You directly showed several images from the Mass Effect series, and you still claim that there's 0 representations of faith in games?!
Seriously?!
You're exposed to a multitude of faiths and people of faith, who have no real proof of the existence of their deities.
In Mass Effect 3, you can even contribute to the birth of a faith, that has very very direct allusions to a Jesus figure.
In Mass Effect 3 you stand at the side of a dieing companion and take part in his faith due to the sheer loyalty to him.
In Mass Effect 1 & 2 you learn about multiple faiths with a wide variety of tenets.
You have discussions with your crew mates on their faith and the basis of their belief.
In a whole lot of ways you even actively participate in a very real building of faith. The crew mates you collect all build faith in you, and you in them. You walk into every situation without knowing the ultimate outcome and you have to work on faith that you're going to have the impact you want. A lot of the most emotional and amazing experiences in the game are in situations where you appear to have no control, and have to have faith in the crew members, the people, and the developers to allow you to steer it in the direction you want.
You had an entire show about the concepts of humanism represented by a single choice in Mass Effect 2, and now claim that there's no faith in games?
It is true that postulates can't be proven, but saying that they are taken on faith isn't really accurate either. Postulates are only good if they lead us to testably valid conclusions. For example Einstein postulated that the speed of light is the same in all reference frames. He didn't prove it. But we don't have to take it on faith, either. The results derived from that postulate match our observations. The faith of religion is supposed to be accepted without evidence. That's very different from the "faith" scientists put in their postulates.
I'd also like to agree with Mallic about Dragon Age. Leliana is a great example of a character with faith. Perhaps faith isn't explored much from the player's point of view, but it is a central part of the game. Some of the conversations between Leliana and Morrigan are really interesting on this point.
The player character can either have faith or not, as it comes up in conversation, but there's little effect on the game world from that choice, so I'll admit from a player point of view it isn't really very well explored. From a world and supporting character point of view, however, I'd say Dragon Age does a pretty decent job with the idea of faith.
Why shouldn't we have a knee-jerk reaction to Faith?
Really, can faith - at least the kind religions have, ever be used for anything other than an ultimately destructive end?
Islam was the religion of the enlightened. You use the benefits of the Islamic faith, probably everyday. Algebra came from a period in history where Islamic faith was the center of an enlightened society that expanded human knowledge when the western countries were trying to figure out which sharp object to jab their neighbor with.
Islamic and Catholic religious leaders are why we have the works of Plato, Heroditus, Homer, Beowulf, and Aristotle today. Because they studied, copied, and preserved their works through generations. Because they felt that the works benefited their faith.
A few Catholic Saints have founded well received philosophies.
Galileo defended his works not with scientific facts, but with the words and teachings of saints. He felt that his teachings helped us to understand God's works.
Newton studied the makings of the cosmos because he felt it made him closer to god to understand his works.
The legendary Numa Pompilius organized the religions of Rome at it's founding to move the minds of his people away from war and to give them something to occupy themselves in between the inevitable struggles of a small town. He's recognized with moving the Romans away from a more warlike savagery and having them look to the gods and follow the laws.
Faith informed and transformed the works of Tolkien and Lewis, who are the basis of modern fantasy.
Johnny Cash's faith is dripping from all of his works, and is a big part of some of his greatest songs.
I think Portal and other games with an unreliable narrator could be seen as an exercise in faith, or at least the ingredients are there for it. You have GLaDOS, the authoritative unseen voice telling the test subject what to do, and the scribblings of the Rat Man attempting to shake your faith in the truth in what GLaDOS is telling you. Of course through the delivery you kind of can make out what's what.
I made an account just to post this comment. I'll try to keep it short.
This is the first EC episode I've been disappointed in. Not as in it didn't deliver what I expected: I'm actually disappointed in the people who made it. I expected better of a team that has in the past succeeded so well in researching their topics and present things fairly.
And yet when it came right down to it, on a topic as sensitive as this, they either massively dropped the ball on the research front, or took the safest path to offend the least people.
That itself isn't a big deal. But the method of doing so was to massively misrepresents science to its viewers.
Simply put: To conflate the "faith" of religion in any way with science or the scientific method proves that, despite claiming to "love science," whatever that means, you don't understand it. At all.
Which is understandable. You are not scientists. You have not spent your life in the study of any particular branch of science.
But if you're going to try and explain what science is, you could have asked a scientist. Hell you could have asked a dozen. 11/12 of them would have been able to explain to you the difference between religious faith, and what you call "faith in science." It has been covered many a time. There are debates and speeches and presentations all over the internet that go over, in significant, careful detail, what separates these two fields.
To sum up:
Religious faith is about believing in something without the need of evidence.
Scientific "faith," as you describe it, is about believing in something BECAUSE you have evidence, to SOME DEGREE, that that thing is supported by facts or observation or reason.
The DEGREE to which you believe something in science is based on the AMOUNT or STRENGTH of the evidence you have.
We have a word for that second type of belief, and it is not "faith." It is "confidence." This is why you hear the word "confidence" used as a technical term in science all the time.
Laymen believe in science because of faith. Faith in the institution of science, or the scientific method, or even specific famous scientists.
Scientists do not have faith in science. They have knowledge and experience. Science is based on confidence that our basic understanding of natural laws are not flawed. We have that confidence because we see evidence of their validity every day, through hundreds, thousands, millions of experiments, great and small.
This has NOTHING to do with the faith of religion, which can be just as strong or as weak, from person to person, irregardless of personal revelation or experience with the supernatural.
Conflating these two things is a basic misunderstanding of science, and does great damage to the concept of science to those that do not understand it.
I have enjoyed these videos every week more than I can say, and have spread it among my peers and friends as best I can. Please have more care in the future when discussing things you have not properly researched or taken the time to understand, so I do not have further reason to regret the accolades I have heaped on this series to others.
I think you're dead wrong here. I see where you're kind of going, but you're making a mistake in logic because you're confusing the two uses of the word "faith."
When you talk about the shift from Classical Physics to Einstein, you acknowledge that scientists who thought they knew how the world worked now realized that they had to change their assumptions (which you say they had taken "on faith") to the new model.
I'm sorry, but that's just NOT the type of faith that is involved in religion.
When scientists are presented with convincing evidence that rocks the foundation of what they thought they knew - when they are shown that they are wrong in their beliefs... they change them.
When the "faithful" are presented with convincing evidence that rocks the foundation of their beliefs - they cling ever more tightly to their beliefs. Faith doesn't change based on the evidence.
So you can't really say that scientists have faith. Even going back to the assumptions of mathematics - the postulates that 1=1 and two parallel lines never intersect, the truth is, shown evidence that 1!=1 or that two parallel lines do intersect, and scientists and mathematicians will change what they believe to be true.
To understand what James is saying here I believe that one requires grounding in philosophy and the very nature of religious belief.
If we truly examine the scientific method we will discover that it places faith in the idea that what we perceive is the real world. This idea is based in Aristotelian thought, which was popularized by St. Thomas Aquinas during the 13th Century. While the exact relationship between Catholic Scholasticism and the modern Scientific Method has been debated, many have argued that without Aquinas modern science and the modern world would not exist[1]. Previous to Aquinas, the prevalent philosophical school in Europe was Neo-Platonism which holds that the physical world that we perceive is a shadow compared to the actual reality that exists in heaven (for Christians) or in the Good (for Plato and his followers). In this system, science makes less sense because our world is a reflection and as such does not contain any causes for the effects we perceive.
Thus, to claim that religious belief and the scientific method are not tangential ignores the philosophies that influence each.
In response to BrianBoyko, your comment demonstrates an ignorance of the relationships between war and ideologies. While it is true that numerous wars have been fought in the name of religion, others have been fought in the name of "scientific" ideologies that ignored or were downright hostile to religious believers. The bloodiest conflict in human history occurred on the eastern front of WWII [2], between an atheistic state (the USSR) [3] and one that was tolerant of religions to the extent that they could be controlled by it (Nazi Germany) [4]. 30 million people died in a battle between these modern and scientific ideologies. In addition this figure ignores the individuals killed in the USSR's Gulags previous to WWII, and after which could add another 10 million persons onto this death toll [5].
Clearly, belief in an atheistic ideology can kill just as many people as a religious faith, if not more.
While it is true that religious battles probably have claimed more lives in the long run (due to a history that is several thousand years longer), it is important to note that violence can occur in the pursuit of any ideology; whether it be racial purity, communism, Christianity, or paganism. All belief systems, including atheism, can be corrupted in this manner. If you do not believe me then I suggest that you research the history of the USSR: and atheistic state with the blood of tens of millions of lives on its hands. [6]
Thus, following your logic:
Why shouldn't we have a knee-jerk reaction to any faith or ideology? Or any idea for that matter?
Really, can faith: whether it be in Marxist theory, Jesus Christ, or that an object thrown in the air will return to the ground, ever be used for anything other than an ultimately destructive end?
Remember that, any movement is destructive act contributing to the heat-death of the universe [7].
Why not sit and watch the world slip by?
However, instead of abandoning all action in the in the face of this fact, I offer an alternative solution:
Instead of judging our beliefs, faiths, and ideologies on their sins and mistakes, how about we examine them on their capacity for good and the amount of truth (painful or not) that they bring into their believers lives. Everyone will approach this idea a little differently, but at least it spares us for ad hominem attacks and a senseless abandonment of any action.
After banging my head against my desk several times, I decided that I had to add my response to this travesty of an episode.
I do not write this lightly; you, Extra Credits team, ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Remember your review of Call or Juarez: The Cartel? You rightly pounded the game for tragically misinforming people about very serious topics; the drug war and human trafficking for instance. You are guilty of the exact same thing here.
