Science always adjusts its views based on what's observed. No matter WHAT someone believes, if the observations disagree, that belief is wrong. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved. They are absolutely not the same. Science does not -start- at faith. As a scientist myself I am personally offended by the equation of my constant need to admit that I'm wrong about everything to learn with the arrogant certitude of faith.
Einstein was not a man of faith, either. Einstein wasn't an atheist, no, but he thought the faith of the Christians and other religions to be childish and silly.
You are equivocating religious faith with what skeptic's mean when they say "faith". Which is very understandable since almost everyone does. This pervasive equivocation makes meaningful discussion of faith between the religious and non-religious completely impossible. Each side completely misunderstands the other side's statements, making all communication impossible. So let's clear this misunderstanding up.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying. Not being religious myself I'm sure I'm portraying Bob in a strawman fashion here, but this is the best I could do at short notice. Sorry.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have to be to clear up what kind of faith the game is about. A faith-in-science game would be dreadfully boring, I'm sure.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness like you can for a person.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists can be found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
You are equivocating religious faith with what skeptic's mean when they say "faith". Which is very understandable since almost everyone does. This pervasive equivocation makes meaningful discussion of faith between the religious and non-religious completely impossible. Each side completely misunderstands the other side's statements, making all communication impossible. So let's clear this misunderstanding up.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have be to clear up what kind of faith they are talking about.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists are found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
@ wilting
Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, had a faith stat, you're right. High Faith increased the power of your spells and also the power of spells used on you. (both good and bad) Specifically there was a robot character that came with 0 faith and was immune to all magic.
However, I think when he was talking about a faith/skepticism bar, he didn't just mean in a stat form. He meant something more along the lines of the good/evil morality decisions we see so often in games nowadays. It's just an example of one simple way that faith could be incorporated into games. (granted, I personally thing good/evil bars are bad, and prefer games that just offer choices without a stupid binary system, but... one step at a time)
You are equivocating religious faith with what skeptic's mean when they say "faith". Which is very understandable since almost everyone does. This pervasive equivocation makes meaningful discussion of faith between the religious and non-religious completely impossible. Each side completely misunderstands the other side's statements, making all communication impossible. So let's clear this misunderstanding up.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying. Not being religious myself I'm sure I'm portraying Bob in a strawman fashion here, but this is the best I could do at short notice. Sorry.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have to be to clear up what kind of faith the game is about. A faith-in-science game would be dreadfully boring, I'm sure.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness like you can for a person.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists can be found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
You are equivocating religious faith with what skeptic's mean when they say "faith". Which is very understandable since almost everyone does. This pervasive equivocation makes meaningful discussion of faith between the religious and non-religious completely impossible. Each side completely misunderstands the other side's statements, making all communication impossible. So let's clear this misunderstanding up.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have be to clear up what kind of faith they are talking about.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists are found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
@ wilting
Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, had a faith stat, you're right. High Faith increased the power of your spells and also the power of spells used on you. (both good and bad) Specifically there was a robot character that came with 0 faith and was immune to all magic.
However, I think when he was talking about a faith/skepticism bar, he didn't just mean in a stat form. He meant something more along the lines of the good/evil morality decisions we see so often in games nowadays. It's just an example of one simple way that faith could be incorporated into games. (granted, I personally thing good/evil bars are bad, and prefer games that just offer choices without a stupid binary system, but... one step at a time)
@Talshere: Are your engineer friends innovators? Have they never come across a problem that they do not know how to solve but have unwavering faith that it can be solved given time? And your mathematician friends: do they not take on faith postulates that cannot be proven but are taken as fact? There are a number of mathematical equations that have yet to be solved. They keep trying even if it seems patently impossible. They do this simple because "impossible" equations have been solved before.
Scientists begin on faith. There is nothing that tells them that what they do is at all possible or even worthwhile. And yet these people dedicate their lives to their cause, confident that what they do has meaning. That is faith.
"Most people would sooner die than think... In fact, they do so." ~Bertrand Russel
I have a friend that spent a few months studying the crap of small monkeys. Months of his life wasted digging through filth for some trivial bit of knowledge no one other than him and his professor cares about. All this because they think the knowledge, insipid and disgusting as it is, will be of use to someone, at some point. "All for science," as they're fond of saying.
If that is not an act of faith, i don't know what is.
"Most people would sooner die than think... In fact, they do so." ~Bertrand Russel
Hmm, I really have enjoyed your show, but I've found these last two episodes to be a bit lacking. I understand why you've been so reluctant to do them, as it's a hard topic to cover, so I won't kill you on that.
But the misquoting of Einstein on the other hand, that's a different story. By not putting his complete quote you completely changed the meaning which is, for a lack of a better word, a bit sleazy.
I know I'm just one person, so my opinion doesn't mean much, but for sake of artistic integrity, you really should consider editing that out or putting in the entire quote.
Wow, I had to make an account to post this; it seems that for all their good ideas and reasonable arguments EC has completely misunderstood science on a fundamental level.
There is no "faith" involved in accepting scientific thesis. None. No scientist has ever said that "this requires faith". Math least of all. Because science relies on evidence and no scientist ever stated that they have the ultimate answer to anything, just that the amassment of evidence points at a specific answer.
Proper science is also some-how falsifiable.
Stating that religion and science are similar on a fundamental level couldn't be more wrong, and I'm not stating that as hyperbole. It is as bad as saying that black is white, or water is dry. I think Tim Minchin said it best; "Science adjusts its' views based on whats observed; faith is the denial of observation so that faith can be preserved."
I no longer respect the intellectual integrity of this show.
I can't believe you'd pervert Einsteins' statements, bastardize them into being somekind of support for religion and science intertwined. He was a naturalist, when Einstein used the word God or mystic, he wasn't referring to the supernatural, he was referring to as-yet unknown facets of science, physics in particular. The awe he spoke of was of the natural universe. This is on the level of creationist quote-mining.
I follow so many shows online that I keep loosing track of them, in a way it is satisfying to be able to unsubscribe from this one.
Science always adjusts its views based on what's observed. No matter WHAT someone believes, if the observations disagree, that belief is wrong. Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved. They are absolutely not the same. Science does not -start- at faith. As a scientist myself I am personally offended by the equation of my constant need to admit that I'm wrong about everything to learn with the arrogant certitude of faith.
Einstein was not a man of faith, either. Einstein wasn't an atheist, no, but he thought the faith of the Christians and other religions to be childish and silly.
EC was NOT trying to say Einstein was religious or in favor of religion. I feel like many of you did not pay attention to the episode. The EC gang is clearly not religious, nor are they trying to equate science and religion. They're drawing a single similarity, which many of you are apparently sensitive enough to take offense from instead of actually examining the validity of what they said.
