Decisions we have to make
I was very surprised to learn that Wallace Stevens, whose atheism is manifest in his poetry, converted to Catholic on his deathbed. Then I wondered what I would do, waiting to die, in a hospital bed with sad looking people coming and going, pain, fear and misery. Stevens had long talks with Hospital Chaplin. Father Hanley while in the hospital dying of stomach cancer around 1955. Will i have long talks.
I've thought that Pascal's Wager (besides being valid) has an existential power about it, It enables us to ally a God to vanquish our fear, although I suppose some will not bend to reason. (I mean it is a crap shoot isn't it) I certain wonder what my choice would be. Maybe we all need forgiveness, especially when there is little hope of a future. What will/would you choose to do and perhaps a few words why.
Pascal said it is a decision we have to make.
I've thought that Pascal's Wager (besides being valid) has an existential power about it, It enables us to ally a God to vanquish our fear, although I suppose some will not bend to reason. (I mean it is a crap shoot isn't it) I certain wonder what my choice would be. Maybe we all need forgiveness, especially when there is little hope of a future. What will/would you choose to do and perhaps a few words why.
Pascal said it is a decision we have to make.
Comments (385)
This is my response to Pascal's wager.
Pascal's wager is only valid if we assume god is reasonable and rational and thus will hold up his end of the bargain.
But if god is reasonable and rational then god would not then expect you to believe something without good evidence or compelling logic.
If god expects you to accept something is true without good evidence or compelling logic, then god is not being reasonable and rational and we cannot be sure that Pascal's wager is valid at all.
It could be completely invalid because god has irrational and unreasonable expectations.
The Triune God? The Muslim God? The Jewish God? The Mormon God? Hare Krishna? Zeus? Thor? Apollo?
Philosophy again succumbs to skepticism.
OK, I am on my deathbed (eventually I will die).
If I decide there is a god then I can only accept Pascal's wager if that god is reasonable and rational.
So if god is reasonable and rational then that god won't expect me to accept things without good evidence and compelling logic.
If god does expect me to accept things without good evidence and compelling logic, then Pascal's wager fails.
Pascal's wager fails because then I would be dealing with an irrational and unreasonable god and I would then no longer have any assurance that such a god would hold up it's end of the bargain.
Pascal's wager only works if god is rational and reasonable, and in which case Pascal's wager is not necessary.
Speaking for myself, I would say the Christian God is pragmatically the best for at least the following three reasons:
1. Christianity offers its followers a perfect exemplar for moral behavior in the person of Jesus Christ. The imitation of the life of Christ can serve as the archetype for moral human behavior. No other religion offers such a luxury.
2. Christianity offers its followers unique access to God. If Jesus really is God then this means we have a way of interacting with God because there's a personal 'mediator' between us and God. In the absence of such personal 'mediator', how could we ever gain access to the divine?
3. The suffering of Christ on the cross gives us resources to cope with our own suffering.
For these reaosns I regard Christianity as pragmatically superior to basically every other religious belief system.
Now, what do I actually believe in? I personally believe in the God of classical theism. I also believe in Jesus, to an extent. I'm just really unsure how to make sense of the claim that a human being can be God.
I think you are missing the point a bit.
There is something to loose from believing in an irrational and unreasonable god.
You loose the assurance that you will get to experience the bliss you are talking about.
So god can either be rational and reasonable, in which case he won't have irrational and unreasonable expectations of me.
Or god can be irrational and unreasonable, in which case I cannot be sure what are that god's expectations of me.
So Pascal's wager is not needed, if god is reasonable and rational, because you are not being expected to believe in unreasonable or irrational things.
Pascal's wager is only needed when you are expected to believe irrational and unreasonable things, and in that case god is unreasonable and irrational and Pascal's wager fails because you have no assurance that such a god will uphold his bargain.
So, I do have something to loose if I believe in an unreasonable and irrational god.
The only way I have nothing to loose is if I believe in a rational and reasonable god that doesn't expect me to believe in silly things.
Thanks, yeah I meant lose.
There is no 'assurance" at stake, I wager what I choose to believe, which can be right or wrong, true or false. If I am right whoopee, if I am wrong I am still dead. My choice to believe in God places me in his hands, he forgives me for my sins, he becomes my relief from the mental anguish of my imminent oblivion. What he is as he is, if he is, makes no difference to me at this point, because my options are limited. My belief in salvation has greater utility than any other logical argument given my situation.
Unfortunately death bed conversions are typically not rational either.
SEP
Maybe you can point out irrational part of this.
I don't know, but Christ did forgive the theif.
Indeed, but presumably not just because the thief gave mere intellectual assent to the existence/reality of God.
Surely the real question is not whether the logical case you present is irrational. It clearly is not. The real question is whether Pascal's Wager conforms to this pattern which, as far as I am concerned it does not. The main reason for that is that there is no way to know what the outcomes of each alternative action will be let alone whether they would be good or otherwise. Are there not clear indications in the New Testament, for example, that something more than intellectual assent is required for salvation and that many who make claim in the name of Jesus will be rejected? And wouldn't a perfectly good God be bound to reject those whose belief is based entirely on self-interest?
The decision process is there, I think, maybe not quite as Pascal posed it, but something with force enough to enable them to change their life held beliefs.
Not sure I follow this. The "outcomes of each alternative action" is death. Only A1's death come with a hope.
The prodigal son is celebrated upon his return. His brother didn't like this because he was always true to the family. The father explains:
Luke 15:11-32
Death is not the outcome of either action. It is inevitable and thus entirely independent of A1, A2 or no action at all. Pascal's wager is entirely about what happens after death (another weakness being that it has no value unless it presupposes that there is an 'after', of course).
I'm not sure just how relevant the prodigal son is here. The decision to return was not one made in the expectation of reward. It is not a decision of hope but one of desperation. Indeed he was prepared to live the life of a hired servant. It is the grace of the father that is the point of the story (parables being 'tales of the unexpected'). In Pascal's Wager the son does not return humbled and contrite but confident in his reward.
As far as the prodigal son is concerned, he was truly contrite (note that he too was pragmatic about his options away from home) and that is why his father accepts him. Aletheist previously pointed out intellectual grasp of this wager alone is not enough, it has to have existential force which deathbeds tend to bring out, God's forgiveness is predicated on a true act of contrition, at least based on my background.
Of course, this is controversial within Christian theology; as a Lutheran, I would disagree. God's forgiveness is predicated only on the death of Christ for the sins of the whole world, and an individual person's reconciliation to God is predicated only on the gift of faith that He gives us by grace. The prodigal son's father accepted him - saw him while he was still a long way off, felt compassion, ran to meet him, embraced him, and kissed him - before he demonstrated any sort of contrition.
It's not valid. Here's just one other possibility of many: an "evil demon" god is what really exists, and he punishes anyone who believed in god during their life.
Now Western culture is 'secularising', the whole idea is being thrown into question. According to secularism, we're each an island with a life of our own making, having been churned out by an unthinking process of evolution.
I think we need to be able to gain some kind of perspective above or outside this existential dilemma of 'faith vs atheism' to make sense out of it - neither rejecting religion wholesale and lapsing into nihilism, nor being 'a believer' who swallows it whole. That, I would hope, would be a philosophical approach to the question.
Here is what I asked darthbarracuda:
I think it's a valid argument.
I think it comes down to our own mortality, our impossible lust for a life that cannot continue, our inability to confront the void headon, as at least some of us must on our deathbed. Socrates seems to have had a peaceful death, unless you too believe he despaired at the very end in his very last words.
Where do you read that in the Bible?
The problem with that is that Pascal's Wager isn't the same as the A1/A2 formulation. With Pascal's wager, we have no idea what the outcome of either case might be.
From the viewpoint of 'the believer', there's a lot at stake - living versus dying, eternal felicity vs eternal torment.
'The atheist' still might say, what evidence is there for any such 'outcome'? To which the answer can only be, the testimony of revealed religions (and not only that of the Christian religion).
So it's not really accurate to say that there's no difference between the two bets. Sure, 'the atheist' doesn't believe there's any difference, but that is part of what it takes to be an atheist!
What if A1 is "not believing in God, leading to eternal bliss" and A2 is "believing in God, leading to eternal torment".
Therefore it's rational to not believe in God.
Not sure I understand your problem. Here is what Wallace Stevens had to say about Pascal's Wager from his 1923 book Harmonium:
One of the premises of his argument is that
and I don't see how your objection meets this premise.
I don't think Pascal's Wager is really dealing with "mere intellectual assent". What exactly could mere intellectual assent be anyway? Mouthing the words "I believe in God" while not really believing? Would that even fool yourself?
It's not a matter of mere logical possibilities. The choice to believe or not is made in light of the possibility of (at least some if not all) religions being true revelations. Assuming that religions are revelations, there are no revelations of the silly kind of possibility you have imagined. Even if religions are merely serious existential propositions, there are no serious existential propositions such as your example, so why should it even come under consideration?.
"Intellectual assent" means sincerely believing that God exists or is real, not just mouthing the words. Again, I question the assumption that this, by itself, is sufficient to satisfy God and gain whatever benefits God has to offer, in this life and/or the next. What do you see as the requirements for a successful wager, according to Pascal?
Indeed Pascal's Wager is often used as a trump card; when all other forms of argument fail, just claim that it's more reasonable to believe in God than to not believe in God.
Trouble arises when we realize that the Abrahamic God is not the only conception of God, and benevolence and rationality is not the only possible dispositions of God. In fact a cursory look at the world casts his benevolence and rationality into doubt.
Because the claim was that it's a valid argument. Validity is about logical possibility. If it's logically possible that a conclusion if false given the premises, then it's not a valid argument. That's what the conventional concept of validity is.
But sincerely believing in God cannot be a matter of mere intellectual assent, because for it to be a mere intellectual matter God would have to be thought as an empirical object. But then you could have no idea of what you were believing in, so it would necessarily be just a matter of mouthing empty words.
It's very simple. It's possible that you live as though god exists, or that you assert belief in god, or however exactly you'd like to put that, and the upshot of that is that you're punished for it in the afterlife, whereas if you denied that god exists, it's possible that you're rewarded in the afterlife.
You've got that wrong. You are claiming that at least one of the premises could logically be false, which would not make it an invalid argument, but an unsound one.
Nope. I'm saying that the conclusion isn't either guaranteed by the premises or a tautology. There are other possible conclusions that follow from the same premises (where the premises aren't contradictory). That makes it invalid.
You could formulate it in a much different way so that it's a valid argument, perhaps, but do that work if that's what you want to suggest.
I do not understand your reply. Are you claiming that "intellectual matters" are somehow limited to "empirical objects"? Why would my assent to the existence/reality of God entail having no idea of what I was believing?
