Greetings from Maine - Vacationland™, The Way Life Should Be™, and all that jazz

Introduce Yourself
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I am writing as a member of a local atheist & humanist group up in the northeast outpost of Maine.
The Center for Inquiry looks like an interesting group of people.
I hope one day to see a healthy and productive secular society. Perhaps that is just a pipe dream. As Michael Shermer wrote, reason is just a bit in the mouth of belief’s horse. What he meant by belief is primarily the beliefs that are a leap of faith without evidence. How can we create a more sane world if human beings are inherently prone to believe things without evidence? Faith-based thinking permeates everything.
Maybe I can get some help with that here.
-Nathan

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Welcome to the CFI forums. We’ll do what we can to help, but I’m not sure how much impact we can have in the short term. People cling to their magical thinking because they find it comforting, and in my experience they get not only defensive but outright angry when challenged to defend their beliefs. At least the younger generation seems more open minded and willing to think things through before making decisions than their elders.

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Did someone mention jazz?

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Thank you for the warm welcome.
If anyone is moving to or visiting Maine and looking to network with a secular group, I can recommend at least three of them.

  • Maine Atheists and Humanists - A home for atheists, humanists, and otherwise secular minded individuals in Maine. The largest atheist group in Maine with a statewide reach. (My home group)
  • Downeast Humanists and Freethinkers - DEHF promotes the separation of church and state and supports tolerance and equal rights for all humans. They cover the Downeast region of Maine.
  • Portland Humanists - Portland Humanists is a group of humanists, atheists, and secularists in the Portland, ME area (the original Portland :wink: )
    We also have a couple of groups focused on skepticism and science. I do not know as much about these groups, although I did meet a professor at the University of Maine once who is part of the Central Maine Skeptical Society.
  • Southern Maine Skeptical Society - Devoted to critical thinking, science, empiricism, logic, rational analysis, and ethical action.
  • Central Maine Skeptical Society - Part of the growing skeptical movement that seeks to promote science, reason, and critical thinking. Based mostly out of the Bangor and Orono, Maine area.
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Thank you for the warm welcome. If anyone is moving to or visiting Maine and looking to network with a secular group, I can recommend at least three of them. * Maine Atheists and Humanists - A home for atheists, humanists, and otherwise secular minded individuals in Maine. The largest atheist group in Maine with a statewide reach. (My home group) * Downeast Humanists and Freethinkers - DEHF promotes the separation of church and state and supports tolerance and equal rights for all humans. They cover the Downeast region of Maine. * Portland Humanists - Portland Humanists is a group of humanists, atheists, and secularists in the Portland, ME area (the original Portland ;) ) We also have a couple of groups focused on skepticism and science. I do not know as much about these groups, although I did meet a professor at the University of Maine once who is part of the Central Maine Skeptical Society. * Southern Maine Skeptical Society - Devoted to critical thinking, science, empiricism, logic, rational analysis, and ethical action. * Central Maine Skeptical Society - Part of the growing skeptical movement that seeks to promote science, reason, and critical thinking. Based mostly out of the Bangor and Orono, Maine area.
Humanism and freethough seems to be alive and well in Maine. That's heartening. Welcome to CFI Forums. I think you'll find it helpful, and maybe entertaining. Lois
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Hello Nathan, glad to see another freethinker on the site! I’ve been to your State and it’s beautiful indeed. We took a schooner tour up the coast from Rockland. Memorable. I look forward to reading your posts.
Cap’t Jack

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Welcome aboard Nathan.

