This is in response to what you said previously!
The brain and mind are separate, yes. In the same way that a computer and computer program are separate. Its the mind telling the brain what to do, not the other way around. Now since your mind consists of immaterial things like ideas and beliefs, it is these very ideas and beliefs that tell your brain what to do. But if ideas tell your brain what to do, then they must also tell your body what to do and how to act. What happens when your mind is guided by faith? Your actions will be guided by them a well! But what if your faith is inconsistent with reality? Then your actions will be too. And here is the problem, beliefs affect what you do, not JUST what you think. I suspect there is no need to explain why this is important. Notice here that proof and evidence never factor in anywhere. That is because proof is quite irrelevant here.
Also, your characterization of rationality is quite limiting. Consider philosophy for a moment. Is it possible to prove a philosophical theory? Is it possible to use evidence to critically analyze one? No and no. The reason is first that proof is impossible outside mathematics, and second that critical analysis means something different in philosophy than in science. In short, rationality has nothing to do with proof and evidence. Rationality is merely a means through which one discovers truth, science just happens to need evidence to do it. So again, what is the difference between between faith and rationality.
"Rationality is merely a means through which one discovers truth, science just happens to need evidence to do it.”
Sounds like "blind” faith to me, if you do not demand scientific evidence.
And we don’t know how immaterial these things actually are...we do not have a working model of how our observation of reality changes it/us, but we do know that our observations do have a measurable effect.
We are not trying to prove any philosophical theory...I am not at any rate, but I do offer actual physical, testable, replicated, scientific studies that show that things like prayer make a measurable difference...so I’m not trying to prove anything firstly, because there is a huge empty space of knowledge that is lacking in our understanding of how even our brain and mind function...much less how space/time and our universe came to exist and continue to do so.
So you can only take rationality so far, and then you are into the realm of theory.
Which is only one step, amongst many, coming from many different aspects and angles, moving to find a working model.
"So again, what is the difference between between faith and rationality?”
It really depends on what you believe faith to be.
If you narrowly look at is always as “blind faith”...blindly following something or someone without question of critical thought then I disagree with your POV.
Some people cannot see a difference and some can see stark differences...it’s a subjective thought process.
Take me for example...I was raised in the Mormon church, which actually was a quite good way to be raised in many ways...they are very family-centric, don’t drink, smoke, watch negative movies, drink caffeinated beverages, don’t swear, etc., etc..
My older brother came out as being gay to my parents when I was about 15...he was 17.
Well, despite what the religion espouses about how family and keeping family together is the most important thing...they are staunchly anti-gay, and have poured millions of dollars into anti-gay legislature, and have destroyed millions of families with their rhetoric....anyhow...my parents chose my brother over the religion.
Now some might say that was because of a lack of faith...I say the opposite.
It took a great deal of personal faith in what my parents believed (that my brother is and has always been a good person and he did not chose his sexual preferences and no God being worth a damn would condemn someone for such a thing) to be true vs. what they are told to blindly follow by the church which my mother grew up in and was quite a big deal for her to leave.
(Never let your morals get in the way of doing the right thing.)
I have my own faith in what the true nature of reality is because of my own subjective experiences that have shown me what you see is NOT always what you get/have.
You look at the brain as the hardware and the mind as the software basically from what I gather?
I don’t have too different of an idea about how it all functions...I do view the physical brain as the hardware yes.
But I do not view the mind as software confined to the limits of the skull.
I view the brain as a receiver of mind, of consciousness, and the brain as the interpreter/reducing valve of the information available for us to detect.
IMHO, faith is our ability to control our reality, it is not a feeling like love or contempt, it is an action, it is the physical manifestation of our will over reality.
"What happens when your mind is guided by faith? Your actions will be guided by them a well! But what if your faith is inconsistent with reality? Then your actions will be too. And here is the problem, beliefs affect what you do, not JUST what you think.”
Everyone is somewhat guided by faith if you take it to mean what the general population define it as.
Of course, we all have faith that the sun will rise the next day...but, that isn’t blind faith, that is educated faith...it is faith within reason.
I am a firm believer in critical thinking being an essential part of finding my definition of faith.
Faith doesn’t have to be intangible...it isn’t some magical-thinking disorder.
Take a look at the story of Jesus walking on water...or other various religious figures who reportedly could preform superhuman feats such as levitation, the direct manipulation and replication of matter (Jesus and the fishes)....etc.
Who is to say that the potential for such mastery is impossible?
Of course if your faith is inconsistent with reality, and you try to fly off the top of a cliff, then you will splat.
But part of the reason I listed the above studies ^^^ is to show that faith is not intangible.
Beliefs do affect what you do, and your beliefs also affect your reality (and others) imho...I don’t go so far as to be as to eliminate any possibility...we as humans are so self-limiting...that doesn’t mean that I also blindly believe everything either.
“You create your own reality” came from Jane Roberts back in the 1970s...but other people have expressed similar ideas for several millennia.
The Buddha said,
“What you dwell upon you become.”
Jesus said,
“It is done unto you as you believe.”
Hindu mysticism from Shankaracharya says,
“Whatever a person’s mind dwells on intensely and with firm resolve, that is exactly what he becomes.”
It says in the Talmud,
“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
More recent sages like Ralph Waldo Emerson have said,
“We become what we think about all day long.”
Walt Disney said,
“If you can dream it you can do it.”
Napoleon Hill said,
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.”
Norman Vincent Peale said,
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
Wayne Dyer says,
“You see it when you believe it.”
And let’s not forget Oprah who repeats this message frequently by saying things like,
“Remember, you are co-creating your life with the energy of your own intentions.”
This is all the physicality of “faith”.