“We never live through the heartbreaking loss of faith.”-why is it automatically “Heartbreaking”? What about a life affirming loss of faith? When a person realizes that there is no immortal, totalitarian dictator lording over their lives.
This ties into theme of your own images. The subtle smile on the glowing man “with faith”, represented by a glowing ring of light, as opposed to the one without. The rightly skeptical man informing the priest of his burden of proof (as well as not properly representing that argument); not a particularly flattering image. Or the angry looking man turning away from the glowing faith game.
This might seem trivial, but when you talk about scientific theories that were later proven wrong in practically mocking tone, and then skirt close to an argument from ignorance, it tells me that you have an agenda in making this.
The fact that you would say “All reason is based on faith,” and: “We have deep faith in science,” (again without defining ‘faith’), says to me that you are profoundly ignorant of even the basics of science. Science is the single most accurate method of understanding the world that has ever been devised by humanity. Period.
And, finally, there’s leaving this line out of that butchered Einstein Quote: “In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.”
Quote mining, ignorance, lack of research, and either intentional or non-intentional propaganda.
For Shame.
Addendum: I just realized the worst thing about this. While I could be wrong, I suspect based the on views expressed in this video, that you will dismiss all of the factual rebuttals to be nothing more than a "problem with the community."
It will probably just be interpreted as confirmation of the falsehoods presented here. Again, I could be wrong, but from your words and views, that seems to be the most likely outcome.
I'm only really ranting here to make myself feel better. Truth is I know from having to deal with it time and time again that the whole "science takes faith" and "atheism is a faith" is just a way religious people try to put their non-reason on the same shelf as my reason. Saying, well it's all a faith so it's a wash. Forget it.
I just you know, expected better from Extra Credits. Why would they even MAKE such a statement in a video about faith in games if not to try and push their own mindset? They could have taken that out and nothing would be different except the comment section wouldn't make me want to tear out my eyes.
Look at all the atheist fundamentalists, no better than the absurdists in the religious right.
"HOW DARE YOU COMPARE OUR BELIEFS TO THOSE BLASPHEMERS. YOU ARE DUMB AND IGNORANT AND WRONG AND MUST HAVE A SECRET AGENDA."
It's like little mirror versions of Glenn Beck. Completely close-minded fools shouting "conspiracy!" while making basically the same arguments with different semantics, but justifying their radicalism using a perceived prosecution due to having minority influence.
Theism and Atheism are logically equivalent. There is no less leap of "faith" in believing Creation theory as Big Bang Theory, at some point you must make a large assumption for which cannot be proven. Being antagonistic towards opposing philosophies is a sign of a weak mind who fears having his reality shattered. If you can't empathize with others and seek to understand their beliefs (while not necessarily sharing them), then obviously you're too afraid to challenge your own convictions.
If a call to action for "let's explore each others beliefs and the gray areas in between" is propaganda to you, then you are intellectually inept and philosophically challenged.
I am amazed by the lack of understanding of what is entailed by the word Faith by many people posting in this forum. Regrettably, Faith has become a loaded word (especially in the States) but all it really means is that you have comfortable trust in something uncertain to you. Humans are faith based creatures, whether you believe it is by design or by accident. We depend more on how we feel about something than how we can reason about it to make decisions, partly because it is easy and partly because we are biological, and it is impossible for us to be aware of everything in a single moment the way something like a computer can.
This means that all human systems (religion, science, law, etc...) are Faith based systems at their very core because they are human systems. To suggest that one of them (science) transcends this limitation through methodological proof and a willingness (though it isn't as willing as some like to think; see ptolemy vs. copernicus) to change is completely self serving, confuses what Faith is with what it is associated with or with a specific kind of Faith (usually Religious Faith; we use a modifier for a reason), and usually, in a twist of irony, reveals the speaker to have an immense degree of Faith in the system he is defending by presenting proofs that his system is different from all the rest (an easy example is two religious people debating the merits of their respective belief systems; hopefully without belligerence. A better example is all the posters here claiming Science and Math are not based on Faith using tenets of Science and Math)
Oh, and guys, never let your opinions be corrupted by those of others. I appreciate the fact that you do episodes about what YOU think and I'll never understand why some people are so affected by the fact that you have a different opinion that they write essays about how you are supposedly wrong. Polemics people, polemics! Again, keep up the good work!
No offense, but you have these two definitions mixed. Science is obviously based in definition 2 (everything is), but NOT definition 1. Science is in fact the very opposite of definition 1.
The fact that using the internet i can prope ANY line of reasoning in science (to whatever depth i desire) renders this: "All reason is based on faith" a non sequitur.
Btw why is "faith" something you "have", rather than something you lack? Faith has nothing to do with "standing wrapped in awe", i can do that fine without accepting anything i can't prope to my hearts content.
"This feeling is at the center of true religiousness" may be true, but that doesn't mean it is not at the very center of other things! Maybe, just maybe, it is at the center of religiousness because it is at the center of being human.
I love you guys and all the work you've done, but i do not have faith in you. I will call you out when you post an episode where the very premise is based on a misconception.
The irony of people using the authority of the dictionary to defend their view of Science being inconmesurable with Faith, instead of basing their defense on observable behavior and evidence is hilarious to say the least. I had no idea so many EC fans were militant scientists
also people are right about the errors with this one. there was an obvious affinity towards faith. just thought id make an account to back them up. -long time fan
@Deathshead419: "Why is it automatically 'Heartbreaking'?" It's not automatically heartbreaking when someone loses faith. However, one could write a heartbreaking story about someone losing faith, and such a story has not yet been told in games. This is a topic that has been explored in great depth in other media, and so we know that such stories can be written.
@trueneutral: Theism and atheism are not logically equivalent. (In fact, since they are negations of one another, if they are logically equivalent then your system is inconsistent. But I digress.) The difference is the extra belief which theists take; the model of the world proposed by an atheist has one less axiom, if you will. Both would begin by describing the laws of physics and so on, but while the atheist concludes with "...and that is all", the theist says "...and there is God, who ... and that is all." The atheist would argue that his worldview describes all known phenomena, and so -- being simpler -- is a better choice.
@Kuomon: Please don't lump math in with science there. Mathematicians have axioms from which they have deduced all of their theorems, but the axioms are a way of defining a system to work with so that we all know that we're talking about the same things. For example, one of the Peano Axioms states that every number is equal to itself. That's not a matter of faith, it's just that if you're working with things that need not equal themselves then you are not working with numbers.
Also, I'm not sure what your complaint about Necuno's reference to the dictionary is supposed to mean. It comes off as an attempt to troll, but in case it isn't: you are not arguing against Necuno's point, you are attacking him directly. His point was that there are two fundamentally different meanings of the word faith (for which he provided evidence, the dictionary), and that
@Kuomon
Tell me, how do you define a concept like "faith" through "observable behavior and evidence" when we can't even agree on the meaning of words?
If i can't even look up a word like "behavior" in the dictionary and assume that you understand it to mean: "manner of behaving or acting."
I am sorry sir, but that does not make sense! But point taken, i forgot to mention my assumption that we are in fact communicating in English.
0
Options
J. D. MilknutLord of ChipmunksPortland, ORRegistered Userregular
@Deathshead419 I hear you on the slightly biased images and terminology (although it seems unintentional to me) but I think you go off the deep end a bit with what you extrapolate from that. They did define "faith": they said it's taking things as true without having proof. And if you are familiar with the basics of logic and philosophy you'll know that, as they said, we do this ALL THE TIME. How do I know Australia exists? Because I have faith that it's not a worldwide conspiracy of people lying to me and telling me it's there and providing fake pictures etc. Yes, that's an extreme example, but perhaps you see what I'm getting at.
The scientific method is certainly very effective for understanding the physical world around us but if we lose touch with the fact that it's impossible to truly KNOW anything then we put ourselves at the risk of being in the same position as the scientists they talk about who thought they were about to solve all of physics. The scientific method only functions when you can control all your variables and get a consistent output. The only reason religion can exist logically is because it answers the only question science can't answer: what is the nature of that which we are unable to ever control? If a "God" exists it would be possible to control it because it would be a supreme being. If you can't control it you can't create a controlled test and you can't get a consistent output. And if you can't do that, you can't prove it exists. But you also can't prove that it doesn't exist. Defined this way, "God" is equally likely to exist or not exist, according to science. Anyone who tells you differently is not being honest with themselves and allowing bias to cloud the basic facts.
Now: does any of this have a real bearing on the topic at hand? Not really. The episode is about dealing with the HUMAN issue of faith which IS a reality, whether you have it or not. Yes they slipped up in the presentation by tipping their hand and showing that they see spiritual faith as rewarding. But the fact is, even if they didn't think that the point would remain: games are an excellent avenue for examining faith, no matter the angle or the conclusion they come to in the end. And I think ignoring that larger point by nitpicking the bias is doing them and yourself a disservice.
0
Options
J. D. MilknutLord of ChipmunksPortland, ORRegistered Userregular
@Deathshead419 I hear you on the slightly biased images and terminology (although it seems unintentional to me) but I think you go off the deep end a bit with what you extrapolate from that. They did define "faith": they said it's taking things as true without having proof. And if you are familiar with the basics of logic and philosophy you'll know that, as they said, we do this ALL THE TIME. How do I know Australia exists? Because I have faith that it's not a worldwide conspiracy of people lying to me and telling me it's there and providing fake pictures etc. Yes, that's an extreme example, but perhaps you see what I'm getting at.
