EC is attempting to point out that faith is not always religious faith. When you send a text to your girl/boyfriend that is a little "inappropriate", you have "faith" that they will receive that message without anyone else seeing it. It's not religious, but it is faith, and while it is faith, we see it as a technological fact. The twist is that science is faith based on proof which is why we don't see it as faith. Religious faith is faith without proof. By practice and definition one who has faith regardless of proof will never change their belief even if proof comes and says they are wrong, for being wrong would go against their faith, religious or otherwise. This reason is why there can never be a good debate between science, religion, or faith. Religion is faith without proof, while science is proof from faith. The problem is that faith has been pinned to religion as a synonymous meaning for religion, while faith in scientific proof has been replaced with the word "fact". Fact and Faith are the same thing seen through different lenses. I see this because I have studied almost all of the world’s religions, and I love science. I agree that the scientific method is the greatest thing ever.
As to what the EC crew is saying about Einstein, I agree with Einstein for the most part. Take Einstein's photoelectric effect for example. The photoelectric effect is what he won the Nobel Peace Prize for, not his theory of relativity. Using the uncertainty principle is the only way we can explain the photoelectric effect today that makes it make sense. We have faith that this observation is correct. In the future I firmly believe that we will find the correct "lens" that will allow us to see what is really going on. At that time the "uncertainty" principle will be removed from the photoelectric effect and we will then have a new definition for it based on the new observations. Does that mean we are wrong now? No it doesn't, it just means that we are as correct as we can be based on our current understanding. In the future, when we understand it better, there will be those who will not be able to grasp the new meaning and will simply dismiss it. Because their faith in the current fact is so strong they cannot and will not even attempt to look at with the new lens attached. Knowing that science will eventually see what is happening, is why Einstein refused to believe that God played "dice" with the universe. He simply believed that everything will eventually be explained. Now even in the most hardcore of absolute truths, there are anomalies that throw everything off. These anomalies are why the uncertainty principle exists, and Einstein was so narrow minded about his belief that everything can be explained, that he refused to accept these anomalies as something "random". IE God playing dice.
In the end, I hope the EC crew keeps up the good work they are doing for our medium. They really do their research and always have great points to ponder on. I always finish an episode with new perspectives on what I thought I knew. Good Work Guys, I hope to work with you guys one day in the industry.
Howard Waldrop
Game Designer
A bit mistaken here. You seem to have the definition of faith correctly, but have proof mixed up with evidence. You are able to change your beliefs without proof, the important thing is the evidence you base that faith on. If that evidence should crumble, then it is possible that you will lose your faith.
The faith in science is exactly the same. The beliefs that underpin science are held based on evidence, but they are held without definitive proof.
EC is attempting to point out that faith is not always religious faith. When you send a text to your girl/boyfriend that is a little "inappropriate", you have "faith" that they will receive that message without anyone else seeing it. It's not religious, but it is faith, and while it is faith, we see it as a technological fact. The twist is that science is faith based on proof which is why we don't see it as faith. Religious faith is faith without proof. By practice and definition one who has faith regardless of proof will never change their belief even if proof comes and says they are wrong, for being wrong would go against their faith, religious or otherwise. This reason is why there can never be a good debate between science, religion, or faith. Religion is faith without proof, while science is proof from faith. The problem is that faith has been pinned to religion as a synonymous meaning for religion, while faith in scientific proof has been replaced with the word "fact". Fact and Faith are the same thing seen through different lenses. I see this because I have studied almost all of the world’s religions, and I love science. I agree that the scientific method is the greatest thing ever.
As to what the EC crew is saying about Einstein, I agree with Einstein for the most part. Take Einstein's photoelectric effect for example. The photoelectric effect is what he won the Nobel Peace Prize for, not his theory of relativity. Using the uncertainty principle is the only way we can explain the photoelectric effect today that makes it make sense. We have faith that this observation is correct. In the future I firmly believe that we will find the correct "lens" that will allow us to see what is really going on. At that time the "uncertainty" principle will be removed from the photoelectric effect and we will then have a new definition for it based on the new observations. Does that mean we are wrong now? No it doesn't, it just means that we are as correct as we can be based on our current understanding. In the future, when we understand it better, there will be those who will not be able to grasp the new meaning and will simply dismiss it. Because their faith in the current fact is so strong they cannot and will not even attempt to look at with the new lens attached. Knowing that science will eventually see what is happening, is why Einstein refused to believe that God played "dice" with the universe. He simply believed that everything will eventually be explained. Now even in the most hardcore of absolute truths, there are anomalies that throw everything off. These anomalies are why the uncertainty principle exists, and Einstein was so narrow minded about his belief that everything can be explained, that he refused to accept these anomalies as something "random". IE God playing dice.
In the end, I hope the EC crew keeps up the good work they are doing for our medium. They really do their research and always have great points to ponder on. I always finish an episode with new perspectives on what I thought I knew. Good Work Guys, I hope to work with you guys one day in the industry.
