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EnforcerSG
Although I am new here I have been debating stuff like this for a while and there is a big question that I have. Why do many people feel that absolute proof is needed for things?
Maybe a better question is why do people feel the need to absolutely trust something, whether it be science, god, other people, that they are right, that something is important, or anything really? Many times I have heard something like "well science can't prove this so" and seem to expect that that fact makes it worthless.
And then there is faith in God which generally seems like it must be absolute or else it is not really faith.
I try to avoid believing things absolutely. In a practical sense there are tons of things I don't question. We don't really have a choice but to do so (we would starve to death debating if the need to eat was absolute), but none of those things I would say are absolutely proved facts that are completely unquestionable (we can be "fed" through an IV, eating is not absolute). And emotionally I might get hyped up to think that something is an absolute until I calm down. But all in all I do not see a need to believe something absolute and IMO all it does is close our minds to other possibilities.
Assuming that we are reasonable enough to not believe what seems practically true as absolutely true, why do some people feel the need to have absolute proof for things? If some scientific theory is not absolutely proved (none are), but in a practical sense there is no other known explanation for something, does the lack of proof somehow invalidate it? How does religion and faith play into all of this? Is it reasonable to have absolute faith in something you cannot absolute prove (and is absolute faith a requirement of many religions?)?
Maybe a better question is why do people feel the need to absolutely trust something, whether it be science, god, other people, that they are right, that something is important, or anything really? Many times I have heard something like "well science can't prove this so" and seem to expect that that fact makes it worthless.
And then there is faith in God which generally seems like it must be absolute or else it is not really faith.
I try to avoid believing things absolutely. In a practical sense there are tons of things I don't question. We don't really have a choice but to do so (we would starve to death debating if the need to eat was absolute), but none of those things I would say are absolutely proved facts that are completely unquestionable (we can be "fed" through an IV, eating is not absolute). And emotionally I might get hyped up to think that something is an absolute until I calm down. But all in all I do not see a need to believe something absolute and IMO all it does is close our minds to other possibilities.
Assuming that we are reasonable enough to not believe what seems practically true as absolutely true, why do some people feel the need to have absolute proof for things? If some scientific theory is not absolutely proved (none are), but in a practical sense there is no other known explanation for something, does the lack of proof somehow invalidate it? How does religion and faith play into all of this? Is it reasonable to have absolute faith in something you cannot absolute prove (and is absolute faith a requirement of many religions?)?