The scientific method is certainly very effective for understanding the physical world around us but if we lose touch with the fact that it's impossible to truly KNOW anything then we put ourselves at the risk of being in the same position as the scientists they talk about who thought they were about to solve all of physics. The scientific method only functions when you can control all your variables and get a consistent output. The only reason religion can exist logically is because it answers the only question science can't answer: what is the nature of that which we are unable to ever control? If a "God" exists it would be possible to control it because it would be a supreme being. If you can't control it you can't create a controlled test and you can't get a consistent output. And if you can't do that, you can't prove it exists. But you also can't prove that it doesn't exist. Defined this way, "God" is equally likely to exist or not exist, according to science. Anyone who tells you differently is not being honest with themselves and allowing bias to cloud the basic facts.
Now: does any of this have a real bearing on the topic at hand? Not really. The episode is about dealing with the HUMAN issue of faith which IS a reality, whether you have it or not. Yes they slipped up in the presentation by tipping their hand and showing that they see spiritual faith as rewarding. But the fact is, even if they didn't think that the point would remain: games are an excellent avenue for examining faith, no matter the angle or the conclusion they come to in the end. And I think ignoring that larger point by nitpicking the bias is doing them and yourself a disservice.
Very interesting and thought-provoking. Though I had trouble following what you were trying to convey and I think I know why.
I think your discussion of "faith", as you are using it, needs to be further broken down because you seem to be using the one word in multiple different ways (I don't know whether or not you realise it). There is "Faith as Hope", "Faith as Assumption", "Blind Faith", "Faith as Extrapolation/Induction", and "Faith as Awe/Wonder". All of which are very different things that just happen to sometimes be referred to as "faith".
Faith as Hope
Initially you seem to be talking about faith in the colloquial "I have faith in you", sense of the word that describes a passion or hope for something (hence a "crisis of faith" being a moment of despair).
Faith as Assumption
And then you talk about foundational assumptions using the word "faith". This seems to me kind of like talking about "right" as "the opposite of left", then in the next sentence using it to mean "the opposite of incorrect" without even realising it. English happens to use the one word to refer to drastically different concepts.
Foundational assumptions are the area of a branch of philosophy called "epistemology" that asks questions such as "what do I know," "how do I know it", "what should I believe", and "what am I justified in believing". In this field there are various schools of thought about what concepts are so fundamental that they cannot be broken down any further and so must be assumed before we can think about anything. For example, rationalism, logical positivism, and foundational evidentialism.
Blind Faith / Faith as Blindness
Related to assumptions is a meaning of "faith" that you did not seem to touch on, and this meaning goes one step further than a foundational assumption: It is the belief in a claim in the absence of evidence, and a rejection of all evidence to the contrary - this is what is called "blind faith". Tim Minchin summed it up well with:
"Science changes its beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observations so that belief can be preserved." He was talking about this form of "blind faith", and I think we can all think of examples of people doing this.
Faith as Extrapolation/Induction
You seem to briefly talk about (though it is hard to tell) "faith" within science as the problem of induction. This is an old philosophical problem that goes something like:
"I have boiled water a thousand times in a thousand different situations, and it always boils at 100 degrees celsius. Therefore, water will always boil at 100 degrees" But the problem of induction is that this is an extrapolation. All we can say with 100% certainty is that water has in the past boiled at that temperature - we haven't yet done the water boiling that will happen in future. Any sample size in any experiment is still only a finite number, and therefore a miniscule fraction of the infinite samples we refer to when we claim to know what something will always do.
This is discussed in the philosophy of science and if this question interests you then you should definitely read Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong", or at least watch this summary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tcOi9a3-B0
Faith as Awe/Wonder
And finally, you talk about "faith" as a feeling of awe, mystery, and wonder about the universe/life. As you can imagine, this is not a religious phenomenon, but something that is shared across all cultures, beliefs and lack thereof. More importantly, it is something only vaguely related to the other three meanings of the word "faith" that you use.
Clearly, any game that tries to explore any one of these very interesting areas of human nature and philosophy will probably be starkly different to each other. Primarily because these are all very different concepts that just happen to occasionally be what some people sometimes mean when they use the word "faith".
Also very interesting: You will notice that all of these forms of "faith" (except Blind Faith) are secular in the sense that atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and scientists accept them and make use of them. So maybe "faith" isn't as anchored to religion as is commonly believed.
Very interesting and thought-provoking. Though I had trouble following what you were trying to convey and I think I know why.
I think your discussion of "faith", as you are using it, needs to be further broken down because you seem to be using the one word in multiple different ways (I don't know whether or not you realise it). There is "Faith as Hope", "Faith as Assumption", "Blind Faith", "Faith as Extrapolation/Induction", and "Faith as Awe/Wonder". All of which are very different things that just happen to sometimes be referred to as "faith".
Faith as Hope
Initially you seem to be talking about faith in the colloquial "I have faith in you", sense of the word that describes a passion or hope for something (hence a "crisis of faith" being a moment of despair).
Faith as Assumption
And then you talk about foundational assumptions using the word "faith". This seems to me kind of like talking about "right" as "the opposite of left", then in the next sentence using it to mean "the opposite of incorrect" without even realising it. English happens to use the one word to refer to drastically different concepts.
Foundational assumptions are the area of a branch of philosophy called "epistemology" that asks questions such as "what do I know," "how do I know it", "what should I believe", and "what am I justified in believing". In this field there are various schools of thought about what concepts are so fundamental that they cannot be broken down any further and so must be assumed before we can think about anything. For example, rationalism, logical positivism, and foundational evidentialism.
Blind Faith / Faith as Blindness
Related to assumptions is a meaning of "faith" that you did not seem to touch on, and this meaning goes one step further than a foundational assumption: It is the belief in a claim in the absence of evidence, and a rejection of all evidence to the contrary - this is what is called "blind faith". Tim Minchin summed it up well with:
"Science changes its beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observations so that belief can be preserved." He was talking about this form of "blind faith", and I think we can all think of examples of people doing this.
Faith as Extrapolation/Induction
You seem to briefly talk about (though it is hard to tell) "faith" within science as the problem of induction. This is an old philosophical problem that goes something like:
"I have boiled water a thousand times in a thousand different situations, and it always boils at 100 degrees celsius. Therefore, water will always boil at 100 degrees" But the problem of induction is that this is an extrapolation. All we can say with 100% certainty is that water has in the past boiled at that temperature - we haven't yet done the water boiling that will happen in future. Any sample size in any experiment is still only a finite number, and therefore a miniscule fraction of the infinite samples we refer to when we claim to know what something will always do.
This is discussed in the philosophy of science and if this question interests you then you should definitely read Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong", or at least watch this summary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tcOi9a3-B0
Faith as Awe/Wonder
And finally, you talk about "faith" as a feeling of awe, mystery, and wonder about the universe/life. As you can imagine, this is not a religious phenomenon, but something that is shared across all cultures, beliefs and lack thereof. More importantly, it is something only vaguely related to the other three meanings of the word "faith" that you use.
Clearly, any game that tries to explore any one of these very interesting areas of human nature and philosophy will probably be starkly different to each other. Primarily because these are all very different concepts that just happen to occasionally be what some people sometimes mean when they use the word "faith".
Also very interesting: You will notice that all of these forms of "faith" (except Blind Faith) are secular in the sense that atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and scientists accept them and make use of them. So maybe "faith" isn't as anchored to religion as is commonly believed.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms— this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.
This has been posted time and time again and explained in beautiful detail over and over again, but yet I am compelled to add in my voice to the travesty of misrepresenting science and some of its greatest benefactors from the past.
There are already countless posts about how science has nothing to do about religious faith, like this episode of EC was talking about, so I wont be repeating that.
I will however expand on that by saying that the biggest difference between science and faith is that science is falsifiable, as in it can be tested and/or observed. As you correctly pointed out, Newtons ideas on gravity for example weren't complete and Newtons clockwork mechanism for the universe was falsified by Einsteins theory of relativity which presented universe as more of a fabric rather than a mechanical structure. However, Newtons ideas are still used today because the mathematics behind the Newtonian structure still beautifully describes how matter moves and interacts with each other. Yes, we have expanded on Newtons ideas, but we didn't trash everything, they are still very much in use today.
Another disapointing aspect is bringing these people up at all in this sort of manner. It is slimy quote mining at worst and an appeal to authority at best. Talking about the Einstein quotation. I was half expecting, through my facepalm, a Darwins death bed recount on evolution where he admits that its wrong and impossible.
But I digress, even with all of that, I still, not even for a second believe that the EC crew actually sides with young-earth-creationists and merely wanted to be 'balanced' and hence wanted to bring out sentiments from all sides. But this brings out the problem within religion when trying to look at it unbiased. Religion can only be defended by lies and forgeries, so when you try to look at both sides equally, you're going to have to lie to do so. In EC's case it was implying that "faith" and scientific "confidence" were the same.
I was able to feel the EC crew's frustration and uncertainty on how to approach this subject, knowing that majority of US citizens are theists, that if they didn't try to justify faith SOMEHOW, those theists would start donning on their cloaks and burning crosses on their lawns and demanding blood sacrifice to appease their deities. To avoid a mob lynching by theists, their hands were tied to present an argument from the deeply religious respective.
However, this only explains why you would do this (And is only my hypothesis on that) episode in such a manner.
