To Theists
1. How have you arrived at your belief that God exists? Was it after some theoretical or logical proofs on God 's existence or some personal religious experience? Or via some other routes?
2. Why do you try to prove God in a theoretical / logical way, when already believing in God's existence?
2. Why do you try to prove God in a theoretical / logical way, when already believing in God's existence?
Comments (239)
Me, I wouldn't.
I think a non-believer, were they to move to being a believer, would likely need to have experiences. To participate in a theist belief system and see what happens. They might come to, over a longer period of time, find themselves believing, or not. Much like one learns many things, via practice and experience and sometimes guidance from people with more experience. I find it a very Abrahamic idea that it is faith vs. science or reason. You gotta do stuff. You gotta experience stuff. It takes time. If you grew up in a religion or theist belief system, well, that's another thing, but even there many non-abrahamic religions emphasize experiential approaches, with practices and rituals and develop skills and change the self over time.
I respect your beliefs and opinions but how you can experience something that you never seen or heard or even touched before as "God"?
I guess this is why sometimes you can have these periods of doubt.
There supposed to be what the Psychologists call "Religious Experiences" which happen to some people in their lives such as hearing God's voice, seeing apparitions of divine images and witnessing inexplicable phenomena and feeling holy energies around them etc. But private and subjective experiences like these are challenging to be proved and explained objectively in scientific ways.
I have an old book by William James called "Various Religious Experiences" somewhere in the room to start reading in the near future.
Would logical and rational discussions and the process of proving God's Existence strengthen theists' beliefs in God and faith, or would it be just pure academic practice?
I think this is the best response I've read anywhere from a believer responding to skepticism. It's clear, reasonable, and intellectually satisfying, at least to me.
However, I gave up "God" for Lent during 11th grade after acknowledging that the Bible was unbelievable (both "too good" and "too bad" to be true), that the history of its making and ecclesiastical uses were largely dishonest, corrupting, overtly political, and finally recognizing that I'd never "truly believed" after all but only that I had merely conformed. I'd discovered that I could no long defend the indefensible on the basis of believing the unbelievable. That was 41 years ago, and I've been a freethinker ever since.
NB: The classical arguments in defense of (mono)theism are among the best arguments against 'theism as such' and the few theists who are also cogent, careful, thinkers whom I've ever encountered are uncomfortably aware of this. At the end of the day, they (must) lean heavily on "faith" to "justify" their fact-free beliefs (superstitions).
Interesting point of view and life experience. It would sound weird but I was raised in an atheist home... My parents never taught me any kind of religion and I went only to secular schools. Nevertheless, they never imposed me atheism at all because they said I was free to believe if I wanted to.
Anyhow, despite my grow experience, I never been interested in religion for myself... But yes probably my parents were important in this path of being free thinker.
So, no religious experiences. No religious background. No interest in religion. No self interest. Just an argument that I can't refute, despite years of trying. Far from it, It just gets stronger.
Let me tell you something: most contemporary philosophers would describe themselves as atheists. But they don't defend atheism. Not most of them (there are exceptions, there always are). They just assume it. They think atheism is true based on arguments that convinced them (if they needed convincing) as undergraduates. And then they never revisited them. They just assume the truth of a broadly naturalistic worldview and then set about the task of showing how this or that important concept- morality, free will, the mind, perception, truth - can either still be said to have something answering to it on that worldview, or not. And then they write papers and books disagreeing with one another about that.
They don't argue for atheism. This is what many here don't understand. They think the 80+% atheist beliefs of contemporary philosophers is borne of reasoned argument - but it isn't. Theism isn't taken seriously. Most don't debate it at all. For instance, I have an introductory book on metaethics on my desk. It doesn't even mention divine command theory. It's not even in the index! Yet it's not just highly plausible, it's demonstrably true. Theism has not been refuted, it's just ignored.
1- social and emotional reasons
2- to reduce embarrassment
Here is a question I been dying to ask a non-believer...
Why is it okay to believe in the theory of a higher-dimensional being but not God? Aren’t we describing the the same concept?
What it Would Look Like if Higher Dimensional Beings Tried to Communicate with Us.
By: Erik Ruof
https://medium.com/illumination/what-it-would-look-like-if-higher-dimensional-beings-tried-to-communicate-with-us-ecdbf166d307
Surely, only a philosopher would think that many (any?) arrived at belief in God through theoretical or logical proof.
The much more probable routes are:
1. Being taught, as a child, that God(s) exists.
2. Being persuaded by a teacher [missionary] as an adolescent or adult that God(s) exist.
The experience of being taught, persuaded, comforted [or threatened] is the critical part for most people. Some may arrive at belief through their own private efforts.
Quoting Bylaw
Absolutely. And believers also need to have experiences to maintain belief. That is what the community of believers does -- provides validating experiences. Lukewarm believers (millions and millions) gradually drift into actual or functional disbelief by (usually self-selected) isolation from an effective community of believers (any religion). Showing up at a random congregation periodically probably won't maintain belief. It needs to be a friendly, welcoming, all-around good experience. And it should be noted that plenty of congregations -- any belief system -- manage to be fairly unpleasant, one way or another.
Good preaching / good teaching is another aspect of continued belief.
I have found that a lot of people who believe in various crock-of-shit theories think that religion is beneath contempt, when -- unbeknownst to them -- it's all pretty much the same faith-based kind of thinking.
Not sure how they are the same concept. But I have no good reason to accept the existence of either. The time to believe is when there is evidence.
Note also that atheism is simply the lack of belief in God. Some atheists believe in astrology and UFO abduction. It's the secular humanists who are likely to be the skeptics.
Quoting Corvus
Not all believers try to prove God. Some scorn those who do. But there are many believers who want to help convince as many others that their belief is true. Proselytizing has a long tradition in some religions. These guys need arguments, without them being an apologist would not be possible.
Sure, but that's a different issue. And most people, heck I'll stick my neck out and say all people, make decisions based on subjective experiences and certainly based on interpretations/conclusions that would be impossible to prove to others, decisions that lead to real world consequences for people near one and even in wider society. But my point is that dicussions in philosophy forums, often given posts by people on the main opposed sides, can make it seem like the experiential aspects and not important or central. That theists are drawing poor conclusions and the issue is one related to logical and illogical analysis. And then, just to repeat that point - that non-theists, even some of them - don't make decisions or have beliefs based on things that cannot be demonstrated in some kind of repeatable empirical format to others.
There were people who believed elephants could communicate over extemely long distances. They were poo pooed, until it was later understood how. It could have been dismissed as a claim the elephants had supernatural powers, but actually it was a claim that they had some kind of natural power. To me if there is a God, it is then natural or real.Quoting tim woodI think I agree. But we all are in that situation. If you focus on the word supernatural, ti can seem like those people over there operate with an epistemology I do not. If we black box that, then we can look at how we actually decide things are true. As far as I can tell everyone is eclectic epistemologically. They all have a diverse set of ways of deciding something is true AND (importantly) make decisions that affect themselve and other people based on conclusions arrived at via a variety of epistemologies. Assessments of other people, beliefs about the presence or lack of certain qualities (or the belief there are not differences) related to the sex of a person, ideas about how to be successful socially, political beliefs, beliefs about when to use intuition and when to use rational analysis (on what issues, how much in relation to each other and more), how to raise a child and a great deal more. I see theists and non-theists alike (and both are obviously very diverse groups) making real world decisions that affect people using intuition and others with more rational analysis (and a variety of mixtures of these) and also both following tradition in many cases about some or many of these issues. I think in philosophy forums it becomes very binary, as if non-theists use, for any important decision, some kind of empirical research and theists use gut feeling and habit. Then the theists pretend often, that actually they have reasoned their way to certain beliefs based on deduction. While implicitly the other team presents themselves as having one consistant epistemology. They conclude things only via X. But I think both groups are misrepresenting themselves (not all of each group, but many in each group).
As far as I can tell I have at least as much doubt about my conclusions as non-theists do about their intuitive conclusions about all sorts of things. Beliefs they have that lead to real world decisions, beliefs and actioins that affect other people.
I don't want to go too far into how my experiences lead to my beliefs because it can so easily be immediately taken as NOW I am trying to convince others they should believe.
People can and often do base beliefs on things that work for them. They have, while they may not admit it, a pragmatic epistemology. I see this as happening with non-theists as well. They have beliefs that cannot be demonstrated to be true to others, beliefs that lead to real world actions that affect other people. In my posts above I go into this in a bit more detail. But my basic position is everyone is more eclectic epistemologically than it would seem if one looked at arguments between theists and non-theists in philosophy forums.
All four.
Quoting Corvus
Generally, I don't.
No serious scientist has suggested the existence of "higher-dimensional beings," as a serious proposal.
To be fair, in the Catholic Church at least, intellectual arguments for the existence of God have been pursued formally for at least 800 years. Hindus have been doing it much longer. For them, I think it was about their search for truth. I find the intellectual approach unconvincing, but then, I am not a theist. I don't think many Christians take an intellectual approach to their understanding of God.
As I said in my response to their post, above, I thought @Bylaw's response on the first page was the most convincing.
When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I realised that there were people who didn't believe in God. I found this shocking, for some reason. How I arrived at that, I can't tell, because my family wasn't religious. IN fact around the same time, I was asked at school what denomination I belonged to, and I didn't know. (Turned out to be C of E.)
