Not that I'm upset at Anu, but the fact that so-called "professional writers" like this reporter make such a blatant error really galls me. (A good trick, considering I no longer have a gall bladder. ;-)
>rant> She calls the use of money an act of "faith." How ridiculous!! An act of faith is something you do when you have no evidence that it will turn out as you wish. OTOH, using money is something we do often. Unless you've forgotten the 99.9% of the time it works, then there is no "faith" involved. When something works 99.9% of the time you do it, you have "confidence" it will work as expected.
Why do people insist on using the word "faith" when the word "confidence" will do??!! I just don't understand. "Faith" is something you have in a god/dess, in a risky plan that has no real evidence it will succeed, or your belief in the rightness or wrongness of certain moral choices. "Confidence" is something you have in yourself (gee, I succeeded 75% of the time, I bet I can do it again), in others (she's shown me she loves me by doing x, y, and z), and in the physical universe (gee, the sun has come up 100% of the time, I'll bet it comes up tomorrow).
>/rant>
Bryan
Cheers, Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
" a blatant error really galls me " Dear Bryan: Just to tease you gently,even if you still had your gall bladder, it would have nothing to do with the above type of affliction.
yes, Dr. Bill-- please explain-- i thought gall was one of the 4 humors(sp?) bodily fluids identified by the ancient greeks and that is the name for a bitter substance excreted by the gall bladder to aid in digestion... and to "Be galled" was to experience that bitterness ( as one sometimes does with "acid indigestion"-- similar too, but not quite the same as "Heart burn")
so one can be galled (sick to the stomach with anger), with a bitter taste (literly and figuritively) in ones mouth-- and sans gall bladder, the bitter taste is only literly.
Am i wrong? I vaguely know about gall bladder problems (everyone is surprized i don't have any!) since i fall into the 4 F catagory-- fat, fair, female and fourty (+).
The dictionary gives a second meaning referring to such things as saddle sores on horses. So something that galls you is creating a mechanical injury, nothing to do with bile or its contents. At least that is my carefully considered humble opinion. wwh
Hi, Bryan, and welcome; I don't think I've said that yet.
I had to go look up the quote, and thought others might like an easy ref., so:
"The use of money is the purest act of faith; no anchorite who has followed a vision into the desert has acted on an idea as far-fetched as our belief that if we put a dollar in a machine we will be drinking a Diet Coke in a minute." Mary Gordon, We Are All Spendthrifts Now, It is hard to tell exactly what she meant, even with this. From the title, I might guess that perhaps she could have meant that anyone who spends money now is taking it on faith that there will be more money in the future.
Based on this quote, though, her logic is beyond me: we have MUCH evidence to support the belief that the machine will give us access to the drink we paid for.
I think she's referring to the bigger picture - the use of money as a token of value represents an act of faith. On pound notes this act of faith is embodied in the statement "I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of ~", which underscores the fact that what is being accepted as legal tender is a representation of value, having no intrinsic worth. And what happens when this faith starts to crumble? Ask rural bankers in the goldrush era, ask starving women in the Weimar republic...
Now tell me what bile has to do with the oak galls, the little hollow spheres about the size of ping-pong balls that form near tips of oak tree branches. "All gall is divided into three parts."
That is my whole point - the loss of *confidence* in the money. Faith had nothing to do with it. If faith were involved in money, it would never "lose value" and there would be no Weimar Republic type problems. People would continue as if nothing were wrong.
Certain religions have made predictions whose outcomes were definitively contradicted by reality. Yet these continue to flourish. If faith were involved with money, you would never have inflation or deflation. People would simply believe in the money no matter what other economic or political realities existed.
Confidence is what wanes and waxes with the evidence. Faith only changes when the emotional state of the individual changes.
Cheers, Bryan
Cheers, Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
Well, I think I understand your discrimination here, Bryan. But take this range of definitions as a quick sample:
faith (fāth) n. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See synonyms at belief, trust. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters. often Faith. Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith. A set of principles or beliefs. idiom: in faith
Indeed; truly.
[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman fed, from Latin fidēs.]
The first one sits OK with my understanding of this kind of faith, and seems reasonable given the etymology shared with words like fidelity, don't you think?
Thanks for that - but my contention rests on the connotations and not the denotations. The reporter's use of the term "purest faith" certainly adds punch to the "belief not based on evidence" definition - such terms are used when speaking of religion and not economics. While it may be argued, perhaps successfully ;-), that money is the US' religion, I don't think that was the context in which she was writing.
Certainly, the "faith of a mustard seed needed to move a mountain" is a far less tangible thing than the confidence in a very large earth-mover to accomplish the same thing. (sidebar - ever see one of those monsters?? They're friggin huge, and to call them "bulldozers" is like calling the Grand Canyon a "big valley".)