I'll leave you with an exhaustive explanation of the difference between religious faith and scientific, rational trust/expectation/propability/confidence by Aron "Texan Tank" Ra:
EC deserves to be criticized for narrowness of thought, but I can't sit around and watch people with even narrower minds criticize them without reason. I disagree with calling it faith, but, yes, all human knowledge is predicated upon assumptions (that is, assuming there are no irreducible truths.) A good summery of this issue can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument
For instance, most scientists are empiricists, and among the assumptions of empiricism is that the five senses and the human intellect are mostly reliable sources of information. It would however be impossible to prove to someone the validity of those assumptions if, for instance, they did not believe in their senses or they thought their memories deceived them. Essentially the problem with our systems of logic is that they set their own standards of validity which are calculated to reinforce the base assumptions. All knowledge is and must be predicated upon circular arguments. Even the existence of a constant physical world is essentially a shared assumption. It seems useful but only because we already believe in it. Most of our daily lives would seem wholly unjustifiable to a man who thinks the world doesn't exist (he can only explain our actions by assuming the rest of us believe, or at least seem to believe, something which to him is entirely untrue.)
So for God's sake please stop acting like these facts undermine the very nature of scientific truth. Most dedicated scientists are fully aware that their work is predicated upon a carefully calculated set of assumptions. Not being aware of this would be a severe detriment to their work. Most people take certain assumptions as basic irreducible truths and are less certain of other assumptions (for instance, I won't say werewolves don't exist, but I don't think they exist near me. I could be ignorant on this point, however, because I haven't seriously checked into it.)
This has been posted time and time again and explained in beautiful detail over and over again, but yet I am compelled to add in my voice to the travesty of misrepresenting science and some of its greatest benefactors from the past.
There are already countless posts about how science has nothing to do about religious faith, like this episode of EC was talking about, so I wont be repeating that.
I will however expand on that by saying that the biggest difference between science and faith is that science is falsifiable, as in it can be tested and/or observed. As you correctly pointed out, Newtons ideas on gravity for example weren't complete and Newtons clockwork mechanism for the universe was falsified by Einsteins theory of relativity which presented universe as more of a fabric rather than a mechanical structure. However, Newtons ideas are still used today because the mathematics behind the Newtonian structure still beautifully describes how matter moves and interacts with each other. Yes, we have expanded on Newtons ideas, but we didn't trash everything, they are still very much in use today.
Another disapointing aspect is bringing these people up at all in this sort of manner. It is slimy quote mining at worst and an appeal to authority at best. Talking about the Einstein quotation. I was half expecting, through my facepalm, a Darwins death bed recount on evolution where he admits that its wrong and impossible.
But I digress, even with all of that, I still, not even for a second believe that the EC crew actually sides with young-earth-creationists and merely wanted to be 'balanced' and hence wanted to bring out sentiments from all sides. But this brings out the problem within religion when trying to look at it unbiased. Religion can only be defended by lies and forgeries, so when you try to look at both sides equally, you're going to have to lie to do so. In EC's case it was implying that "faith" and scientific "confidence" were the same.
I was able to feel the EC crew's frustration and uncertainty on how to approach this subject, knowing that majority of US citizens are theists, that if they didn't try to justify faith SOMEHOW, those theists would start donning on their cloaks and burning crosses on their lawns and demanding blood sacrifice to appease their deities. To avoid a mob lynching by theists, their hands were tied to present an argument from the deeply religious respective.
However, this only explains why you would do this (And is only my hypothesis on that) episode in such a manner.
I'll leave you with an exhaustive explanation of the difference between religious faith and scientific, rational trust/expectation/propability/confidence by Aron "Texan Tank" Ra:
EC deserves to be criticized for narrowness of thought, but I can't sit around and watch people with even narrower minds criticize them without reason. I disagree with calling it faith, but, yes, all human knowledge is predicated upon assumptions (that is, assuming there are no irreducible truths.) A good summery of this issue can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regress_argument
For instance, most scientists are empiricists, and among the assumptions of empiricism is that the five senses and the human intellect are mostly reliable sources of information. It would however be impossible to prove to someone the validity of those assumptions if, for instance, they did not believe in their senses or they thought their memories deceived them. Essentially the problem with our systems of logic is that they set their own standards of validity which are calculated to reinforce the base assumptions. All knowledge is and must be predicated upon circular arguments. Even the existence of a constant physical world is essentially a shared assumption. It seems useful but only because we already believe in it. Most of our daily lives would seem wholly unjustifiable to a man who thinks the world doesn't exist (he can only explain our actions by assuming the rest of us believe, or at least seem to believe, something which to him is entirely untrue.)
So for God's sake please stop acting like these facts undermine the very nature of scientific truth. Most dedicated scientists are fully aware that their work is predicated upon a carefully calculated set of assumptions. Not being aware of this would be a severe detriment to their work. Most people take certain assumptions as basic irreducible truths and are less certain of other assumptions (for instance, I won't say werewolves don't exist, but I don't think they exist near me. I could be ignorant on this point, however, because I haven't seriously checked into it.)
Of all the games I can think of, Morrowind probably touched on religion the best. Subsequent TES games have done well, but not quite the same (sort of a pattern, really...).
With three different religions, the Nine Divines of the Imperial Cult, the worship of the Tribunal and the Daedra Worshipers, you get a bit of everything. Lore of three separate religions, each using different religions mechanics, and since so much conflict in the game stems from which religion people put their faith in, you have that as well. Granted, since you kill the Tribunal and get talked to by the Daedra all the time it lowers the faith aspect since they're so much more tangible, but the Nine Divines remain distant and intangible, and their worshipers rely more on faith (which is something that we kept well into the other games). Even the priests are like you talked about, they're not given magical powers from their gods, those that are mages have the same kind of magic as everybody else, they just apply it into the service of their deities.
Faith - religious and otherwise - is abundant in video games, often driving the narrative or at least motivating some of the major characters. However, games actually resolve this faith, usually by justifying and rewarding it; the dark acolyte's faith in a dead god is rewarded when his master rises for the climax of the story; the self-doubting/reluctant hero blossoms into a mighty champion when he learns to have faith in his own righteousness and fulfill his destiny.
Because religious faith in the real world has yet to come to any resolution - that is, the faithful are still waiting for the return of their god, or believe in some kind of afterlife which cannot be proven to anyone living - we do not associate it with the religious faith displayed in video games. But they ARE the same concept.
This episode's attempts to explore faith as it relates to science are unfortunate and off-message.
Okay, so after reading through the comments, I'd just like to throw in my two cents (sorry about the length):
1. The EC people are creating this content; they are permitted to espouse any opinion they want, even if you think it's offensive or somehow "propaganda." If the assertion that science is ultimately based on an unprovable postulate deeply offends your sensibilities, then you don't watch their videos. Hell, you can even take the time to make your own web series in which you can talk about religion in games. Or, like many people in this comments section, you can make a well-reasoned counter-argument. What doesn't make sense is to criticize people for pushing their own opinions in a web series that they produce.
2. Look, religion is a complicated issue. Saying that religion is all positive or all negative makes about as much sense as saying that sex is all positive or all negative. The fact is that religion is an inextricable part of everyone's lives; even if you aren't religious, you live in a world where you're bound to know and work with people who are believers, and you more than likely live in a country where religion has some influence, whether direct or indirect, on the government.
3. I know that this has already been stated and restated again, but to repeat: Science, like anything else, is an intellectual tradition. Like any intellectual tradition, there are going to be fundamental assumptions that ultimately reduce to postulates. In the case of science, this comes down to "the universe has consistent rules." Is this postulate awesome? Yes; it's massively powerful, and it hasn't failed us yet. As a physics student, I'm a huge fan of science. Interestingly, physics has an additional powerful postulate: The universe is describable mathematically. It's no surprise that you can quantify measurements, and that these measurements follow a pattern, but it is really amazing that you can mathematically generalize something (like, say, the handful of experiments that provide the empirical laws of classical electricity and magnetism, like Coulomb's Law, Ampere's Circuital law, Ohm's Law, and Faraday's law) into a set of laws that apply everywhere (like Maxwell's equations). All that said, I don't know if I'd call that fundamental postulate "faith." I wouldn't discount calling it faith either; I just don't know enough about epistemology and theology to make a qualified assertion.
4. SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND RELIGION AREN'T MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. The two traditions have entirely different spheres of applicability. A scientific fact is subject to empirical verifiability. As a result, if I need to treat an illness, build something, leave a comment on an internet video, or otherwise do something with empirically verifiable results, I'm inclined to use something backed by scientific conclusions. However, I've discovered that science is less than adequate at addressing a lot of questions that we, as humans, naturally ask, like the following: Why do we exist? How do I deal with painful events in life? What does it mean to be a good person? Religion isn't the only way to get answers to these questions, but it is a powerful and popular way to do so. As someone raised in a religious household, I never saw a conflict between science and religious faith; trying to draw scientific theories from the Bible or using science to refute the existence of God follows the same logical fallacy as criticizing Shakespeare plays for being historically inaccurate: Witches didn't actually provoke regicide in Scotland, but that doesn't render Macbeth invalid; its value is as a creative product, not a history book. Likewise, religion's value stems from the strength and guidance that people can draw from it (I'm not saying that religion is the only source of strength and guidance, but it is a source), not its assertions about the origins of the universe, medicine, or history.
If you have read this far, then you have a lot of patience for my ramblng; you have this insufferable web commenter's thanks, as well as his apologies about the length of the post.
Okay, so after reading through the comments, I'd just like to throw in my two cents (sorry about the length):
1. The EC people are creating this content; they are permitted to espouse any opinion they want, even if you think it's offensive or somehow "propaganda." If the assertion that science is ultimately based on an unprovable postulate deeply offends your sensibilities, then you don't watch their videos. Hell, you can even take the time to make your own web series in which you can talk about religion in games. Or, like many people in this comments section, you can make a well-reasoned counter-argument. What doesn't make sense is to criticize people for pushing their own opinions in a web series that they produce.
2. Look, religion is a complicated issue. Saying that religion is all positive or all negative makes about as much sense as saying that sex is all positive or all negative. The fact is that religion is an inextricable part of everyone's lives; even if you aren't religious, you live in a world where you're bound to know and work with people who are believers, and you more than likely live in a country where religion has some influence, whether direct or indirect, on the government.