Quoting Corvus
I don't, but I have always felt that scientific materialism is a defective philosophy, and that as a consequence, many of the assumptions that people carry about about life, the universe and everything, are deeply mistaken. They mistake physics and evolutionary theory for a philosophy, which they aren't.
My philosophy is not particularly centered around the Bible. When a younger man, it was centred around the quest for spiritual experience - the enlightenment that I associated with popular Eastern spiritual teachers, like Krishnamurti. However as life went on, I realised that there are convergences between many of the 'higher religions' - the ones that most interested me were Christian Platonism, Advaita Vedanta, and Mahayana Buddhism. I have learned to respect Christianity a lot more, although I think that Eastern Orthodoxy and some aspects of philosophical Catholicism appeal.
My view now is that the kind of God that a lot of people believe in, and a lot of atheists doubt, is indeed a projection of belief, but I'm still not atheist.
Quoting Bylaw
:up: :100:
[quote=Karen Armstrong]Religious truth is, therefore, a species of practical knowledge. Like swimming, we cannot learn it in the abstract; we have to plunge into the pool and acquire the knack by dedicated practice. Religious doctrines are a product of ritual and ethical observance, and make no sense unless they are accompanied by such spiritual exercises as yoga, prayer, liturgy and a consistently compassionate lifestyle. Skilled practice in these disciplines can lead to intimations of the transcendence we call God, Nirvana, Brahman or Dao. Without such dedicated practice, these concepts remain incoherent, incredible and even absurd.[/quote]
And here is a tricky point in these discussions. If you talk about it this way, anti-theists (as opposed to non-theists) will jump to the epistemological issues. Hey, that's all subjective, you shouldn't conclude...etc. But that is a different issue and one that can be addressed, but first it would be good if it was acknowledged that there is a vast experiential aspect to coming to, reinforcing, maintaining religious beliefs. It is as if someone heard a poor argument for God's existence and just believed it. Then from there one can say that given the experiential aspects people may have extremely good grounds to continue to participate in a religion that seems to the best of their knowledge to be working for them.
I've been mulling over this a bit. There seem to multiple ideas concerning epistemology itself over and above knowledge of God. Some of them being:
1. Faith: Some have argued that faith isn't blind faith (belief sans evidence of any kind) but look at the following:
[quote=Wikipedia]29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed [are] they that have not seen, and [yet] have believed.[/quote]
2. Skepticism (Doubting Thomas). Related to points 1 and 3.
3. Miracles (evidence). Related to points 1 and 2.
Evidence for God seems to take the following form: First a miracle (Jesus' resurrection) and then evidence for that miracle (Doubting Thomas poking Jesus' wounds).
A miracle is by definition something that's gonna be tough to believe - we're all in skeptic mode. Ergo, it's in need of strong evidence and that's provided - the skeptic is silenced.
Jesus Christ was fully in the know about skeptics - they were his true adversaries and my hunch is all the miracles he performed were aimed at them (doubting Toms). The idea was to convince the doubtful lot, everything else would fall into place after that.
However, the quote above indicates that faith - blind faith - was deemed a notch above justification/evidence. This takes us to the very heart of Christianity and religions as an ethical system and the possibility of belief in God sans faith being indubitable evidence that a person is good at heart and is, for that reason, faerself worthy of our faith. To have faith (to not be concerned with evidence) is, for certain, foolish, setting oneself up for a fall but that's not the side of faith Jesus was interested in.
What Christ was moved by was the trusting nature of those with faith - it was/is an umistakable sign of a person's goodness. Second guessing Jesus, faith implied trusting nature which itself was the hallmark of goodness. Faithful people, though not too bright or didn't care, were good people, exactly the demographic the divine message of love and morality was aimed at. Jesus was in his elements walking among the faithful. A paradox makes its presence felt: The faithful believe minus proof. A leap of faith is proof of the goodness of the faithful. Thus to accept God without proof (faith) is proof that those who accept God without proof are good people.
Anyway, her book The Case for God, which came out about the time of that article, was an historical analysis of modern western (WEIRD - White, Educated, Industrial, Rich, Democratic) cultures.
[quote=Alain de Bouton, Review of Case for God; https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jul/19/armstrong-case-god-alain-de-botton]Both atheists and fundamentalists take God to be an essentially human sort of figure, a giant Father in the sky who watches over us, punishes the guilty, intervenes directly in our affairs and is entirely comprehensible to our minds. "We regularly ask God to bless our nation, save our queen, cure our sickness or give us a fine day for a picnic." Fundamentalists commit, in Armstrong's view, the grave error of presuming to know God's mind and also of enlisting God on their side against their enemies. Unsurprisingly, militant atheists observe this reductive vision of God and in turn slam religion as a child-like description of the world that cannot compare with the subtlety and practical powers of science.
Armstrong's new book is shaped as a response to these two distortions. She wishes to remind us of the mystery of God. Her sympathy is with the great Jewish, Christian and Muslim theologians who have denied that any human attempt to put the divine into words will be accurate. We are simply too limited to be able to know God; our apprehension must hence be suffused with an awareness of our provisional and potentially faulty natures. She writes: "He is not good, divine, powerful or intelligent in any way that we can understand. We could not even say that God 'exists', because our concept of existence is too limited.[/quote]
I think "faith" only suggests that "the faithful" are gullible, placebo-junkies.
[The faithful are] Gullible, yes, but also good and Jesus was interested in the latter.
Perhaps I'm relying too much on folk "wisdom". In my defense, someone who believes with no or little regard to, as they say, hard evidence must've been part of a group that values truth and therefore, either don't lie or do so only rarely. Ergonomically speaking, it would be a waste of energy to be skeptical living in a community that values truth and so, over time living in one would eventually turn off the skeptic inside us. Valuing truth, as per philosophy, is good. It follows then faith is a good way to do a background check on people - those who have faith are generally good or more accurately better than those who don't.
Hmm - I thought the key focus of skepticism was valuing truth above most things. I think sometimes people mistake skepticism for denialism and cynicism.
I hope not! It's plain and simple: skepticism is useless, ergo a wasteful way to spend energy, around truthful people. There are no lies among good people. To watch out for them would be like expecting a dog to speak fluent English. Never gonna happen! Ergo, wasted energy. Ergo, skeptic turned off - background app open but not in use. Close app to save battery!
Skepticism (doubtful until evidence is furnished) is pointless in a community that values truth. It would be a baloney detection kit in an environment without baloney, as useless as a lie detector is on honest Abe (Lincoln).
Excusing negative thinking and cynical behavior as being an intellectual or having a skeptical mind.
Asking for proof which is find a healthy dose of skepticism can be good. But don’t take it over board where you are sounding like a robot. You still have your own mind, hopes, dreams and fantasies.
Don’t overly dissect life where you take the romance out of living.
You can enjoy a sunset without having to understand the anatomy of a star.
You can enjoy a rose garden without having to recall how photosynthesis works.
You can enjoy a piece of cake without having to know the anatomy of wheat.
In all honesty we are all going to face death. Your going to die, I’m going to die we are all going to die at some point in our lives. That is inevitable whether you believe there is something afterwards or not.
It really comes down to this are you satisfied with your life. Why ask the question “why we believe?” If you are content with your life the question should be irrelevant.
I believe in God because is due to my own personal unique experience that led me to that conclusion. This way of thinking gives me joy.
If not believing gives you joy than good for you why are you questioning how others pursue happiness?
I wonder about that. The assumption there is that it only functions around deception. My skepticism starts with me and I value truth (in as much as truth is possible). I often find myself pondering 'Why do I think that?" What evidence do I have for that view?' 'Do I really have an opinion on this subject?' "What am I not considering here?' Etc. I just consider it a necessary part of interacting with the world.
I was wondering if logical arguments on Existence of God could prove anything before, because God is out of the boundary of our reasoning. But maybe it can, depending what definition of God one takes.
And perhaps it could be a fruitful attempt in strengthening one's belief in God more. Because humans are rational beings, they need rational argument and proof of their beliefs even if they are beliefs on abstract objects.
There are, of course, many issues that could be further clarified in this issue such as, the logical validity of the definitions of God, and agreement on the nature of God i.e. whether God is just an abstract concept , some sort of supernatural force, or physical being etc.
I will take time reading each post in this thread when I get some peace and quiet time, and when I find points that I am not sure or want to clarify, then I will get back with the questions.
Probably only the case if you believe God exists.
I thought that it is an irrational and absurd act to keep trying to prove Existence of God, if you already believe in the Existence of God.
I was also under the impression that logical arguments cannot prove the external objects' existence or represent even the complexity of daily human life contents. They are just methods for checking and verifying if claimed arguments are consistent and valid. It cannot even prove if the conclusion is true. True conclusions are not always valid, if drawn from inconsistent arguments. And false conclusions can be valid in the opposite case.
First off, there's something I can't quite wrap my head around. There's Doubting Thomas and he's been labeled a skeptic but, in my humble opinion, he is one in spirit (doubtful) but not in letter (there's so much more to skepticism).
A true skeptic won't be convinced by anything at all for fae knows that justificatory methods (logic and its ilk) have been built on shaky foundations. I'll not go into that and it isn't hard to figure it out given one has a coupla months to spare and loads of patience.