Cheers, Bryan
Cheers, Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
I'm not sure how much this will help in this little discussion, but I read an interesting debate a few days ago on the existence of God (http://members.truepath.com/CICweb/debate_Russell_index.html) and the negative defined 8 ways that we decide things. He said in order of importance they were logic, reason, confidence, trust, chance, obedience, hope and faith. He later went on to say that if you want to cross a 3-lane highway during rush hour you could use some of these methods:
(1) Reason. Look before crossing, believe the evidence of your eyes, and don't go until you see a break in the traffic (or until congestion brings it to a complete standstill).
(2) Trust. Accept my personal testimony that it will be safe to cross between 4:56:09 and 4:56:21 PM and go then.
(3) Faith. Eliminate all sensory input (too distracting for the truly faithful). Instead, plug your ears with wax, close your eyes and apply a blindfold, and just step out smartly at some random time, having faith that God will enable you to cross unscathed.
This probably has nothing to do with this discussion, but it does show that there's quite a difference between confidence and faith.
As someone whose existence is wrapped up in his complete lack of 'faith' as an adherence to a creed, but rather a 'faith' in the perfectability of my fellow poissons, I applaud Max's humanity. I like Jazz's statement of that argument - but ultimately I think it has the meretricous appeal of much reductio ad absurdum argument.
However, it does, I agree, tend to illuminate a difference in the ways we tend to think about these different kinds of confidence or belief or hope or....
I find it amazing that such statements "trouble" someone. If one looks at the history of Christianity, most of what makes a Christian a Christian lies in articles of faith (cf Nicene, Apostle's, and Anathasian Creeds) and those are supposed to be held, no matter what logic, evidence, or argument is used. Essentially, to argue that your "faith" is modified by evidence is to destroy the meaning of faith, to water it down to nothing. Jesus refused because faith is not meant to be tested (that is what you do with evidence). You have faith, you don't test it to see if it works. You hold it in the face of all opposition. Paul's evidence was that of his own enlightenment, the personal revelation/vision made to him. That is the basis of his faith. The type of faith required by Christianity (and most other religions) has indeed been differentiated by priests and theologians. Followers using that same paradigm would look like fools in the practical world. Likewise, these same theologians do not want the tools of skepticism used by followers on the tenets of their religion. The semantic difference between "blind" faith and "healthy" faith is that "blind" faith applies to anything anyone says, whereas "healthy" faith applies only to what legitimate ecclesiastical authorities say. These same authorities will tell you that you've made the right decision if your faith and the evidence you have point you in the direction of belief and obedience. They will tell you that you need more faith if your evidence leads you to a different conclusion. In this case, they are not talking about faith modified by evidence (confidence) but faith in spite of evidence (belief without evidence).
My entire point still stands. To use the term "faith" when you really mean "confidence" waters down faith to nothing. If you have faith, you believe, and that settles it. If you have confidence, then your belief is variable with the quality, quantity, and type of evidence you constantly receive.
Cheers, Bryan
Cheers, Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
Why use the word "faith" at all? Why not use "belief" or "religion"? Why this emphasis on the word "faith" when you don't mean it? There has to be a reason why the word "faith" is so important to you in a religious context, when you obviously are using it in the non-religious sense.
I suppose I should give up on this - language doesn't necessarily make sense. Yet I can't escape the feeling it is more important than just another minor linguistic anomaly. It is a word with very strong connotations. It is an important word. Yet it seems people try to dilute it. I just don't understand why.
Bryan
Cheers, Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
I can take a hint. I guess this is why it is impolite to talk religion and politics - terms are too slippery. Didn't mean to make waves - I am new, so I didn't know that such topics were politely ignored. Indeed, we can agree to disagree - a civilized thing to do.
Cheers, Bryan
Cheers, Bryan
You are only wretched and unworthy if you choose to be.
Personally, I'll be sad if we ever rule off such areas as completely beyond discussion - this thread spawned some interesting langauge issues.
All the time we can keep from shouting at one another, I think we are doing OK - and you two have, I think, managed to disagree without unpleasantness (crucifriction?), so congratulations.
yes-- like good company everywhere, we try to stay away from politics and religion... On the other hand-- we haven't gone all PC-- and while we don't go around insulting each other-- Pom, Ozzie, 'merkin and other slightly rude term are freely used. and if you get too free with your words-- the gutter police will track you down-- the real trick is to be very clever-- and then, no matter how riske your words-- we will chuckle before we blush.. and all will be fine. Or we will groan, and say--I wish I thought of that! There are some who race to be the first with a witty bon mot or pun. Most of us aren't too thin skinned-- or short tempered... we will firmly agree to disagree.. I am sure you've have a welcome from the welcome wagon-- Jackie heads it up.. but all of us welcome you.
I feel the urge to macrame with this thread. Something that gets my gall is people that are paid large sums of money for speaking that don't take the time to learn the pronunciation of difficult or unknown words. GRRRR! BTW spell check suggests macro for macrame!
okay, it's bad enough that you forigners® insist on the superfluous "U"... now someone's done gone and decided we could use an extra I too???? would that be a silent I? hi, H
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