Howard Waldrop
Game Designer
A bit mistaken here. You seem to have the definition of faith correctly, but have proof mixed up with evidence. You are able to change your beliefs without proof, the important thing is the evidence you base that faith on. If that evidence should crumble, then it is possible that you will lose your faith.
The faith in science is exactly the same. The beliefs that underpin science are held based on evidence, but they are held without definitive proof.
Over 1200 comments and not a single one rated as as 5+. I'm just gonna assume that speaks for the quality of discourse and not bother reading.
There is a lot of time for face to face conversation about this, but no one is going to convince anyone of anything in anonymous, faceless, text-only, penny arcade comments.
Over 1200 comments and not a single one rated as as 5+. I'm just gonna assume that speaks for the quality of discourse and not bother reading.
There is a lot of time for face to face conversation about this, but no one is going to convince anyone of anything in anonymous, faceless, text-only, penny arcade comments.
Alright, as long as you don't expect anyone else to mistake your laziness for any kind of intellectual capability.
EC is attempting to point out that faith is not always religious faith...
A bit mistaken here...[/quote]
...because we rarely witness the phenomenon of faith outside religion and if you want to go looking for it someplace other than religion, science is a terrible place.
You'd have much better luck with something like politics, nationalism, racism, or even brand loyalty.
To say that science eventually boils down to faith in the principles it's built on is to misunderstand the definition of faith. Faith is the belief in something without or despite evidence, but the fundamental principles science is built on (e.g. logical absolutes etc.) have proof in that we can observe them. Our observation of them is proof of their existence, and applies as far as we can prove something contrary to be true at which point we go back and change things. This is belief in things we observe, NOT faith. As for the Descartes/Plato/Zhuangzi cop-out, if what we perceive as reality isn't actually reality, or if a being is altering our perceptions of reality, then it doesn't matter. Our observations are either still true of the non-reality we inhabit, or are as close as can be gotten to understanding while that being still exists to alter observation. Being accepting of other people's beliefs, preferences, ideals etc. is all well and good, as is wanting to appeal to and reach as wide an audience as possible, but trying to put logic on the same level as dogma by bending the definition of faith essentially comes down to pandering.
Just my two cents.
I would highly suggest you guys read The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov, as it might help clarify a lot of the potentially incorrect statements that were being expressed in this video.
Man, what a bunch of really disappointing comments for a really well rounded conversation starter. I mean, there's a guy down there talking about observation, as if that were a concrete thing when we know *scientifically* this is not necessarily the case and at least can be proven to not always be the case. It's like some of these people have never even heard of quantum mechanics which, by all rightful science shows that observation is not in all cases objective and if it is not in all cases objective, it cannot be assumed to be objective. It's just incredible to me that people are trying to defend from some imagined attacker by, literally, denying science. If what we perceive as reality is, in some way, bogus yet so far undetectable, that does not hold bearing on our experimental results. It may be the case and we may find that out some day and it may matter a great deal. It is a phenomenal leap to take the notion that 'if it cannot be tested, it cannot be controlled for and therefore cannot have bearing on experimental results until such time as it can be tested and controlled for' and say 'if we don't know it right now, it is for certain not a factor.'
The fear, here, seems to be that people are going to mistake or that the videos creators have mistaken Science for Religion. That is, very clearly and obviously, not what is being said. Yes, I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but yes, some of this you do have to take on faith. Soundly reasoned and carefully considered faith, but faith all the same.
I really enjoyed this video and the last one but, in my mind, you're just plain talking over people's heads here. And that's the problem with these conversations. The second you mention 'faith', regardless of context, you have everyone and their mother piling in to to talk about all the awful things faith means, when what they're really saying is their interpretation of religion. The second you respond, you have everyone else and their father piling in to tell you how you just don't know anything about science, as if that somehow proves the original point (that you can't talk about faith and if you do you're stupid).
Let me explain something to every one of you scientifically illiterate weekend/internet scientists who just love to use science as if it's validation of your interpretation of metaphysics. Rather, let me ask you a question. Do you believe in something that you cannot prove in a mathematical sense? Yes? That's faith. I'm sorry you believe it's somehow a dirty word or should somehow be reserved for things that are irrational or have no empirical evidence, but it's proper usage of the word. If you wanted to have an argument about which was more useful or productive, you might have something to talk about, but that clearly was not the topic of the video. Honestly, stop reading Asimov for a second and just look at a dictionary.
Just because someone talks about using religion in an exploratory sense in a video game does not equate to shoving a bible down everyone's throat, or whatever it is people get so panicky about when this subject comes up. Religion and faith are part of the tapestry that is human culture and it's entirely valid they be explored in this setting as they are in other media. I find it extremely odd that we frequently use the trappings of religion, virtually any that has ever existed, and no one cares just as long as it's used in the shallowest senses and to create setting and narrative. But, somehow, the moment you want to consider the real world experiences that take religious faith into consideration or that might shape or mold our character, how we express our characters or how we understand our characters there's a problem.
Dear all non-scientists (believing and atheist alike, you both do this)
Stop talking about science as if it somehow validates your own personal view. Science's only comment on this subject is 'there is no way of testing the hypothesis'.