Feel free to add on whatever else you need. You want to be reunited with dead lovers, dead dogs, dead parents, and dead children? Sure. No problem. You want the tunnel of light? Fine. You want fluffy white clouds, harps, trumpets, and angel wings? OK, but be aware that this option also comes with red devils, pitchforks, and pits of boiling high fructose corn syrup. Upon death you roll the dice, which may or may not be loaded, and you get EITHER the white fluffy clouds or the hot fructose.
Or you can opt for eternal non-existence, which offers relief from your present suffering. Unfortunately, you can not combine offers. You either get reunion with dead lovers, or you get eternal non-existence, but not both.
This argument is a wager, it assumes certain possibilities have a certain utility. If you think that by believing in God you may compromise your eternal life, then you do not wager a belief in God, but if you similar to others think that God is Good, then the your wager of belief is certainly no worse than the atheistic non-belief and if true then you are eternally ahead...infinite utility.
You're assuming, here, that the reality "behind the bet" has something to do with the gambler's beliefs.
I know a lot of folks who would love for that to be the case prior to hitting the casino.
I mean to say that we give intellectual assent only to things we can confirm by observation or that we think we have good reasons to believe are confirmed by the observations of those whose expertise we trust, or to things that are intuitively self-evident.
Your assertion fails its own test. It is not something that I can confirm by observation, I have no good reasons to believe that it is confirmed by the observations of those whose expertise I trust, and it is not intuitively self-evident to me.
People give intellectual assent to all kinds of things, for all kinds of reasons. I still do not see what point you are trying to make regarding Pascal's Wager.
I don't think that was necessarily true in times past; the co-existence of the various global religions is in many ways an historical novelty.
But awareness of other religious traditions certainly does cast some light on 'Pascal's Wager', because of the convergence of the testimony of the different traditions on fundamental religious ideas. That is where the discipline of comparative religion is relevant, as it provides a methodical - even scientific - way of understanding the similarities and differences between the truth-claims of different traditions.
Many will object that the examination of religious truth claims could never be a matter for science, but in times past, there was a recognition of the idea of a 'scientia sacra', the 'sacred science', the subject matter of which was the 'divine ascent'. The 'scientia sacra' is commonly encountered in the texts of the so-called 'perennialists' - those who say that the various 'high traditions' of spirituality are all offshoots of the same primordial tree 1. That refers to writers including Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Titus Burckhardt, and Marco Pallis, to name a few.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It is possible to profess Christianity, but not to assent to the notion of a 'Christian god'.
How? There is one sense in which God is subject to definition - being the subject of religious literature and theological convention, so as to have accepted and defined meanings and references which are assented to by cultures and religions.
But there's another sense in which God is beyond definition - insofar as to define something is to describe it in terms of something else - and that is not something one can ever do in this case.
Accordingly, there are many profound ambiguities around the matter of the nature of [whatever that is]. Being aware of the 'unknown' nature of [that] is a profound spiritual practice in it's own right. (It's also a way to balance agnosticism and spirituality).
But atheism generally wants the questioned defined so as to show that they know what it is they think they're refuting - hence you'll often see expressions such as 'the Abrahamic God' in such debates, to narrow the scope to what the atheist believes definitely doesn't exist.
Hence Noam Chomsky's 'I'll tell you if I'm an atheist if you tell me what it is I'm supposed not to believe in'. X-)
Quoting Bitter Crank
That is mainstream Christian doctrine.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Ah, but can you? How do you know the itch which gave birth to you in the first place won't forever continue to do that?
Well isn't life a lot like that, we believe certain things and we act accordingly. We don't always know the "reality" of our beliefs, but we do assign them values, and I think what Pascal is saying is that if you assign good values to a belief in god, then you have nothing to lose in believing in him, and you have the potential to gain a lot.
If think the deathbed scenario paints this situation in stark relief, one must make a choice, do you talk to the Chaplain or not Terrapin? Do you confess or just die?
The argument as it is usually given is:
P1. There are four possibilities: I don't believe in God and there is no God. I don't believe in God and there is a God. I believe in God and there is no God. I believe in God and there is a God.
P2. If I believe in God and there is a God, then I will receive eternal life in the presence of God. If I don't believe in God and there is a God, then I will not receive eternal life in the presence of God.
If I don't believe in God and there is no God, then I will not receive eternal life. If I believe in God and there is no God then I will not receive eternal life.
Conclusion: If I want to receive eternal life then I should believe in God.
You could also include the stronger claim into premise 2 that if I don't believe in God I will receive eternal damnation.
The argument is perfectly valid, given its premises.
Other things that have been amply confirmed by observation can give you good reason to believe the testimony of others when it comes to empirical matters.
The point is that it doesn't make sense,in a merely intellectual context, to give intellectual assent to things, of which you can have no idea what it is you are assenting to.
Well, yes I was just allowing for our contemporary knowledge of there being many religions. In times where people only knew of one or two religions, or where it was thought that there is only one religion or only one true religion, I think the point still holds, though.
In relation to your reference to comparative religion; I would agree that there are certainly commonalities among religions in general, and that it is possible to understand the differences between revelations as being reflecting what has been suitably relevant to different peoples at different times and places.
Actually, I had thought that you had accidentally left out an "IF": " IF it is not something that I can confirm....". But now I see another interpretation. You may be referring to a particular belief: "IT". If that belief you are referring to is the belief in God, then you are supporting my point; that it does not make sense to give merely intellectual assent to the existence of God.
It should have been clear that I was referring to your own previous statement.
Quoting John
This assertion is not something that I can confirm by observation, I have no good reasons to believe that it is confirmed by the observations of those whose expertise I trust, and it is not intuitively self-evident to me. That is why I said that it fails its own test.
— Bitter Crank
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course I know no such thing, but nowhere along the line did the idea of of infinite rebirth sprout and take root. I won't fear that I will be reincarnated as a scarab beetle, either, or that my relatives will in some way be responsible for supporting my ghost in the after world. Scores of millions of people on their death beds will be concerned about those issues, and they won't be concerned about fluffy clouds and angels with harps of gold.
I don't know how I will feel as I lay dying. Lots of dying people feel really just wretched, and are probably not engaging in a lot of philosophizing. They're trying to just make it through the day, or to death, whichever one comes first. On the one or two occasions when I have been very, very sick I didn't give the afterlife a thought.
Now is the time to deal with the issue, when one is feeling pretty good and clear headed. Think about it and settle on one side of the fence or the other. There either is a god or their isn't. Then live accordingly.
But I never said you should accept what I said if it is not intuitively obvious to you. I believe what I said is true because it is intuitively obvious to me. We, however, are different people operating under different presuppositions, and disagreement is always, obviously, possible.
On the other hand you could always provide a counter example if you can. Or explain how you think we could believe something in a propositional sense and on a merely intellectual basis if we don't have any clear idea of what it is that we are believing.
It's not so clear-cut. Buddhists don't think there is a god, but their ethical philosophy has a lot in common with those who do.
The fact of the matter is that Pascal's Wager rests on a false dichotomy. It's not a case that either there's no afterlife or there's a psychopomp of some sort who rewards those who believe in him and who punishes those who don't. There might also be a psychopomp who rewards those who don't believe in him and who punishes those who do, or at least one who punishes those who believe in him only because of a game theory wager.
Yes, stated that way, it's valid but there's rather no reason to believe that it's sound.
I'd talk to him if he wanted to talk to me--well, and if it's not a situation where I'm going to die at any immediate moment, as then I'd want to be talking to family instead, but my beliefs wouldn't change. The notion of gods, generally and specifically re some tenets of some religions, rests on notions that are incoherent and/or comically absurd in my view. I don't have any background of religious belief, so it's not as if I believed at one time but then later rejected the beliefs, and it's not as if I simply have doubts or a lack of (psychological) certainty about religious beliefs.
Growing up, I didn't even know about religious beliefs in any detail whatsoever until I was about fourteen or fifteen. When I first learned what folks believed in any detail I thought that they had to be putting me on--playing a practical joke on me (there are a lot of elaborate practical jokers in my family). That's how ridiculous the beliefs struck me as being, and that hasn't lessened over the years. In fact, that opinion has only strengthened as I've gotten older, learned a lot more about religion, studied philosophy, and so on.
No that does not sound right. The worst outcome with A1 is oblivion, no god, no eternal bliss, no nothing. The only outcome from A2 is oblivion, eternal nothing.
A1 is "not believing in God, leading to eternal bliss" and A2 is "believing in God, leading to eternal torment".
The worse (only) outcome of A1 is at least as good as the best (only) outcome of A2. My wager satisfies the premise. Therefore, using my wager, it is rational to not believe in God.
Yea, I went to Catholic grammar school, high school and college, then a predominantly Jewish graduate school, which was like shock therapy, changed me significantly. Pretty much agnostic now.
Interesting, I have to ask my daughter what if any beliefs she holds, her background does not include the push towards any religion.
Well in my case it wasn't just the lack of a "push." I didn't know about religion at all really. No one in my family was religious (people in my extended family are, but we didn't live with them or even near them when I was growing up--my mom is an atheist who very easily meshed with hippie culture; my dad is a real blue-collar (very easygoing) greaser/biker-type guy who has always seemed to have zero interest in stuff like religion, politics, philosophy, etc.; the grandparent I was closest to was also an atheist), none of my friends were religious--no one ever went to church, no one ever talked about religion in any manner, etc. Also, I was born in the early 60s, so this was long before the Internet or religious channels on cable TV or anything like that.
My first real exposure to any sort of religious beliefs was actually philosophy, which I started reading when I was 11, but I didn't really get what the heck what was being talked about in that material--as an 11-year-old trying to read academic philosophy (as well as a variety of other academic-level texts--for example, I tried to tackle a graduate-level serial music composition textbook), I didn't get a lot of what I was reading, but I figured that if I kept at it, eventually it would make sense to me (although with some philosophy, especially contintental stuff, that still hasn't happened, lol, and I'm in my mid-50s now).
As Socrates points out we don't really fear death, we fear what we imagine death to be, and I would wager a person on their death bed is not in a rational frame of mind.
I would hope on my death bed I don't fold to fear, but even if I did it would hardly validate Pascal's Wager since the motivation was not reason.
"Maybe you can point out irrational part of this"
"Suppose"
It is an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
For me, literal fear associated with death is more along the lines of how I fear possible pain as well as thing ike going to doctors or dentists (I have a bit of a doctor phobia).
The bigger part of it simply not wanting to not be able to experience things any longer. That's very similar to how I won't want to leave a place I enjoy spending time in, or departing, especially for good--for example, if they're moving away--from people I enjoy spending time with, etc. It's just that with death, it's not being able to experience anything any longer, and that being permanent. So that's the big problem with it. That's not so much fear as . . . well, I'm not sure what to call it.