Doubting Thomas is doubtful but then proof (Jesus' wounds) dispels his uncertainty regarding the veracity of Jesus' claims. That's not skepticism - that's just reason mimicking skepticism - something I found out the hard way. A true skeptic, the way I see it, suspends judgment - given a claim, fae neither affirms nor denies. A skeptic is always in two minds about everything, ironclad proof or not a shred of evidence. I suppose given that any proposition can be rendered as p v ~p, a skeptic will not commit to either of them for to do so is to give logic a clean bill of health, the wrong move, not according to some other system of thinking but as per logic itself. Need I say more?
How does all I said mesh with faith?
Faith is, if you really look at it, a cross between dogmatism (I hope I got that right) and skepticism (as I outlined above): You commit to one possibility (dogmatism -> p or ~p) sans proof (skepticism -> no proof is gonna cut it). Faith then is an acknowledgement of the deep flaw in logic - it's kinda like poking fun at Doubting Toms (prove it to me!) and at all the folks who mix proof and religion, by extension all other claims - and also reveals what seems to be a fundamental truth about how we (should) deal with each other - we need to be truthful to ourselves and other people. That's where good people come in. I'm not sure though as I'm a die-hard skeptic. Did I say anything?
I am not sure.
I think you're right.
What I call God is not what most people call God, but it's the closet thing. I've had an ongoing experience for a year or so; that can't be accounted for otherwise. I've made every attempt to eliminate the possibility and failed to do so; including multiple psychologist. The other side of the experience is the inability to convey it in a meaningful way as if evidence isn't supposed to be possible. The moment I can identify or be notified of an inconsistency in what is a rational experience with no rational explanation I would welcome it.
Quoting Corvus I don't and if God has a will it intends us to be atheists.
The Problems of Traditional Religion
The Christian concept of reward and punishment
Handed out by an omnipotent, omniscient God,
Is derivative of the family experience—
The child and parent—a conception of our world.
God in the News
I picked up some newspapers and magazines:
A suicide bomber blew up a bus and himself as well,
Sending many of the unbelievers straight to Hell,
While assuring himself and 72 friends a place
In Heaven, a double blessing from his Faith.
His family, relatives, and friends gathered soon
To celebrate their wonderful good fortune.
The bomber’s death was especially lauded as wise,
Because he had proceeded directly to Paradise,
Bypassing the possibly troublesome way
Of the litigation of Judgment Day.
Fighting continued in Kashmir
Due to some perceived insults to Muhammad.
A man was released in Northern Ireland
After claiming to be a Protestant atheist.
A child of Christian Scientists died
Due to the religious refusal of antibiotics.
Extremists sought nuclear formulas and parts to reduce
The peril of the unbelievers in the world,
Those whose ways are not sanctioned by Allah.
Pope authorizes millions to reach
Children sexually abused by priests.
The recently discovered Gospel of Judas
Suggests he wasn’t really such a bad-ass.
Some nuclear facilities no longer exist in Syria,
About whose disappearance both Syria and Israel
Seem to know nothing.
Battles rage on over differences in some holy books.
Iran promises to destroy Israel.
President Bush led off his latest speech with
‘In God we trust.”
And in a more than 2000 year-old newspaper:
The Emperor led off his latest speech with
‘In Zeus we trust’.
And finally, in a future newspaper:
Religious extremists detonate atomic bomb
In Washington, DC;
Nuclear retaliation destroys
Twelve highly populated middle-eastern cities.
World greatly stunned, begins to widely read
‘The End of Faith’, ‘The God Delusion’,
And ‘god is Not Great’.
1. Neither. Though it was through a series of observations.
2, What are you even talking about. Effectively is not always automatically logically. As in saying this and that. At the end of the day it is about action.
Beyond all this however people conflate "any intelligence, power, essence, or existence beyond human life" with God. Which is understandable. The idea of life continuing after death is not "God" per se, though it's all in the same philosophical boat, as it were.
Of all your fantasies, this is the wildest. Have you read these books? Their arguments are no better than yours. They're badly written, intellectually dishonest, and smug.
@180 Proof, I've been slagging off your posting style quite a bit recently. I think it obscures the points you want to make. This post, however, is an exemplar of clear transparent prose. It's still economical, but not compressed into a zip file.
That said, this struck me as a kind of lazy response. I put a little work into the post you are responding. Perhaps you could directly interact with what I wrote.
Quoting tim woodhave nothing to do with my position, though I am sure it might with other theists' posts and positions. For example.
You made some assertions. Reasserted your conclusions. You made some arguments. But you haven't responded to what I wrote. There is nothing in your responses that even lets on you read what I wrote. It is a response to theist, in general. Which is fine, but it's not a discussion, using the term loosely, for me.
So, I'll focus on other participants.
I think the term 'supernatural' muddies the water. It sounds like an ontological or metaphysical category. But it is not one that is necessary for theism or belief in any of the phenomena that get labelled as supernatural.Quoting tim woodThose were not parts of some syllogism. I was pointing out that what is not currently verified now, in science, need not be a phenomenon that is in some special ontological category. It could be,as elephant communication turned out to be, quite natural.
Obviously this does not mean that God exists. I am paring off this idea that beliefs in unverified phenomena must be beliefs in the supernatural.Quoting tim wood
I understood that question. Quoting tim woodWhere did I assume that true for me is true?
Where did I give the impression that I would think an imaginary coin is the same a real coin?
And where did I assume that you should believe something because I do?
It seems implicit that you think I cannot be rational and believe something that I cannot demonstrate is true for you.
Which is precisely why I raised the issue of elephant communication over long distances. The people, at least a nubmer of them, who believed this was real were rational in their belief, even though they could not demonstrate this to others. With rogue waves it took radical changes in technology, iow a long period of time, before it was clear that the people labelled irrational - in their descriptions of rogue waves - were actually rational.
And then implicit in these arguments is the idea that non-theists only believe things that can be demonstrated as true to others. But that just is not the case. They have rigor in some areas, but not in others. And on many issues, we are forced to take stands without being able to demonstrate to others. In other instances we find, to the best of our knowledge, benefits from beliefs that we cannot demonstrate must be JTBeliefs to others.
But that's all off the table. For you it is binary: imaginary or real. And, one presumes, all your beliefs fall neatly into those two categories: your beliefs about parenting, politics, the opposite sex, as a few examples. You restrict yourself only to beliefs that science supports or that you can demonstrate to all (most) rational others. You never have beliefs that seem to work for you and fit your experience unless you can also demonstrate via science or deduction to a consensus of rational others.
That's why I didn't answer your question about gold coins. Apart from how insulting and based on confused readings of my posts. Perhaps my own lack of clarity playing a role, also. I don't always write as clearly as I think I have.
Here, again, you do not engage with the vast majority of what I wrote.
And can you not see how insulting it is to ask about whether I can the difference between imaginary coins and real ones?
Further at no point have a made a case that you should believe in anything that you would categorize as supernatural.
And that is precisely how you keep taking my posts. I realize that most of the time this kind of laziness is probably a decent heuristic. Many theists are doing what you keep thinking I am doing. But it's laziness nonetheless and you started the condescension and assumptions, so don't start shit you don't like yourself.
I got a generic non-theist rebuttal of points I did not make and one which assumed things about a theist with little or no engagement with what I was actually doing.
You were lazy and rude and this time I will just leave you in your solipsism (not philosophical, but practical solipsism).
This was just facile.
If it's a delusion, more fool me!
Here is a quote, I found.
“If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished. The harder work of inquiry, proof, and demonstration is infinitely more rewarding, and has confronted us with findings far more "miraculous" and "transcendent" than any theology. Actually, the "leap of faith"—to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed upon it—is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a "leap" that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary. This effort is actually too much for the human mind, and leads to delusions and manias. Religion understands perfectly well that the "leap" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, which is why it often doesn't in fact rely on "faith" at all but instead corrupts faith and insults reason by offering evidence and pointing to confected "proofs." This evidence and these proofs include arguments from design, revelations, punishments, and miracles. Now that religion's monopoly has been broken, it is within the compass of any human being to see these evidences and proofs as the feeble-minded inventions that they are.”
? Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
I consider myself a theist, but I doubt if people who knew my views would call me a theist.
I'm a theist because I think, on balance, some of the reports of religious experience/insight by others is likely true. There's no certainty there of course.
I think the most foolish of people are very often religious (more so than typical atheists), but I also think the ones that seem to be the most insightful are also religious, again, moreso than typical atheists. These are general impressions of course, and again there's no certainty, but they are very influential to me. I'm not willing to write off people's views by lazily saying they fear death, or it's wishful thinking, or any of the other psychological maladies that they are thoughtlessly diagnosed with, en masse.
I was influenced by a particular philosopher who pretty much persuaded me (I never met him, I just read his stuff) that some kind of theism was likely true. I was an atheist before that. I think quite a lot of what he said was likely just wrong, but much of it I find sound.