Back to the videos, I would note that some games, notably ones in the horror genre, actually do in their own way have faith based systems in terms of 'how much faith do you have in what's being represented to you. I can't remember the name of the game, but there was a DreamCast game that played with the virtual reality in this way and would feign AV Cable TV display screens and such behaviors that act on a players belief in what they see. Amnesia also comes to mind. This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I think it does tap into that vein if but a little and perhaps as far as we have felt comfortable delving into.
Unfortunately, these conversations are exactly why. The false dichotomy between religion and science has been driven into people's head so hard by ignorant people on both sides of the conversation, that you can but hardly mutter the word 'faith' to yourself without starting a riot and it's absolutely, 100% stupid and baseless.
Man, what a bunch of really disappointing comments for a really well rounded conversation starter. I mean, there's a guy down there talking about observation, as if that were a concrete thing when we know *scientifically* this is not necessarily the case and at least can be proven to not always be the case. It's like some of these people have never even heard of quantum mechanics which, by all rightful science shows that observation is not in all cases objective and if it is not in all cases objective, it cannot be assumed to be objective. It's just incredible to me that people are trying to defend from some imagined attacker by, literally, denying science. If what we perceive as reality is, in some way, bogus yet so far undetectable, that does not hold bearing on our experimental results. It may be the case and we may find that out some day and it may matter a great deal. It is a phenomenal leap to take the notion that 'if it cannot be tested, it cannot be controlled for and therefore cannot have bearing on experimental results until such time as it can be tested and controlled for' and say 'if we don't know it right now, it is for certain not a factor.'
The fear, here, seems to be that people are going to mistake or that the videos creators have mistaken Science for Religion. That is, very clearly and obviously, not what is being said. Yes, I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but yes, some of this you do have to take on faith. Soundly reasoned and carefully considered faith, but faith all the same.
I really enjoyed this video and the last one but, in my mind, you're just plain talking over people's heads here. And that's the problem with these conversations. The second you mention 'faith', regardless of context, you have everyone and their mother piling in to to talk about all the awful things faith means, when what they're really saying is their interpretation of religion. The second you respond, you have everyone else and their father piling in to tell you how you just don't know anything about science, as if that somehow proves the original point (that you can't talk about faith and if you do you're stupid).
Let me explain something to every one of you scientifically illiterate weekend/internet scientists who just love to use science as if it's validation of your interpretation of metaphysics. Rather, let me ask you a question. Do you believe in something that you cannot prove in a mathematical sense? Yes? That's faith. I'm sorry you believe it's somehow a dirty word or should somehow be reserved for things that are irrational or have no empirical evidence, but it's proper usage of the word. If you wanted to have an argument about which was more useful or productive, you might have something to talk about, but that clearly was not the topic of the video. Honestly, stop reading Asimov for a second and just look at a dictionary.
Just because someone talks about using religion in an exploratory sense in a video game does not equate to shoving a bible down everyone's throat, or whatever it is people get so panicky about when this subject comes up. Religion and faith are part of the tapestry that is human culture and it's entirely valid they be explored in this setting as they are in other media. I find it extremely odd that we frequently use the trappings of religion, virtually any that has ever existed, and no one cares just as long as it's used in the shallowest senses and to create setting and narrative. But, somehow, the moment you want to consider the real world experiences that take religious faith into consideration or that might shape or mold our character, how we express our characters or how we understand our characters there's a problem.
Dear all non-scientists (believing and atheist alike, you both do this)
Stop talking about science as if it somehow validates your own personal view. Science's only comment on this subject is 'there is no way of testing the hypothesis'.
Back to the videos, I would note that some games, notably ones in the horror genre, actually do in their own way have faith based systems in terms of 'how much faith do you have in what's being represented to you. I can't remember the name of the game, but there was a DreamCast game that played with the virtual reality in this way and would feign AV Cable TV display screens and such behaviors that act on a players belief in what they see. Amnesia also comes to mind. This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I think it does tap into that vein if but a little and perhaps as far as we have felt comfortable delving into.
Unfortunately, these conversations are exactly why. The false dichotomy between religion and science has been driven into people's head so hard by ignorant people on both sides of the conversation, that you can but hardly mutter the word 'faith' to yourself without starting a riot and it's absolutely, 100% stupid and baseless.
-1
AngryNerdBirdCompanion of KessRegistered Userregular
Love Extra Credits. Stopped watching this video when it was asserted that trusting your own senses was the same thing as religious faith. First of all, I'm beyond that question; but second of all, it is simply not the case.
People are at different stages in their search for truth and meaning in the universe, and I won't behead someone for making the arguments I myself once made.
Suffice it to say, those two things are superficially similar but fundamentally different. Equating the two is only possible when the colloquial secular meaning of "faith" and the religious meaning of "faith" are swapped out for one another at rhetorically convenient points in the dialogue.
I encourage anyone who believes religious faith and trusting your own senses are the same thing to do more exploration and think more critically on the comparison. These two things do not prove to be synonyms when subjected to close scrutiny.