I can't believe you'd pervert Einsteins' statements, bastardize them into being some kind of support for religion and science intertwined. He was a naturalist, when Einstein used the word God or mystic, he wasn't referring to the supernatural, he was referring to as-yet unknown facets of science, physics in particular. The awe he spoke of was of the natural universe. This is on the level of creationist quote-mining.
The fact that he's speaking of awe of the natural universe, and the mystic as facts of science, is the ENTIRE POINT of the quote, and indeed the episode. They are not saying all scientists are religious. They are saying that science, including that done by Einstein, has a faith similar to (not identical to) the faith of religion. They are encouraging exploration and dialogue, but apparently that's too much for the anti-religious in this thread. There is no negotiation, the religious must be burned at the stake.
It deeply saddens me to see all these comments saying things like "Science is not faith." Mostly because they're right, but they're also missing the point. What I heard in your (EC's) words was that science is based on a group of logical, repeatable points that ultimately stem from something that can't be necessarily proved, but does make the most sense. For this, I site what I learned about the Axiom of Choice in college: It's not provable, but we accept it because it makes the rest of mathematics work.
This doesn't mean I have to have faith to understand arithmetic or algebra or whatever. It doesn't mean that I just hope that biology will work the same way tomorrow. It doesn't even begin to suggest that science *grows* based on faith. It grows based on fact and observation. But behind everything else, at the very core of where science started is things we can't quite prove, but that we haven't shown to be wrong. Things that make sense. Things that you can observe to be true all the time, but you can't actually mathematically say are objectively true. My understanding of the bleeding edge of science is that a lot of it is trying to find a way to prove the things at the very core of what we believe. These are things that, according to our own standards, cannot yet be shown to be true but are accepted as true. That isn't the same thing as religious faith--not by a long shot--but it is acceptance of that which is yet unproven.
What I think a lot of people are missing is the power of faith, which is the important part. I have had spiritual experiences that have moved powerful things in me. They are my subjective experiences, so I can't say that they are *objectively* true, but I can still found a lot of my thoughts and beliefs on them. I think there are a lot of people who would call me silly for basing much larger things on experiences that were only my own, but I do have a solid counter-argument to that: relationships. If you have ever had a relationship--be it a friendship, romantic entanglement, parental figure, whatever--you have experienced something subjective. People telling me I shouldn't use my spiritual experiences as a jumping off point for my thoughts is like me telling people they shouldn't get married because I don't experience their love. The fact that I don't experience it doesn't make it invalid.
It took me a moment to get what you meant by the comparison between faith and science. But even as someone of faith, I think it's an inaccurate comparison. Scientists are not supposed to have bias. They aren't PROVING something. They are investigating based on observations they have made, or observations that others have made with the data to back up those observations. Science is the realm of the physical. Faith is the realm of the spiritual. They are separate worlds. Granted, atheists can have faith in things like the human spirit or justice. But to say that science more or less = faith is a little out there.
That said, I thought the rest of this episode was golden. Faith is something that's rarely explored in video games as anything more than the Big Bad's Brainwashing Plan (Final Fantasy X, Dead Space, Assassin's Creed). That's a shallow and bitter view that needs to change. Faith is much more than Big Giant Churches With Massive Power And Money. But inevitably, that's what faith is depicted as in video games, and that's a damn shame. My favorite depiction of religion in video games is Dragon Age: the Chantry has good people whose faith propels them to good, and evil people whose faith propels them to evil. Neither is the entire organization, and the leader of the Chantry--Justinia--seems to be one of the few truly good characters of the setting.
@drbunji: So you're going to stop watching a show you called full of good ideas and reasonable arguments because of a single episode you hated? I mean, that's your decision, but it seems a bit extreme. If I cut off ties from everyone I disagreed with in some way, I'd be alone in life and without anyone to have interesting discussions with.
Finally, regarding morality meters: this is something I'd love to see an episode on. Morality meters get a lot of hate for being a fad, but I think that's because they're used wrong. Games like Knight Of The Old Republic base their morality ON something--the light and dark side, as defined by Star Wars. But other games don't DEFINE their morality in-universe. It becomes what the developers believe is moral instead of what the characters or some in-universe force decides. Fallout 3 is a great (and obnoxious) example, with its infamous Tenpenny Tower quest. Some people would say killing the ghouls led by a psychopathic extremist is the Good thing to do, but the game calls it evil. KOTOR is a counterexample, as I stated: acting in anger is defined in-universe as leading to the Dark Side, so you get Dark Side points for doing that.
Sorry for the tangent, but it's been something I've been contemplating for the past few weeks.
I find it hilariously ironic how many aethists are taking offense that their faith is being attacked. Yes, faith---faith that there is no diety(ies). Faith that you have nothing after your corporeal life. Faith that the existance of life at all is nothing but an accident.
PROVE that, and I'll admit it isn't faith. But you can't. The best you can do is explain the reasons why you believe it is so. Tell me about the theories and the evidence. But you weren't there at the dawn of time. We don't have recordings from back then.
I understand you find the evidence compelling, but all you've really done is chosen where you faith will be placed.
Saying that any type of conviction requires faith is saying that you never need a reason for doubt, that doubt is always rational.
This is neither true in reason or in the court.
Having no reason to doubt something and having no reason to believe something amount to the same starting point, no reason.
The type of skepticism that gives rise to this claims that you require proof for the existence of proof, and so could be said to be a form of arguing after the fact.
Unlike drbunji I don't think what you said reflects on the integrity of your show.
Saying faith is a bridge to knowledge is more benign in my opinion then trying to reason that knowledge is impossible.
I think the guys go this one dead to rights. Drdunji you don't understand science. There would be no point in a experiment if you have some idea in your head of how it's going to work out. The awesome part of science is when your wrong and it throw you a curve ball.
(real world proof) Science funding works by you saying I think I can do this! And a company going well we can make money off of that so here is the funds to show us. (You have faith in your work and so does the Company)
The fact that he's speaking of awe of the natural universe, and the mystic as facts of science, is the ENTIRE POINT of the quote, and indeed the episode. They are not saying all scientists are religious. They are saying that science, including that done by Einstein, has a faith similar to (not identical to) the faith of religion. They are encouraging exploration and dialogue, but apparently that's too much for the anti-religious in this thread. There is no negotiation, the religious must be burned at the stake.
But that's wrong. In fact what you wrote makes no sense. "Mystics as facts of science"? What are you talking about, sir? Science and faith isn't similar, or identical to it at all. I'm all for dialogue but it has to be based on the reality of the situation not some romanticized pipe-dream, that does nothing but insult both sides of the issue.
I just wrote a really long response to your original post but it got deleted. Suffice to say I agree and disagree with different bits of it.
I'm gonna quickly point out that the mystic can become facts of science and that we have yet to find a way to disprove the existence of God. Dinosaurs used to be myth, now we know they exist.
hope=/=faith also. Just with less conviction, and I'd say any scientist has Hope of some kind.