I'm a panpsychist. By itself, that is irrelevant to theism. But theism at least involves the idea that consciousness is present at the start, or even before the start of the universe if you think in those terms (and yes I know south of the south pole blah blah - I won't get into that now). So theism is, as a metaphysical position, at least involves the view that consciousness is not emergent. And panpsychism is the antithesis of emergentism in relation to consciousness. For me, this opens the door to theism, but not all of it indiscriminately. It does not follow from the fact that because atoms are conscious we therefore have to hate fags. That's nuts, obviously. It's why I don't like aligning myself with religious folks. I hate the bastards mostly. And I don't think most of them actually believe in anything in particular - they have neither insight, intellectual justification, nor any clear idea of what they believe. So I don't think most theists are actually theists at all. I don't think religious texts have much philosophical import, relevance or worth, at least from what I have seen (and I am no expert). However I think it possible they contain, in places, intuited wisdom and insight. There are babies in the bathwater that I don't want to murder, and am suspicious of indiscriminate anti-religious sentiment.
Because I'm a philosopher by nature. I'm not a mystic, alas. I can't talk to God on my inner telephone, at least not yet. I'm not a romantic artist receiving divine inspiration, alas. I see no hand of God in the natural world, except as a result of my philosophical panpsychism. I'm a rather plodding stick-in-the-mud philosopher. And figuring out this stuff rationally is what I do, because it's the only thing I can do. I have to get inspiration and insight second hand for the most part. I don't 'just know' God, I don't think. But I do accept that some other people might.
"Faith" in any case, it seems to me, is beside the point. (Only placebos require faith.) Makes sense?
As in, "have faith" and the placebo effect will set in?
What if those entailed / observed changes are by some other unknown / unverified causes such as super natural forces, ghosts or paranormal existence? How do you distinguish and verify which is which?
When some entailed changes are observed, it seems impossible to tell exactly what was causing the changes due to above mentioned undefinedness, vagueness and non existing substance of God.
Aha - they are from the Old Testaments, which are the scripts. I thought you are claiming to be able to observe the entailed changes now, by yourself directly and able to verify them yourself. If one believes what is written in the bible, then he would be believing surely God existence.
You cannot tell very nearly; since you are not near religion yourself they obviously have nothing to offer you. As Bob would have it: "Don't criticize what you can't understand"; better to remain silent than make an ass of yourself by spouting poorly informed opinions.
Presumably, if God exists, the action is happening without my view of the matter mattering very much. It would be a pretty wimpy god who could only get along if I supported the entity. The possibility of the existence is an element in various arguments proving this or rejecting that but such a reality is either the case or not.
That question is why I appreciate thinkers like Kierkegaard who framed the matter as what is actually happening with oneself. The matter of belief is bound up with perception of our becoming.
Framing it as a matter of "belief" is to make the topic exterior to experience by default.
Most religious preachers proclaim about 'God' as if 'God' were truth and fact, even repeatedly. This is intellectual dishonesty.
What has faith, even as placebo, to do with religion? Isn't religion a socio-cultural self-sustaining support system for those who believe that religion's biases and practices?
This one.
I said as much with my entire post. Pulling me out of context, you've missed the whole forest for a tree.
Quoting tim wood
OK, it looks like I misread you. In that case I agree with you; it is incoherent to claim that something is real, as in substantive, and yet not materially existent, if only because we don't know what we are saying in making such a claim.
I have many times taken Wayfarer to task for this, when he claims the platonic forms or universals are real independently of all and any individual mind and yet not material, and the claim is always then that I have misunderstood the "argument". But there is never an argument: it's not so much that such claims are logically impossible as that they are propositionally empty and meaningless.
On the other hand such things are fine to be said in mystical writings, scriptures and poetry where no propositional claims are understood to be made.
10/10
Let the faithless behold! That's made my day. :)
Can the framed beliefs without objective evidence and rational verification be subjects of the philosophical debates? Should they be in the realm of one's personal faith issue which are outside of objective logical investigations?
“If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished. The harder work of inquiry, proof, and demonstration is infinitely more rewarding, and has confronted us with findings far more "miraculous" and "transcendent" than any theology. Actually, the "leap of faith"—to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed upon it—is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a "leap" that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary. This effort is actually too much for the human mind, and leads to delusions and manias. Religion understands perfectly well that the "leap" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, which is why it often doesn't in fact rely on "faith" at all but instead corrupts faith and insults reason by offering evidence and pointing to confected "proofs." This evidence and these proofs include arguments from design, revelations, punishments, and miracles. Now that religion's monopoly has been broken, it is within the compass of any human being to see these evidences and proofs as the feeble-minded inventions that they are.”
? Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything[/quote]
This must be very persuasive to anyone to whom it seems there is no God. But I don't come to believe in God by a leap of faith. I do not need to construct proofs. It already seems to me there is a God. I do not need to leap to a place where I already find myself. Of course, if there is no God, then I am deluded.
I would take issue with the first sentence of the quote. I must have faith in the Covid vaccine to allow it to be administered. Lots of people have this faith. People who lack faith do not take the vaccine. There are people for whom no amount of evidence will instill faith and they will still refuse. So faith is necessary. But I am sure that this need for faith does not prove the vaccine's inefficacy.
I recall when I was 15, I flew in an airplane for the first time. Everything was fantastic and exciting. At that age, obviously I had no knowledge about possibilities that air planes can crash, get kidnapped or even shot down from the ground military action.
I never had an idea that an airplane is a man made machine that has thousands of parts working together, and can fail any time for unexplained reasons. Maybe I did, but was not giving any serious thought about it at the time.
Now after many times of flying and times gone by, I am aware of the possibilities of air disasters. I hate flying. I only fly if only if I must, for work, business or visiting family in another country in really must situations only. Beliefs and trust require good rational reasons for having them in daily life. I feel that beliefs and trust in daily life are different kind from beliefs and faith in the case of religion.
The first sentence was:
I
I don't take this to refer to the faith required for someone to make a decision. When making a decision, some people rely upon faith, some upon gut instinct, some upon the advice of experts, and some upon careful deliberation, but that doesn't speak to truth values of statements. That speaks to idiosyncratic motivations of different sorts of people.
I take that first sentence to mean (using your example) that if our only evidence that the covid vaccine works is our faith in it working, then it likely doesn't. As to the truth value of the statement "the covid vaccine works," it is more likely true if there is scientific evidence supporting it. It is less likely true if the only support for its truth is faith. As the comment you cited points out, the more one relies upon faith for a belief that an assertion is true, the less likely the assertion is true.
Hanover, yes, I think you're right. There is such a thing as blind faith: crossing your fingers, leaping in the dark and hoping for the best regardless of probabilities. Faith in the vaccine isn't like that. I think the question of whether religious faith is like that depends on whether there's a God or not. And that's the point at issue. If there is a God then it's not blind faith to go along with a previously existing hunch that there is a God. If not, then it's delusion and blind faith.
"Placebos require faith" I take in this context as tautological. The definition of a placebo is that which gains its effectiveness by a belief in its effectiveness.
Contextualizing this in a non-analytic way where we are not just deciphering definitions, a different result emerges, however. In the typical medical context where one says a sugar pill is a placebo treatment for headaches, it may well be, but that isn't to suggest that mystical healing from a higher source comes to those who bow their head in faith. What it really means is that the healing properties of the body, which cure all ailment (as all medicine can do is act as a catalyst for the body's immune and healing abilities to take effect) are provoked by putting one's mental state in a position where it believes it will be cured. Since the mental state is considered to be a physical event in this context, it should come as no great surprise that one physical component of the human body can impact another. That is, it is not "faith" as some act where one interacts with the holy that causes our headache to go away. It is the physical effect of the brain acting upon the physical state of the rest of the body that does that and the placebo medication put our brain in that particular state.
Whether faith moves mountains where shovels cannot is a whole different sort of faith, having nothing to do with placebos. It is the belief my headache will come or it will go based upon a higher plan, but whatever way it should go, it will be for that higher purpose. That invokes the mystical, not mundane discussions about controlling for the placebo effect in scientific experiments.
Given that dichotomy, yes, it makes more sense to chase one's food than to pray for it. The bigger question is whether you will be starved (in the metaphorical sense) of anything if you have no faith. We can agree that faith alone is bad plan though.
We can also agree that bread alone is bad. "Faith" may be a viable suppliment, it's just not a necessary or indispensable one, and doesn't sustain either body or mind for very long compared to bread (& water). Reason, contemplation, aesthetics (e.g. literature, music), friendship, love, family, scientific inquiry, etc are viable alternatives to "faith" separately or in combinations. I've never had need of "faith" even, so far, in my darkest, most harrowing moments (which, raised and educated Catholic yet never relapsing to / overwhelmed by subconsciously "religious" imagery or feelings, has surprised me).
I show gratitude for my daily bread with generosity to others I encounter everyday rather than by "saying grace". I try to be a good Samaritan and a smart Spartacus. I also try to live by Hillel the Elder's golden rule. So what does "faith" have to do with any of that? No magical thinking is needed, just the Sisyphusean courage-to-empathically-be. These days, late in middle age, my 'holy trinity' (mana) consists of philosophy, music and long walks. Fortunately, I still lack faith in "faith".
Great posts thank you. This is what I think about the points.
I feel that there are different kinds of beliefs of different nature. To analyse how they are different, we can ask "Why" one believes X.
1. Why do you believe flying is unsafe? Because I have seen, and heard the horror stories and news, sometimes air accidents and disasters have happened in the past. If they happened in the real world, it could happen in the future too. I believe it is unsafe or it is not 100% safe to fly.