After a break from EC (not out of wangst or anything, just been busy) I was happy to see that they had returned to this topic, but I'm disappointed with their conclusions. They did a good job laying out what they meant with their terms in their previous two religion episodes, but that doesn't make them any less wrong about this. Equating religious faith with scientific theory is a false dichotomy. I get that there's an element of "trust" involved with both, but it's incredibly misleading to say they are therefore the same, or even share much common ground. They are in fact fundamentally different because of how they approach their respective "givens".
This video actually spends its entire time showing how the two are different. It illustrates very effectively how science repeatedly held one theory as true, continued observation, and then upended itself to hold an entirely new theory as true. The argument by EC is that this shows science as invalid because 1) its "beliefs" can be overturned, and 2) everything, when reduced enough, has to eventually be founded on accepted but uncertain 'givens'. In fact, the nature of science as self-correcting is exactly what differentiates itself from religious faith. That scientists are chipping away at each other's theories trying to prove each other wrong, and are sometimes able to do so in a manner that pushes the whole collaborative enterprise forward, is the perfect illustration that faith is not the foundation of science. As observation improves, so does accepted scientific theories, and the old theory or "faith" as EC would have it, is discarded. That we may never entirely eliminate uncertainty does not mean we are not on an ever-progressing path of reducing it. That science can acknowledge its limitations, work within our observations, and improve itself based on a collaborative effort is what makes it not mere faith.
On Einstein, this is another terrible argument. So because Einstein was wrong about something and died still believing it means that he held too much "faith"? Scientists can be wrong, can have bias, can ardently believe in unsound theories, but contention between two different scientific theories is hardly evidence of religious (or religious-esque) conviction by scientists. The idea of the elite scientist working diligently to his dying day to prove that accepted wisdom is wrong is incredibly scientific, even if he was mistaken. Proving stuff wrong is a big part of science. Compare that to the elite faithful, who (setting aside very admirable practical endeavors of charity for the moment) instead work to TELL you something is right or wrong, NOT prove it.
So yes, the EC staff is right in saying that there are trusted givens accepted in any scientific framework, but they're entirely missing the point if they think that makes science more similar to faith instead of less. The self-correcting nature of science they so effectively illustrate shows this.
Episoded full of crap like this are why I stopped following the series. That and the fact I donated to keep Allison drawing here and donated to keep LeeLee producing Name Game and instead I got Leelee drawing here and no Name Game.
Science = recurring events = I think
Relegion = faith = I believe
Science is almost always wrong in some way. We all understand that everything we know may be wrong. Luckely for us, all that we do know is constantly subjected to new and possibly improved ways of thinking. Theories are tested to see if they still make sense now that we know something we previously didn't.
To me, believing is letting go, it is accepting that you are neither in control or can ever hope to understand the extend of something.
I personally dislike relegion. Not because I think it makes the world a worse place to be, but because it isn't subjected to new input.
I guess you can have faith in a theory, but to me that is just wrong, sinse that means you don't even question the theory itself. Atleast that is how I see it.
Doctors are sometimes wrong. Doctors are sometimes sued for malpractice. And yet most of us "have faith in" in our doctors. All this means is that we trust them. There is a slight chance our trust will get us hurt, but there are plenty of reasons we can point to for why we "have faith in" our doctors.
But it is not considered VIRTUOUS to trust your doctor. When your faith in your doctor is really strong, no one is like, "Wow, man, good for you!" When you have very little faith in your doctor, no one is like, "Sorry to hear that. Do you wanna talk about it?"
But religious faith is considered a virtue. It is considered a kind of "spiritual health". This is not true for the secular meaning of faith, which is just a synonym for trust.
A thinking person who is being truly honest with himself/herself will realize these are very different things.
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Ask yourself one question: How do we validate mathematics without using mathematics? Really think about that and you'll start to understand what they mean by faith.
Great episode! I had a few thoughts in response (like many others obviously)
I was very involved with religious life at my college, and I was agnostic at the time. I remember getting in an argument with this guy who thought that he could read the Bible and not be 'interpreting' it through his own lens but rather he thought he was 'perceiving' truth. Like he could read the Bible and know what it meant, he wasn't projecting anything onto it. I was strongly reminded of this when watching this episode. You can't look at results of a scientific experiment without some kind of interpretive lens and that lens includes things that you take on faith as well as cultural expectations. There are A TON of examples of scientists being biased by their preconceived notions about what their results SHOULD be. So although there are differences between science and religion, they are alike in that we interpret reality rather than perceive it directly.
Reading through these comments, I see a lot of people who treat religion as this static belief system that either you subscribe to or you don't. And it is true that this is how a lot of people see it. But I have talked to a lot of religious people who understand faith as evolving, in many places at one time, something to continuously be questioned. Oddly enough, a lot of times in my experience it's actually pastors who have a more nuanced view of what religion means and what it offers and that's because, like with science, the more you read about it, the more you think about it, the more possibilities open up.
If anything, you guys dug yourself even deeper with this followup episode. For people who claim to love science so much, you have a very poor grasp of the philosophy underpinning it.