It's also possible to be awed without faith, if you are awed by something you know exists. Waterfalls are Awesome. Go now and find one. You won't regret it.
Your comment is fascinating. I certainly agree with some of it, and I'm impressed that it's not just one of the many "I think science is so much better than religion because blahblahblah." which I see so much of.
I think there is a surprising amount of faith in science, but it tends to happen at the bad places of it. Specifically the places where money is involved. Perhaps a better word is Hope. But Hope is just faith without confidence. That doesn't undermine your quote from Tim Minchin, which is flawless, but I know scientists who also adhere to religion and find ways to make their greater understand just convict them harder of their faith/hope of a higher truth.
I think the single unifying faith at the centre of science is based on the hope that we have the capabilities to do it. Because lets face it. We are one species, on one planet, in one galaxy. What are the chances that we are going to gather the solution to life, the universe and everything?
Science is certainly a faith when we use it to say that god does not exist. Because where is the proof for that? There are passages in any religious text that we know are wrong because of science, but also ones that will be very, very difficult to disprove. Atheism is as much a religion as any other. And Einstein referring to god as the Icon of the unknown shows just how important it is to remember that.
I adhere to a sort of reverse philosophy, wherein the strength of faith creates an undeniable tangible force, even if it is only in our minds. History shows just how powerful this force can be, for good and bad. I highly suspect that the big beardyman in the sky is a bit of a flight of fancy, but I also suspect that Jesus was as clever and forthright a man as Einstein was in his day. Hell, the Ancient Greeks essentially created maths as we know it today and they had Gods, though they weren't really much more than a celestial Soap Opera...
My last note is a piece of advice. Don't stop watching extra credits. For everything they may stumble over they get a hundred things right.
Your comment is fascinating. I certainly agree with some of it, and I'm impressed that it's not just one of the many "I think science is so much better than religion because blahblahblah." which I see so much of.
I think there is a surprising amount of faith in science, but it tends to happen at the bad places of it. Specifically the places where money is involved. Perhaps a better word is Hope. But Hope is just faith without confidence. That doesn't undermine your quote from Tim Minchin, which is flawless, but I know scientists who also adhere to religion and find ways to make their greater understand just convict them harder of their faith/hope of a higher truth.
I think the single unifying faith at the centre of science is based on the hope that we have the capabilities to do it. Because lets face it. We are one species, on one planet, in one galaxy. What are the chances that we are going to gather the solution to life, the universe and everything?
Science is certainly a faith when we use it to say that god does not exist. Because where is the proof for that? There are passages in any religious text that we know are wrong because of science, but also ones that will be very, very difficult to disprove. Atheism is as much a religion as any other. And Einstein referring to god as the Icon of the unknown shows just how important it is to remember that.
I adhere to a sort of reverse philosophy, wherein the strength of faith creates an undeniable tangible force, even if it is only in our minds. History shows just how powerful this force can be, for good and bad. I highly suspect that the big beardyman in the sky is a bit of a flight of fancy, but I also suspect that Jesus was as clever and forthright a man as Einstein was in his day. Hell, the Ancient Greeks essentially created maths as we know it today and they had Gods, though they weren't really much more than a celestial Soap Opera...
My last note is a piece of advice. Don't stop watching extra credits. For everything they may stumble over they get a hundred things right.
The fact that he's speaking of awe of the natural universe, and the mystic as facts of science, is the ENTIRE POINT of the quote, and indeed the episode. They are not saying all scientists are religious. They are saying that science, including that done by Einstein, has a faith similar to (not identical to) the faith of religion. They are encouraging exploration and dialogue, but apparently that's too much for the anti-religious in this thread. There is no negotiation, the religious must be burned at the stake.
But that's wrong. In fact what you wrote makes no sense. "Mystics as facts of science"? What are you talking about, sir? Science and faith isn't similar, or identical to it at all. I'm all for dialogue but it has to be based on the reality of the situation not some romanticized pipe-dream, that does nothing but insult both sides of the issue.
Awe =/= faith, trust =/= faith.
What I wrote made no sense? I was quoting you. Let me do it again.
I can't believe you'd pervert Einsteins' statements, bastardize them into being somekind of support for religion and science intertwined. He was a naturalist, when Einstein used the word God or mystic, he wasn't referring to the supernatural, he was referring to as-yet unknown facets of science, physics in particular. The awe he spoke of was of the natural universe. This is on the level of creationist quote-mining.
When Einstein used the word...mystic...he was referring to...facts of science.
Einstein, EC, and you all seem to agree with me that Einstein wasn't referring to the supernatural, but facts of science. He was saying we should look at facts of science with the same reverence, wonder, and awe with which a religious person looks at the object of their faith.
My issue is they shouldn't have used the Einstein quote at all because EC tried to make it appear to be something it wasn't by only cherry picking the part that fit the episode's narrative.
While I disagree with the entire premise of the episode, that's cool because we're grown adults and we can have a differing opinion. But the quote at the end, that just felt Fox News/MSNBC sleazy politics to me. Anytime you intentionally misquote anyone to make it sound like they are saying something different is wrong. Someone mad a conscious decision to take out the end of that quote which drastically changes it's meaning.
I'm not saying it's horrible and that I'll never watch another episode. I just don't understand why they would do it. If the quote didn't fit the narrative, just go find another quote, don't change an existing one to fit your needs.
I was extremely disappointed with this episode. In this episode you managed to mix up the two different definitions of faith. The faith people have in science is a complete trust or confidence in it based on facts. The faith people have in religion, or in atheism for that matter, is a complete trust in it being correct without any evidence at all, simply based on belief.
I find it hilariously ironic how many aethists are taking offense that their faith is being attacked. Yes, faith---faith that there is no diety(ies). Faith that you have nothing after your corporeal life. Faith that the existance of life at all is nothing but an accident.
PROVE that, and I'll admit it isn't faith. But you can't. The best you can do is explain the reasons why you believe it is so. Tell me about the theories and the evidence. But you weren't there at the dawn of time. We don't have recordings from back then.
I understand you find the evidence compelling, but all you've really done is chosen where you faith will be placed.
This argument is utterly asinine. Lack of faith is not faith in itself. You're atheist about a lot of religions, gods, creatures etc.
So not going to touch the Science/Faith thing right here. It really, really should have been left out of the episode because it predictably overshadowed everything else.
But I do wonder... how would games explore having faith? I spotted the incredibly mechanical faith/scepticism bar, but I didn't really pick up any other suggestions. Did I miss them somehow?
Atheists, by default, don't have -faith- in anything. Atheism isn't a part of that dichotomy, because Atheism is the absence of faith in god or gods. That's it. It's not the faith in anything, it doesn't hold any doctrine to go with it, period. Being absent of faith in god or gods is all you require to be an atheist. You can believe that the earth is flat and that the planets are sentient beings and still be an atheist.