The belief is based on the inductive cases in the past. This type of belief is bound to change any time depending on the empirical evidence acquired by the believer.
2. Why do you believe in God?In this case, anything can be the reason. It is not limited to the inductive or deductive premises or experiences. It could be totally personal, psychological and existential and even irrational.
Because I just believe in God. Because I was brought up under a religious background. I don't know. I just know God exists. I have had unexplainable experience that God exists.
All these reasons are mostly psychological, and are out of boundary for rational explanation. No arguments can diminish or break this type of belief unless the believer changes his mind by his own internal thoughts based on psychological reasons.
3. In the case of Placebo, the believer is taking it on the basis that the pill will cure his symptoms just because it was given by a doctor. The belief is false, and as soon as he knows it is a placebo, his belief will crash to nothing. It has nothing to do with faith. It is not the case, that he doesn't know why he wants to take a placebo, but just taking it for some existential grounds, or he was brought up under the placebo taking traditional family or he just knows that placebo will cure his symptoms. If the placebo was given by a passer-by he met in the park, he won't necessarily believe that placebo will work for him. So placebo does not require faith. In fact it has nothing to do with faith. It is based on the placebo takers' false belief that it might work.
"False belief" (i.e. make-believe, delusion) is "faith". :roll:
The difference between false belief and faith would be, the former will turn to feeling of anger, stupid or having been manipulated when being told it was placebo the believer was taking, whereas faith will not be easily broken by any empirical information no matter what the empirical information was. (mentioned above)
Surely they are not the same type of beliefs.
I'll agree that faith is not indispensable, nor is reason, contemplation and all else you itemize. There are those who survive off feeding tubes, so I'll agree that we can pare down the true necessities to not a whole lot. Your journey is your own and I don't care to change you. I say this because it's often assumed the faithful give a fuck about other's faith, likely owing itself to the political motivations of religious institutions that hold proselytizing in high regard. So keep that in mind when I ask if you've ever been of faith, not as someone who was dragged to church by a well intended parent, or as a dutiful son or young man carrying out his good citizenship, but as a true believer. We all wear superficial clothing as need be, but you referenced "relapsing," which would indicate you were and then were not and aren't likely to return. I'm just wondering if you ever were because that would interesting. There'd be a story there. Quoting 180 Proof
Maybe they can stand alone, but Hillel the Elder was of great faith. A factoid for you is that he is called Hillel the elder and not Rabbi Hillel because he lived prior to 70 CE, the destruction of the 2nd Temple, meaning he was part of that generation that offered sacrifices and performed other Temple rituals prior to the rabbinical era that was ushered in after the fall of the Temple. So you can separate out perhaps Hillel's views from religious belief, but you can't separate out Hillel from his religion.
This doesn't follow. It would be the justification you challenge for the belief held. It could be the belief based upon faith happens to be true, so you wouldn't be laboring under a delusion. You would be coincidentally correct, holding an opinion based upon faith and not reason.
The distinction is important because the way you phrased it, all faith based beliefs would not be true, which would mean faith is a perfect epistemology for determining the false. If that were the case, it would be a fairly helpful tool.
No, never, as best as I can recall, which only became clear a short time after I'd "broken" with the church and before I'd graduated from Catholic high school. Superficially, maybe, I'd always been a 'true believer' in evidence alone.
Oh, I do not, and revere Hillel for his religiosity insofar as it shows how irreligious the vast majority of adherents to Abrahamic religions have always been and still are (e.g. Dostoyevsky's "Grand Inquisitor"). That said, his formulation of the golden rule is the same as Confucius had expressed four centuries earlier, which shows that the respective religious contexts are hardly relevant. "Faith" is nothing but an anti-anxiety placebo, at most, that does not add anything substantively epistemic to claims made on that basis.
If a belief cannot be warranted and yet is claimed to be true, assent to it is unwarranted, or indistinguishable in the circumstance from being false. It's patently false to claim a mere idea (i.e. unwarranted belief, opinion, fantasy, etc) is warranted when it is not. Thus, for instance, The Church was correct in proclaiming Copernicus' heliocentric model "false" in the 16th century (though not Galileo's system ... and rightly he yielded before the Holy Inquisition's threat of the stake for a "truth he could not prove to non-scientists" unlike that brilliant fool Giordano Bruno).
But you've never had faith, so how do you know this? I've never been anxiety ridden. I've always been super chill.: :cool:
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm not following this. A statement is true if it corresponds to reality. If I say the cat is on the mat purely as the result of faith, that statement is distinguished from a false statement if the cat is on the mat. A lucky guess is different from an unlucky guess is different from a justified belief.
I'd agree if you reject faith as a basis for justification, my belief is unwarranted, but whether my mojo is reliable is determined by which horse wins the race. That I killed it at the track doesn't mean my guesses were justifiable, but it does mean I formed truthful beliefs.
I don't need to have a broken back or third degree burns over most of my body to know they are excrutiating, even unbearable. I've observed and have known well many people of "faith" in my time and so, as far as I'm concerned, the generalization is apt. Glad you're chill though. :up:
Well, pay attention :point:
Yeah, and an unwarranted belief (e.g. faith) that asserts itself as warranted even though it's not (e.g. miracle) does not correspond to reality.
Faith isn't the belief. Faith is the justification for the belief. I know the cat is on the mat if I have a justification for it, I believe it, and the cat is on the mat. If I have faith the cat is on the mat and it is on the mat, I don't "know" the cat is on the mat. I've just guessed right. However, if the cat is on the mat, the truth value of "the cat is on the mat" is that it is a true statement, regardless of my bullshit reason for saying I know it.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. ~F.N.
Faith is the excuse a person gives when they don't have a good reason for a belief. The real problem with faith is there is nothing you can't justify with an appeal to faith. People have it on faith that there is no COVID 19; that some races are inferior to others; that women are not as smart as men, etc. And within a single religion - in Christianity - faith is used to justify the beliefs of members of the KKK and Desmond Tutu. Faith is not a reliable method of justification because it is content free.
Having met in my work over 30 years, around four Yahwehs, two Kirshna's, a Vishnu, four Jesus' and a Darth Vader, I concur with our aphoristic friend.
Quoting Tom Storm
:fire: :100:
I don’t think faith is content-free. It is the expression of a value system. A particular faith can only generate the assumptions you listed above because it generates predictions and anticipations based on the content of the faith. Religious culture in the west evinces a parallel evolution of understanding in relation to the history of science. This isn’t primary because those religions availed themselves of the latest empirical
evidence, but because on its own tems , within its own language and methods of inquiry it is capable of invalidating older views and replacing them.
For me it is the value of nothing and, perhaps, everything as there is nothing it can't cover off on.
Perhaps you could provide an example of faith in the context you are suggesting. :wink:
You see I would say the faith doesn't generate, it's retro fit in order to justify.
Not sure I could. But arent there all sorts of
fundamental discoveries about human nature bound up with the changes in religious doctrine over the centuries? What about the shift from Platonic (Augustine, Philo) to Aristotelian rationalist approaches (Aquinas, Maimonides) to faith? What about the abandonment of fundamentalist readings of scripture in favor of interpretive ones? And more recently the abandonment of the trinity? Or Spinoza’s pantheism? Or Tillch’s existentialism? I wouldn’t know where to begin to mark the dividing line between theology and philosophy , or for that matter, between philosophy and empiricism.
Words like “God”, “Space”, or “Time” are concepts that have some use for people. They can accept the use and go along with its implications. Or not accept the use, and go on with their lives. If accepted, they may start saying “God exists”, “Space exists”, or “Time exists”. But this is very different than talking about everyday common material objects. But coming to use such concepts need not be started with some logical proof or reasoning, just a simply act of accepting and seeing where it takes them in their lives. They are concepts that help bring some sort of understanding to this world we live in. Then, in what sense do they “exist”? Obviously this is not something you point at and see, but experience in the stream of life.
My point wasn't that faith has value. It was that where K=JTB, faith is the J. You were arguing that faith was not T and therefore fails under a correspondence theory of truth. I'm saying that your K may be invalid if the J you used was faith, but it has no bearing on T. "The cat is on the mat" iff the cat is on the mat, regardless of whether I base that on faith or empirical evidence.
Again, not responsive to my post. Just not what I was talking about.
You also make a presumption that a faith based epistemology is being advocated for empirical claims. You're creating strawmen by defeating the argument that covid vaccines ought not be proven on the basis of faith. That is as absurd to one of faith as one of science.
Faith based reasoning is properly limited to how one ought live one's life in terms of meaning and value, questions science does not address. Different categories of questions require different methods of epistemology.
I brought this up because it was left out as it so often is and really should not be.
Quoting Hanover
I simply quote what I have heard directly from the faithful. I make no such claims without evidence.
Quoting Hanover
That can be pretty slippery. There are still good and bad ideas.
Certainly the natural sciences don’t address these questions , but I wouldn’t say the same for certain approaches within psychology, such as clinical psychology.
“Suppose we regard clinical psychology as if it were the purest of sciences." George Kelly
That's at the base of any belief system tho.
Any belief system is built off of unthinking confidence demonstrated by actions. We analyze our actions and say they were based on assumptions.