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What he meant by belief is primarily the beliefs that are a leap of faith without evidence. How can we create a more sane world if human beings are inherently prone to believe things without evidence? Faith-based thinking permeates everything. -Nathan
I think it is a bit unfair to characterize all Christians as holding a belief without any evidence. Most Christians that I have encountered have had some experience that has convinced them that God exists and is real, myself included. However I also understand that each person has an experience that is specific to that person, and would be meaningless or easily discounted by others. Many times a non-believer will have such an experience, but will discount it and doubt it's validity, so the experience does not have the effect of convincing them of God's reality.
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What he meant by belief is primarily the beliefs that are a leap of faith without evidence. How can we create a more sane world if human beings are inherently prone to believe things without evidence? Faith-based thinking permeates everything. -Nathan
I think it is a bit unfair to characterize all Christians as holding a belief without any evidence. Most Christians that I have encountered have had some experience that has convinced them that God exists and is real, myself included. However I also understand that each person has an experience that is specific to that person, and would be meaningless or easily discounted by others. Many times a non-believer will have such an experience, but will discount it and doubt it's validity, so the experience does not have the effect of convincing them of God's reality. Perhaps we need to define evidence. Belief without evidence or proof comes from the dictionary definition for faith. Evidence can be as broad as any anecdote supporting a conclusion. When I talk about evidence though, I am talking about things that provide supporting proof about the nature of our objective reality that are testable and repeatable for which no other explanation is more likely. I think we need to adopt the latter definition as our only standard of evidence if we are to honestly describe reality. Otherwise, in the words of Peter Boghossian, we are just pretending to know things we do not know.
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By the way, Break Up, I never once mentioned Christians. You must have misread me. I mean all faith everywhere. Not religion. Faith.
That means a belief without evidence about GMOs, a belief without evidence about chemtrails and mind control programs, or a belief that killing yourself for your beliefs will land you in an afterlife that is paradise.
-Nathan

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What he meant by belief is primarily the beliefs that are a leap of faith without evidence. How can we create a more sane world if human beings are inherently prone to believe things without evidence? Faith-based thinking permeates everything. -Nathan
I think it is a bit unfair to characterize all Christians as holding a belief without any evidence. Most Christians that I have encountered have had some experience that has convinced them that God exists and is real, myself included. However I also understand that each person has an experience that is specific to that person, and would be meaningless or easily discounted by others. Many times a non-believer will have such an experience, but will discount it and doubt it's validity, so the experience does not have the effect of convincing them of God's reality. Perhaps we need to define evidence. Belief without evidence or proof comes from the dictionary definition for faith. Evidence can be as broad as any anecdote supporting a conclusion. When I talk about evidence though, I am talking about things that provide supporting proof about the nature of our objective reality that are testable and repeatable for which no other explanation is more likely. I think we need to adopt the latter definition as our only standard of evidence if we are to honestly describe reality. Otherwise, in the words of Peter Boghossian, we are just pretending to know things we do not know. That is quite right, but the latter definition works well in science but when talking about faith and religion we are operating by a different set of standards. Those who try to apply scientific standards of evidence to religion are making a mistake. The tests of the experiences may not be repeatable for another person because the experience was specific to the first person. God is not an unthinking being that will react to specific stimuli with specific behaviors.
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By the way, Break Up, I never once mentioned Christians. You must have misread me. I mean all faith everywhere. Not religion. Faith. That means a belief without evidence about GMOs, a belief without evidence about chemtrails and mind control programs, or a belief that killing yourself for your beliefs will land you in an afterlife that is paradise. -Nathan
By that limited definition you are quite correct, but faith can also mean that you believe in something that you do have proof for, or evidence for. Faith is not restricted to only those beliefs that have no evidence, though it is most commonly thought of in that regard. BTW, I used Christians as an example because those are who I am most familiar with, I could also talk about Zen Buddhism if you like.
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By that limited definition you are quite correct, but faith can also mean that you believe in something that you do have proof for, or evidence for. Faith is not restricted to only those beliefs that have no evidence, though it is most commonly thought of in that regard. BTW, I used Christians as an example because those are who I am most familiar with, I could also talk about Zen Buddhism if you like.
How is it that faith can also mean something for which one has proof? I am genuinely curious. If we hold a cup in our hands, do we have faith that we are holding a cup in our hands, or do we know we are holding the cup? Which claim is a more reasonable description of reality based on what we know of the composition of matter - faith or knowing? If we were to make an untestable claim that the cup is composed of the spirits of dead aliens that affect the emotional state of the person drinking from the cup, then would knowledge or faith best fit that claim? When I say that I know something to be true, I mean it in the probabilistic sense that I can with a very high degree of confidence know it to be true and that my belief that it is true is revisable contingent upon newer and better evidence becoming available. I can not only identify how I know it is true, but that knowledge is demonstrable in the sense that it is repeatable and testable. Can we do that with faith? -Nathan
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Try this thought experiment that is a modification of one proposed by Peter Boghossian:
Think of an example of a sentence where one can use the word ‘faith,’ and cannot replace that with ‘fact’, yet at the same time isn’t an example of pretending to know something one doesn’t know.
Can you think of one?