Do you really fear the pain of going to the doctors or dentists or do you fear the pain you imagine will happen?
Both, I'd say (especially in the case of dentists)
Insofar as it's anticipatory, sure, but I wouldn't say that fear in response to some present stimulus is necessarily dependent on imagination. You'd maybe argue that it only obtains insofar as one is imagining something other than the present stimulus, but that seems dubious to me, as lots of folks would say that when it's about a present stimulus it's merely a reaction to that stimulus (and that they're not really thinking about anything--they're just reacting).
But is that really what you fear? Or would you fear that I actually pull the trigger? Something that has not even happened, something that at this point you can only imagine happening, but seems likely to happen.
It is a fine line, and certainly a valid fear given the stimulus, as you suggest, but it still leaves a lot of questions. Like, at what point is it good to let fear take over our imagination? Or is it never good? It would seem reasonable to think that fear and imagination have to be ingrained in our survival instincts, which allows us to see, and response to dangers that have not happened, but could happen.
Might be something worth investigating.
This sentence defeats itself.
If you say so, but since you didn't point out how I'll have to just take you at your word. Clearly I missed how, or else I would have not wrote it that way.
Profound regret, maybe?
I'd say it's certainly beneficial in situations where your health and well-being are in danger. For one, it's correlated to the release of adrenaline/catecholamines, and that is beneficial to getting out of the dangerous situation/surviving.
Although regret is usually after the fact. We could say something like "anticipated regret (where the regret can never obtain--since you'll be dead (lol))" although that doesn't seem to capture it well because it's a present disposition.
You and at the same time refer to Socrates. Yet at Socrates' on his deathbed, was in a rational frame of mind. Whether he feared death, I think might have to do with the interpretation of his very last words.
I don't see a conflict, it should be clear enough I was speaking generally. And that part about Socrates and death was before his execution, it was when Xenophon was trying to talk him into escape.
Quoting Jeremiah
Your whole argument is based on a suppose, "Suppose that you have two possible actions". The problem with your argument is that is a completely imaginary hypothetical.
Is there any other kind? :D
All mathematics is hypothetical. Sometimes we use it to model reality.
A1 = if you lay in bed all day long a magic fairy will give you a pot of gold.
A2 = if you get out of bed you will have the worst diarrhea of your life.
What is more rational? Is it rational to stay in bed?
There is a reason I called it unfalsifiable.
For me yes; however, I don't know if you are able to a make that leap.
To limit it down to only two, well that is a lot of supposing.
What do you take to be an example of a non-imaginary hypothetical?
When you take the hypothetical and move it to a fact via the scientific method.
Which is my dispute here, Cavacava's hypothesis cannot be moved, as it is unfalsifiable.
From Wikipedia:
According to Plato in his Phaedo there were several people. This dialogue is one recollection of what happened, according to dialogue Plato was sick.
I am sure I said this, "And that part about Socrates and death was before his execution, it was when Xenophon was trying to talk him into escape."
So the issue is not that the hypothesis is imaginary - which technically is true of all retroductive conjectures - but that it is unfalsifiable; i.e., it does not have experiential consequences that we can explicate deductively and then evaluate inductively. Thanks for clarifying.
Maybe you can provide a reference, I thought he was out of town throughout this period.
"Move a hypothetical to a fact?"
Facts aren't states of affairs in your usage?
I believe that should be overly clear by now, that was like the first thing I said. I know you wanted to feel clever, but instead of trying to be clever, try reading everything a person posted.
When I want to feel cleaver, I make sure I'm sharp. Well, or alternately, I just focus on beaver, which I often do anyway.
Fixed.
I've been reading through this thread and find it astonishing that you keep making this claim. It has been pointed out to you several times that the, or one of the, fundamental flaws in this argument has to do with the multiplicity of mutually opposed conceptions of the word "God." Is God triune? Has he revealed himself to the Jewish people? To the New Testament writers? To Muhammad? One, two, all three, or none of the above? Is he "Nature," as Spinoza would say? Is he Brahman, Zeus, Thor, or Amun-Ra? Can God even be adequately defined? Many classical theists would say no.
Simply put, there is no single, unambiguous definition of "God," so to believe in it/him in no way guarantees salvation. Besides, salvation in most religions requires sincerity of belief, which the wager does not require.
What you are in fact saying is, "it is better to believe in my conception of God, in order to obtain my conception of salvation, which is a result of said belief." And that is much less rational than you have supposed in light of what I say above.
Do you think that the existence or non-existence of god can be proved? If the answer is no then whether you believe in god or not is a belief which cannot be logically justified. Yet many people believe in god. I think most people at some point in their lives make a decision to believe or not, but a number of them change their minds when death looms in front of them. This is not about how rational or irrational this belief is in itself. It is about how someone assigns value to concepts how they view the utility of concepts like a Good God.
He/she does not want to address that, as it undermines his/her position
.
Who has time for that? Lighten up, I was just attempting to inject a little humor; I even included a smiley in an effort to make that clear. Here, let me do it again ... :D
Quoting Jeremiah
Just because a proposed supposition is unfalsifiable does not render it useless. Philosophers invent absurd scenarios "for the sake of argument" all the time. If we knew that we only had two options, A1 and A2, and that "the worst outcome associated with A1 is at least as good as the best outcome associated with A2," then obviously the rational choice is A1. However, as many have pointed out, in the actual world there are considerably more than two options - all the different concepts of God, for one thing - and the outcomes associated with them are far from certain.
Again: read the thread.
How about reading the rest of my post?
I have read it at least 5 times.
Agree or disagree?
This is what is in dispute here.
Quoting aletheist
In part this, but not so much for me.
Disputing how? The hypothetical is stipulative; given that we only have two options, and that one will always have an equal or better outcome, there can be no doubt that it is the rational choice. The problem is that we actually have more than two options and no objective way to evaluate which will have the best outcome, so there is no definitively rational choice in the absence of additional information. What am I missing?
Quoting aletheist
Are you working on bumping up your comment count? You know that you can edit a post after submitting it, rather than just adding another one (or two or three), right?
Given that if A then B, suppose A; therefore, B. Do you disagree? My point was strictly a matter of formal logic, but you seem to be hung up on the details of the specific propositions involved. No one is asking you to believe B if you reject A.
I don't care.
Quoting aletheist
There is a difference between logic and reason, and the thread is about what is rational.
If you were offered either free money or a punch in the face, which should you choose?
We're able to make claims about the rationality of a decision even if the decision is between two options that aren't actually being offered.
Does accepting the money mean I have to give up my core beliefs and accept an absurdity as true?
You can't paint it into a very small box, ignore everything else, and call it rational.
Given that if A then B, and I believe A, then it is rational for me to believe B; in fact, it would be irrational for me not to believe B. However, if I do not believe A, then I can draw no conclusion from the information given about whether it would be rational for me to believe B. All of this goes for any propositions that we assign to A and B; their content is irrelevant to the logic.
Not according to the scenario as presented; you are imposing an additional assumption. "Free money" presumably means no such (or any other) strings attached.
I try not to dig into analogies too deeply, as when you do it too often take things off track. I restated my dispute for that reason.
No one is suggesting an affirmative answer to this question.
Quoting Jeremiah
To what are you referring here as "unprovable hypotheticals"? What beliefs do you think you are being asked to accept?
But I'll restate my question, that has yet to be answered: Is it rational to just believe any assumption that pops into your head? Or should there be some type of process in order for something to be accepted as a belief?
I would pray and prepare myself to meet my maker. I would be angry - if I had the strength left to be angry - to see everyone around pessimistic and sad. So what will I choose? I can't really choose anything can I? So I won't choose anything I think. I'll try to accept the inevitability of my situation and place my hope in my God and in the afterlife. I'd try to die hopeful. It's hard to think about it and imagine the scenario.
Keep in mind though that I'm a theist. If I was an atheist... I'm not sure what I'd do, because it's a hard one. I would feel the need to believe in God and convert - that's the only way to die with hope in your heart. At the same time I would be disgusted at myself, and see myself as a nothing. And I would think that if I was God, then a man like me certainly wouldn't deserve Salvation.
If you are not going to put in the effort to follow the debate, I am not going to put effort into answering your questions.
Also note that his deathbed conversion has been disputed apparently, according to this Wiki article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Stevens
Regardless, also note that he is politically conservative. Conservatism is very close to theism. I was an atheist conservative, and I've morphed back into a theist conservative overtime. Conservatives generally don't have the emotional reasons that liberals have to reject God, so it's very easy to make the step. For example, if you already think that traditions matter and have to be upheld, it's much easier to accept God. And this holds not only with regards to the deathbed, but with regards to everything else. For example, if you already see sex before marriage as harmful, when God requests you not to engage in it, then accepting it isn't such a big deal for you. But for someone who holds the very opposite view - ie sex before marriage is good and should be practiced - they'll have a much harder time accepting God. Really, discussing people's religion apart from their political orientations is starting to make little sense to me. The two seem to converge. The conservative atheist for example is very far from the liberal atheist for example - and generally the motivations for their atheism are different too.
You did not link your statement about "unprovable hypotheticals" to any particular post, so how am I supposed to discern the specific reference? I have not asked you to accept any beliefs, except this one:
Quoting aletheist
Regarding Pascal's Wager, we seem to agree that it does not warrant belief in the existence/reality of God; but we apparently disagree about why this is the case.
This means nothing if A and B are not defined. Just like x + y = a means nothing until it is defined. As I said, "What I am seeing are attempts to limit the argument to very narrow confines in order to make it appear more rational."
Once again, you're assuming I know what you mean by the word "God." Why don't you tell me, then we can proceed.
Are you really Cavacava or have you simply taken over Cavacava's account? I don't recall you posting stuff like this or in the manner you have done.
>:O What do you mean haha? How do you remember Cavacava? I don't remember him as ever having very strong positions, more like someone who liked to explore issues.
Compared to God, you are.
God refers to what ever you believe is god is, for many god is the creator, but what ever you sincerely believe god is.
Yep 100% cavacava
Which makes it a meaningless term....
Yes, I read the Wikipedia article and other accounts. The Hospital Chaplin confirmed his conversion and as I pointed out in one of my posts he did an exposition on Pascal's Wager early on, in his first collected work of poetry & essays in 1923. He thought it is a rational wager.
Rational it may be - but certainly believing in God only on your deathbed is cowardly, arrogant, presumptuous, and lacking in integrity.
Suppose you were agnostic. Pew Research indicates 4% of the US population considers itself agnostic, which is lot of people based on 320m. You believe in a true act of contrition?
Ciao I have to leave, put a battery in my car.