This kind of analysis has the side effect of picturing assumptions as abiding in some nether region of the mind, but they're really just an aspect of our capacity for rationality; they're part of how we explain ourselves to ourselves. But here on out, I'll talk about them the way rationality presents them: as abstract objects.
The same set of assumptions can act as the bedrock for multiple worldviews. The variation is a matter of emphasis. Or think of basic assumptions as a piano, and worldviews are music.
If we take a long view of human belief, we'll find that the same elements have always been there. For an atheist, all the things that divinity has been are stuffed between an individual's ears: the power to create, the capacity to feel and care. The world outside the skull is lifeless and inherently meaningless. This is dramatic music. It's a worldview rooted the same way they all are, in a kind of faith.
Didn’t have to arrive at it.
I arrive at doubts, and contrary understanding of God.
Any kind of proofs, evidence, or explanations came about as an alternative to ground zero. Theism.
“Religious experiences” are simply experiences. We have different experiences when eating food, but it does not take away from the reality of eating food whether you have those experiences or not.
Religion is just a way to 1 remember God always, and 2 conditioning of the self via rituals, observances, control of the senses, etc. Most religious institutes have long gone away from that.
Quoting Corvus
Good question!
Theists don’t believe in “God’s existence. They believe in God. There is no need to believe in the existence of anything.
That would be like relating to your child, friend, wife/husband only because they exist.
The idea of whether or not God exists occurs from someone who is atheists, or agnostic.
Another thing is that God doesn’t “exist” in the way we, or anything that exists. God just is.
About trying to prove God…
It’s such an easy thing to comprehend, at least to the theist, we want atheists to comprehend it, instead of tying themselves up in knots.
Some atheists want us to comprehend that it is mere comforting delusion at best and wicked trickery at worst. It's equally easy for them to comprehend and they would love us to stop tying ourselves in knots over a fantasy. The position of 'you guys just can't see what's obvious' is all too common in debates on religion. The case seems to be that what is obvious to one is obvious nonsense to another and we still have to live with each other. I agree with what you say about relationship not existence being the issue for theists, I made a similar point in the thread somewhere.
We have to be careful . Atheists talk as if their position is the normal position, and all other positions are to be proven to be true. Or else they are correct.
Quoting Cuthbert
Because they are without, or lack belief in God, they can view God as a concept.
Because they God can be anything they choose to conjure up, it must be like that for everyone.
They basically refuse to see past their own comprehension. Their choice.9
Quoting Cuthbert
Notice they’re not real debates because they do not acknowledge God at all, unless they comment on God’s call to kill. They don’t mind that.
If you cannot accept, for the purpose of discussion, God, it ceases to be a debate, or a nice discussion about God.
1. The beliefs based on the rational or inductive knowledge such as believing that flying is a reasonably safe form of transportation or Covid vaccines will protect the takers from the infections.
2. The beliefs that have no definite rational or inductive knowledge or ground. The beliefs that come from a private psychological state, which does not require evidence, justification or proof. Religious beliefs are in this category, and only in this case, the concept of faith should be applied to the beliefs.
In the case of placebo takers believing the placebo will cure his symptoms, it is in the form of misled knowledge rather than belief. When placebo is given to the taker, he will be told what it is about, and what it will do even if it is fake. He could believe it might work, but he doesn't have to. There is no logical condition of necessity for him to believe that it might work, even if he is knowing falsely what it is supposed to do in curing his symptoms.
The point here is that he knows about it in detail in the form of knowledge, although it is false knowledge. It is no longer beliefs.
You find meaning in your life through psychology texts?
I guess the strawman is understandable because you couldn't know the beliefs I'm forming through faith. My faith is in a higher power, not whether certain miracles might have occurred. I don't really even think faith is the basis for a belief in miracles, but one would believe in miracles based upon empirical evidence like anything else. If you see a miracle, you'll believe in it. Miracles actually eliminate the need for faith. Moses didn't need to have faith. He saw the Red Sea part and manna fall from heaven, and then he spoke to God on Mt. Sinai. I'd say the same for Abraham. His faith isn't wasn't drove him to so believe in God that he was willing to sacrifice his son. His faith was strong because God spoke to him previously and allowed his 90 year old wife to become pregnant. If you see Jesus rise from the dead and you then believe him the son of God, I wouldn't call you faithful. I'd call you someone who has ample justification for a belief in God.
Do I think any of those things actually happened. No. None of them. Do I think them fiction? Of course. Do I think they are untrue, no. Truth is in what they mean, but not their literal meaning.
Quoting 180 ProofI take ineffable to mean something that cannot be adequately expressed in words, not "tantrum like baby-talk" which would indicate an emotionally laden immature inability to speak. For example, we may speak of the ineffable beauty of a sunset, but that would simply mean I cannot truly convey the experience to you. That ineffability, if you allow for it, and I'm not sure Witty places any significance on the unspeakable, might begin to come close to feelings of faith.
Assuming Knowledge = a Justified True Belief (K=JTB), the reason that a belief in the effectiveness of a placebo is not knowledge is because it's not True. The person had a justification (he was told by a scientist the pill would work) and he believed the person, but it wasn't true.
From the placebo taker's point of view, it was a true knowledge? From the doctors (the giver)'s point of view, it was false knowledge. But until the placebo taker is told that it was false, to him it is true.
True is considered an objective fact, not the subjective feeling of the believer.
:fire: :up:
OK. I will go with that.
I think there are some insightful and committed atheists right here in this thread and also some theists and we seem to be getting along ok. It's possible to acknowledge the gulf in perception without trying to drag everyone over to one side or the other.
Quoting Corvus
I think that distinction is useful. But does it apply to religious beliefs? If there is a God, then religious beliefs may not come from a private psychological state. They may come from the insight that there is a God - an insight that some people happen not to have. Which gets us back where we started.
Just that every belief system is supported by faith.
Sure. I think it does. :fire: :up:
What is that belief based on?
That's not a belief system.
It is. Witty agrees.
Is it a verified knowledge or proposition?
Yes.
Could you please show the detailed arguments for the verification? Thanks.
Ask @Banno. If he's in a good mood he will explain it to you.
I'm just responding to some of what's in this quote, and expanding on it a bit.
What you're describing here is an opinion or an intuition, which by definition has no justification, or very little justification. I think it's true that psychology plays a large role in what everyone believes, i.e., everyone is affected by their experiences, culture, friends, etc, but the goal, at least for many, is to have a justification for what they believe beyond the subjective. Beliefs that are justified, are superior to beliefs that aren't justified. Moreover, justification comes from different sources, logic, sensory experience, testimony, linguistic justification, etc., so we shouldn't think that logic is the only way a belief should be justified.
For me, I find little evidence to support any religious worldview, which isn't to say that there aren't truths within these worldviews, but to say that these worldviews as a whole have serious flaws. For example, beliefs that damn half the world to hell, or beliefs in the resurrection, or beliefs that we should kill infidels, etc.
On the other hand, I find that the materialistic worldview to be about as close-minded and biased as you can get. In many cases they are unable to see beyond their myopic perspective, but this isn't just true of atheists, it's true of many people who have a passionate worldview.
We're using the term "faith" in completely different, even incommensurate, contexts. Belief systems are not "justified by faith" but are used (trusted) insofar as they work or function. No "religious mysteries" are involved in most cases. We trust in our tools; they are working assumptions, rules of thumb, standards/criteria, etc so long as they reliably do what we task them to do. This, of course, has nothing to do with the prevailing discussion here of "religious faith" (i.e. trust in "mysteries"). Misread Witty to your heart's content, frank.
I don't think so. It's just a little more nuanced than you're allowing
Quoting 180 Proof
Theyre supported by belief that has no foundation.
There's nothing circular about beliefs supporting beliefs. It happens all the time. ?
Quoting 180 Proof
If you're denying that you have faith in the truth of your statements, but you're instead only interested in the pragmatic application of your conclusions, you're not avoiding the problem of faith, you're just admitting that truth has no meaning outside of pragmatism. The theist response would be no different, as he too could claim his beliefs lead him to functional results. He just has different goals he wishes to achieve with his belief system. If he wishes to make life sacred, it would not serve him well to adopt your belief system.
It seems your better approach would be to say that religious views are wrong because they're wrong, not just because they don't work. Not working is only not working if it doesn't do what you want it to.
It’s kind of hard not to when those psychologists are Gene Gendlin and George Kelly. Gendlin’s major work was ‘Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning’, and Kelly wrote papers with themes like ‘A Psychology of the Optimal Man’, Psychotherapy and the Nature of Man’, ‘Sin and psychotherapy’ and The Psychology of the Unknown’. I can’t think of any better aids to finding meaning in one’s life.
Apologies Cuthbert, I’m used to discussing with aggressive atheists.Hlad to know not all of them are like that here
Quoting Corvus
Most people don’t have to believe flying is reasonably safe, unless the rate of accidents go up. Or they have some personal reason to go the point of having to believe. May be when flying first became something that was possible, most people didn’t believe it could be possible. But after so many years, we know it is possible, so no need to believe.
With regard to the covid vaccines, it is not the vaccines that are the problem. It is the governments, scientists, pharmaceuticals, and main stream media that people believe, or not.
I would say that belief or lack of belief only applies to other person.