The idea that we're taking offense at someone "attacking our faith" is silly not only because they -weren't- but also because Atheism isn't a religion or a faith.
Now I know you guys have studied the hell out of this, but saying no game has ever stepped on the thought of faith isn't 100% true. Sure, most games haven't used it to a full blown extent, but some games have used it noticeably.
The biggest being the Legend of Zelda series, where in faith in their goddesses is all they have when Link is on his journey. Have you ever spoken to some of the side characters? Or listened to the stories or conversation of the main ones? They tend to say have faith in the goddesses, or that they prey to the goddesses that everything will end well. Hell, the start of wind waker was all about faith in the goddesses to save them from Ganon, which paid off... kinda. Or how the faith in the time goddess makes the people of Termina feel safe when they are faced with impending doom.
Now, this doesn't effect the gameplay, with Wind Waker and Majora's Mask being somewhat exceptions, just what little story there is to the Zelda franchises. Link doesn't speak, so whether it's faith leading him on is purely up to the player, ergo his purpose for the player. But when other characters put their faith in the goddesses, it can be assumed that their prayers and faith are always answered when Link defeats Ganon, with the exception of the hero fallen timeline.
Bastion below is completely correct in saying "In this episode you managed to mix up the two different definitions of faith. The faith people have in science is a complete trust or confidence in it based on facts. The faith people have in religion, or in atheism for that matter, is a complete trust in it being correct without any evidence at all, simply based on belief."
You've created an amphibolous argument by switching between two different & unrelated definitions of the word "faith."
+1
wiltingI had fun once and it was awfulRegistered Userregular
Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, had a faith stat, you're right. High Faith increased the power of your spells and also the power of spells used on you. (both good and bad) Specifically there was a robot character that came with 0 faith and was immune to all magic.
However, I think when he was talking about a faith/skepticism bar, he didn't just mean in a stat form.
Yeah I got that they were talking about a bar, I just find the idea of the gameplay of being more attuned to/vulnerable to magic as an implication, whether you measure that using a stat, bar, or whatever, interesting. Of course, binary good/evil bars aren't ideal.
First of all, sorry if this becomes a wall of text.
I have studied science (Physics mostly) and i admit now i am not a religious person. However i can see an incontrivertable link between faith and science. Some of the most obvious, scientific facts, that are observable, are still unexplained. For instance, take gravity. We know objects have gravity, we have theories on why gravity exists (for example theories of gravitons or spacetime), but no explanation as to why gravity is related to mass and not size beyond observable evidence. In the end i believe science is more a matter of perspective than proof.
For example, suppose there is a scientist, a religious person, and a third person who is neither religious nor scientific (for convenience reasons i'll call this person fred). Lets say the three are looking up to the sky one night. Fred sees the moon, the stars and the darkness, and thinks nothing more than "thats pretty". The religious person looks up at the night sky, he sees the stars, the moon and the darkness, and believes this exists because a higher power wanted to remind all of humanity each night that there is a greater being in the universe than themselves, a light in even the most potent darkness, and while there are many paths to light, they are the greatest, and the nearest. The scientist looks up to the night and sees the stars, the moon and the darkness. the scientist has his explanation of why the stars exist, why the moon reflects the light, and why the rest of the sky is black, and why they all are where they appear to be.
All three interpretations are equally valid for the people who hold them, because each has chosen the explanation they agree with the most.
TL;DR: The easiest way to prove there is an undeniable link between science and faith is simply to keep asking "Why?" to any science topic until they cannot give you an answer, because there is nothing in this world that is fully understood, everything has parts of it that are taken on faith, even if it is just observable.
What I wrote made no sense? I was quoting you. Let me do it again.
When Einstein used the word...mystic...he was referring to...facts of science.
Einstein, EC, and you all seem to agree with me that Einstein wasn't referring to the supernatural, but facts of science. He was saying we should look at facts of science with the same reverence, wonder, and awe with which a religious person looks at the object of their faith.
Now I understand why I didn't realize what you were trying to say; you misquoted me to begin with, I wrote "facets" not "facts". Arbitrary distinction, but still. And beholding something with awe has nothing to do with faith. If they actually meant it to be interpreted like that, it is just completely irrelevant to the basic premise of the issue; that science and religion are similiar in their reliance of faith. It is not. Period.
Someone in this thread really narrowed it down; they are using the word faith in different ways throughout the episode, making it an incomprehensible mess that does nothing but infuriate anyone thinking critically about what they are saying.
This will be my last post on this, I mean no disrespect to the people answering my post somehow, there just too many for me to keep track of it,
I deeply hope that the discussion we found ourselves in was not the intention of the EC crew.
For me, one of the most interesting explorations of faith in a game was in Fable: The Lost Chronicles. No, I'm not talking about the generic and frankly arbitrary good and evil system, I'm talking about Skorm and Avo. Each had a temple where you could make sacrifices to the god of your choice, and enough sacrifices were heavily rewarded. The interesting thing for me came near the end when you had the opportunity to explore some of the game lore with the Oracle. If spoken to enough, the giant stone faces would tell you that Skorm and Avo were both made up by enterprising merchants. What I find interesting about this is that you, as a player, essentially believe in the two gods by now. Skorm gave you the best bow in the game; Avo gave you an exceedingly powerful club. How could they not be real? And yet, an authority that can tell no lies has just told you they weren't. Okay, it takes more introspection than the average player is willing to put in, and the statement is buried deep. Still, it is an attempt to foster and shake faith.
+1
wiltingI had fun once and it was awfulRegistered Userregular
faith [feyth]
noun
1.
confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3.
belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4.
belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5.
a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
sci·ence [sahy-uh ns]
noun
1.
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
2.
systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation.
3.
any of the branches of natural or physical science.
4.
systematized knowledge in general.
5. knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study.
My emphasis. A scientist can have faith that a particular hypothesis will be proven, but that does not make faith the same thing as science. Science is the evaluation of the hypothesis, not the hope that it is true. Likewise, a religious person might think that their particular faith is validated by 'evidence', but those claims would be widely disputed, or would selectively avoid inconvenient 'evidence', so that a systematic study would be impossible, or would be dismissed when it didn't reach a conclusion that met with the initial faith. Science and faith are pretty much opposites. Faith has more in common with political ideology.
This part was kind of disappointing, since it was just a talk about religion being a valid topic for games without any examples of doing it right.
I think the comparison of science and religion in this video was kind of...stupid. And I say that as someone who does believe in a religion.
There are examples of games that use religion well. Dragon Age Origins' portrayal of Leliana is a particularly good example.
The traditional fundamentalist religious view in Dragon Age is that the Maker hates mankind for their sins. As a result, the typical view is that the Maker makes no contact with people. Leliana claims to have received a vision from the Maker leading her to believe that the Maker actually loves mankind, and this makes other members of her faith distrust her. To add to that, Leliana's past makes her different from other members of the Chantry. She used to be an assassin, so she's not someone with a perfectly clean past.