Possible, but I wouldn't bet on it. But I don't think belief in God per say is necessary for salvation. Even an atheist can be saved - it's more about virtue and morality, than mere belief. Mere belief without the virtue and morality is empty and vacuous.
It makes absolutely no difference whether or how A and B are defined. If you believe that if A then B, and you believe A, then it is rational for you to believe B, and irrational for you to deny B. If x+y=a and y=mx+b, then x=(a-b)/(m+1) and y=(ma+b)/(m+1), no matter how we define x, y, a, b, and m.
I am sorry but that is not so, if that was, then we'd have one equation to measure every thing.
You are trying to drag the argument in to such abstraction it holds no more meaning.
What is not so? Everything in my last post is undeniably true, unless you reject simple deductive logic and basic algebra.
Quoting Jeremiah
Who said anything about measuring? Again, I am talking about the rules of logic and algebra, which are content-neutral.
If you were trying to prove you can move undefined variables around, I suppose so.
Quoting aletheist
m= -1
Quoting aletheist
I did.
It has greater utility with respect to what?
I was not trying to "prove" anything. I was simply showing how both deductive logic and algebra are about the relations among the terms, not their contents.
Quoting Jeremiah
Then a=b, while x and y are any two numbers that add up to a (or b).
Quoting Jeremiah
That does not follow. if a-b =0 then x = 0 in x=(a-b)/(m+1)
Go back to the original equations, set m=-1, and see what happens. In this case, undefined simply means indeterminate, since any pair of values for x and y that add up to a (or b) will work.
Quoting Jeremiah
No, you already set m=-1; so if a-b=0, then x=0/0 (undefined). Again, go back to the original equations, which become x+y=a and x+y=b.
That is not what I said, I said if a-b = 0, not if a-b = 0 and m+1 = 0.
Quoting aletheist
Let's review the exchange, just for the record.
Quoting aletheist
Quoting Jeremiah
Quoting aletheist
Quoting Jeremiah
Quoting aletheist
Quoting Jeremiah
You gave no indication of withdrawing your initial stipulation that m=-1. If a-b=0, then indeed x=0 for any value of m other than -1; and y=a=b, so it is still the case that x+y=a=b.
None of this is relevant to the thread topic, but I felt the need to defend my algebraic acumen. The real problem is our failure to communicate.
Yes let's do.
Quoting Jeremiah
I am not gonna sit here and debate nonsense with you all day.
The expectation that by believing in God one might be saved, obtain eternal bliss versus the expectation of nothingness.
Yes, I made this point earlier, that belief about God cannot be a merely intellectual matter. If your faith does not transform you, then it is not real faith. I can say that as someone who does not have real faith, but who hopes to be open to it.
Luke 23:32-43
So yes we can certainly question motives for deathbed conversion, but we cannot know that the person was or wasn't in earnest, that's up to the individual & God. I think the brute fact of one's imminent demise makes one more serious about the life. As I suggested, I don't think it takes much to knock an agnostic off the fence, and to suggest that an agnostic is insincere from the get go is a mistake in my estimation.
Which comes first though? Are you transformed because of your faith, or do you have faith and are transformed thereby?
Sorry, but you still haven't explained the "utility" here. Believing in God and salvation is more useful than not believing in God and salvation because.... ?
the anticipated payout is greater than and more comforting than nothing.
If god is unreasonable and irrational you have no way to know if there will be any salvation from belief.
I am pointing out that belief in god is not enough.
You have to also believe god is reasonable and rational and will save you.
Believing in an irrational and unreasonable god brings you nothing.
And if god expects you to believe in irrational and unreasonable things then god is not reasonable and rational.
If there is no benefit to your belief then Pascal's wager fails, and if god is unreasonable and irrational you cannot be sure there is any benefit to your belief.
Ok, all along I have stated it is a belief in a Good God.
I don't know; I can't answer from experience, because I remain untransformed. I think openness is necessary. Maybe faith comes in degrees ranging from mere lip service (which would not seem to qualify as faith at all though) to a completely transforming fire.
Incidentally your two alternatives sound kind of the same.
I have pointed out that belief in god brings you nothing if god is unreasonable and irrational.
You gain nothing if that is true, which would mean Pascal's wager fails.
We can't know if god is consistently good if god is unreasonable and irrational.
We do lose something if we are expected to believe in irrational and unreasonable things.
We lose reason and rationality.
The wager is in terms of what you believe God to be, not in terms of what he is; which is unknowable.The terms of the wager are that you believe that there either is or is not a God who will grant you eternal life if you believe in Him. The terms of the wager could be changed such that the conditions of the granting of eternal life are loving others as oneself or genuinely striving to do so. But it would seem reasonable to think there must be a God to grant the eternal life, and that you would not believe that loving others as yourself would result in eternal life unless you believed in God.
Trouble with that is, we don't know the Truth, or even if there is one.
The wager fails if god does not provide salvation, which we would have no way to be sure if god is unreasonable and irrational.
If it is not a logical argument then how is that you can claim Pascal's wager is valid?
You are completely missing the point with an irrelevant quibble.
No I am making a point of my own.
There are four results that are possible.
You do not believe and gain nothing.
You do believe and gain nothing.
You do believe and gain salvation.
You do not believe and gain salvation.
The only way you gain something from belief is if god is reasonable and rational and does reward salvation for belief, and in which case god would not expect me to believe in irrational and unreasonable things before that god rewards me with salvation.
To this point then.
Imagine that you value rationality and reason and the Pascal's wager is posed to you?
Do you see how the person that values reason and rationality has something to lose from believing in a god that is irrational and unreasonable?
Actually Agustino brought up the practicality, which may or may not be effective on atheists but I think there is a good chance to knock some agnostics off the fence. War also tends to favor belief over non-belief.
Wot.
Yes I understand what you value, but what I asked you to do was imagine that there are those that have different values from yourself.
What if god exists, and intends for us to use our capacity to reason and our capacity of rationality?
After all, if god exists, it will be god that has endowed us with this capacity.
In that case your desire to control what does not belong to you (god decides the fate of your soul, not you), would cause you to sacrifice a gift god has bestowed upon you.
No. I don't believe that it's a different topic, did you get that from something I said?
War of tanks?
If god does not decide this who does?
If I decide the fate of my soul, then what power does god have over me?
You actually did not answer my questions.
I asked what if god also values reason and rationality?
I also asked what power does god have over me if I control the fate of my soul instead of god?
I also don't agree with that this argument only has those two options.
It can be about logic and values, especially if the individual or god values both.
How can you presume to dictate as to what is "reasonable and rational" for God? If you presume God exists then you presume that He is good; otherwise He would simply not be God but a demon.
I did not presume this, I presumed that if god exists, then we are endowed with these capacities by gods intent and will.
It seems to me,that for you, the possibility of a good God has already been decided against, in which case, for sure, the wager could have no relevance to you.
Who get's to decide what is good for god, you?
What makes you think that it is not good to be reasonable and rational?
The wager fails if it assumes that reason and rationality are mutual exclusive of good.
Quoting Cavacava
I don't understand this question.
I haven't said that it is not good to be reasonable and rational or that anyone gets to decide what's good for God.
The wager doesn't assume that reason and rationality are mutually exclusive of good, so I can't understand any of your points.
Can you offer some examples of what other religions promise?
My main point is that the wager fails if god is unreasonable and irrational and that if god is reasonable and rational the wager is not needed.
The wager undermines itself if you are expected to believe irrational and unreasonable things.
Because if god expects me to believe in irrational and unreasonable things before god rewards me with salvation, then god is unreasonable and irrational and I cannot be sure that I will have any salvation at all.
It was in response to this. What do you think other religions promise such that we should take their wager?
So you begged god to save you?
Doesn't that seem to imply that the fate of your soul is a thing which god, and not yourself, ultimately decides?
If so, then wouldn't you have greater comfort from faith that god is reasonable and rational, rather than irrational and unreasonable?
You are presuming that you know what it is for God to be reasonable and rational. This would require you to be in possession of all the relevant spiritual 'facts', given that there is a God and that there are any spiritual 'facts', of course.
No, I am presuming that if I am reasonable and rational it is a capacity from god.
You're going to have to flesh this scenario out a bit.
So you do believe in God then? Do you also believe that your God-given reasonableness and rationality are infallible? Or might they not be compromised by a fallen state?
I can't agree that all religions promise that, and even if they did the promise is made in very different contexts. In Buddhism, for example, there can be no eternal life for you, only an endless round of birth and death, which apart form your present birth and death, are not births and deaths of you, in any case.
In nay case, even the Christian promise of eternal life does not explicitly promise an end to suffering. In another life you might be called upon to undergo great suffering for great purposes, for example.
That appllies to you as well.
Do you believe your faith is infallible, that you know fully the scope of god's intent and will?
Or is possible that you could also be wrong?
The difference is a reasonable and rational god forgives the fallible for being wrong, and irrational and unreasonable god...well maybe that god would forgive, but maybe it would not, we simply could not know if we would be saved for being wrong.
If there is a god I don't think he can be encompassed by the terms "rational or irrational". Was God being rational when he asked for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? I think there is more to life than logic, and some things which are not very logical may have more reality than what is logical, like love, art, Pascal's Wager >:O
Faith cannot consist in infallibility; that is it's very point. Faith is neither fallible nor infallible, it is outside that context altogether. That is why it does not consist merely in intellectual or reasoned belief.
So who endowed humanity with the capacity to reason and be rational if not god?
And if god does not will or intend for us to use this capacity then why does he not rid us of these things?
If this is true then no faiths, even those that are different from your own, are wrong or bring about spiritual consequences.
Quoting John
That would be news to me. Source?
Not a believing one, at the moment, but I don't mind the label.
Quoting Cavacava
No.
Quoting Cavacava
As I've told you before, this depends on what you mean by "God."
[I think I know St. Augustine's answer to your question, he would say that for God it's already done, everything, past present and future are memories to him, he can't change them because he is perfect and what he remembers does not affect how we can act any more than I can affect my own memories.]
Can you cite a Christian text that explicitly promises an end to suffering? Also Buddhism doesn't promise Nirvana, so there is no question of a wager in that context. And even if it did promise Nirvana it doesn't promise it for you.
I disagree, I think it is important.
Again I value reason and rationality though, and like I said before I don't see these things as something that must conflict with the other values in life.
"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away" (Revelation 21:4).
Quoting John
This is highly debatable. What do you mean by this and by "promise?"
Part of what I tried to post as an aside apparently got cast aside regarding God's power. I think I know St. Augustine's answer to this if you are interested.
Sure, let me know your thoughts.
I believe that if god does exist.
It is no accident that we have a capacity for reason and rationality and it seems to me that if god exists then god also intends for us to use these capacities as best as we are able.
No specific mention of suffering here.