I think beliefs are not necessary conditions for someone making decisions or taking actions as you said. But my point was, there are different types of beliefs - beliefs based on rational facts, and beliefs based on personality intuitions and tendencies. Religious beliefs are the latter kind, and it is a special type of beliefs, which must be defined as faiths (IMHO).
Aren't there all sorts of beliefs we have based on intuition, guesswork, habit, childhood experiences (and I mean, everyone) that guide our actions. Like beliefs about the opposite sex (some of which we may not even realize we believe), parenting, political beliefs, ideas about how long we need to focus on something for us to think we 'thought it through enough', how to spend our time, how to be happy and so on, what decisions should be made with intuition and what with rationality and in those that use both what percentages..... Whole swathes of beliefs that would be very hard or impossible to demonstrate to others are correct, but which we nevertheless believe in.
Those beliefs you mentioned all come under your worldview, based in your experiences, interactions, and observations.
IOW I would maintain that your main belief/worldview shapes the whole of how you perceive and interact with the world around you.
I agree with this. The mechanisms by which we build our worldview are not usually addressed in epistemology, even though, as you note, that is the source of most of what we know and believe. It makes philosophy look pretty silly.
I think the fundamental religious impulse is one about there being an overall purpose and direction for the universe or world as a whole (a teleology), part of the human search for meaning and purpose.
Lots of people function just fine without being concerned about universal meaning; they find meaning closer to home in their work, their relationships, their hobbies, etc. Some people have larger goals, world peace, curing cancer, ending discrimination, stopping climate change or any of numerous worthy goals, pursuits and endeavors.
Lots of individuals think that science has all but destroyed the notion of the universe having any larger purpose and meaning. In ancient times it might have been reasonable to think of the earth as the center of the universe and man as the crown of creation. Copernicus displaced the earth and later astronomers made the earth a small planet orbiting an ordinary star in a universe too vast to comprehend. Darwin and associates made man one creature among many in a natural system where mass extinctions repeatedly happen and Homo sapiens (modern man) is but the sole survivor of several species of hominids who had evolved. Resistance to the implications of these scientific findings and their conflict with literal interpretations of religious texts gives us the Young Earth creationists and anti-evolution, anti-science movements among some adherents to organized and established religion.
"Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science." By Alfred North Whitehead.
I do not think traditional religious dogma is compatible with modern science. I think if religion wishes to survive it must change its conception of “God” and the relationship of “God” to the world (universe).
Despite all this, and despite my education in science, I would still refer to myself as having religious inclinations and consider myself religious in some degree or form.
I do not accept that science dictates that the universe must be accidental, purposeless and without value. Science and evolution certainly change, limit and dictate what any reasonable notions about the divine, the holy or the numinous might be.
When I look at the universe I see immanent principles of order and self-organization, I see “forms most wondrous and beautiful” evolving from primordial chemical soup. I see planets and galaxies and stars forming from clouds of interstellar gas. So I name this self-organizing ordering principle which leads to creativity, experience and aesthetics “God” or the divine. My view of the divine is not anthropomorphic (God is not a person) and I don’t think the divine concerns itself much with human survival or human morality. Some would not even consider this a religious conception and certainly not a traditional conception of God but in philosophy of religion, in Eastern religious traditions and among the process theology school which evolved primarily from Whiteheads process philosophy and chapters on God and the World in Process and Reality, I find some company.
You asked, I answered to the best of my ability.
Quite true. We can't see clouds as clouds; our overactive brains force us to see "faces" in clouds. Horror vacui. A congenital defect which when left untreated, or unchecked, leads to philosophical suicide (aka "the leap").
1. I've tried to make the best use of my senses and by them, I've come to believe in God (Christianity). I think you classify it as "personal religious experience" (as a child, 8-9- yo.).
However, religion now stands irreversibly stronger in me, the Kierkegaardian doubt is killed by the following:
a) God is proven by radio-astronomy combined with radiological signal interpretation which output produced on pc-tablets is the closest thing of "God talking to you" as you look at it (white with gold and silver streaks), you'll ever come (except when you land in Heaven in the After-Life, second half of Life as such.
b) 100% Psychiatrically healthy people believe in God. This can be proven by curing a person of the mental illness of schizophrenia. It will become widespread truth later, just wait, please.
c) When the choice is between wart-religion (schizophrenia) and religion, I think all sane people choose religion. To be short: wart-religion is a deterioration of the nervous system that produces warts on the body or inside, also in the head, brain-area and turns around evil, moving closer and closer toward one totem person who is most evil. (Best practice psychiatry has made this "game" a chaos lately as they never quite know who is most evil these days.) Warts like these are also considered cancer now.
d) People suffering from (technical) schizophrenia are considered the negative proof of people who are not religious. To be short, schizophrenics are found to be so crazy that nobody would choose their life if they can. Nowadays, they seem to be able to deselect schizophrenia and possibly ending up in depression instead, but with far better cognitive senses and ability to be a good friend to all people they are connected to. Remember, please, that there are people who are deeper into their schizophrenic illness who are so far removed from normal life that resenting them and their mental inventory becomes a duty (unless professional relation or hospice).
2. That's easy, I find that life with God is unequivocally good w/ significant highs and non-important lows. This makes me try to convince the young people to turn to God (JCI++) by apologetics. That is, this is purely missionary on some grand ecumenistic scale. Though, this is also for discussion and connecting with people.
(Edited once.)
Satisfied? Corvus?
Should it regain its old power? Is it good thing to happen to the world we live in?
Is it possible to achieve?
Quoting prothero
How should the conception of God changed? Can the old traditional religions do that? or do you want to see totally new religions born and manifested with the new concept of God?
Did you carry out the proof by yourself? How could be sure the radiological signal was from God? What type of frequency did you use for the proof? From which direction did the signal being transmitted from?
Quoting DrOlsnesLea
What is your definition of 100% Psychiatrically healthy people? How are they different from not 100%
Psychiatrically healthy people?
I thought this over, and couldn't square up what the criteria of being True as an objective fact means.
Is there such a thing which stands as absolute truth beyond doubt?
Another point is that, in this case, the line between knowledge and belief seems fuzzy.
Both knowledge and beliefs are what people have/do.
Quoting CorvusYes, because I can't see a way around knowledge being a rigorously arrived at subset of beliefs. Who decides it is rigorously arrived at? Humans.
My points are that (1) There are different types of causes for beliefs.
(2) Religious beliefs are special type of belief, which should be classed as faith. (I personally think faith should be only used to denote firm religious beliefs. Using faith in association with any other than religious beliefs, I feel, is not correct.)
I came to the conclusion.
(3) Knowledge and belief are similar concept. The only difference is that the former is justified true belief.
(4) The concept of True seems vague and needing further clear definition due to the nature of any act of justification having possibility of errors and mistakes.
I am not familiar with either Buddhism or Hinduism, but I am sure that they also believe in their religious concepts, systems, scriptures and codes such as eternal reincarnations (into some other life forms such as animals or again into humans depending on each individual's karma) in Buddhism.
In Hindu, they believe in millions of different gods, and the main ones are
Brahma, who creates the universe, Vishnu, who preserves the universe, and Shiva, who destroys the universe.
I feel that all religions require the followers' belief for the minimum requirement, and when they are genuine followers of a certain religion, their beliefs transform into faith. But that is just my own view.
People want to believe in some larger purpose and meaning and I think there are far worse things to believe in (QANON, conspiracy theories) than a religion based on love and compassion, the golden rule and service (feed the hungry, shelter the poor, tend the sick, comfort the afflicted).
Quoting Corvus
Well the Catholic Church could start by allowing women to serve in the priesthood, dropping their opposition to family planning and acknowledging the validity of other faiths.
Theologians could drop the God is Omnipotent and release God from being responsible for evil.
We could also drop God as Omniscient and return free will and responsibility to the people.
Yes, I know there are complicated theological arguments for the above.
Creation is an ongoing process not a completed act. Creation is hard work. Creative Advance requires God and man to work together.
[i]‘When the Western world accepted Christianity, Caesar conquered; and the received text of Western theology was edited by his lawyers…The brief Galilean vision of humility flickered throughout the ages, uncertainly. In the official formulation of the religion it has assumed the trivial form of the mere attribution to the Jews that they cherished a misconception about their Messiah. But the deeper idolatry, of fashioning God in the image of the Egyptian, Persian, and Roman imperial rulers was retained. The Church gave unto God the attributes which belonged exclusively to Caesar.’
Process and Reality 342[/i] Afred North Whitehead
Whether truth can be known isn't the same question as to whether it can exist.
Just as your conclusions about the opposite sex are not faith based, even if your epistemological protocols are not scientific. You base, consciously or not, your conclusions on the opposite sex on your experiences, with Mom, with women in movies, with girls and women. You may be quite wrong, but this does not make your conclusions faith-based. Even if you cannot demonstrate that B is the way to find love or deal with the opposite sex to anyone and certainly not scientifically.
Faith is a very Abrahamic concept, it is also, even in the Abrahamic religions, not one that all adherants focus on or conceive of their belief. You can't look at the conclusions and categorize the process. You have to look at the processes. You also can't boil down a religion you don't know much about into just its beliefs, when the adherants relate to beliefs and the religion in a very different way and they play, for many, a much smaller role. In the Abrahamic religions actually changing yourself and how you experience the world or experience in general and the developmental practices of the religion are not remotely as important as in other religions. With the others developing skills and rigorous training is central and focused on changes at the empirical level. Abrahamic religions focus vastly more on having the right thoughts in your brain.