Isn't that EXACTLY the type of game that you should have talked about here?
Aaaaaaargh.
Science is not based on faith.
Science is based on the theory that we are probably wrong, and you go out of your way to prove yourself wrong. Faith is the opposite of that.
Your viewpoint that faith should be explored in games is a good idea, it's an interesting topic. But your meandering around the concept of faith in the video, and your conflation of it with science is irritating.
@Volrag Keep asking a Scientist 'why' and you will eventually get to the point where they say 'We do not know, yet'. If you wait a few years, or even a lot of years, that answer will change. That is not faith, that is simply finite knowledge.
What I wrote made no sense? I was quoting you. Let me do it again.
When Einstein used the word...mystic...he was referring to...facts of science.
Einstein, EC, and you all seem to agree with me that Einstein wasn't referring to the supernatural, but facts of science. He was saying we should look at facts of science with the same reverence, wonder, and awe with which a religious person looks at the object of their faith.
Now I understand why I didn't realize what you were trying to say; you misquoted me to begin with, I wrote "facets" not "facts". Arbitrary distinction, but still. And beholding something with awe has nothing to do with faith. If they actually meant it to be interpreted like that, it is just completely irrelevant to the basic premise of the issue; that science and religion are similiar in their reliance of faith. It is not. Period.
Someone in this thread really narrowed it down; they are using the word faith in different ways throughout the episode, making it an incomprehensible mess that does nothing but infuriate anyone thinking critically about what they are saying.
This will be my last post on this, I mean no disrespect to the people answering my post somehow, there just too many for me to keep track of it,
I apologize for my mistake. Either way, the point stands. I don't see where his quote has been misused at all. Just because one dictionary definition of faith, out of many, says that faith requires there to not be proof does not mean that religious faith is like that. I, as a Christian, can say that my faith has never been despite evidence, but because of it. But as the main argument of this thread appears to be "faith and science can't work together because the definition of faith means believing something stupid and wrong", I'm not going to make any headway.
This is the first episode of Extra Credits with which I have to take issue. Conflating faith with science is indicative of lack of experience with the scientific method.
Scientific knowledge is not the essence of science. Scientific knowledge is the by-product of science. Science is the scientific method, the curiosity, the explorations, and, above all, the ability to hold the veracity of all scientific knowledge as contingent upon existing data. When the data changes, the knowledge does as well. And here is the thing: There is no loss of faith that accompanies the re-writing of scientific knowledge. Sure, a theory may be disproved, but Science goes on, more robust because of it.
[Even Einstein's faith had him oppose science. It was his faith in an ordered universe that led him to reject some of the claims of quantum mechanics. But regardless of the metaphysical ramifications, they are accepted as true because that is what experimental data dictates. See wiki of "Quantum Mechanics" for details.]
Dragon Age games have done a great deal in exploring faith. None of clerics have "god-given" powers. There is even a quest in Origins (save the village of Redcliffe) in which you must either tell the knights that the cleric has no tangible powers from her faith (which is what the cleric wants you to do) or convince the cleric that giving the knights false hope is better than none. Also, the character of Leliana is an exploration of finding faith (Leliana's Song) and the character of Sebastien an exploration of losing faith (or, depending your actions, strengthening it).
Posts
Einstein was not a man of faith, either. Einstein wasn't an atheist, no, but he thought the faith of the Christians and other religions to be childish and silly.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying. Not being religious myself I'm sure I'm portraying Bob in a strawman fashion here, but this is the best I could do at short notice. Sorry.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have to be to clear up what kind of faith the game is about. A faith-in-science game would be dreadfully boring, I'm sure.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness like you can for a person.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists can be found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have be to clear up what kind of faith they are talking about.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists are found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, had a faith stat, you're right. High Faith increased the power of your spells and also the power of spells used on you. (both good and bad) Specifically there was a robot character that came with 0 faith and was immune to all magic.
However, I think when he was talking about a faith/skepticism bar, he didn't just mean in a stat form. He meant something more along the lines of the good/evil morality decisions we see so often in games nowadays. It's just an example of one simple way that faith could be incorporated into games. (granted, I personally thing good/evil bars are bad, and prefer games that just offer choices without a stupid binary system, but... one step at a time)
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying. Not being religious myself I'm sure I'm portraying Bob in a strawman fashion here, but this is the best I could do at short notice. Sorry.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have to be to clear up what kind of faith the game is about. A faith-in-science game would be dreadfully boring, I'm sure.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness like you can for a person.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists can be found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
When non-religious Alice says "faith", Alice is talking about what is for her the obvious main issue about gods: do they even exist? Alice believes that they do not, so there is never really a reason to go past that "does it exist?" question. If religious person Bob says that he has "lost faith", Alice will think that Bob is saying that he is now an atheist. However, that's not what Bob meant. Not at all!
When religious Bob says "faith", he is talking about trusting in his god - it has nothing to do with whether Bob believes his god exists or not. When Bob says that he has "lost faith", he is saying that he still believes in the physics of there being an entity with the label "god" and who can do supernatural things - Bob just now believes that Bob's god is a dick. Bob doesn't trust his god anymore.
"Faith" can mean two different things. If I have lost faith in Obama, it doesn't mean that I now think that Obama doesn't exist. If I have lost faith in Santa Claus, it doesn't mean that I now think Santa Claus is untrustworthy. Faith can mean "I think it exists" or it can mean "I think it is trustworthy/good".
I can tell you from personal experience that being informed of this distinction as an atheist is very surprising and also seriously aggravating. I had assumed that religious people recognized that the question of "does this god exist" was a pretty important one and that's why they were talking about faith and losing faith all the time. Nope! That their god(s) exist is just an obvious fact that is not worthy of discussion - all the discussion is about the properties of said god(s).
On the other hand I also know from personal experience that at least some religious people are simply flabbergasted at the notion that Atheist's actually, really, no really, yes, actually, don't believe that there is a god. It utterly boggles their mind that when Atheists talk about "faith", they are actually really questioning whether any god even EXISTS. To them it's exactly like discovering that a person who says "I have no faith in Obama" actually means that Obama does not EXIST. This sort of thinking is the basis of the proverb "there are no atheists in fox holes".
Here is an example of how not observing this distinction makes communication impossible:
Bob: would you like to hear about Jesus?
Alice: I don't believe in gods
Bob: But jesus loves you. Why are you denying that?
Alice: (thinking: WTF?) Santa Claus loves me too, but what conclusion do you want to draw from that?
Bob: (thinking: WTF?) Well, I have faith and you should respect that.
This conversation has been completely derailed and both Bob and Alice understand nothing of what the other person is saying.