3. I know that this has already been stated and restated again, but to repeat: Science, like anything else, is an intellectual tradition. Like any intellectual tradition, there are going to be fundamental assumptions that ultimately reduce to postulates. In the case of science, this comes down to "the universe has consistent rules." Is this postulate awesome? Yes; it's massively powerful, and it hasn't failed us yet. As a physics student, I'm a huge fan of science. Interestingly, physics has an additional powerful postulate: The universe is describable mathematically. It's no surprise that you can quantify measurements, and that these measurements follow a pattern, but it is really amazing that you can mathematically generalize something (like, say, the handful of experiments that provide the empirical laws of classical electricity and magnetism, like Coulomb's Law, Ampere's Circuital law, Ohm's Law, and Faraday's law) into a set of laws that apply everywhere (like Maxwell's equations). All that said, I don't know if I'd call that fundamental postulate "faith." I wouldn't discount calling it faith either; I just don't know enough about epistemology and theology to make a qualified assertion.
4. SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND RELIGION AREN'T MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. The two traditions have entirely different spheres of applicability. A scientific fact is subject to empirical verifiability. As a result, if I need to treat an illness, build something, leave a comment on an internet video, or otherwise do something with empirically verifiable results, I'm inclined to use something backed by scientific conclusions. However, I've discovered that science is less than adequate at addressing a lot of questions that we, as humans, naturally ask, like the following: Why do we exist? How do I deal with painful events in life? What does it mean to be a good person? Religion isn't the only way to get answers to these questions, but it is a powerful and popular way to do so. As someone raised in a religious household, I never saw a conflict between science and religious faith; trying to draw scientific theories from the Bible or using science to refute the existence of God follows the same logical fallacy as criticizing Shakespeare plays for being historically inaccurate: Witches didn't actually provoke regicide in Scotland, but that doesn't render Macbeth invalid; its value is as a creative product, not a history book. Likewise, religion's value stems from the strength and guidance that people can draw from it (I'm not saying that religion is the only source of strength and guidance, but it is a source), not its assertions about the origins of the universe, medicine, or history.
If you have read this far, then you have a lot of patience for my ramblng; you have this insufferable web commenter's thanks, as well as his apologies about the length of the post.
Posts
Seriously?!
You're exposed to a multitude of faiths and people of faith, who have no real proof of the existence of their deities.
In Mass Effect 3, you can even contribute to the birth of a faith, that has very very direct allusions to a Jesus figure.
In Mass Effect 3 you stand at the side of a dieing companion and take part in his faith due to the sheer loyalty to him.
In Mass Effect 1 & 2 you learn about multiple faiths with a wide variety of tenets.
You have discussions with your crew mates on their faith and the basis of their belief.
In a whole lot of ways you even actively participate in a very real building of faith. The crew mates you collect all build faith in you, and you in them. You walk into every situation without knowing the ultimate outcome and you have to work on faith that you're going to have the impact you want. A lot of the most emotional and amazing experiences in the game are in situations where you appear to have no control, and have to have faith in the crew members, the people, and the developers to allow you to steer it in the direction you want.
You had an entire show about the concepts of humanism represented by a single choice in Mass Effect 2, and now claim that there's no faith in games?
I'd also like to agree with Mallic about Dragon Age. Leliana is a great example of a character with faith. Perhaps faith isn't explored much from the player's point of view, but it is a central part of the game. Some of the conversations between Leliana and Morrigan are really interesting on this point.
The player character can either have faith or not, as it comes up in conversation, but there's little effect on the game world from that choice, so I'll admit from a player point of view it isn't really very well explored. From a world and supporting character point of view, however, I'd say Dragon Age does a pretty decent job with the idea of faith.
Islam was the religion of the enlightened. You use the benefits of the Islamic faith, probably everyday. Algebra came from a period in history where Islamic faith was the center of an enlightened society that expanded human knowledge when the western countries were trying to figure out which sharp object to jab their neighbor with.
Islamic and Catholic religious leaders are why we have the works of Plato, Heroditus, Homer, Beowulf, and Aristotle today. Because they studied, copied, and preserved their works through generations. Because they felt that the works benefited their faith.
A few Catholic Saints have founded well received philosophies.
Galileo defended his works not with scientific facts, but with the words and teachings of saints. He felt that his teachings helped us to understand God's works.
Newton studied the makings of the cosmos because he felt it made him closer to god to understand his works.
The legendary Numa Pompilius organized the religions of Rome at it's founding to move the minds of his people away from war and to give them something to occupy themselves in between the inevitable struggles of a small town. He's recognized with moving the Romans away from a more warlike savagery and having them look to the gods and follow the laws.
Faith informed and transformed the works of Tolkien and Lewis, who are the basis of modern fantasy.
Johnny Cash's faith is dripping from all of his works, and is a big part of some of his greatest songs.
So the answer is yes.
This is the first EC episode I've been disappointed in. Not as in it didn't deliver what I expected: I'm actually disappointed in the people who made it. I expected better of a team that has in the past succeeded so well in researching their topics and present things fairly.
And yet when it came right down to it, on a topic as sensitive as this, they either massively dropped the ball on the research front, or took the safest path to offend the least people.
That itself isn't a big deal. But the method of doing so was to massively misrepresents science to its viewers.
Simply put: To conflate the "faith" of religion in any way with science or the scientific method proves that, despite claiming to "love science," whatever that means, you don't understand it. At all.
Which is understandable. You are not scientists. You have not spent your life in the study of any particular branch of science.
But if you're going to try and explain what science is, you could have asked a scientist. Hell you could have asked a dozen. 11/12 of them would have been able to explain to you the difference between religious faith, and what you call "faith in science." It has been covered many a time. There are debates and speeches and presentations all over the internet that go over, in significant, careful detail, what separates these two fields.
To sum up:
Religious faith is about believing in something without the need of evidence.
Scientific "faith," as you describe it, is about believing in something BECAUSE you have evidence, to SOME DEGREE, that that thing is supported by facts or observation or reason.
The DEGREE to which you believe something in science is based on the AMOUNT or STRENGTH of the evidence you have.
We have a word for that second type of belief, and it is not "faith." It is "confidence." This is why you hear the word "confidence" used as a technical term in science all the time.
Laymen believe in science because of faith. Faith in the institution of science, or the scientific method, or even specific famous scientists.
Scientists do not have faith in science. They have knowledge and experience. Science is based on confidence that our basic understanding of natural laws are not flawed. We have that confidence because we see evidence of their validity every day, through hundreds, thousands, millions of experiments, great and small.
This has NOTHING to do with the faith of religion, which can be just as strong or as weak, from person to person, irregardless of personal revelation or experience with the supernatural.
Conflating these two things is a basic misunderstanding of science, and does great damage to the concept of science to those that do not understand it.
I have enjoyed these videos every week more than I can say, and have spread it among my peers and friends as best I can. Please have more care in the future when discussing things you have not properly researched or taken the time to understand, so I do not have further reason to regret the accolades I have heaped on this series to others.
When you talk about the shift from Classical Physics to Einstein, you acknowledge that scientists who thought they knew how the world worked now realized that they had to change their assumptions (which you say they had taken "on faith") to the new model.
I'm sorry, but that's just NOT the type of faith that is involved in religion.
When scientists are presented with convincing evidence that rocks the foundation of what they thought they knew - when they are shown that they are wrong in their beliefs... they change them.
When the "faithful" are presented with convincing evidence that rocks the foundation of their beliefs - they cling ever more tightly to their beliefs. Faith doesn't change based on the evidence.
So you can't really say that scientists have faith. Even going back to the assumptions of mathematics - the postulates that 1=1 and two parallel lines never intersect, the truth is, shown evidence that 1!=1 or that two parallel lines do intersect, and scientists and mathematicians will change what they believe to be true.
If we truly examine the scientific method we will discover that it places faith in the idea that what we perceive is the real world. This idea is based in Aristotelian thought, which was popularized by St. Thomas Aquinas during the 13th Century. While the exact relationship between Catholic Scholasticism and the modern Scientific Method has been debated, many have argued that without Aquinas modern science and the modern world would not exist[1]. Previous to Aquinas, the prevalent philosophical school in Europe was Neo-Platonism which holds that the physical world that we perceive is a shadow compared to the actual reality that exists in heaven (for Christians) or in the Good (for Plato and his followers). In this system, science makes less sense because our world is a reflection and as such does not contain any causes for the effects we perceive.
Thus, to claim that religious belief and the scientific method are not tangential ignores the philosophies that influence each.
In response to BrianBoyko, your comment demonstrates an ignorance of the relationships between war and ideologies. While it is true that numerous wars have been fought in the name of religion, others have been fought in the name of "scientific" ideologies that ignored or were downright hostile to religious believers. The bloodiest conflict in human history occurred on the eastern front of WWII [2], between an atheistic state (the USSR) [3] and one that was tolerant of religions to the extent that they could be controlled by it (Nazi Germany) [4]. 30 million people died in a battle between these modern and scientific ideologies. In addition this figure ignores the individuals killed in the USSR's Gulags previous to WWII, and after which could add another 10 million persons onto this death toll [5].
Clearly, belief in an atheistic ideology can kill just as many people as a religious faith, if not more.
While it is true that religious battles probably have claimed more lives in the long run (due to a history that is several thousand years longer), it is important to note that violence can occur in the pursuit of any ideology; whether it be racial purity, communism, Christianity, or paganism. All belief systems, including atheism, can be corrupted in this manner. If you do not believe me then I suggest that you research the history of the USSR: and atheistic state with the blood of tens of millions of lives on its hands. [6]
Thus, following your logic:
Why shouldn't we have a knee-jerk reaction to any faith or ideology? Or any idea for that matter?