Quoting Thorongil
Please specify what you think is debatable. By "promise" I mean "guarantee". There is no simple faith that one might hold that is held to guarantee Nirvana. And as I said Nirvana cannot be a promise to you in any case.
I am a pantheist.
I can't tell if you're being serious here. It's a really irritating response in either case.
Quoting John
Then most Buddhists would probably say no. However, certain sects might say otherwise. Chan/Zen Buddhism would say that one is already enlightened, one simply doesn't realize it yet, owing to the defilements (greed, hatred, and delusion) clouding the mind. The Pure Land school gives virtually a guarantee of enlightenment if one is reborn in Amitabha's Western Paradise.
Quoting John
Yeah, Buddhism teaches anatman, but there are sects like Yogacara that do posit something like a permanent self.
Your irritations are a matter for you. Tears, mourning, crying and pain do not exhaust what suffering is. There is suffering involved in striving to become ever better, for example. Nowhere that I am aware of does the Bible say that once you die, your efforts are at an end. Who would want that, anyway?
Quoting Thorongil
That's true, I had forgotten about Pure Land. It is closer to Christianity and is like a kind of training heaven. One issue I have with Buddhism is that it posits no beginning. Time stretches back into the past forever. Which means that we have all been deluded forever or if we at some point fell into ignorance, no explanation for how that is possible is given. If we fell into ignorance we must necessarily have been enlightened for an infinite amount of time before that. IF we have always been in ignorance literally for an infinite amount of time then what chance do we have of escaping it and becoming enlightened, and if we can fall from enlightenment what guarantee could there be that we would not fall again or an infinite number of times? I like aspects of Buddhism but the cosmogony makes no sense to me.
I wouldn't claim my irritation is anything other than my own. As for your other claim, I think you're being wildly pedantic.
Quoting John
So? Nowhere does it say that you will suffer. But if one suffers in heaven, then there isn't much to distinguish it from hell. And it doesn't seem like Adam and Eve before the Fall suffered much in the Garden of Eden. The implication is pretty strong, therefore, that God promises freedom from our afflictions. Are you trying to say there is good suffering and bad suffering? That wouldn't make much sense to me. Suffering is sometimes necessary for improvement, I agree, but then it is being used as a means, not an end. Suffering in and of itself is always bad.
Quoting John
As good a chance as the Buddha or countless other buddhas and bodhisattvas, the Buddhist might say. The point of their hagiographies is to show that becoming enlightened is indeed possible if one tries to emulate them. Nirvana is unconditioned, which means that nothing can cause its occurrence, however, the claim is that the Middle Way provides a sure enough path that tends to this goal. Correlation, as opposed to causation.
Quoting John
Okay. And you're more attracted to Christianity, I take it? If so, what prevents you from formally converting?
Yes, that's what I was referring to.
Quoting Thorongil
It depends on whether the suffering is gratuitous or not.
Quoting Thorongil
I don't feel particularly attracted to any Christian denomination. I don't see or feel any need to join a Church. I am not a believer, not as yet, in any case. I think that if salvation is granted by God; there is no reason why good atheists should not be saved; so I don't think there is a need to espouse any particular beliefs. As I already said I don't believe merely intellectual assent to the existence of God constitutes faith in the sense that is intended by Christianity. I haven't been arguing for the soundness of Pascal's Wager; I think it is an example of simplistic thinking; I have only been arguing for its rational validity. If you accept the premises the argument is valid is all.
Quoting Cavacava
What if God privileges honest disbelief in him as opposed to dishonest belief for the sake of personal comfort, as your wager would have it? In that case, I ought to wager that he doesn't exist.
Moreover, you assume doxastic voluntarism, a topic I actually made a thread about a while back. What this means is that you assume I can choose what I believe. I have my doubts that this possible, as it seems apparent that I can't just will myself to believe something, like flipping on a light switch. This is true even if I want to believe something. Wanting to does not mean that one does or will believe.
Whether a faith or even a merely intellectual belief brings about spiritual consequences has nothing to do with its fallibility.
Tomorrow
So it would be interesting for you to explain how there are consequences but that there is no fallibility.
Beliefs can only be sensibly counted as fallible if they can potentially be shown to be wrong. Think of the Tai Chi practitioner who believes in the power of chi. Her imagination is inspired by this belief and she imagines she feels the chi flowing through her body as she practices. As a consequence she becomes a much greater practitioner than she might otherwise have been.
The belief in chi is not fallible because it can never be demonstrated to be false.
I believe we have different criterion for justified beliefs.
It is a fallacy to say a claim is true as long as it has not been proven false.
This is called an argument from ignorance.
Also you don't explain any consequence.
You basically just say that if a person believes in chi, the consequence is they believe in chi.
I didn't say the belief in chi is true. The consequence is that they may become a better practitioner.
No becoming better is a consequence of practice, not belief.
It may be more a consequence of how you practice, which in turn may be influenced by a belief if that belief inspires to practice, and to a particular kind of practice.
I feel like you are splitting hairs.
Do you have any evidence that if person A believes in chi they will become better at tai chi than person B who does not believe in chi, given that each person practices tai chi the same amount?
To my mind it seems the particular beliefs about the philosophy has nothing to do with practicing and become good at the physical motions, but if you can quantify the difference I would concede the point.
If it is not a quantifiable difference, then how can you claim there is a from the belief in chi consequence?
Yes I know this is true from personal experience. There are plenty of such examples. A Christian devotes his life to charitable works, for example, and lives a life of a spiritual kind that he would not have, had he not held a faith in Christ.
I feel like you have changed the subject.
I am not saying that different personal beliefs do not lead to different life experiences.
I am asking if you can show a quantifiable difference in results.
If person A and B practice the motions of tai chi, can you demonstrate that person A will perform quantifiably better than person B, with the only difference being that person A believes in chi while person B does not.
Again I am not disputing that a person can derive personal satisfaction from their beliefs.
But as far as a consequence goes, any faith can be personally satisfying.
Person B must believe in it to the extent that she/he commits herself to practising it. That implicitly means that it is worth practicing. So to that extent they 'believe' in it, and actually that is pretty close to what 'believe' means.
There are plenty of people that do not believe in the existence of chi that practice tai chi, and become better at it's motions, simply as a way to remain more physical fit.
It's not I that have changed the subject. The discussion was about whether beliefs that are not fallible or truth-apt such as a belief in God, or chi can have spiritual consequences. Of course they can. A person might not practice Tai Chi at all if she did not believe in chi, so your demand for quantifiably different results has nothing to do with whether beliefs have spiritual consequences.
Quoting John
And I pointed out that saying that something is not yet disproved is not the logical equivalent that therefor that something is necessarily infallible.
Quoting John
Similarly a person may believe in chi and not practice tai chi.
I fail to see your point here?
What does that have to do with consequences of practice and belief?
Amen to this.
But I haven't anywhere said that beliefs that don't count as fallible insofar as they cannot be in principle disproven are thereby infallible. I already said they are outside the context of fallibility/ infallibility altogether.
Quoting m-theory
Of course and that would be a spiritual consequence too. The point was only ever that beliefs which are not fallible may have spiritual consequences. And since religious beliefs and beliefs associated with spirituality are generally of that kind....
I think you need to read more carefully to avoid wasting the interlocutor's time correcting your misreadings or failures to read at all.
Yes, but the fact is that beliefs, which are of kinds neither demonstrable nor falsifiable, are almost universally associated with any spiritual or religious practice, including martial arts.
It's hard to imagine why people would practice such things without the associated beliefs.
You give examples of something that has not been disproved relative to some given personal belief.
Not an example of something that cannot be altogether disproved.
You do not have an example of infallible faith except according to a given set of personal standards of proof.
Quoting John
You have not provided an example of infallible beliefs.
The lack of evidence of chi is evidence of it's absence.
Of course you will argue
We cannot know with absolute certainty that chi does not exist.
But as I pointed out that just because something is not absolutely disproved in accordance with every standard of proof, this is not the logical equivalent that such a belief is infallible.
Recall my link to the argument from ignorance.
So again, if you claim that religious or spiritual beliefs fall in line with option 3 or 4, this is not the logical equivalent that they are infallible
.
I think of belief as instrumental - to motivate one to right action. It has been turned into a rather artificial construction, perhaps through the formulaic recitation of creeds (creeds being from the word 'credence').
But belief is only useful for motivating correct action; those who have 'strong beliefs' are often dangerous people or ideologues, those who say they're committed to some ideal but who ignore the reality around them. That is quite common in the history of religions, isn't it? (See Karen Armstrong on the metaphysical mistake.)
Many believers would say that there is something that atheists don't know - that they're ignorant of - because of not having ever committed themselves to a religious way of life and discovering from experience what the benefits are of that. Of course the substance of religious ideas is not something amenable to scientific analysis, but at the same time, they would say, if one truly engages with them, then there are things there to learn. Hence the perennial nature of religious cultures. (Actually, speaking of Chi, there is a line in the Tao Te Ching something like 'mystery wrapped in mystery, but inside something that can be tested'.)
Knowing is different from beliefs.
Knowledge is demonstrable, beliefs are not necessarily so.
So this is where atheists and theist often clash.
A religious person will claim to know something, that they then cannot demonstrate.
Why should a non-religious person accept that religious person does in fact know, when instead it is more likely that the religious person simply believes.
I have never said the beliefs are infallible. There are two many misunderstandings and misrepresentations of what I have said for me to bother correcting them any more; it's just not worth the effort. Unless you address something I have actually claimed you'll get no more response from me.
I did address something you claimed.
You claimed that faith is infallible.
But then you failed to demonstrate that this is in fact true.
I agree that motivation to action is the most important function of any belief. I see nothing wrong with having "strong beliefs", however, as long as you don't try to force them on others. The point about religious beliefs in general is that they cannot, unlike empirical beliefs, be intersubjectively corroborated, and they are not, unlike the truths of maths and logic, intuitively obvious in an intersubjective way either. Acknowledging these facts leads to the realization that religious or spiritual beliefs are arrived at intuitively from personal experience; what 'feels right' or 'rings true' for the individual. So, they are definitely not beliefs to be imposed on others, because they may not be suitable for them, and it is never good for people to believe under constraint or coercion. Nothing wrong with gentle rhetorical persuasion though!
My mistake.
I very much admire the ability to admit mistakes; it shows real integrity. :)
I would point out that this issue is not really philosophical in the rational or logical sense. But rather a theological question, a question which presents itself to atheists and irreligious people upon death. I share Cavacava's observation that it becomes of pressing importance, even a crisis, to some people upon their death bed and is well documented. It can do away with a lifetimes conviction in a moment, in favour of what can be described as mystical experiences.