I am actually very confused about which kind of faith that you are talking about in this episode. It appears to me that you are confused yourselves, perhaps that's why you never voluntarily made a faith episode, but maybe I just don't understand. I think the first part of any "faith game" would have be to clear up what kind of faith they are talking about.
Anyway, religious faith and "faith in Science" have very little to do with each other. Religious faith is all about trust in a person/an agent/a god. At some point in a personal trust relationship (which is what religious faith is) you just have to trust and hope for the best. It's an emotional connection where things like forgiveness and acceptance are relevant. It's about emotions, personalitites and concrete people. Having "faith in Science" is nothing like that. Science is not a person. You can't pray to Science, you can't complain to Science and you can't forgive Science. You can't evaluate Science's trustworthiness.
Science is a methodology for doing things. Science also involves scientists and you could say that Science requires "faith in Scientists" in the sense that faith=trust. To some extent that is true, but corrupt or incompetent scientists are found out eventually - that's part of the point of Science. In any case, personal trust relationships (religious faith) and methodologies for creating and processing evidence (Science) are just not the same kind of thing at all and trying to equivocate them through equivocating "faith" is just not a sensible thing to do. Religious faith is personal and emotionally meaningful. Believing that Science is useful is something else entirely.
Final Fantasy Tactics, the original, had a faith stat, you're right. High Faith increased the power of your spells and also the power of spells used on you. (both good and bad) Specifically there was a robot character that came with 0 faith and was immune to all magic.
However, I think when he was talking about a faith/skepticism bar, he didn't just mean in a stat form. He meant something more along the lines of the good/evil morality decisions we see so often in games nowadays. It's just an example of one simple way that faith could be incorporated into games. (granted, I personally thing good/evil bars are bad, and prefer games that just offer choices without a stupid binary system, but... one step at a time)
Scientists begin on faith. There is nothing that tells them that what they do is at all possible or even worthwhile. And yet these people dedicate their lives to their cause, confident that what they do has meaning. That is faith.
If that is not an act of faith, i don't know what is.
But the misquoting of Einstein on the other hand, that's a different story. By not putting his complete quote you completely changed the meaning which is, for a lack of a better word, a bit sleazy.
I know I'm just one person, so my opinion doesn't mean much, but for sake of artistic integrity, you really should consider editing that out or putting in the entire quote.
There is no "faith" involved in accepting scientific thesis. None. No scientist has ever said that "this requires faith". Math least of all. Because science relies on evidence and no scientist ever stated that they have the ultimate answer to anything, just that the amassment of evidence points at a specific answer.
Proper science is also some-how falsifiable.
Stating that religion and science are similar on a fundamental level couldn't be more wrong, and I'm not stating that as hyperbole. It is as bad as saying that black is white, or water is dry. I think Tim Minchin said it best; "Science adjusts its' views based on whats observed; faith is the denial of observation so that faith can be preserved."
I no longer respect the intellectual integrity of this show.
I can't believe you'd pervert Einsteins' statements, bastardize them into being somekind of support for religion and science intertwined. He was a naturalist, when Einstein used the word God or mystic, he wasn't referring to the supernatural, he was referring to as-yet unknown facets of science, physics in particular. The awe he spoke of was of the natural universe. This is on the level of creationist quote-mining.
I follow so many shows online that I keep loosing track of them, in a way it is satisfying to be able to unsubscribe from this one.
EC was NOT trying to say Einstein was religious or in favor of religion. I feel like many of you did not pay attention to the episode. The EC gang is clearly not religious, nor are they trying to equate science and religion. They're drawing a single similarity, which many of you are apparently sensitive enough to take offense from instead of actually examining the validity of what they said.
The fact that he's speaking of awe of the natural universe, and the mystic as facts of science, is the ENTIRE POINT of the quote, and indeed the episode. They are not saying all scientists are religious. They are saying that science, including that done by Einstein, has a faith similar to (not identical to) the faith of religion. They are encouraging exploration and dialogue, but apparently that's too much for the anti-religious in this thread. There is no negotiation, the religious must be burned at the stake.
This doesn't mean I have to have faith to understand arithmetic or algebra or whatever. It doesn't mean that I just hope that biology will work the same way tomorrow. It doesn't even begin to suggest that science *grows* based on faith. It grows based on fact and observation. But behind everything else, at the very core of where science started is things we can't quite prove, but that we haven't shown to be wrong. Things that make sense. Things that you can observe to be true all the time, but you can't actually mathematically say are objectively true. My understanding of the bleeding edge of science is that a lot of it is trying to find a way to prove the things at the very core of what we believe. These are things that, according to our own standards, cannot yet be shown to be true but are accepted as true. That isn't the same thing as religious faith--not by a long shot--but it is acceptance of that which is yet unproven.
What I think a lot of people are missing is the power of faith, which is the important part. I have had spiritual experiences that have moved powerful things in me. They are my subjective experiences, so I can't say that they are *objectively* true, but I can still found a lot of my thoughts and beliefs on them. I think there are a lot of people who would call me silly for basing much larger things on experiences that were only my own, but I do have a solid counter-argument to that: relationships. If you have ever had a relationship--be it a friendship, romantic entanglement, parental figure, whatever--you have experienced something subjective. People telling me I shouldn't use my spiritual experiences as a jumping off point for my thoughts is like me telling people they shouldn't get married because I don't experience their love. The fact that I don't experience it doesn't make it invalid.
That said, I thought the rest of this episode was golden. Faith is something that's rarely explored in video games as anything more than the Big Bad's Brainwashing Plan (Final Fantasy X, Dead Space, Assassin's Creed). That's a shallow and bitter view that needs to change. Faith is much more than Big Giant Churches With Massive Power And Money. But inevitably, that's what faith is depicted as in video games, and that's a damn shame. My favorite depiction of religion in video games is Dragon Age: the Chantry has good people whose faith propels them to good, and evil people whose faith propels them to evil. Neither is the entire organization, and the leader of the Chantry--Justinia--seems to be one of the few truly good characters of the setting.
@drbunji: So you're going to stop watching a show you called full of good ideas and reasonable arguments because of a single episode you hated? I mean, that's your decision, but it seems a bit extreme. If I cut off ties from everyone I disagreed with in some way, I'd be alone in life and without anyone to have interesting discussions with.
Finally, regarding morality meters: this is something I'd love to see an episode on. Morality meters get a lot of hate for being a fad, but I think that's because they're used wrong. Games like Knight Of The Old Republic base their morality ON something--the light and dark side, as defined by Star Wars. But other games don't DEFINE their morality in-universe. It becomes what the developers believe is moral instead of what the characters or some in-universe force decides. Fallout 3 is a great (and obnoxious) example, with its infamous Tenpenny Tower quest. Some people would say killing the ghouls led by a psychopathic extremist is the Good thing to do, but the game calls it evil. KOTOR is a counterexample, as I stated: acting in anger is defined in-universe as leading to the Dark Side, so you get Dark Side points for doing that.