Really, can faith: whether it be in Marxist theory, Jesus Christ, or that an object thrown in the air will return to the ground, ever be used for anything other than an ultimately destructive end?
Remember that, any movement is destructive act contributing to the heat-death of the universe [7].
Why not sit and watch the world slip by?
However, instead of abandoning all action in the in the face of this fact, I offer an alternative solution:
Instead of judging our beliefs, faiths, and ideologies on their sins and mistakes, how about we examine them on their capacity for good and the amount of truth (painful or not) that they bring into their believers lives. Everyone will approach this idea a little differently, but at least it spares us for ad hominem attacks and a senseless abandonment of any action.
Sources:
1. http://philosophynow.org/issues/13/Aristotles_Children
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Soviet_Union
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians#Nazi_Germany
5. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,461802,00.html
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Calculating_the_number_of_victims
7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
I do not write this lightly; you, Extra Credits team, ought to be ashamed of yourselves.
Remember your review of Call or Juarez: The Cartel? You rightly pounded the game for tragically misinforming people about very serious topics; the drug war and human trafficking for instance. You are guilty of the exact same thing here.
“We never live through the heartbreaking loss of faith.”-why is it automatically “Heartbreaking”? What about a life affirming loss of faith? When a person realizes that there is no immortal, totalitarian dictator lording over their lives.
This ties into theme of your own images. The subtle smile on the glowing man “with faith”, represented by a glowing ring of light, as opposed to the one without. The rightly skeptical man informing the priest of his burden of proof (as well as not properly representing that argument); not a particularly flattering image. Or the angry looking man turning away from the glowing faith game.
This might seem trivial, but when you talk about scientific theories that were later proven wrong in practically mocking tone, and then skirt close to an argument from ignorance, it tells me that you have an agenda in making this.
The fact that you would say “All reason is based on faith,” and: “We have deep faith in science,” (again without defining ‘faith’), says to me that you are profoundly ignorant of even the basics of science. Science is the single most accurate method of understanding the world that has ever been devised by humanity. Period.
And, finally, there’s leaving this line out of that butchered Einstein Quote: “In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man.”
Quote mining, ignorance, lack of research, and either intentional or non-intentional propaganda.
For Shame.
Addendum: I just realized the worst thing about this. While I could be wrong, I suspect based the on views expressed in this video, that you will dismiss all of the factual rebuttals to be nothing more than a "problem with the community."
It will probably just be interpreted as confirmation of the falsehoods presented here. Again, I could be wrong, but from your words and views, that seems to be the most likely outcome.
Sigh.
I just you know, expected better from Extra Credits. Why would they even MAKE such a statement in a video about faith in games if not to try and push their own mindset? They could have taken that out and nothing would be different except the comment section wouldn't make me want to tear out my eyes.
"HOW DARE YOU COMPARE OUR BELIEFS TO THOSE BLASPHEMERS. YOU ARE DUMB AND IGNORANT AND WRONG AND MUST HAVE A SECRET AGENDA."
It's like little mirror versions of Glenn Beck. Completely close-minded fools shouting "conspiracy!" while making basically the same arguments with different semantics, but justifying their radicalism using a perceived prosecution due to having minority influence.
Theism and Atheism are logically equivalent. There is no less leap of "faith" in believing Creation theory as Big Bang Theory, at some point you must make a large assumption for which cannot be proven. Being antagonistic towards opposing philosophies is a sign of a weak mind who fears having his reality shattered. If you can't empathize with others and seek to understand their beliefs (while not necessarily sharing them), then obviously you're too afraid to challenge your own convictions.
If a call to action for "let's explore each others beliefs and the gray areas in between" is propaganda to you, then you are intellectually inept and philosophically challenged.
This means that all human systems (religion, science, law, etc...) are Faith based systems at their very core because they are human systems. To suggest that one of them (science) transcends this limitation through methodological proof and a willingness (though it isn't as willing as some like to think; see ptolemy vs. copernicus) to change is completely self serving, confuses what Faith is with what it is associated with or with a specific kind of Faith (usually Religious Faith; we use a modifier for a reason), and usually, in a twist of irony, reveals the speaker to have an immense degree of Faith in the system he is defending by presenting proofs that his system is different from all the rest (an easy example is two religious people debating the merits of their respective belief systems; hopefully without belligerence. A better example is all the posters here claiming Science and Math are not based on Faith using tenets of Science and Math)
Faith definition 1: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith
"Belief that is not based on proof"
Faith definition 2: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/faith
"Confidence or trust in a person or thing"
No offense, but you have these two definitions mixed. Science is obviously based in definition 2 (everything is), but NOT definition 1. Science is in fact the very opposite of definition 1.
The fact that using the internet i can prope ANY line of reasoning in science (to whatever depth i desire) renders this: "All reason is based on faith" a non sequitur.
Btw why is "faith" something you "have", rather than something you lack? Faith has nothing to do with "standing wrapped in awe", i can do that fine without accepting anything i can't prope to my hearts content.
"This feeling is at the center of true religiousness" may be true, but that doesn't mean it is not at the very center of other things! Maybe, just maybe, it is at the center of religiousness because it is at the center of being human.
I love you guys and all the work you've done, but i do not have faith in you. I will call you out when you post an episode where the very premise is based on a misconception.
Best regards
Thor Nielsen
also people are right about the errors with this one. there was an obvious affinity towards faith. just thought id make an account to back them up. -long time fan
@trueneutral: Theism and atheism are not logically equivalent. (In fact, since they are negations of one another, if they are logically equivalent then your system is inconsistent. But I digress.) The difference is the extra belief which theists take; the model of the world proposed by an atheist has one less axiom, if you will. Both would begin by describing the laws of physics and so on, but while the atheist concludes with "...and that is all", the theist says "...and there is God, who ... and that is all." The atheist would argue that his worldview describes all known phenomena, and so -- being simpler -- is a better choice.
@Kuomon: Please don't lump math in with science there. Mathematicians have axioms from which they have deduced all of their theorems, but the axioms are a way of defining a system to work with so that we all know that we're talking about the same things. For example, one of the Peano Axioms states that every number is equal to itself. That's not a matter of faith, it's just that if you're working with things that need not equal themselves then you are not working with numbers.
Also, I'm not sure what your complaint about Necuno's reference to the dictionary is supposed to mean. It comes off as an attempt to troll, but in case it isn't: you are not arguing against Necuno's point, you are attacking him directly. His point was that there are two fundamentally different meanings of the word faith (for which he provided evidence, the dictionary), and that
(Hit post by mistake.)
Tell me, how do you define a concept like "faith" through "observable behavior and evidence" when we can't even agree on the meaning of words?
If i can't even look up a word like "behavior" in the dictionary and assume that you understand it to mean: "manner of behaving or acting."
I am sorry sir, but that does not make sense! But point taken, i forgot to mention my assumption that we are in fact communicating in English.
The scientific method is certainly very effective for understanding the physical world around us but if we lose touch with the fact that it's impossible to truly KNOW anything then we put ourselves at the risk of being in the same position as the scientists they talk about who thought they were about to solve all of physics. The scientific method only functions when you can control all your variables and get a consistent output. The only reason religion can exist logically is because it answers the only question science can't answer: what is the nature of that which we are unable to ever control? If a "God" exists it would be possible to control it because it would be a supreme being. If you can't control it you can't create a controlled test and you can't get a consistent output. And if you can't do that, you can't prove it exists. But you also can't prove that it doesn't exist. Defined this way, "God" is equally likely to exist or not exist, according to science. Anyone who tells you differently is not being honest with themselves and allowing bias to cloud the basic facts.
Now: does any of this have a real bearing on the topic at hand? Not really. The episode is about dealing with the HUMAN issue of faith which IS a reality, whether you have it or not. Yes they slipped up in the presentation by tipping their hand and showing that they see spiritual faith as rewarding. But the fact is, even if they didn't think that the point would remain: games are an excellent avenue for examining faith, no matter the angle or the conclusion they come to in the end. And I think ignoring that larger point by nitpicking the bias is doing them and yourself a disservice.
The scientific method is certainly very effective for understanding the physical world around us but if we lose touch with the fact that it's impossible to truly KNOW anything then we put ourselves at the risk of being in the same position as the scientists they talk about who thought they were about to solve all of physics. The scientific method only functions when you can control all your variables and get a consistent output. The only reason religion can exist logically is because it answers the only question science can't answer: what is the nature of that which we are unable to ever control? If a "God" exists it would be possible to control it because it would be a supreme being. If you can't control it you can't create a controlled test and you can't get a consistent output. And if you can't do that, you can't prove it exists. But you also can't prove that it doesn't exist. Defined this way, "God" is equally likely to exist or not exist, according to science. Anyone who tells you differently is not being honest with themselves and allowing bias to cloud the basic facts.
Now: does any of this have a real bearing on the topic at hand? Not really. The episode is about dealing with the HUMAN issue of faith which IS a reality, whether you have it or not. Yes they slipped up in the presentation by tipping their hand and showing that they see spiritual faith as rewarding. But the fact is, even if they didn't think that the point would remain: games are an excellent avenue for examining faith, no matter the angle or the conclusion they come to in the end. And I think ignoring that larger point by nitpicking the bias is doing them and yourself a disservice.
I think your discussion of "faith", as you are using it, needs to be further broken down because you seem to be using the one word in multiple different ways (I don't know whether or not you realise it). There is "Faith as Hope", "Faith as Assumption", "Blind Faith", "Faith as Extrapolation/Induction", and "Faith as Awe/Wonder". All of which are very different things that just happen to sometimes be referred to as "faith".
