If you don’t distinguish having faith from having a theory, how do you talk to religious people?
I understand the point you’re making, though I think you’re going too far when you say there isn’t a concept called “faith”. I should have explained that I’m responding to the use of “faith” in only 2 contexts:
faith as a technical Christian term: What did Jesus and Paul mean by faith? There is a large body of literature on this, and each denomination of Christianity has a pretty good idea what they mean by it.
faith as it is used as an argument against rationality.
Only the fourth and sixth definitions you listed above occur in those contexts.
If you don’t distinguish having faith from having a theory
That doesn’t follow from what Yvain said at all. There being no singular thing designated with the words “having faith” doesn’t mean those words always designate the same thing as the words “having a theory”. In fact, if they did there would be a singular thing they designate, which would directly contradict Yvain’s point!
If you don’t distinguish having faith from having a theory, how do you talk to religious people?
I understand the point you’re making, though I think you’re going too far when you say there isn’t a concept called “faith”. I should have explained that I’m responding to the use of “faith” in only 2 contexts:
faith as a technical Christian term: What did Jesus and Paul mean by faith? There is a large body of literature on this, and each denomination of Christianity has a pretty good idea what they mean by it.
faith as it is used as an argument against rationality.
Only the fourth and sixth definitions you listed above occur in those contexts.
That doesn’t follow from what Yvain said at all. There being no singular thing designated with the words “having faith” doesn’t mean those words always designate the same thing as the words “having a theory”. In fact, if they did there would be a singular thing they designate, which would directly contradict Yvain’s point!