Sorry for the tangent, but it's been something I've been contemplating for the past few weeks.
PROVE that, and I'll admit it isn't faith. But you can't. The best you can do is explain the reasons why you believe it is so. Tell me about the theories and the evidence. But you weren't there at the dawn of time. We don't have recordings from back then.
I understand you find the evidence compelling, but all you've really done is chosen where you faith will be placed.
This is neither true in reason or in the court.
Having no reason to doubt something and having no reason to believe something amount to the same starting point, no reason.
The type of skepticism that gives rise to this claims that you require proof for the existence of proof, and so could be said to be a form of arguing after the fact.
Unlike drbunji I don't think what you said reflects on the integrity of your show.
Saying faith is a bridge to knowledge is more benign in my opinion then trying to reason that knowledge is impossible.
(real world proof) Science funding works by you saying I think I can do this! And a company going well we can make money off of that so here is the funds to show us. (You have faith in your work and so does the Company)
But that's wrong. In fact what you wrote makes no sense. "Mystics as facts of science"? What are you talking about, sir? Science and faith isn't similar, or identical to it at all. I'm all for dialogue but it has to be based on the reality of the situation not some romanticized pipe-dream, that does nothing but insult both sides of the issue.
Awe =/= faith, trust =/= faith.
I just wrote a really long response to your original post but it got deleted. Suffice to say I agree and disagree with different bits of it.
I'm gonna quickly point out that the mystic can become facts of science and that we have yet to find a way to disprove the existence of God. Dinosaurs used to be myth, now we know they exist.
hope=/=faith also. Just with less conviction, and I'd say any scientist has Hope of some kind.
It's also possible to be awed without faith, if you are awed by something you know exists. Waterfalls are Awesome. Go now and find one. You won't regret it.
Your comment is fascinating. I certainly agree with some of it, and I'm impressed that it's not just one of the many "I think science is so much better than religion because blahblahblah." which I see so much of.
I think there is a surprising amount of faith in science, but it tends to happen at the bad places of it. Specifically the places where money is involved. Perhaps a better word is Hope. But Hope is just faith without confidence. That doesn't undermine your quote from Tim Minchin, which is flawless, but I know scientists who also adhere to religion and find ways to make their greater understand just convict them harder of their faith/hope of a higher truth.
I think the single unifying faith at the centre of science is based on the hope that we have the capabilities to do it. Because lets face it. We are one species, on one planet, in one galaxy. What are the chances that we are going to gather the solution to life, the universe and everything?
Science is certainly a faith when we use it to say that god does not exist. Because where is the proof for that? There are passages in any religious text that we know are wrong because of science, but also ones that will be very, very difficult to disprove. Atheism is as much a religion as any other. And Einstein referring to god as the Icon of the unknown shows just how important it is to remember that.
I adhere to a sort of reverse philosophy, wherein the strength of faith creates an undeniable tangible force, even if it is only in our minds. History shows just how powerful this force can be, for good and bad. I highly suspect that the big beardyman in the sky is a bit of a flight of fancy, but I also suspect that Jesus was as clever and forthright a man as Einstein was in his day. Hell, the Ancient Greeks essentially created maths as we know it today and they had Gods, though they weren't really much more than a celestial Soap Opera...
My last note is a piece of advice. Don't stop watching extra credits. For everything they may stumble over they get a hundred things right.
Your comment is fascinating. I certainly agree with some of it, and I'm impressed that it's not just one of the many "I think science is so much better than religion because blahblahblah." which I see so much of.
I think there is a surprising amount of faith in science, but it tends to happen at the bad places of it. Specifically the places where money is involved. Perhaps a better word is Hope. But Hope is just faith without confidence. That doesn't undermine your quote from Tim Minchin, which is flawless, but I know scientists who also adhere to religion and find ways to make their greater understand just convict them harder of their faith/hope of a higher truth.
I think the single unifying faith at the centre of science is based on the hope that we have the capabilities to do it. Because lets face it. We are one species, on one planet, in one galaxy. What are the chances that we are going to gather the solution to life, the universe and everything?
Science is certainly a faith when we use it to say that god does not exist. Because where is the proof for that? There are passages in any religious text that we know are wrong because of science, but also ones that will be very, very difficult to disprove. Atheism is as much a religion as any other. And Einstein referring to god as the Icon of the unknown shows just how important it is to remember that.
I adhere to a sort of reverse philosophy, wherein the strength of faith creates an undeniable tangible force, even if it is only in our minds. History shows just how powerful this force can be, for good and bad. I highly suspect that the big beardyman in the sky is a bit of a flight of fancy, but I also suspect that Jesus was as clever and forthright a man as Einstein was in his day. Hell, the Ancient Greeks essentially created maths as we know it today and they had Gods, though they weren't really much more than a celestial Soap Opera...
My last note is a piece of advice. Don't stop watching extra credits. For everything they may stumble over they get a hundred things right.
What I wrote made no sense? I was quoting you. Let me do it again.
When Einstein used the word...mystic...he was referring to...facts of science.
Einstein, EC, and you all seem to agree with me that Einstein wasn't referring to the supernatural, but facts of science. He was saying we should look at facts of science with the same reverence, wonder, and awe with which a religious person looks at the object of their faith.
My issue is they shouldn't have used the Einstein quote at all because EC tried to make it appear to be something it wasn't by only cherry picking the part that fit the episode's narrative.
While I disagree with the entire premise of the episode, that's cool because we're grown adults and we can have a differing opinion. But the quote at the end, that just felt Fox News/MSNBC sleazy politics to me. Anytime you intentionally misquote anyone to make it sound like they are saying something different is wrong. Someone mad a conscious decision to take out the end of that quote which drastically changes it's meaning.
I'm not saying it's horrible and that I'll never watch another episode. I just don't understand why they would do it. If the quote didn't fit the narrative, just go find another quote, don't change an existing one to fit your needs.
This argument is utterly asinine. Lack of faith is not faith in itself. You're atheist about a lot of religions, gods, creatures etc.
But I do wonder... how would games explore having faith? I spotted the incredibly mechanical faith/scepticism bar, but I didn't really pick up any other suggestions. Did I miss them somehow?
The idea that we're taking offense at someone "attacking our faith" is silly not only because they -weren't- but also because Atheism isn't a religion or a faith.
The biggest being the Legend of Zelda series, where in faith in their goddesses is all they have when Link is on his journey. Have you ever spoken to some of the side characters? Or listened to the stories or conversation of the main ones? They tend to say have faith in the goddesses, or that they prey to the goddesses that everything will end well. Hell, the start of wind waker was all about faith in the goddesses to save them from Ganon, which paid off... kinda. Or how the faith in the time goddess makes the people of Termina feel safe when they are faced with impending doom.