In reality "logic" is dispensed with early in the crisis and "reason" is harnessed to go beyond reason in a theological journey which is akin to the psychological "fight", or struggle with oneself the moment before a parachute jump, or bungee jump. This would suggest that it is a question of experience, not thought and conviction.
The balance in the wager is a no brainier, because on the one hand there is the bliss, comfort and divine embrace of faith in deliverance. While on the other hand is oblivion and an irrelevance of any abandoning of atheist conviction. It can only be a win win situation if the choice is in the affirmative any it can only be a loose loose situation of despair, or vacuous acceptance of oblivion, in the negative.
Why would an atheist cling to their conviction when rationally it is an irrelevance, because their sense of self esteem and integrity is teetering on a precipice of indifference, irrelevance, an infinite timeless void of nothingness. Why not follow the conceit of a belief in the afterlife for the last few minutes and hours of life, simply for comfort and a moments peace? Who knows you might wake up in heaven a few moments later, in the blink of an eye? And if you don't it doesn't matter because you don't exist anyway, by that point?
It's a perfectly good question, but the point I'm trying to make is that 'religious belief' is ultimately about something real. OK, you will say, if you say that, you must be a 'religous believer'. Actually I'm endeavouring not to be that. I believe (there it is again) that the most important elements of religious belief is that they signify an actual fact of profound importance. What is that? you will ask. To which the answer is, it can't be anything obvious - else why all the rigmarole?
Quoting John
But belief is not knowledge. I don't believe that putting my hand on a flame is painful, this is something i know.
'Beliefs' have become important, because they represent ideas or principles which are real in themselves, but which we don't ordinarily see - hence the need for 'revelation'. But that need is because the ordinary state - that of the man in the street, you and I, the hoi polloi - is one of delusion and falsehood. So the purpose of a belief is to 'set you straight', to bring you into accordance with the Logos, Dharma, or Tao. But now belief has become crystallised into ritualistic formulas, and, what's worse, formulas which are dissonant with the reality of current life and society (what with all the tropes of 'sheep' and 'fields' and 'the blood of the Lamb' and so on.)
But on a deeper level, this whole tension between 'belief' and 'knowledge' is of great importance in this regard. In the early days of Christianity, there was a battle between the 'pistic' Christians - whose sign was the familiar fish-shaped logo - and the gnostics. The exemplary pistic saying is: 'believe and be saved'. The exemplary gnostic saying is: 'you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free'. And that tension has always existed within Christianity. As it happened, the pistics (championed by Iraneus and Tertullian) won the day, and 'history was written by the victors', with immense consequences.
There's a really interesting academic, Katja Vogt, who has written extensively on 'belief and knowledge' in the context of Greek philosophy, Belief and Truth: A Sceptic Reading of Plato:
Likewise, in Buddhism, 'mere belief' is deprecated. In the general sense, it is necessary to believe that there is some need of a remedy, and that the dharma is that remedy, but beyond that, the whole application is based on 'right view' (samma ditthi) which is subtly different to 'right belief' (ortho-doxa). So this religious culture is about 'seeing it as it is' (yath?bh?ta?) not about subscribing to beliefs, as such, unless those beliefs culminate in right view and right action. Whereas our culture says that 'seeing it as it is', is nowadays only about what can be known by science, by which the spiritual dimension of reality is routinely denied, and which doesn't provide any kind of moral context for action. That is the dilemma that Western culture is dealing with.
If someone married you just because they believed they'd score a home-run doing so, would you appreciate them? I wouldn't. I may marry them if it were profitable to do so, but I'd also seek to divorce them as soon as I get the occasion, because everyone hates opportunists, even those who profit from them. Opportunists are at heart traitors, and they will betray you the very first occasion to do so they get. Better to take the initiative and get that thorn in your side out - the faster the better.
God and belief in him is not a business deal. You'll never get to Heaven if you treat belief in God as a business deal, the way Pascal's Wager treats it. Pascal's wager was a mere "in your face" showed to those who claimed to not believe in God because it wasn't profitable to believe in God in this world (you'd have to give up on the "fun"). The wager points that the "fun" is really in truth nothing. If you give it up in this world, you haven't given much up - even if there is no God. But if there is a God, and you give up God, then you have lost infinitely. Regardless of the truth, the safest option is God. The irony is that belief in God is ultimately superior - even in this world, and even if there is no God.
But this isn't an argument for belief in God. It wasn't meant to ignite faith in one. It simply wasn't. Read Pascal's Pensées, the wager plays a very minor part, on one or two pages from what I remember. You can take it out, and Pascal's greatness would not be diminished one iota. In fact, Pascal gives his reasons why you should believe in God before the wager.
>:O Not really. Believe in the false proposition, and your entire army may be wiped out. Doubt at the wrong time, and again your entire army may be wiped out. War is about truth - you have to find (or most often estimate in Bayesian fashion) the truth, there is no other option. War values the capacity to understand, in your imagination, what is the case, and what the enemy is doing and planning from the few bits of data you do have, and then act accordingly. There is no "maybe that's also a possibility" in war. You have to decide what actually is the case, and then bet on it with all your might until evidence to the contrary surfaces (if it ever does). There's no fence sitting in war - fence sitting means death - and jumping on the wrong side of the fence also means death. You just have to get it right.
Preferably I would seek forgiveness before such a time. But if push comes to shove, I don't have another alternative. I would beg for forgiveness like a coward, and yet I would not expect to ever receive it. That way, I maintain my integrity, as I recognise I don't deserve forgiveness and can't earn it either. And I also recognise my failings, and therefore submit humbly before God for judgement - I will desire my punishment with all my heart. That way one gets out of the dilemma - to either switch from being an atheist to a theist and thus throw away one's integrity in the face of death like a coward OR to remain an atheist and go to the abyss with a cold and hardened heart.
Also remember this for practicality - if someone wants to punish you, and you can't avoid the punishment, ask and demand to be punished yourself. That's the way of wisdom.
Yes, I agree to this.
Quoting m-theory
Yes. Evidence shows that belief in sports and competitions plays a major role in determining the winner or the one who performs better.
Quoting John
Agreed.
Quoting Wayfarer
You're playing with words. You also believe that putting your hand in the flame is painful.
I think the person who has to make a deathbed conversion, takes everything into consideration, their life as a whole with its joys and sadness. The utility of the choice presents a conceivable way out, similar to how the prodigal son saw the return to his family as a way out of his starvation, but it was only by his sincere act of contrition to his father that he was accepted back into the family and they rejoiced.
This is the viewpoint of the person considering the conjecture.
No, I don't believe War is about truth. It is about the immorality of man with man, it is an ethical issue, it is not an epistemological issue. It is about the rough reality of life, which is not cast in any book of logic.
We live in a world where "...only small groups of men who, however, hold in thrall many million of their fellow human beings and who defend their own antiquated interests" (Strauss) When I think about the war in Syria, there is no way I can think of this being the 'truth'. An evil man who is willing to sacrifice the whole of his nation, men, women and children so he can hold on to power. That can't be true in any sense of the term.
I'm not sure you are getting to the crisis which the wager addresses. It is a universal crisis which people have faced throughout our history, well at least after the point in which a God was seriously considered within society(a very long time ago). People who have a conception of a God or creator find themselves on the point of death in the predicament of facing that being face to face, you know, the pearly gates. So some may turn to God at that moment, to offer themselves up. This is quite rational, but what about the atheist, who turns and offers themselves up? What has gone on in their mind to cause this turning to God? And surely if they offer in all sincerity, with all their heart, would they not be accepted and delivered by god?
Maybe, but that's mercy. They certainly don't deserve it, which is what I'm claiming.
Sorry I don't recall the thread, but it sounds interesting. I don't doubt that our thoughts are shared. We all speak a language, and we have access to similar materials, we seem to have similar emotions and experiences. I didn't invent God, I read about him, I was baptised, and brought up in a faith with teachings, traditions, sacraments and rituals. The vast majority of the world grew up in some sort of religion or standardized cultural practice that seems to make sense of why we are and how we ought to act.
Whether people ever make anything out of their upbringing is another story, my guess is that 80/20 rule applies, with 20% of those who say their are Christians actually practicing Christians. (Perhaps nominalism has its roots in theology)
I think then that your question comes down to this: Is existence preferable to nonexistence. You have no choice if there is a god. You will face some sort of judgement. If there is no god then no judgement but also no existence.
You also referenced some "above post" and I looked, I saw the post to John, but no other likely candidates, but then again I never seem to find what I am looking for.
About doxastic voluntarism? I don't see how what you say above is a reply to my comment on that.
Quoting Cavacava
What do you mean by the second of these sentences?
Quoting Cavacava
You asked if I was a Christian, a theist, and believer in God and seemed to be going somewhere with those questions. I replied on the last page I believe.
Well in the sense of truth that you use in this post, then certainly not.
Quoting Cavacava
Certainly, but think about it ... politicians on all sides of the interested parties have to realise the truth - namely what each party wants out of Syria and how to ensure that their nation gets that. People afflicted by the conflict should also realise the truth, because that's what will best enable them to escape or defend themselves. Pretty much everyone needs to understand the truth (ie, reality) in order to play their cards the best way possible. What else can they do? Is there a better alternative?
Quoting Cavacava
Well do you think he'll have a happy ending? Evil will always destroy itself in the end. In the end, Assad will lose even the power he wants to hold so desperately.
Quoting Cavacava
Except in the pragmatic sense that this is what is actually happening - in that sense it is certainly true.
As I stated most people in the world are raised within some sort of religion, and many of these are only religious as a means of identification. You say you're a Christian, an acceptable 'label'. I explained to you that I am agnostic about God, but you refuse to say anything about your conception of God. So ?
If there is a God, then regardless of whether you end up in heaven or hell, you 'end up'. If there is no God then I don't think you 'end-up' anywhere,i.e. you are no longer existing.
The only truth for certain is that scores upon scores of innocent people are dying, and people are being totally dislocated to places where they are not being welcomed. All the major participants and their supporters are responsible, but the world will not hold them responsible (except for the Terrorists whom all sides point at, whose barbarism in the name of religion demonstrates a medieval brutality toward man and his works) since many of these same participants hold the world in thrall.
How can it be changed? I don't know that it can be changed.
Quoting Wayfarer
I think that is very much a matter of how you define knowledge and belief. For Hume, for example, it is merely a belief based on habit that leads us to expect that things will invariably behave as we have always found them to behave. He actually says we have no rational justification for believing such a thing. I tend to disagree with that extreme view and think that is can only be rational (in the sense of 'measured') to base our beliefs on what we have found to be always or even nearly always the case. But it is still always a matter of belief, however rationally based we might think it is. We can never be absolutely certain. Even if we define knowledge as justified, true belief, and even if we think we can be certain that our beliefs are justified, I don't think it could be rational to claim that we can ever know (in the strong sense of 'absolute certainty') that they are true.