Faith as Hope
Initially you seem to be talking about faith in the colloquial "I have faith in you", sense of the word that describes a passion or hope for something (hence a "crisis of faith" being a moment of despair).
Faith as Assumption
And then you talk about foundational assumptions using the word "faith". This seems to me kind of like talking about "right" as "the opposite of left", then in the next sentence using it to mean "the opposite of incorrect" without even realising it. English happens to use the one word to refer to drastically different concepts.
Foundational assumptions are the area of a branch of philosophy called "epistemology" that asks questions such as "what do I know," "how do I know it", "what should I believe", and "what am I justified in believing". In this field there are various schools of thought about what concepts are so fundamental that they cannot be broken down any further and so must be assumed before we can think about anything. For example, rationalism, logical positivism, and foundational evidentialism.
Blind Faith / Faith as Blindness
Related to assumptions is a meaning of "faith" that you did not seem to touch on, and this meaning goes one step further than a foundational assumption: It is the belief in a claim in the absence of evidence, and a rejection of all evidence to the contrary - this is what is called "blind faith". Tim Minchin summed it up well with:
"Science changes its beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observations so that belief can be preserved." He was talking about this form of "blind faith", and I think we can all think of examples of people doing this.
Faith as Extrapolation/Induction
You seem to briefly talk about (though it is hard to tell) "faith" within science as the problem of induction. This is an old philosophical problem that goes something like:
"I have boiled water a thousand times in a thousand different situations, and it always boils at 100 degrees celsius. Therefore, water will always boil at 100 degrees" But the problem of induction is that this is an extrapolation. All we can say with 100% certainty is that water has in the past boiled at that temperature - we haven't yet done the water boiling that will happen in future. Any sample size in any experiment is still only a finite number, and therefore a miniscule fraction of the infinite samples we refer to when we claim to know what something will always do.
This is discussed in the philosophy of science and if this question interests you then you should definitely read Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong", or at least watch this summary:
Faith as Awe/Wonder
And finally, you talk about "faith" as a feeling of awe, mystery, and wonder about the universe/life. As you can imagine, this is not a religious phenomenon, but something that is shared across all cultures, beliefs and lack thereof. More importantly, it is something only vaguely related to the other three meanings of the word "faith" that you use.
Clearly, any game that tries to explore any one of these very interesting areas of human nature and philosophy will probably be starkly different to each other. Primarily because these are all very different concepts that just happen to occasionally be what some people sometimes mean when they use the word "faith".
Also very interesting: You will notice that all of these forms of "faith" (except Blind Faith) are secular in the sense that atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and scientists accept them and make use of them. So maybe "faith" isn't as anchored to religion as is commonly believed.
I think your discussion of "faith", as you are using it, needs to be further broken down because you seem to be using the one word in multiple different ways (I don't know whether or not you realise it). There is "Faith as Hope", "Faith as Assumption", "Blind Faith", "Faith as Extrapolation/Induction", and "Faith as Awe/Wonder". All of which are very different things that just happen to sometimes be referred to as "faith".
Faith as Hope
Initially you seem to be talking about faith in the colloquial "I have faith in you", sense of the word that describes a passion or hope for something (hence a "crisis of faith" being a moment of despair).
Faith as Assumption
And then you talk about foundational assumptions using the word "faith". This seems to me kind of like talking about "right" as "the opposite of left", then in the next sentence using it to mean "the opposite of incorrect" without even realising it. English happens to use the one word to refer to drastically different concepts.
Foundational assumptions are the area of a branch of philosophy called "epistemology" that asks questions such as "what do I know," "how do I know it", "what should I believe", and "what am I justified in believing". In this field there are various schools of thought about what concepts are so fundamental that they cannot be broken down any further and so must be assumed before we can think about anything. For example, rationalism, logical positivism, and foundational evidentialism.
Blind Faith / Faith as Blindness
Related to assumptions is a meaning of "faith" that you did not seem to touch on, and this meaning goes one step further than a foundational assumption: It is the belief in a claim in the absence of evidence, and a rejection of all evidence to the contrary - this is what is called "blind faith". Tim Minchin summed it up well with:
"Science changes its beliefs based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observations so that belief can be preserved." He was talking about this form of "blind faith", and I think we can all think of examples of people doing this.
Faith as Extrapolation/Induction
You seem to briefly talk about (though it is hard to tell) "faith" within science as the problem of induction. This is an old philosophical problem that goes something like:
"I have boiled water a thousand times in a thousand different situations, and it always boils at 100 degrees celsius. Therefore, water will always boil at 100 degrees" But the problem of induction is that this is an extrapolation. All we can say with 100% certainty is that water has in the past boiled at that temperature - we haven't yet done the water boiling that will happen in future. Any sample size in any experiment is still only a finite number, and therefore a miniscule fraction of the infinite samples we refer to when we claim to know what something will always do.
This is discussed in the philosophy of science and if this question interests you then you should definitely read Asimov's "The Relativity of Wrong", or at least watch this summary:
Faith as Awe/Wonder
And finally, you talk about "faith" as a feeling of awe, mystery, and wonder about the universe/life. As you can imagine, this is not a religious phenomenon, but something that is shared across all cultures, beliefs and lack thereof. More importantly, it is something only vaguely related to the other three meanings of the word "faith" that you use.
Clearly, any game that tries to explore any one of these very interesting areas of human nature and philosophy will probably be starkly different to each other. Primarily because these are all very different concepts that just happen to occasionally be what some people sometimes mean when they use the word "faith".
Also very interesting: You will notice that all of these forms of "faith" (except Blind Faith) are secular in the sense that atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and scientists accept them and make use of them. So maybe "faith" isn't as anchored to religion as is commonly believed.
There are already countless posts about how science has nothing to do about religious faith, like this episode of EC was talking about, so I wont be repeating that.
I will however expand on that by saying that the biggest difference between science and faith is that science is falsifiable, as in it can be tested and/or observed. As you correctly pointed out, Newtons ideas on gravity for example weren't complete and Newtons clockwork mechanism for the universe was falsified by Einsteins theory of relativity which presented universe as more of a fabric rather than a mechanical structure. However, Newtons ideas are still used today because the mathematics behind the Newtonian structure still beautifully describes how matter moves and interacts with each other. Yes, we have expanded on Newtons ideas, but we didn't trash everything, they are still very much in use today.
Another disapointing aspect is bringing these people up at all in this sort of manner. It is slimy quote mining at worst and an appeal to authority at best. Talking about the Einstein quotation. I was half expecting, through my facepalm, a Darwins death bed recount on evolution where he admits that its wrong and impossible.
But I digress, even with all of that, I still, not even for a second believe that the EC crew actually sides with young-earth-creationists and merely wanted to be 'balanced' and hence wanted to bring out sentiments from all sides. But this brings out the problem within religion when trying to look at it unbiased. Religion can only be defended by lies and forgeries, so when you try to look at both sides equally, you're going to have to lie to do so. In EC's case it was implying that "faith" and scientific "confidence" were the same.
I was able to feel the EC crew's frustration and uncertainty on how to approach this subject, knowing that majority of US citizens are theists, that if they didn't try to justify faith SOMEHOW, those theists would start donning on their cloaks and burning crosses on their lawns and demanding blood sacrifice to appease their deities. To avoid a mob lynching by theists, their hands were tied to present an argument from the deeply religious respective.
However, this only explains why you would do this (And is only my hypothesis on that) episode in such a manner.
I'll leave you with an exhaustive explanation of the difference between religious faith and scientific, rational trust/expectation/propability/confidence by Aron "Texan Tank" Ra:
P.S. No, this is not an appeal to authority, his explanation on this would and does stand on its own against the tightest, most detailed scrutiny.
For instance, most scientists are empiricists, and among the assumptions of empiricism is that the five senses and the human intellect are mostly reliable sources of information. It would however be impossible to prove to someone the validity of those assumptions if, for instance, they did not believe in their senses or they thought their memories deceived them. Essentially the problem with our systems of logic is that they set their own standards of validity which are calculated to reinforce the base assumptions. All knowledge is and must be predicated upon circular arguments. Even the existence of a constant physical world is essentially a shared assumption. It seems useful but only because we already believe in it. Most of our daily lives would seem wholly unjustifiable to a man who thinks the world doesn't exist (he can only explain our actions by assuming the rest of us believe, or at least seem to believe, something which to him is entirely untrue.)
So for God's sake please stop acting like these facts undermine the very nature of scientific truth. Most dedicated scientists are fully aware that their work is predicated upon a carefully calculated set of assumptions. Not being aware of this would be a severe detriment to their work. Most people take certain assumptions as basic irreducible truths and are less certain of other assumptions (for instance, I won't say werewolves don't exist, but I don't think they exist near me. I could be ignorant on this point, however, because I haven't seriously checked into it.)
There are already countless posts about how science has nothing to do about religious faith, like this episode of EC was talking about, so I wont be repeating that.
I will however expand on that by saying that the biggest difference between science and faith is that science is falsifiable, as in it can be tested and/or observed. As you correctly pointed out, Newtons ideas on gravity for example weren't complete and Newtons clockwork mechanism for the universe was falsified by Einsteins theory of relativity which presented universe as more of a fabric rather than a mechanical structure. However, Newtons ideas are still used today because the mathematics behind the Newtonian structure still beautifully describes how matter moves and interacts with each other. Yes, we have expanded on Newtons ideas, but we didn't trash everything, they are still very much in use today.