In theory that is true but in practice I am not convinced. The majority of Christians do not understand formal Christian theology very well in my experience. They know the slogans "born again", "Jesus saves", and have some vague notions about "life after death" and "heaven and hell" but their knowledge of official church doctrine or fundamental Christian theology is weak. So for them faith is about community and about belonging to something larger than themselves and their daily life. There is as you say too much emphasis on correct belief or belonging to the right church and not enough on correct action and following the example and teachings of Jesus or other prophets as opposed to paying lip service to the theology and orthodoxy which the Church later imposed.
What are the truths that exist? Do you have the real world examples of truths that exist?
I feel that knowledge is justified true belief. But justifying for true is human act that is not guarantee for absolute truths.
Hence the guy who is given a placebo by his doctor with the fake explanations on what it is for will have what he thinks as a justified true belief is as sound knowledge as what the doctor knows about the placebo, if the placebo had worked for him. There is no absolute proof that what the doctor knew about the placebo was the absolute truth about the placebo. What if the doctor's knowledge about the placebo was totally wrong? Or the doctor had given him the wrong placebo by mistake?
And there is also the problem of finding out for sure, what actually cured the placebo taker's symptoms i.e. was it the placebo itself (by chance), some psychological effect, or some good sleep he had after taking the placebo .... etc etc.
I used to know some Buddhist people, and some of them go to the universities and study the theories and principles of buddhism. They are a very few minority of people who then seek to become lecturers or teachers in the schools and universities. These are a tiny number of minority people among the vast number of buddhists.
Most buddhists are just general followers, who do not know anything about the principles, codes or the philosophy. They go to the temples, pray for their good luck, health and prosperity. They believe in eternal reincarnation after death, because that is just what buddhism is famous for. They would also donate a lot of money to the monks and temples, because they believe blindly that would bring them good luck for their business and family. These are the beliefs based on no theories, empirical facts or principles, but their own intuitions, emotions, customs and traditions.
I don't know anything about Hindu in that regard. But I guess they believe in some kind of afterlife. Because that is what every religion is about at the end of the day.
Sure, I don't disagree. I actually think the Abrahamic religions are much more complex that people in online discussions (both non-theists and theists alike) tend to describe. It all comes down to (especially in philosophy forums) beliefs and epistemology and people using the word faith. When in fact Christianity is also a complex lives social phenomenon with empirical aspects. Nobody just sits around having faith. They feel better when they pray. They feel better in community. Rituals give them experiences that they like. Many find strength to break habits and deal with suffering through following pastoral or scriptural advice. IOW they are pleased with the benefits.
That is a very complicated issue and I sidestepped it because this is even more true with some other religions, where practices and the development of skills which one experiences the results of are extremely systematic.
But
it
is
not faith
FAith is just believing because you choose to believe, regardless of experience, logic, evidence anything.
That is certainly not what Buddists and Hindus do and it isn't true for the vast majority of Christians. In part or even more their experiences lead them to stay with their participation in the religion.
Faith based is not justified, at all by the empirical. That is not what most Christians will say when they talk about why they believe. They will talk about their experiences of getting closer to God (or seeming to) via prayer, how they gained strength dealing with their mother's cancer through participation in the religion, what the various rituals make them experience and feel like.
You are thinking that it cannot be empirical because they draw the wrong conclusions. But that is confused about what the word means.
And we all do this, everyone.
We all follow experts in some area of life because it worked (or seemed to) even if we or no one has done rigorous scientific research to demonstrate that this golf swing and attitude improves our game, or thinking of the opposite sex as ________________, makes it more likely we will experience ______________, or in politics or parenting or how to make friends or how to enjoy _________more. And so on.
Beliefs
being arrived at
in processes that are in a large part empirical with interpretations
and which do not have scientific consensus backing them up and we never looked any way.
But in discussions like this it only the religious and it is faith.
Nope. It's empirical, often to a very large degree.
Which, I repeat, does not mean it is correct. Being empirical is not a specific protocol.
It simply means that experience plays a huge role.
Faith tells you to ignore experience, that one should simply believe.
They can be right or wrong, but they are basing their beliefs on experience and even more so in other religions - indigenous/shamanic/animistic even more so, in my experience than the others.
They think it is working and leads to what they want and base this on experiences.
Yeah, after mulling it over, I think you are right. I am not sure actually. My problem is that I do not know much about any of these religions in detail.
Rebirth is for being born again as the exact same person. Even in buddhism, I don't think they will believe that - which means, Socrates has died, but he will be born again as Socrates?
Reincarnation is for being born in some other life forms or other human, I think. So Socrates will be born again as a bear, tiger or lion, or a rock star guitarist etc. I think this makes more sense logically :D
Thought about it yet again. I think faith is the religious belief that does not require empirical evidence, knowledge or justification. When one says "I believe in God, because I just know he exists, or I just feel that he cares for me." These are statements based on faith. No one can challenge or deny the statements, when they are based on one's intuition, feelings and experience.
All other non religious beliefs generally require empirical evidence, knowledge and justification for someone to believe in something.
The critical point is that even if religious faith does not require empirical evidence or knowledge, if there were such evidence or knowledge, which was experienced by chance by private experience, then that cannot destroy faith. Especially if the evidence or knowledge or experience supports the faith, then it would even strengthen one's faith. But even if it were negative evidence, knowledge or experience, one would not throw away one's faith, because it is faith, not belief.
In the case of belief, the believer will change his beliefs on something based on empirical fact, evidence, knowledge and experience.
I am sure that there are plenty of buddhists who believe in their religion with faith level i.e. they are so committed to their beliefs, they won't discard the belief no matter what new experience or knowledge is acquired, which should be classed as faith.
As always, I stand to be corrected.
Because I am god. So I know of my existence directly the same way you know of yours.
:strong:
I got a funny feeling that I might had seen you before. :chin:
1. It's possible God exists.
2. Therefore, it's possible to know all things that are true and false.
3. If something can't possibly be known to be false, it must be true.
4. The existence of God can't possibly be known to be false.
5. The existence of God must be true.
1. It's possible God does not exist.
2. Therefore, it's not possible to know all things that are true and false.
3. If something can't possibly be known to be true, it must be false.
4. The existence of God can't possibly be known to be true
5. The existence of God must be false.
“Look down on me and you see a fool, look up at me and you see a god. Look straight at me and you see yourself.”
I looked down, and saw my feet.
I looked up, and saw the ceiling.
I looked straight at you, and there was a computer screen.
Where are you?
I'm inside your solipsism.
It can't be possible God doesn't exist, because I just proved God definitely does exist.
Nonsense "can't possibly be known to be false" or true and tends to be nothing but nonsense.
My solipsism informs that your statement is not true. Because for a statement to be true, it must have happened in reality. It has not happened in reality, therefore it is false.
I engage in intellectual arguments because that is the only arena that most materialists are willing to enter. Also to hopefully arrive at the realization that intellectual arguments will not resolve anything either way.
I don't think most people believe/disbelieve because their intellect leads them that conclusion. Belief and disbelief operate on a more subtle level. Intellectual arguments are post hoc; an apology for one's standpoint.
Agreed :up: :100:
True statement can happen anywhere. Superman can say 1+1=2 and even though he doesn't exist that statement is still true.
Statements need verification to be true.
Existence is the precondition for thoughts and actions.
No existence, then no thoughts and no actions.
Sure. Religious faith is a personal system arrived by personal intuition, insights and beliefs. No logic to prove anything is required.
I'm not sure what you mean. Nonsense is just another word for something that is untrue, and God could possibly know if something deemed "nonsense" is true.
There actually is a God, though.
So you all say.
Pseudo-science is a fully established formal concept in Philosophy of Science.
Another non-point ... bored, huh?
That sounds like a babytalk.
Nonsense exists or it doesn't...
All language, even baby talk, refers to some state of affairs.
But that's irrelevant, as the existence of nonsense would still be known to be true or false.
In other words, all things that exist are facts and true by mere way of having existed. Even falsehoods are not false, if by false one means "having not existed."
Objectively speaking, the details are irrelevant.
Everything that exists is real and therefore true.
:roll:
Because usually statements or utterances like that do not carry relevant succinct or logical meanings, and do not present useful communicational messages to the other parties. Even silence can be interpreted as symbolism for either accepting the other posters suggestions or conclusions, or just abandoning the discussion with no comments or disgust. It all depends on the contextual stream of the discourses.
Not doing so, will leave the others to embark on their psychological investigation and analysis on the utterance, and come up with any judgment they think might be the case. Not a good position the utterer to be in. Same with the silence or all category of emotion ridden no factual statements. If that is what the utterer, poster or silencer intended, then fair enough.
Res ipsa loquitur. (Context matters for reading comprehension.)
What are you rolling your eyes at, dude? What I said is absolutely accurate. Even if it's just the state of affairs that the baby is mimicking someone's speech.
No one has ever verbalized anything that has no context whatsoever. Except maybe Nixon.
Nonsense, even on your terms, can't create false realities, or false positives.