religious belief I have never had any sort of process going on there. I never made a decision because I never felt the need to make a decision just like you probably never felt the need to decide whether or not purple people eaters were real.

Most people are indoctrinated with religious belief and as such do not have the perspective of not being indoctrinated. As such they have a hard time understanding that one simply does not have to make a choice at all.

Your early learning was about science and reason I presume. You accepted and internalized those lessons. I assume not blindly, since science doesn't teach blind acceptance. So your first decisions sent you in a totally different direction, you decided for science before even considering religion.

If you were to decide to go down the religious path, you wouldn't just suddenly decide the Bible is true, you'd first have to decide what you already think is inadequate. There's no shortage of people asking you to do exactly that, even here in this group. Each time, your answer is the same -no thanks. You could decide to move yourself even further away from the religious path (not that you aren't already very far away). You could leave this group, then you wouldn't even have to think about why your scientific atheism isn't a faith.

Sometimes an issue is so complex certain concepts of it can be more easily explained with an analogy. This isn't one of those things as it just isn't that complex. The pitfal to analogies is they often lead to cognitive errors as none of them exactly duplicate the matter in question.

We can question our beliefs, examine evidence, and listen to opposing ideas. That is a choice, and many people flatly refuse to do those things. However, for me at least, the belief or disbelief itself is involuntary.

I'd say the idea that you should (or shouldn't) examine your own beliefs is itself a belief, but that's not essential to my point. "Belief" covers such a broad range of meaning, that it often confuses more than it reveals.

one 'embraces' a faith. Not necessarily simply chooses one. Being faithful to/in a 'faith' is somewhat a choice. Choosing to adhere to precepts, etc. of a tradition of faith.

Sorry to say, but 'most' everything I've read in this thread, I'm like, "What th' everlovin' hell?"

I can't follow this any longer.

But person to person, I 💙 you.

Still, before you can "embrace" a particular faith, you first have to believe the things you're embracing - the tenets of that faith - are true. Is that not so? The poster who started this particular subthread seems to think one can just decide to believe those things, and Poof! It will happen. It really doesn't work that way.

It's called Theosis. They are nurtured from their baptism/chrismation in being offered 'Sunday School', Weekday study, classes to prepare for first Holy communion and confession. Then there's youth choir, acolyte participation, activities such as Orthodox camp, volunteering in building homes for and other ministering to peoples of other countries or our own in need.

A person receives 'inner guidance' that may be a call to the priesthood, diakonia, monastic life, or like that. Or just enter into holy matrimony and that family becomes a figure/model of the personhood of the Trinity.

Again, I was presented the Faith and I choose to continue in it. Now then, there are those as adults who 'find' the Orthodox Church and are drawn to it for many reasons. One I've heard is that 'it makes sense'. A myriad of personal experiences of how one comes upon this Faith, examines it and embraces it.

I'm really not fluent in the jargon associated with your denomination. But that's cool, I like learning new things.

Your Church is rather ancient. I can see the sense in an adult Christian seeking out an old denomination, and finding that it resonates with them. What you describe for the kiddos is probably very similar to the introduction to faith that most any child in a religious household receives. Those methods of inculcating ideas have been refined over a very long time.

I hope you aren't kicking yourself.

I lost both of them.

I need to 'put food on the family' 😄 so let me get back to you.

Cheers....

Firstly, I'm appreciative of your 'interest', so please do not feel any presumption on my part in my replying.

Eastern Orthodoxy is not and never has considered itself a 'denomination'. It has identified itself as the Faith having inception at 33 A.D. and delivered to all by the Apostles. It has evolved some but not much. It has not introduced innovative ways of holding service, I.e., the primary worship service. Nor has it rethunk its theology, etc. and therefore introduced new or added/deleted doctrine or dogma.

For someone such as myself having difficulty with repetitiveness it's something that I do not consider the repetitive wording in our services cumbersome.

When services are sung, it is said we pray twice. First all wording is based in Scripture then having it sung is praying twice. We sing the Bible. We sing Scripture, not some innovative and catchy wording.

I love the richness of the Faith that was handed down to me. I participate in it willingly.

Husband was Covenant Congregational when we met. I never 'made' him or coerced him into embracing Orthodoxy. He sought it all on his own. He's practicing better than I, who at times a poor example.

Peace be to you.

I went to a Greek Orthodox church once, a couple of years ago, for the funeral of a dear friend. It certainly was very different than the Protestant services I've attended. I wish I remembered it better, but I was pretty broken up about the loss of my friend and did't pay as much attention as I normally would when I'm in a strange (to me) environment.

baptisms, chrismation [anointing and sealed with Holy Spirit], actually all sacraments are strikingly different from other church traditions.

There's nothing in Orthodoxy that isn't there for a reason. No, oops, we had better change that or discontinue that or do something more appealing.

I only know what I know.

When I got married, my husband's family, friends and guests were straining to get a good view as the ceremony enfolded. A first for many.

My maternal grandmother wove two wreaths from trailing periwinkle for us. We were 'crowned' during the ceremony. The couple is crowned with honor and glory. They are to reflect their Faith in their married life.

Do you continue to have sadness for your friend? If you are moved to, find online The Orthodox Church in America, The Antiochian Orthodox Diocese or The Greek Orthodox Diocese. They'll have words to a memorial service or even a funeral service. The words are beautiful in that they are comforting.

Paraphrased: "Give rest, O Lord, to your servant, in a place of green pasture, of light and refreshment from where pain, sorrow and mourning have fled away."

The service is fully biblical and it touches on our human condition and also our eternal inheritance.

"May Your Dear Friend's Memory Be Eternal."

https://ancientfaith.com/

My SIL accused me of 'doing something' to make my daughter be born handicapped. She has a genetic anomaly. In other words a broken chromosome. It happens at or before conception, but my SIL in addition to other religious idiots, believe I can wreck chromosomes!!!!!!!!! or that I would WANT to!!!!!!! pure self delusion so they can convince themselves that other people are evil and they aren't. IOW, if I believe in God, I can be as evil as I want to other people.

And those who do so are themselves guilty of a cognitive error.

Just sayin’

Studied the correlation of brain trauma in specific regions of brain and fundamentalist religious beliefs.

“Study uncovers how brain damage increases religious fundamentalism”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psypost.org/2017/05/study-uncovers-brain-lesions-increase-religious-fundamentalism-48860/amp

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5500821/pdf/nihms868078.pdf

But for sure it involves cognitive dissonance, two hold two conflicting ideas to both be true when they cannot be.

Along with a couple other comments it's been really nailed down I think.

And no, the inverse isn't true, there is no error in rejecting the idea that a deity exists, there's no double thinking, not special pleading, just don't see it with the evidence presented.

Cognitive dissonance is the mental anguish one feels from trying to simultaneously subscribe to multiple contradictory ideas. Self-righteousness grants one immunity from cognitive dissonance.

Doublethink is a term Orwell coined. It describes subscribing to multiple contradictory ideas without any mental conflict and is a feature of indoctrination. Arguably it's a more egregious cognitive error.

Which have been long since coopted as part of the whole good process.

The whole basis of every mythology in modern times is pretty much "there's no way to prove it doesn't exist, therefore we are correct" they've discovered that if you don't take a position that can be attacked then they don't have to defend anything, and why is everyone so upset?

Then deny any of the negatives are from religion, and claim that the positives would be impossible without it.

In a word, gaslighting.

Sick burn bro

Irrationalistic, superstitious, illogical.

Which is why it is frustrating to talk to faith based people.