In the reaction to the previous episode, people rightly complained that you used the word "faith" without clearly defining it, making the entire discussion so vague that nobody could really discern what you were talking about. Worse, you were using the term to mean a number of very different things and pretending they were all the same thing. I expected a mea culpa for that in this episode; instead you shame your viewers for misunderstanding what you were talking about and reacting with hostility. When you make a claim like "science is based on faith", you don't expect people to get angry? Really?
And now in this episode you have a different problem: you've defined "faith" so narrowly as to make it a nearly meaningless concept, using it to try to equate a scientist's provisional, pragmatic reliance on observations and mathematical axioms to a zealot's belief in the unknowable. If believing in the reality of our observations of the world is faith, you have reduced faith to nothingness. So your definition of faith by itself would be enough to make any student of philosophy (or theology!) cry. Heck, you don't even truly need to believe the world is "real" to practice science. That's because science is not concerned with how things *are*, merely with how they *seem*. To paraphrase Indiana Jones, "[Science] is the search for fact, not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."
These last two episodes are a big jumbled mess of conflated concepts and muddy reasoning, and it would take pages and pages to fully explain where you went wrong. I'll just call out two more key problem areas and then pack it in.
You conflate math and science as being basically the same thing. They are not. In fact math and science are very different, even opposite in some respects. Science starts with observations about the tangible result of the workings of a physical system, and attempts to work backward to determine the fundamental rules that govern it. Math starts by assuming as true the fundamental rules that govern a system and then works forward to explore the results of that system. Yet you seem to imply that the mechanics of the physical world are interchangeable with the mathematics that describe them. Science has shown us that many if not most physical systems do seem to be governed by mathematical formulae, but a good scientist always keeps in mind that the math is just a model: the real world may or may not conform to the model. By the same token, a good mathematician always remembers that their results are constructed in abstract logical systems and based on axioms, none of which are guaranteed to resemble the real world. Simply put, you do not need to put your faith in a mathematical axiom or a scientific observation to design and operate a light bulb or a hair dryer or a hang glider or any other thing that science has made possible. You merely need to recognize the fact that those axioms and observations seem to work, for now. Like I said before, provisional and pragmatic. I'll point out that neither of those adjectives is often used to describe faith.
Last, you seem to be claiming that because individual scientists believe strongly--sometimes to the point of absolute faith--in an as-yet untested theory, this means that science is rooted in faith. But Science does not equal Scientists. Just because some scientists exhibit faith does not mean you need faith to be a scientist or that science relies on faith. A good scientist draws a distinction between what they can provide evidence for and what they merely think is true. And of course, to test a scientific theory, you don't necessarily need to have an opinion about what the outcome will be, merely enough curiosity to want to find out.
This whole debacle just bums me out, because your ideas and analysis about games and game design are so insightful and intelligent that I assumed your discussion of science and religion would be too. Instead your analysis was amateurish and ill-informed. There exist metric tons of writings on the subject; for Pete's sake, if you somehow find this comment buried among all the hundreds of others, I urge you to read some of them. Hopefully all this backlash will encourage you to consider the possibility that you have a lot more learning to do on the matter.
AndyM, your comment is very eloquent and you seem to know your subject well. I do however feel that the point you ttok away from this video wasn't the point they were trying to make. They do give a clear definition of faith in this video, allthough it's implicit. Faith is believing in something that hasn't been or cannot be proven. I feel the reasoning in this video makes sense, and I don't think atheists should get all in a jumble as soon as someone implies they also have faith in things. Faith and religion are not the same thing, and as an atheist, I have faith in my own ability to reason. So, I believe, do you.
Posts
A bit mistaken here. You seem to have the definition of faith correctly, but have proof mixed up with evidence. You are able to change your beliefs without proof, the important thing is the evidence you base that faith on. If that evidence should crumble, then it is possible that you will lose your faith.
The faith in science is exactly the same. The beliefs that underpin science are held based on evidence, but they are held without definitive proof.
Faith is not faith if there is "proof".
A bit mistaken here. You seem to have the definition of faith correctly, but have proof mixed up with evidence. You are able to change your beliefs without proof, the important thing is the evidence you base that faith on. If that evidence should crumble, then it is possible that you will lose your faith.
The faith in science is exactly the same. The beliefs that underpin science are held based on evidence, but they are held without definitive proof.
Faith is not faith if there is "proof".
There is a lot of time for face to face conversation about this, but no one is going to convince anyone of anything in anonymous, faceless, text-only, penny arcade comments.
Alright, as long as you don't expect anyone else to mistake your laziness for any kind of intellectual capability.
A bit mistaken here...[/quote]
...because we rarely witness the phenomenon of faith outside religion and if you want to go looking for it someplace other than religion, science is a terrible place.
You'd have much better luck with something like politics, nationalism, racism, or even brand loyalty.
Just my two cents.
The fear, here, seems to be that people are going to mistake or that the videos creators have mistaken Science for Religion. That is, very clearly and obviously, not what is being said. Yes, I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but yes, some of this you do have to take on faith. Soundly reasoned and carefully considered faith, but faith all the same.