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If we hold a cup in our hands, do we have faith that we are holding a cup in our hands, or do we know we are holding the cup? Which claim is a more reasonable description of reality based on what we know of the composition of matter - faith or knowing? -Nathan
It can be both, I do not believe that faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive.
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Try this thought experiment that is a modification of one proposed by Peter Boghossian: Think of an example of a sentence where one can use the word ‘faith,’ and cannot replace that with ‘fact’, yet at the same time isn’t an example of pretending to know something one doesn’t know. Can you think of one?
It is true that many times you cannot replace faith with fact, but there is no reason why you can't replace fact with faith. I can know for a fact that I exist and am thinking, and I can have faith that I exist and am thinking. I can have faith that Santa Claus exists, but I cannot state that for a fact.
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It can be both, I do not believe that faith and knowledge are mutually exclusive.
Alright, so you reject the premise of the questions, right? Are you saying that faith can be the same as testable and repeatable knowledge? Or are you using a different definition of knowledge? If so, how do you define knowledge? For that matter, how do you define faith?
It is true that many times you cannot replace faith with fact, but there is no reason why you can't replace fact with faith. I can know for a fact that I exist and am thinking, and I can have faith that I exist and am thinking. I can have faith that Santa Claus exists, but I cannot state that for a fact.
I'm not sure the statement that you can know for a fact that you exist and have faith that you exist makes much sense. Again, we must start the conversation over by defining the terms (see above). I am interested in how you define faith and knowledge, without obfuscating them in deepities. It would seem to me that if we define fact as that which we can reliably believe to be objectively true through evidence and faith as a belief that something is true without objective evidence, then it would appear that they cannot simultaneously co-exist. Unless faith isn't a claim to know something or knowledge isn't a reliable method for knowing objective reality, then I am not sure how your proposition could be true. Can you replace fact with faith and reliably come to correct conclusions? If so, please provide an example of the reliability of faith. -Nathan
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Religion is a social construct, often a very valuable one. It cannot be investigated using the tools of the physical sciences. If you use the tools of social science you will come to understand it strengths and weaknesses much more clearly.
When religion attempts to ignore reality, as it often does when it comes to the physical world, it has gone beyond it’s strength and purpose and becomes a handicap rather than an aid. When it attempts to imposes beliefs in the social world that are not based on the equality of all humans, as we are so often seeing, it becomes an a tool that works to the disadvantage of the human race, except the few who are trying to use it for their own selfish ends.
When religion works to the benefit of the entire human race; i.e. help the poor; turn the other cheek;; the rich don’t get to heaven, the US civil rights in the 60s, then it is a powerful tool for human advancement.
The biggest problem we atheists face is our inability, at this point in time, to provide an alternative social organization anywhere near matching what religion has built since the agricultural revolution, so I am glad to here of the various organizations and groups in Maine.

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I agree very much Gary with what you say about the limitations of the tools of science.
I also appreciate the difficulty in using the tools of social science to get at truths about the world because my undergraduate degree is in social science.
My hope is that we can create more, or more inclusive, social organizations that can help replace the desire for faith in people’s lives with the desire to better understand the real world.

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I am not so sure that religion is a force for good in the world on net balance with the harm that it produces. We could still have civil rights and such through reason without using religion as a tool. It is not just religion that is a detriment to humanity, but the very thing that makes a religion unfalsifiable - which is faith. Faith is the mind killer and an enemy of free-thought.