Personally I am OK with that. Life right down to the most mundane everyday detail is ultimately an ineluctable mystery. Our problem does not consist in, per impossibile, solving that mystery, but in something else.
Quoting Wayfarer
This makes it sound as though it is a cognitive or a conceptual issue, and I don't think it is. I think the real issue is that people operate with essentially faithless wills. People just do and think mostly what they are told, and mostly for reasons of comfort and security. People don't generally seek to cultivate, and have faith in, their own experience and thoughts about it. People generally cling to some 'ism' or other if they are intellectually inclined. For me the beauty of the symbolism in Christianity is the idea of the relationship between God and Man; which is the idea of the absolutely unique relation of each man to his God. There is no room for any 'ism' in Christianity. I find it interesting that we have Brahmanism, Hinduism, Jainsim, Buddhism, Islamism, Judaism, but there is no Christianism. Don't take me to be saying there is nothing of value in those other religions, though; it's more that I think Christianity completes them all by introducing the primordial divine nature of the personal relation between Man and God, a relation which is prior to anything else.
As Christ in John 8:48-58 says: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Yes, I think this is an extremely important point, and not often understood. I understand that "belief" to consist in a certain kind of lived relation, a relation of love, which is salvation itself, present right now, and is also possible for atheists or adherents of other isms. It culminates, realizes itself fully, in Christian faith, though.
A fundamental task in philosophy, surely. Hume's scepticism was precisely the subject of Kant's criticism, which I think was effective.
Quoting John
So long as we're not confusing 'mystery' with 'mystification'. I think the sub-text of much of Platonism, is that what we ordinarily take for granted, what we think we know, is in a strong sense, delusory. That is the basis of actual scepticism, not all the nonsense about 'is my hand real' or 'are people zombies'.
Quoting John
According to Christians, who invented the labels.
I don't think Kant's philosophy really addresses Hume's point about the irrationality of expecting things to be as they have been. I think it addresses the separate but related problem that causation cannot be observed.
For even if the world is constructed by the transcendental ego that still would not give us any reason to suppose that it will be constructed tomorrow as it was today.
Quoting Wayfarer
Of course one must be able to get outside, past, beyond or above something in order to be able to categorize it. It remains true that there seems to be much more of ideology in most other religions than in Christianity. Christianity replaces ideology and the associated laws with love, that is its greatest difference. In other religions there are implacable laws; Karma, Allah's word, the Torah or what-have-you. That's my impression in any case. :)
So what? I don't know what you're getting at. Why do I have to have a conception of God? The onus is on you to provide one if you wish me to wager that he exists.
Suppose you have a choice between, two cups of tea (I know you probably hate tea) one cup comes with a potential treat (something you consider a treat) the other with nothing, which would you pick?
All I am saying is that the expectation of additional utility to the choice of believing in God, given the circumstances , may cause real conversions. My viewpoint is agnostic re G at the moment but I am thinking ahead.
As strange as this sounds I was in a very similar situation some 9 years ago. Without bothering with details my head nearly exploded (literally, as a facial artery ruptured) resulting in my recovery being quite questionable at best.
I suppose this was as close to an existenital crisis as I've ever had and indeed there was some sort of fear associated with the entire happening. There were indeed a few religious minded people who did confront me with such a question or should I say bargin?
Anyway... the fear never seemed to justify an appeal to a supernatural ally as to work as a placebo to vanquish my fears.
As for any need of forgiveness, I've never quite understood why I should need a sort of proxy of an invisible unknowable agent of forgiveness rather than confront the individual(s) themself that should be the one(s) I have "wronged"; thus the one(s) who I need to make an appeal for forgiveness. Perhaps I should have called this agent a proxy placebo, but I'm not quite sure about the term of this agent to serve as a viable substitution of granting forgiveness.
As for my future...
... it will be unfinished in terms of what I want to do. Indeed I have intentions and plans and goals and desires that will be unfulfilled. This includes a lot of things I wanted to do or say that will be unsaid and undone. Rather than dwell on this inablity to finish everything I just get done and say what I can and not worry to much about it all coming to an abrupt end. I would include the desire or notion of needing forgiveness to this long list of unfinished and unfulfilled things. I accept it as part of the deal of mortality.
My wife tells me that I requested at one point for all the religious superstitious minded folks to leave the room if they could not shut up about this nonsense and get on with the necessary medicine needed. I cannot remember this, but it does sound a lot like what I'd probably say.
More than likely this only says stuff about me and not Pascal's wager, but I figured the question you posted was more of a personal nature in asking "what will/would you choose to do and perhaps a few words why".
I can see what you mean by a sort of existential element being involved in Pascal's wager. The problem for me personally is that I haven't really that existential need of such a bargin or such a placebo to rid myself of ear or such a proxy as to grant me peace of mind in terms of being forgiven. Perhaps my worldview is just too absurdist or relativistic to find such existential baggage worth taking on the trip of experiencing life. It probably doen't really matter anyway.
Meow!
GREG
Now, if, as you've said before, God can mean anything one wants, then I could define God as an evil demon, a la Descartes, or as a being who sends non-believers to heaven and believers to hell. In that case, I ought not to place my faith in him, which repudiates the outcome you argue for.
So our conversation seems to be caught in an infinite loop, the only way out of which is to state what you mean by God, once again. Let's see if you can do it this time.
Hey, good to hear from you and thank you for your addition.
It's funny how life works out. I moved to Florida about 16 years ago, good job offer and my father who was getting on in years lived close by. Over the course of my youth we had decent father/son relationship, he worked a lot. That changed when I moved here. We developed a friendship that matured and enriched our familial relationship.
Last year he died. I went through the whole process with him, he knew he was not going to recover. The only thing he wanted was his family near him, he never asked for a priest, he went into hospice and he passed away the first night.
As I get older I wonder what my thoughts will be.
When the existential crisis arrives (whatever it is) there is no particular model we have to follow. Rather, I think, we will follow whatever course presents itself, and that might be the course we have most often taken. If it makes sense at that time, if it harmonizes with who one is, then that is the "right" one.
For some people, it is very important that other people should have a deathbed religious crisis of some sort. They want the departing person to See The Light, or something. At my death bedside one of my dear sisters will be sitting there attempting to direct my departure according to her conservative Baptist plan. Just shoot me.
A gladsome Yuletide greeting to you and yours. The days are getting longer now and are supposed to be getting colder. We have the regulation minimum of snow on the ground, but freezing rain and thunderstorms are forecast for Christmas day. It does happen. in 2009 Christmas Eve streets were flooded with rain, then it all froze and stayed frozen until March.
Forget the halls and boughs of holly, fa la la la la la.
Decking walls with thorns is folly , fa la la la la la.
Reminds me of this quip from Bierce:
CHRISTIAN, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.
Happy Holidays to you and yours as well BC. ;)
Meow!
GREG
Mortality, ours and the mortality of others, does have an effect/affect upon how we think, act and does to some degree foster bits of wishful thinking. It might well result in our building up laundry lists of things to get done or regrets of what could have been or was done. Of course religious notions or notions regarding questions of "is this all there is" lead to notions of deities and supernatural notions of "beyond nature". I can certainly understand why such a question can build up inside you considering the circumstances.
I have the feeling that such contributions of wishes to have done or to be able to undone lead me nowhere and just waste what little time I have; thus my tendency to categorically disinclude them in my experience of living life (well... I will discuss the topics, but as for such things being a factor in my life experience... nah.)
Perhaps one of the main purposes of religious beliefs and beliefs in god(s) is to make the inevitability of death seem a bit less distressful.
One might have the notion that closure is an important thing to have as well, but I'm only guessing here, as closure is not really one of the things I value so greatly.
I'm sorry I'm not being too philosophical. I've kind of punted on that kind of approach. I'm just spitballin' here.
Meow!
GREG
I have told you that the concept of "God" in the wager, applies to any "God" that one believe in, and that the majority of people believe in a Good God, as a positive force of love and goodness and I explained my position as being agnostic.
I don't know which way I'll wager, that's why I asked for the input, for explanation of what each of you think. I appreciate and I am quite overwhelmed by all the fine responses, so thanks and Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate! (Thorongil...Festivus starts with the listing of complaints)
Ah but that can be turned around so fast. Perhaps lack of belief in God is there in order to make the consequences of our sins less frightening. Perhaps what atheists are really afraid of is the afterlife, hence the denial.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
But why would you renounce the effects of the placebo? Any improvement is still an improvement after all. If belief in God raises your chances of survival by 30% because of the placebo effect, that's great! Combine the placebo and the medicine, and maximise the effect.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
But you'll "waste" that time anyway. Anything you do, in the end won't matter. My point isn't that you should meditate on your regrets, etc. but rather that folks who do this don't exactly "waste" their time either.
Whether they don't deserve it? well I heard that whomsoever turns to God is allowed in. That all that is required for salvation is to turn to God. That in our ignorance we can't judge which way the weighing scales will fall.
Yes but it is his Mercy which saves you, not his Justice, which condemns you. There's a big big difference there. And being saved only works once you understand that in truth you deserve punishment. Then being saved makes sense. But if you think you don't deserve punishment, then you can't be saved.
I suppose that could be the case provided I thought there were sins in the absolute since of moral meaning as well as believe there is such thing as an afterlife. I see no reason tfor the absolute polarity value vector of sins and I see no reason whatsoever to believe there is an afterlife. As for lumping all atheists into this notion, I wouldn't do that, as I can only speak for myaself and not for all atheists. Perhaps there are atheists who believe in some sort of absolute moral correctness and believe there is an afterlife of sorts, but I'm not one of them.
Atheists are simply those who do not believe a theistic god(s) exist. That's just a single variable. I would not wish to add on connotations of "believing in sin" or "afterlife" as a must be so or it must follow that based upon a single variable.
Quoting Agustino
Is there any evidence that indicates that belief in god raises one's chances of survival by 30%?
Is there any evidence that a placebo really provides an improvement in my life?
Is there any evidence that indicates that a placebo mixed with traditional medicine will result in a maximised effect?
Is there any evidence for god existing?
Crap! That brings us back to the beginning.
Quoting Agustino
I don't recall indicating that I stated that those who meditate on their regrets are wasting their time. I just said that about myself.
I don't see any way to unring a bell. Once something is done I live with the consequences. I do make efforts to adapt future notions based upon these collective of consequences, but I don't make a point to simply dwell upon them for the sake of dwelling upon them.
In what context do you have in mind with wasting time?
I simply attribute and assert purpose (a notion of value) in my life, but it's never absolute or ultimate. Purpose adapts with the influx of experiences/information. I suppose one could say I have no fixed points in value notions. Indeed some adaptions in value for me are quicker and some are slower, but nothing stays fixed. Context matters.