I really enjoyed this video and the last one but, in my mind, you're just plain talking over people's heads here. And that's the problem with these conversations. The second you mention 'faith', regardless of context, you have everyone and their mother piling in to to talk about all the awful things faith means, when what they're really saying is their interpretation of religion. The second you respond, you have everyone else and their father piling in to tell you how you just don't know anything about science, as if that somehow proves the original point (that you can't talk about faith and if you do you're stupid).
Let me explain something to every one of you scientifically illiterate weekend/internet scientists who just love to use science as if it's validation of your interpretation of metaphysics. Rather, let me ask you a question. Do you believe in something that you cannot prove in a mathematical sense? Yes? That's faith. I'm sorry you believe it's somehow a dirty word or should somehow be reserved for things that are irrational or have no empirical evidence, but it's proper usage of the word. If you wanted to have an argument about which was more useful or productive, you might have something to talk about, but that clearly was not the topic of the video. Honestly, stop reading Asimov for a second and just look at a dictionary.
Just because someone talks about using religion in an exploratory sense in a video game does not equate to shoving a bible down everyone's throat, or whatever it is people get so panicky about when this subject comes up. Religion and faith are part of the tapestry that is human culture and it's entirely valid they be explored in this setting as they are in other media. I find it extremely odd that we frequently use the trappings of religion, virtually any that has ever existed, and no one cares just as long as it's used in the shallowest senses and to create setting and narrative. But, somehow, the moment you want to consider the real world experiences that take religious faith into consideration or that might shape or mold our character, how we express our characters or how we understand our characters there's a problem.
Dear all non-scientists (believing and atheist alike, you both do this)
Stop talking about science as if it somehow validates your own personal view. Science's only comment on this subject is 'there is no way of testing the hypothesis'.
Back to the videos, I would note that some games, notably ones in the horror genre, actually do in their own way have faith based systems in terms of 'how much faith do you have in what's being represented to you. I can't remember the name of the game, but there was a DreamCast game that played with the virtual reality in this way and would feign AV Cable TV display screens and such behaviors that act on a players belief in what they see. Amnesia also comes to mind. This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I think it does tap into that vein if but a little and perhaps as far as we have felt comfortable delving into.
Unfortunately, these conversations are exactly why. The false dichotomy between religion and science has been driven into people's head so hard by ignorant people on both sides of the conversation, that you can but hardly mutter the word 'faith' to yourself without starting a riot and it's absolutely, 100% stupid and baseless.
The fear, here, seems to be that people are going to mistake or that the videos creators have mistaken Science for Religion. That is, very clearly and obviously, not what is being said. Yes, I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but yes, some of this you do have to take on faith. Soundly reasoned and carefully considered faith, but faith all the same.
I really enjoyed this video and the last one but, in my mind, you're just plain talking over people's heads here. And that's the problem with these conversations. The second you mention 'faith', regardless of context, you have everyone and their mother piling in to to talk about all the awful things faith means, when what they're really saying is their interpretation of religion. The second you respond, you have everyone else and their father piling in to tell you how you just don't know anything about science, as if that somehow proves the original point (that you can't talk about faith and if you do you're stupid).
Let me explain something to every one of you scientifically illiterate weekend/internet scientists who just love to use science as if it's validation of your interpretation of metaphysics. Rather, let me ask you a question. Do you believe in something that you cannot prove in a mathematical sense? Yes? That's faith. I'm sorry you believe it's somehow a dirty word or should somehow be reserved for things that are irrational or have no empirical evidence, but it's proper usage of the word. If you wanted to have an argument about which was more useful or productive, you might have something to talk about, but that clearly was not the topic of the video. Honestly, stop reading Asimov for a second and just look at a dictionary.
Just because someone talks about using religion in an exploratory sense in a video game does not equate to shoving a bible down everyone's throat, or whatever it is people get so panicky about when this subject comes up. Religion and faith are part of the tapestry that is human culture and it's entirely valid they be explored in this setting as they are in other media. I find it extremely odd that we frequently use the trappings of religion, virtually any that has ever existed, and no one cares just as long as it's used in the shallowest senses and to create setting and narrative. But, somehow, the moment you want to consider the real world experiences that take religious faith into consideration or that might shape or mold our character, how we express our characters or how we understand our characters there's a problem.
Dear all non-scientists (believing and atheist alike, you both do this)
Stop talking about science as if it somehow validates your own personal view. Science's only comment on this subject is 'there is no way of testing the hypothesis'.
Back to the videos, I would note that some games, notably ones in the horror genre, actually do in their own way have faith based systems in terms of 'how much faith do you have in what's being represented to you. I can't remember the name of the game, but there was a DreamCast game that played with the virtual reality in this way and would feign AV Cable TV display screens and such behaviors that act on a players belief in what they see. Amnesia also comes to mind. This isn't exactly what you're talking about, but I think it does tap into that vein if but a little and perhaps as far as we have felt comfortable delving into.
