Sunday 15 May 2011

Sunday Stupidity: On Faith

Faith is not knowledge. It is saying that, for you, knowledge is actually irrelevant:

“’Faith’ designates blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence or proof.”
            - Leonard Peikoff, The Ominous Parallels

With the result:

“The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind.”
            - Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

[Image from the Atheist Revolution blog.

6 comments:

Shauna said...

Not something to base real world decisions by?

Then I trust that you never start a business from scratch.

And even if you buy an existing successful business - there is nothing to guarantee similar or better results for YOU as the new proprietor.

If we base our premise on the fact that nobody starts a business to fail, then faith in oneself to succeed is the only thing one does have.

Anonymous said...

"The alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind."

If that statement is true then I wonder why Faraday and Newton weren't atheists? Gregor Mendel even.

Rand is a boring, grossly overrated pseudo-philosopher. I just can't fathom why you libtards hold her musings with such rigid, cult-like ideological reverence.

Dolf said...

Shauna,

New businesses (Successful ones at least) are not started on blind faith, but on evidence gathered from trends and research. Applied over this is experience, logic, and forecasting methods, which are known and that can be, and have been, tested.

Nowhere does blind faith come into the equation.

Fierce Guppy said...

But they didn't use the rabbit's foot while doing the actual science, Anonymous.

Shauna said...

I didn't say 'blind faith', Dolf. I said 'faith in oneself'.

You can research trends/statistics etc and perform due diligence as much as you wish - and you'd be mad not to, prior to purchase - but I stand by my third paragraph.

Michael said...

I guess we'll all find out once and for all on Sunday, when the 12 million get beamed up (or not). I'm picking not - but what would I know?