Faith is a pathway to knowledge

evidenceCon argues that evidence is "a thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment". Any kind of information would be evidence, according to this definition, as well as your brain, any languages you speak, and your eyes etc. It is a very broad definition.In Round 1, the definition of faith was presented. Acceptance of the debate was conditional on accepting this definition. it was non-negotiable.Faith: the belief that a proposition is true without evidenceIf we slip in the broad definition of evidence, it becomes:Faith: the belief that a proposition is true without any kind of information, a brain, or language.I suggest that faith is impossible, under these conditions. Yet Con adds, in Round 1, "just know that there are many people who DO believe that definition is an accurate representation of their faith". This statement doesn't make sense in the context of the definitions above. Since the definition of faith cannot be negotiated in this debate, we clearly need a tighter understanding of evidence.In formal contexts, there are strict rules about what is evidence and what isn't. For example, in a courtroom, there are rules about what will be accepted as evidence and what won't be. Similarly, in a scientific setting, there are standards that must be met before information is considered to be scientific evidence or not. Informally, there may not be codified rules of evidence, but people still make judgments to accept or reject information as evidence. For example, if a girlfriend says to me, "I know my boyfriend's cheating because I tossed a coin and it came down heads and heads is cheating." I would say, "that's not evidence of anything. That's unrelated."The Oxford Dictionary defines it thus:evidence: the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid (1)The important difference with Con's definition is the idea that the evidence must indicate that the proposition is true or valid. How evidence is defined, then, will differ by context. For example, in a fundamental Christian community, the fact that something is stated in the Bible will be considered evidence that it is true. In contrast, a scientific community will not consider this to be evidence. The same is true of knowledge, of course, which Con has defined as "justified true belief". Presumably, knowledge is a belief for which there is sufficient evidence for it to be accepted as true. Again, what is considered evidence, and sufficient evidence, for a belief to be knowledge will depend on the context.Example 1: knowledge of medicineSince context is all, let us examine my example from the previous round in a scientific context. We will only consider scientific facts and scientific evidence.1. when we are small, our parents tell us that medicine can make sick people better and we accept this Information from parents is not scientific evidence. They could be wrong, insane or lying for their own reasons.2. we watch people take medicine and get better, and believe the medicine is responsible This is not scientific evidence as observational studies do not measure cause and effect. The sick person might have recovered equally quickly without medicine, but we'll never know.3. we conduct controlled, experimental studies with pharmacological substances and tabulate the resultsYes, finally we have scientific evidence about the effects of medicine.So looking at this story within a scientific context we can see that the early faith about medicine was a pathway to knowledge.But the scientific system is only one way to consider this idea. Let's think about a more informal system of faith and knowledge.My friend is in love with a man, and she thinks he must love her too. There has been no evidence of this, but she wants him to so badly that she starts to believe that he does. She has faith in his love, according to Con's definition. This faith motivates her to go up to him at a party in the corridor and start kissing him. And he responds by pushing her away and shouting, "get off me! What's wrong with you, creepy?" Her faith has been a pathway to knowledge - in this case, rather sad knowledge.pathwayI accept Con's definition:pathway - a route to or way of access to; way of reaching or achieving somethingHowever, I'm confused by his arguments relating to pathway. He says that it is "absurd" to consider actions that are "directly responsible" for obtaining knowledge as pathways to knowledge. And that to consider pathway in this way "is not a useful one for this conversation" and that it "isn't reasonable". And yet the definition he provided does seem to define pathway in this fashion.Con argues adopting his own definition of pathway would mean that any and every action could be somehow linked to the act of obtaining knowledge. This is possibly true. Knowledge is broad and we're adding to our knowledge every day. However this is not the topic for this debate, although it might be interesting to discuss some other time.The topic for this debate is whether faith is a pathway to knowledge. And as I've shown it can be. It often is.(1) http://www.oxforddictionaries.com...