Unfortunately, these conversations are exactly why. The false dichotomy between religion and science has been driven into people's head so hard by ignorant people on both sides of the conversation, that you can but hardly mutter the word 'faith' to yourself without starting a riot and it's absolutely, 100% stupid and baseless.
Can't tell anyone apart!
People are at different stages in their search for truth and meaning in the universe, and I won't behead someone for making the arguments I myself once made.
Suffice it to say, those two things are superficially similar but fundamentally different. Equating the two is only possible when the colloquial secular meaning of "faith" and the religious meaning of "faith" are swapped out for one another at rhetorically convenient points in the dialogue.
I encourage anyone who believes religious faith and trusting your own senses are the same thing to do more exploration and think more critically on the comparison. These two things do not prove to be synonyms when subjected to close scrutiny.
This video actually spends its entire time showing how the two are different. It illustrates very effectively how science repeatedly held one theory as true, continued observation, and then upended itself to hold an entirely new theory as true. The argument by EC is that this shows science as invalid because 1) its "beliefs" can be overturned, and 2) everything, when reduced enough, has to eventually be founded on accepted but uncertain 'givens'. In fact, the nature of science as self-correcting is exactly what differentiates itself from religious faith. That scientists are chipping away at each other's theories trying to prove each other wrong, and are sometimes able to do so in a manner that pushes the whole collaborative enterprise forward, is the perfect illustration that faith is not the foundation of science. As observation improves, so does accepted scientific theories, and the old theory or "faith" as EC would have it, is discarded. That we may never entirely eliminate uncertainty does not mean we are not on an ever-progressing path of reducing it. That science can acknowledge its limitations, work within our observations, and improve itself based on a collaborative effort is what makes it not mere faith.
On Einstein, this is another terrible argument. So because Einstein was wrong about something and died still believing it means that he held too much "faith"? Scientists can be wrong, can have bias, can ardently believe in unsound theories, but contention between two different scientific theories is hardly evidence of religious (or religious-esque) conviction by scientists. The idea of the elite scientist working diligently to his dying day to prove that accepted wisdom is wrong is incredibly scientific, even if he was mistaken. Proving stuff wrong is a big part of science. Compare that to the elite faithful, who (setting aside very admirable practical endeavors of charity for the moment) instead work to TELL you something is right or wrong, NOT prove it.
So yes, the EC staff is right in saying that there are trusted givens accepted in any scientific framework, but they're entirely missing the point if they think that makes science more similar to faith instead of less. The self-correcting nature of science they so effectively illustrate shows this.
Relegion = faith = I believe
Science is almost always wrong in some way. We all understand that everything we know may be wrong. Luckely for us, all that we do know is constantly subjected to new and possibly improved ways of thinking. Theories are tested to see if they still make sense now that we know something we previously didn't.
To me, believing is letting go, it is accepting that you are neither in control or can ever hope to understand the extend of something.
I personally dislike relegion. Not because I think it makes the world a worse place to be, but because it isn't subjected to new input.
I guess you can have faith in a theory, but to me that is just wrong, sinse that means you don't even question the theory itself. Atleast that is how I see it.
But it is not considered VIRTUOUS to trust your doctor. When your faith in your doctor is really strong, no one is like, "Wow, man, good for you!" When you have very little faith in your doctor, no one is like, "Sorry to hear that. Do you wanna talk about it?"
But religious faith is considered a virtue. It is considered a kind of "spiritual health". This is not true for the secular meaning of faith, which is just a synonym for trust.
A thinking person who is being truly honest with himself/herself will realize these are very different things.
Religion = It should
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Religion = It should
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Religion = It should
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Religion = It should
Faith = I believe it should
Hypothesis = I believe it should
Blind faith = I believe that 'It is so'
Science is based on a hypothesis, and the scientific method is there to determine if it is valid within the understanding that we know currently.
There are two outcomes.
One: The hypothesis is incorrect
-The current system doesn't support the reactions you "thought" would happen. These things that you think would've happened did not.
Two: The hypothesis is correct
-The current system supports what the proposed reaction that you "thought" would happen.
You may have made many hypothesi for the one event you tested, but because you had so many and so many counter them does not mean you did not have have faith in none of them. It's actually quite the opposite. You took your understanding and wrapped it around to make plenty of guesses of what was going to happen. This also doesn't mean you had equal faith in each of them, just that you had faith period.
Faith is essentially taking the unknown at "face value", where the face is the current understanding of the system you're experimenting with. You do these things subconsciously and it's unavoidable. Everyone has faith. Where would you be if you didn't believe in anything? What kind of life are you living where you don't believe in yourself, or someone special to you, or in some aspect of society.
Blind Faith is taking what you know, and refusing to look at anything else. They refuse to have faith in anything else. A more social way to refer to this is Xenophobic faith. People with Xenophobic faith are the ones who get scared, riled up, and threaten people when someone says anything that does not fit within the known system they believe in. Their biases are so strong that any differentiation from that is an attack to not only their system, but to themselves.
The very use of repeatedly referring to either side as a system is intentionally broad because the purpose of each side is the same in the end: To explain.