Another disapointing aspect is bringing these people up at all in this sort of manner. It is slimy quote mining at worst and an appeal to authority at best. Talking about the Einstein quotation. I was half expecting, through my facepalm, a Darwins death bed recount on evolution where he admits that its wrong and impossible.
But I digress, even with all of that, I still, not even for a second believe that the EC crew actually sides with young-earth-creationists and merely wanted to be 'balanced' and hence wanted to bring out sentiments from all sides. But this brings out the problem within religion when trying to look at it unbiased. Religion can only be defended by lies and forgeries, so when you try to look at both sides equally, you're going to have to lie to do so. In EC's case it was implying that "faith" and scientific "confidence" were the same.
I was able to feel the EC crew's frustration and uncertainty on how to approach this subject, knowing that majority of US citizens are theists, that if they didn't try to justify faith SOMEHOW, those theists would start donning on their cloaks and burning crosses on their lawns and demanding blood sacrifice to appease their deities. To avoid a mob lynching by theists, their hands were tied to present an argument from the deeply religious respective.
However, this only explains why you would do this (And is only my hypothesis on that) episode in such a manner.
I'll leave you with an exhaustive explanation of the difference between religious faith and scientific, rational trust/expectation/propability/confidence by Aron "Texan Tank" Ra:
P.S. No, this is not an appeal to authority, his explanation on this would and does stand on its own against the tightest, most detailed scrutiny.
For instance, most scientists are empiricists, and among the assumptions of empiricism is that the five senses and the human intellect are mostly reliable sources of information. It would however be impossible to prove to someone the validity of those assumptions if, for instance, they did not believe in their senses or they thought their memories deceived them. Essentially the problem with our systems of logic is that they set their own standards of validity which are calculated to reinforce the base assumptions. All knowledge is and must be predicated upon circular arguments. Even the existence of a constant physical world is essentially a shared assumption. It seems useful but only because we already believe in it. Most of our daily lives would seem wholly unjustifiable to a man who thinks the world doesn't exist (he can only explain our actions by assuming the rest of us believe, or at least seem to believe, something which to him is entirely untrue.)
So for God's sake please stop acting like these facts undermine the very nature of scientific truth. Most dedicated scientists are fully aware that their work is predicated upon a carefully calculated set of assumptions. Not being aware of this would be a severe detriment to their work. Most people take certain assumptions as basic irreducible truths and are less certain of other assumptions (for instance, I won't say werewolves don't exist, but I don't think they exist near me. I could be ignorant on this point, however, because I haven't seriously checked into it.)
With three different religions, the Nine Divines of the Imperial Cult, the worship of the Tribunal and the Daedra Worshipers, you get a bit of everything. Lore of three separate religions, each using different religions mechanics, and since so much conflict in the game stems from which religion people put their faith in, you have that as well. Granted, since you kill the Tribunal and get talked to by the Daedra all the time it lowers the faith aspect since they're so much more tangible, but the Nine Divines remain distant and intangible, and their worshipers rely more on faith (which is something that we kept well into the other games). Even the priests are like you talked about, they're not given magical powers from their gods, those that are mages have the same kind of magic as everybody else, they just apply it into the service of their deities.
A logical fallacy, showing that you argue on a level with Glenn Beck. They are obviously not equivalent.
You: A pink unicorn exists behind you.
Atheist: Prove it, without proof I won't believe it.
Completely different. Nice try, but you need to try harder to convince anyone that people disagreeing with you are magically as bad as you.
Because religious faith in the real world has yet to come to any resolution - that is, the faithful are still waiting for the return of their god, or believe in some kind of afterlife which cannot be proven to anyone living - we do not associate it with the religious faith displayed in video games. But they ARE the same concept.
This episode's attempts to explore faith as it relates to science are unfortunate and off-message.
1. The EC people are creating this content; they are permitted to espouse any opinion they want, even if you think it's offensive or somehow "propaganda." If the assertion that science is ultimately based on an unprovable postulate deeply offends your sensibilities, then you don't watch their videos. Hell, you can even take the time to make your own web series in which you can talk about religion in games. Or, like many people in this comments section, you can make a well-reasoned counter-argument. What doesn't make sense is to criticize people for pushing their own opinions in a web series that they produce.
2. Look, religion is a complicated issue. Saying that religion is all positive or all negative makes about as much sense as saying that sex is all positive or all negative. The fact is that religion is an inextricable part of everyone's lives; even if you aren't religious, you live in a world where you're bound to know and work with people who are believers, and you more than likely live in a country where religion has some influence, whether direct or indirect, on the government.
3. I know that this has already been stated and restated again, but to repeat: Science, like anything else, is an intellectual tradition. Like any intellectual tradition, there are going to be fundamental assumptions that ultimately reduce to postulates. In the case of science, this comes down to "the universe has consistent rules." Is this postulate awesome? Yes; it's massively powerful, and it hasn't failed us yet. As a physics student, I'm a huge fan of science. Interestingly, physics has an additional powerful postulate: The universe is describable mathematically. It's no surprise that you can quantify measurements, and that these measurements follow a pattern, but it is really amazing that you can mathematically generalize something (like, say, the handful of experiments that provide the empirical laws of classical electricity and magnetism, like Coulomb's Law, Ampere's Circuital law, Ohm's Law, and Faraday's law) into a set of laws that apply everywhere (like Maxwell's equations). All that said, I don't know if I'd call that fundamental postulate "faith." I wouldn't discount calling it faith either; I just don't know enough about epistemology and theology to make a qualified assertion.
4. SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND RELIGION AREN'T MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. The two traditions have entirely different spheres of applicability. A scientific fact is subject to empirical verifiability. As a result, if I need to treat an illness, build something, leave a comment on an internet video, or otherwise do something with empirically verifiable results, I'm inclined to use something backed by scientific conclusions. However, I've discovered that science is less than adequate at addressing a lot of questions that we, as humans, naturally ask, like the following: Why do we exist? How do I deal with painful events in life? What does it mean to be a good person? Religion isn't the only way to get answers to these questions, but it is a powerful and popular way to do so. As someone raised in a religious household, I never saw a conflict between science and religious faith; trying to draw scientific theories from the Bible or using science to refute the existence of God follows the same logical fallacy as criticizing Shakespeare plays for being historically inaccurate: Witches didn't actually provoke regicide in Scotland, but that doesn't render Macbeth invalid; its value is as a creative product, not a history book. Likewise, religion's value stems from the strength and guidance that people can draw from it (I'm not saying that religion is the only source of strength and guidance, but it is a source), not its assertions about the origins of the universe, medicine, or history.
If you have read this far, then you have a lot of patience for my ramblng; you have this insufferable web commenter's thanks, as well as his apologies about the length of the post.
1. The EC people are creating this content; they are permitted to espouse any opinion they want, even if you think it's offensive or somehow "propaganda." If the assertion that science is ultimately based on an unprovable postulate deeply offends your sensibilities, then you don't watch their videos. Hell, you can even take the time to make your own web series in which you can talk about religion in games. Or, like many people in this comments section, you can make a well-reasoned counter-argument. What doesn't make sense is to criticize people for pushing their own opinions in a web series that they produce.
2. Look, religion is a complicated issue. Saying that religion is all positive or all negative makes about as much sense as saying that sex is all positive or all negative. The fact is that religion is an inextricable part of everyone's lives; even if you aren't religious, you live in a world where you're bound to know and work with people who are believers, and you more than likely live in a country where religion has some influence, whether direct or indirect, on the government.
3. I know that this has already been stated and restated again, but to repeat: Science, like anything else, is an intellectual tradition. Like any intellectual tradition, there are going to be fundamental assumptions that ultimately reduce to postulates. In the case of science, this comes down to "the universe has consistent rules." Is this postulate awesome? Yes; it's massively powerful, and it hasn't failed us yet. As a physics student, I'm a huge fan of science. Interestingly, physics has an additional powerful postulate: The universe is describable mathematically. It's no surprise that you can quantify measurements, and that these measurements follow a pattern, but it is really amazing that you can mathematically generalize something (like, say, the handful of experiments that provide the empirical laws of classical electricity and magnetism, like Coulomb's Law, Ampere's Circuital law, Ohm's Law, and Faraday's law) into a set of laws that apply everywhere (like Maxwell's equations). All that said, I don't know if I'd call that fundamental postulate "faith." I wouldn't discount calling it faith either; I just don't know enough about epistemology and theology to make a qualified assertion.
4. SCIENTIFIC REASONING AND RELIGION AREN'T MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. The two traditions have entirely different spheres of applicability. A scientific fact is subject to empirical verifiability. As a result, if I need to treat an illness, build something, leave a comment on an internet video, or otherwise do something with empirically verifiable results, I'm inclined to use something backed by scientific conclusions. However, I've discovered that science is less than adequate at addressing a lot of questions that we, as humans, naturally ask, like the following: Why do we exist? How do I deal with painful events in life? What does it mean to be a good person? Religion isn't the only way to get answers to these questions, but it is a powerful and popular way to do so. As someone raised in a religious household, I never saw a conflict between science and religious faith; trying to draw scientific theories from the Bible or using science to refute the existence of God follows the same logical fallacy as criticizing Shakespeare plays for being historically inaccurate: Witches didn't actually provoke regicide in Scotland, but that doesn't render Macbeth invalid; its value is as a creative product, not a history book. Likewise, religion's value stems from the strength and guidance that people can draw from it (I'm not saying that religion is the only source of strength and guidance, but it is a source), not its assertions about the origins of the universe, medicine, or history.
If you have read this far, then you have a lot of patience for my ramblng; you have this insufferable web commenter's thanks, as well as his apologies about the length of the post.
That doesn't mean people aren't allowed to point out how stupid that opinion is.
Nobody said it was. Nevertheless, faith and science are completely different things.