... says the "astronomy priest" to me :) I have to take your word for it. I know there is what appears to be a star that looks brighter than most others. I, personally, don't have a means at my disposal to know it's mars. I just have to believe you.
This is not faith. We agree on the name we give to that spot in the sky, which happen to be "Mars". Then we agree to name "planets" the spots that behave in a given manner, "stars" the other spots, etc. That's just how languages are built. "Believing" that the language work "well enough" is necessary for normal life and intellectual exchanges.
To dig deeper, the faith leap is more done when we agree that every night, the spot of light we see at roughly the same place in the sky is the emanation of a unique object, that deserves a unique name. This is related to the identity problem.
It is faith for _me_ since I've never looked through a telescope and seen that it is indeed a nearer-mass/rock, and not a star as it appears in the sky. Unless you have seen it with your own eyes, you too are believing based on the words of others. My point isn't that we can't verify some of the things we think are true, but my point is that we usually don't. Instead, we believe what we're taught because everyeone else around us believes.
We're not so different from the people at the time of Columbus that were taught the world was flat. They didn't (most couldn't verify it), but everyone 'knew' it was true. That had been taught it, they had books describing it, and maps showing it. They had as much evidence as I do about mars.
Many people really have seen mars through telescopes, and a number of rocket scientists have built devices to go and look at it indirectly. THOSE people KNOW mars exists. The rest of us believe, blindly, what we are told about it. I don't doubt mars exists in the least, only because I _choose_ to believe it exists.
gbog|15 years ago
To dig deeper, the faith leap is more done when we agree that every night, the spot of light we see at roughly the same place in the sky is the emanation of a unique object, that deserves a unique name. This is related to the identity problem.
anon_for_this_1|15 years ago
We're not so different from the people at the time of Columbus that were taught the world was flat. They didn't (most couldn't verify it), but everyone 'knew' it was true. That had been taught it, they had books describing it, and maps showing it. They had as much evidence as I do about mars.
Many people really have seen mars through telescopes, and a number of rocket scientists have built devices to go and look at it indirectly. THOSE people KNOW mars exists. The rest of us believe, blindly, what we are told about it. I don't doubt mars exists in the least, only because I _choose_ to believe it exists.
unknown|15 years ago
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