This means each system has it's flaws and places where it's completely wrong.
Religion is a system of hypothesis to explain.
Science is a system of hypothesis to explain.
The best way to think about it is that Religion was Science 0.1. Society used it as such and many things in religion explain things now we know to be completely different. As time went on, the way we define the system changed because we had faith in something different due to incongruities.
You can be spiritual, or analytical. You can be a science geek or a wise mystic. These are not bad things and neither of them are wrong. It's impossible to prove the major overarching explanations on both sides. It's impossible to assume with the known data these systems provided us that we will ever know 'the answer' (Which of course is a major point in the outlook of Agnosticism).
In an overarching explanation of "what", the very purpose of each system, it's impossible to say one is right and the other is wrong. Well, impossible without faith and to do so without doubt in the system that you chose is Blind/Xenophobic Faith.
Faith is like honor. Every one got he's version of it.
I was very involved with religious life at my college, and I was agnostic at the time. I remember getting in an argument with this guy who thought that he could read the Bible and not be 'interpreting' it through his own lens but rather he thought he was 'perceiving' truth. Like he could read the Bible and know what it meant, he wasn't projecting anything onto it. I was strongly reminded of this when watching this episode. You can't look at results of a scientific experiment without some kind of interpretive lens and that lens includes things that you take on faith as well as cultural expectations. There are A TON of examples of scientists being biased by their preconceived notions about what their results SHOULD be. So although there are differences between science and religion, they are alike in that we interpret reality rather than perceive it directly.
Reading through these comments, I see a lot of people who treat religion as this static belief system that either you subscribe to or you don't. And it is true that this is how a lot of people see it. But I have talked to a lot of religious people who understand faith as evolving, in many places at one time, something to continuously be questioned. Oddly enough, a lot of times in my experience it's actually pastors who have a more nuanced view of what religion means and what it offers and that's because, like with science, the more you read about it, the more you think about it, the more possibilities open up.
In the reaction to the previous episode, people rightly complained that you used the word "faith" without clearly defining it, making the entire discussion so vague that nobody could really discern what you were talking about. Worse, you were using the term to mean a number of very different things and pretending they were all the same thing. I expected a mea culpa for that in this episode; instead you shame your viewers for misunderstanding what you were talking about and reacting with hostility. When you make a claim like "science is based on faith", you don't expect people to get angry? Really?
And now in this episode you have a different problem: you've defined "faith" so narrowly as to make it a nearly meaningless concept, using it to try to equate a scientist's provisional, pragmatic reliance on observations and mathematical axioms to a zealot's belief in the unknowable. If believing in the reality of our observations of the world is faith, you have reduced faith to nothingness. So your definition of faith by itself would be enough to make any student of philosophy (or theology!) cry. Heck, you don't even truly need to believe the world is "real" to practice science. That's because science is not concerned with how things *are*, merely with how they *seem*. To paraphrase Indiana Jones, "[Science] is the search for fact, not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall."
These last two episodes are a big jumbled mess of conflated concepts and muddy reasoning, and it would take pages and pages to fully explain where you went wrong. I'll just call out two more key problem areas and then pack it in.
You conflate math and science as being basically the same thing. They are not. In fact math and science are very different, even opposite in some respects. Science starts with observations about the tangible result of the workings of a physical system, and attempts to work backward to determine the fundamental rules that govern it. Math starts by assuming as true the fundamental rules that govern a system and then works forward to explore the results of that system. Yet you seem to imply that the mechanics of the physical world are interchangeable with the mathematics that describe them. Science has shown us that many if not most physical systems do seem to be governed by mathematical formulae, but a good scientist always keeps in mind that the math is just a model: the real world may or may not conform to the model. By the same token, a good mathematician always remembers that their results are constructed in abstract logical systems and based on axioms, none of which are guaranteed to resemble the real world. Simply put, you do not need to put your faith in a mathematical axiom or a scientific observation to design and operate a light bulb or a hair dryer or a hang glider or any other thing that science has made possible. You merely need to recognize the fact that those axioms and observations seem to work, for now. Like I said before, provisional and pragmatic. I'll point out that neither of those adjectives is often used to describe faith.
Last, you seem to be claiming that because individual scientists believe strongly--sometimes to the point of absolute faith--in an as-yet untested theory, this means that science is rooted in faith. But Science does not equal Scientists. Just because some scientists exhibit faith does not mean you need faith to be a scientist or that science relies on faith. A good scientist draws a distinction between what they can provide evidence for and what they merely think is true. And of course, to test a scientific theory, you don't necessarily need to have an opinion about what the outcome will be, merely enough curiosity to want to find out.
This whole debacle just bums me out, because your ideas and analysis about games and game design are so insightful and intelligent that I assumed your discussion of science and religion would be too. Instead your analysis was amateurish and ill-informed. There exist metric tons of writings on the subject; for Pete's sake, if you somehow find this comment buried among all the hundreds of others, I urge you to read some of them. Hopefully all this backlash will encourage you to consider the possibility that you have a lot more learning to do on the matter.