Now, this doesn't effect the gameplay, with Wind Waker and Majora's Mask being somewhat exceptions, just what little story there is to the Zelda franchises. Link doesn't speak, so whether it's faith leading him on is purely up to the player, ergo his purpose for the player. But when other characters put their faith in the goddesses, it can be assumed that their prayers and faith are always answered when Link defeats Ganon, with the exception of the hero fallen timeline.
You've created an amphibolous argument by switching between two different & unrelated definitions of the word "faith."
Yeah I got that they were talking about a bar, I just find the idea of the gameplay of being more attuned to/vulnerable to magic as an implication, whether you measure that using a stat, bar, or whatever, interesting. Of course, binary good/evil bars aren't ideal.
@WotanAnubis See above.
I have studied science (Physics mostly) and i admit now i am not a religious person. However i can see an incontrivertable link between faith and science. Some of the most obvious, scientific facts, that are observable, are still unexplained. For instance, take gravity. We know objects have gravity, we have theories on why gravity exists (for example theories of gravitons or spacetime), but no explanation as to why gravity is related to mass and not size beyond observable evidence. In the end i believe science is more a matter of perspective than proof.
For example, suppose there is a scientist, a religious person, and a third person who is neither religious nor scientific (for convenience reasons i'll call this person fred). Lets say the three are looking up to the sky one night. Fred sees the moon, the stars and the darkness, and thinks nothing more than "thats pretty". The religious person looks up at the night sky, he sees the stars, the moon and the darkness, and believes this exists because a higher power wanted to remind all of humanity each night that there is a greater being in the universe than themselves, a light in even the most potent darkness, and while there are many paths to light, they are the greatest, and the nearest. The scientist looks up to the night and sees the stars, the moon and the darkness. the scientist has his explanation of why the stars exist, why the moon reflects the light, and why the rest of the sky is black, and why they all are where they appear to be.
All three interpretations are equally valid for the people who hold them, because each has chosen the explanation they agree with the most.
TL;DR: The easiest way to prove there is an undeniable link between science and faith is simply to keep asking "Why?" to any science topic until they cannot give you an answer, because there is nothing in this world that is fully understood, everything has parts of it that are taken on faith, even if it is just observable.
Now I understand why I didn't realize what you were trying to say; you misquoted me to begin with, I wrote "facets" not "facts". Arbitrary distinction, but still. And beholding something with awe has nothing to do with faith. If they actually meant it to be interpreted like that, it is just completely irrelevant to the basic premise of the issue; that science and religion are similiar in their reliance of faith. It is not. Period.
Someone in this thread really narrowed it down; they are using the word faith in different ways throughout the episode, making it an incomprehensible mess that does nothing but infuriate anyone thinking critically about what they are saying.
This will be my last post on this, I mean no disrespect to the people answering my post somehow, there just too many for me to keep track of it,
For me, one of the most interesting explorations of faith in a game was in Fable: The Lost Chronicles. No, I'm not talking about the generic and frankly arbitrary good and evil system, I'm talking about Skorm and Avo. Each had a temple where you could make sacrifices to the god of your choice, and enough sacrifices were heavily rewarded. The interesting thing for me came near the end when you had the opportunity to explore some of the game lore with the Oracle. If spoken to enough, the giant stone faces would tell you that Skorm and Avo were both made up by enterprising merchants. What I find interesting about this is that you, as a player, essentially believe in the two gods by now. Skorm gave you the best bow in the game; Avo gave you an exceedingly powerful club. How could they not be real? And yet, an authority that can tell no lies has just told you they weren't. Okay, it takes more introspection than the average player is willing to put in, and the statement is buried deep. Still, it is an attempt to foster and shake faith.
My emphasis. A scientist can have faith that a particular hypothesis will be proven, but that does not make faith the same thing as science. Science is the evaluation of the hypothesis, not the hope that it is true. Likewise, a religious person might think that their particular faith is validated by 'evidence', but those claims would be widely disputed, or would selectively avoid inconvenient 'evidence', so that a systematic study would be impossible, or would be dismissed when it didn't reach a conclusion that met with the initial faith. Science and faith are pretty much opposites. Faith has more in common with political ideology.
EDIT: @ratherdashing89 This post might interest you.
I think the comparison of science and religion in this video was kind of...stupid. And I say that as someone who does believe in a religion.
There are examples of games that use religion well. Dragon Age Origins' portrayal of Leliana is a particularly good example.
The traditional fundamentalist religious view in Dragon Age is that the Maker hates mankind for their sins. As a result, the typical view is that the Maker makes no contact with people. Leliana claims to have received a vision from the Maker leading her to believe that the Maker actually loves mankind, and this makes other members of her faith distrust her. To add to that, Leliana's past makes her different from other members of the Chantry. She used to be an assassin, so she's not someone with a perfectly clean past.
Isn't that EXACTLY the type of game that you should have talked about here?
Science is not based on faith.
Science is based on the theory that we are probably wrong, and you go out of your way to prove yourself wrong. Faith is the opposite of that.
Your viewpoint that faith should be explored in games is a good idea, it's an interesting topic. But your meandering around the concept of faith in the video, and your conflation of it with science is irritating.
@Volrag Keep asking a Scientist 'why' and you will eventually get to the point where they say 'We do not know, yet'. If you wait a few years, or even a lot of years, that answer will change. That is not faith, that is simply finite knowledge.
I apologize for my mistake. Either way, the point stands. I don't see where his quote has been misused at all. Just because one dictionary definition of faith, out of many, says that faith requires there to not be proof does not mean that religious faith is like that. I, as a Christian, can say that my faith has never been despite evidence, but because of it. But as the main argument of this thread appears to be "faith and science can't work together because the definition of faith means believing something stupid and wrong", I'm not going to make any headway.
Scientific knowledge is not the essence of science. Scientific knowledge is the by-product of science. Science is the scientific method, the curiosity, the explorations, and, above all, the ability to hold the veracity of all scientific knowledge as contingent upon existing data. When the data changes, the knowledge does as well. And here is the thing: There is no loss of faith that accompanies the re-writing of scientific knowledge. Sure, a theory may be disproved, but Science goes on, more robust because of it.
[Even Einstein's faith had him oppose science. It was his faith in an ordered universe that led him to reject some of the claims of quantum mechanics. But regardless of the metaphysical ramifications, they are accepted as true because that is what experimental data dictates. See wiki of "Quantum Mechanics" for details.]
Dragon Age games have done a great deal in exploring faith. None of clerics have "god-given" powers. There is even a quest in Origins (save the village of Redcliffe) in which you must either tell the knights that the cleric has no tangible powers from her faith (which is what the cleric wants you to do) or convince the cleric that giving the knights false hope is better than none. Also, the character of Leliana is an exploration of finding faith (Leliana's Song) and the character of Sebastien an exploration of losing faith (or, depending your actions, strengthening it).
@DiamondMX and @SNF, I heartily agree.