This is why I don't believe that value notions that are relative (in that they are not absolute or ultimate) are certainly irrelevant (such as being a waste of time). I don't interpret life experiences in term of ultimately, as I simply do not have enough experience/information to do so.
This might explain why I will deal with a question about a meaning of life (as relative and relevant), but completely blow off a question of the meaning of life (as absolute/ultimate and irrelevant).
Sure I'll deal with ideals, but I'm in no way an idealist.
What were we talking about?
Sorry... this one kind of got away from me.
I suppose what I'm ranting about is that to make a statement like "But you'll "waste" that time anyway. Anything you do, in the end won't matter" I need a context. If the context is a set of all sets absolute/ultimate for everyone, everywhere and every case... I'll probably say that's irrelevant. No one has the ability to have that much experience/information as to have the set of all sets regarding absolute/ultimate; thus why bother with such a standard of measure?
Perhaps this is part of why I simply cannot believe in god(s). God(s) are all to often "understood" as being a set of all sets... an unknowable. I fail to see how an unknowable is is anyway helpful when answering a question regarding what is currently unknown. Actually I fail to see that answering the currently unknown with the absolute unknowable is in any way an answer. I'm a bit like Tillich in this regard. Belief in god(s) is not an act of knowledge.
Meow!
GREG
But my point isn't this. It's not whether they believe it, because by this logic, neither does the theist believe that death is the end. The atheist, when he says that the theist resorts to belief in God because of fear of death (annihilation), does exactly the same as the theist would if he were to say that the atheist disbelieves in God because of fear of responsibility/accountability after death. So those arguments you have pointed against me, are equally valid against the atheist position. That's all I'm saying.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Sure - but my point was a rhetorical one aimed to show mainly the silliness of making an argument like religious belief exists because of fear of death. If that were the case, then we have to also accept the argument that disbelief in God exists because of fear of responsibility and accountability. Just the same way the atheist uses a psychological motivation to account for the existence of belief in God, so can the theist use one to account for the existence of the disbelief in God.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
There is evidence that the placebo effect betters one's condition by approximately 30%
http://patient.info/doctor/placebo-effect
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Yes.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
I haven't researched it, but it would seem intuitively obvious. In either case, I find it rational to play all possible cards that you have at your disposal.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
It's more about the will than the intellect I find. Some of us find belief in God appealing - others don't.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Yeah, I do agree that there's no point crying over spilt milk - but if one has cried over it, there's no point in worrying about that either. Hence ultimately it doesn't matter whether one cries or not.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
We all kind of do that, because we all need to adapt to our circumstances. But that's not to say that who we are fundamentally changes. I think character stays quite constant.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
The context is simple. If you spilled the milk and cried, there's no reason to cry more for crying in the first place. In that sense, crying is never a "waste" of time - or it always is a waste of time. Means pretty much the same thing.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
It's more about how one relates to the unknown.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
True, it's an act of faith.
"Any God" and "Good God" are not the same thing. :-|
Whatever, though. We seem to be done here.
The Pensees is on my list to read at some point, but do you think you could summarize these? If not, that's okay, as I'm probably asking a lot.
This is encompassed in my phrase "turn to God". For a person to turn to God during the soul searching in the crisis of the athiest* on the death bed, it is the subject stripped of their self conception who in humility offers themselves up. If the subject is in a state of denial as you suggest, they are not at the point of crisis, but rather of denial. As such they have not turned to God.
* in reality this crisis is not only faced by the atheist, but by all who are not devout, or at peace with themselves.
Well, I'm not all together sure what to make of this statement, as I have never once thought about fear of responsibility/accountablility after death. From what I gather there isn't anything after death we can really make any claims about, as so far there has never been a report given by someone who has any insight into after death. The dead simply don't give us any reports, so why worry about speculations of responsibility/accountability much less any fear of such a speculation.
It seems as if you wish for my motivations to be grounded in some sort of fear of the unknown. Truth is I know nothing about the unknown so I see no reason to fear it.
Quoting Agustino
I would point out that the belief in a god is the central pillar of a theistic worldview, where the disbelief in a theistic god is not necessarily a central pillar for an atheists worldview.
I'm not sold that a disbelief in a theistic god acts as a point of centering the being as it does for those who belive in a theistic god existing.
Quoting Agustino
This is a placebo in a medical trial. Fine. Is that the same as a placebo in a non-medical trial?
Quoting Agustino
Funny, as one thing you'd have to take into consideration with a medical trial would be interactions. Quite often there are chemical combination that would have a less than desirable effect upon a patient if combinations of meds are taken together. I would think that would be safe to assume this would apply to placebos take with actual medicine, as both are chemicals.
So let's pretend for a moment we are not speaking of chemicals, but if ideas/notions. Would it be possible that there are combinations of ideas/notions that are not a good combination; thus leading to more problems than solutions?
The interactions of faith based placebos (acts of centering the being) may indeed conflict and impede progress of empirical investigations (acts of knowledge); thus any combination or mixture of ideas/notions will not guarantee a benefit.
Quoting Agustino
So if it is more appealing or not should be the foundation for fielding an answer?
uhh... I'm not on board with this one.
There are a great deal of things that are far less than appealing for my senses which are indeed the case. I find that handcuffing knowledge and reality to fitting my personal preferences is not really a good method of investigation, but I suppose to each their own.
Quoting Agustino
Sure... ultimately, but I really pay little attention to ultimately. There are just too many factors and no one can take that standard of measure into consideration, so why bother with that futility? I fail to see any upside to holding my finite (knowable) life up to an infinite (unknowable) standard of measure.
Quoting Agustino
I find that character develops and adapts.
Quoting Agustino
Actually I find that context is extremely difficult to isolate, but rather simple to assume one has isolated it; thus we get various people assuming they have absolute, ultimate and highly specific answers for generalized questions they have assumed are immune from adaptations and variations. Only by negating the possibility of accumulation of information leading to an adaptation of assumption can an idealist thrive.
Quoting Agustino
How one relates to the unknown can be boiled down to an either/or. (did see that one coming from me, eh ;) )
Either one choose to investigate it or chooses not to investigate it.
If one chooses to investigate it and has not conclusive answer I suppose one makes assumptions, possibly a hypothesis, eventually a theory... in short investigates and trys to apply logic to the question.
If one chooses not to investigate it, then they don't make assumptions or a hypothesis or a theory, but if they do make an assumption or a hypothesis or a theory then this would be made out of ignorance.
Now it still doesn't really deal with my issue of answering the unknown with the unknowable.
Is the unknowable an answer or is it not?
I'd say it is not.
Quoting Agustino
How is this religious faith any different than simply saying "because" or "it is evident" without any foundation to support this other than saying "because" or "it is evident"?
Simply proclaiming it is evident is not a form of evidence. Stating it is evident is a conclusion prior to the argument being fielded. One of my issues about arguments for god is that I find in the end they are simply statements of faith wearing an arguments clothing. Nothing has been argued as much as it has been proclaimed.
Anyway, evidence sort of underminds faith. If you have facts to support something faith becomes redundant, whereas faith renders facts redundant.
Meow!
GREG
Likewise, it seems to me that atheists wish theist's beliefs to be grounded in some fear of annihilation... My point is that both arguments are absurd - even the theist one. Such arguments should never be used. I merely used a silly argument against you to show you that your own argument against theists was silly.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Maybe not for you, but there certainly are many such atheists in the world. Or do you mean to tell me that there are no psychological advantages at all in being an atheist? I freely admit there are psychological advantages in being a theist for example - reduced fear of death, ability to hope to meet loved ones again, and so forth. And I can clearly see advantages to being an atheist - not having to worry what happens after death, being able to let go of your wrong-doings more easily, not being so concerned about responsibility, etc.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Well I think that your life clinging by the thread and doctors and others trying to save you is a medical trial, is it not?
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
A placebo is generally a sugar pill. I'm unaware of medicines which have harmful interactions with sugar. So I'm quite sure it doesn't apply to placebos.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
In-so-far as people blabber about God and so forth in the room yes. But in-so-far as your inward attitude, which is what I'm discussing here, no. Your inner belief in God would have had no bad effect on the medical procedures going on (it may have had a positive one though due to placebo). But the folks blabbering about God around, would likely have had a negative impact on the medical procedures, and thus, yes, they should have gone out.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Not should be - I never claimed that. I claimed that for many, as a matter of fact, it is. Most people who are atheists or theists don't hold those positions because of hundreds of hours of thought, debate and reading, and consideration.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
This doesn't mean that it fundamentally changes though.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
And prayer/meditation in an effort to develop a relationship with God doesn't count as investigating it?
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Who said God is (completely) "unknowable"? The unknown isn't necessarily also unknowable.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
The reason why most arguments end up this way is that people who don't believe will never agree with the reasons/explanations offered by those who believe, and will instead find any other possible explanation for them that they can. This is a silly game. Any fact can be explained in a multitude of ways. You choose to believe it a certain way, I choose to believe it a different way. There's nothing really to discuss, except share that one of us has faith and the other doesn't.
Faith doesn't even engage on that level. It's more or less a rhetorical device, an affirmation of a way of life, of practice, of value, in the face of possibility.
In terms a description of the world, it's incohrent. If I understand God exists, for example, any of you question of doubt is resolved. My postion is I know God is true. To what I know, faith doesn't even enter the picture. In possessing this knowledge, I know there is no need for faith as an excuse of belief. If one knows, they don't need to appeal to the unknown.
Faith is about locking in a particular way of thinking or acting, not describing what is true.
The fear arguments actually work in terms of describing a lot of human behaviour. In either case, they are arguments about someone's motivation to hold a particular position. For many people, the atheist/theist line does depend on these fears. If they didn't fear death or God's action, they would not be theist or atheist respectively. The argument just has nothing to do with good reasons, be they descriptive or ethical, for believing or disbelieving God.
Maybe, except they're not used merely to describe behaviour. They're used to look down on behaviour. Eh, that weakling, he believes in God, must be a coward who is too scared of death. So if atheists look down on theists for such petty reasons - theists should be able to do the same. An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.
They don't need to agree. In this respect, they are ignorant of themselves. As for the point, it's about understandi the relationship of knowledge to faith.
Also, some theists would agree. My argument here is not that God and knowledge of God is impossible, it is that "faith" fails to respect knowledge.
In ethical and descriptive terms, a theist should be arguing that belief in God is justified because it's what's true.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - why don't you start from there?
I do: that's why it merely rehtorical. In faith, one hopes for God, for an unknown to turn out how they wish. In terms of an argument, it like saying: "I hope the coin turns up heads."
Some people complain faith doesn't give a reason for belief, but that's too kind. Faith doesn't even take a position on the world or ethics-- it's just someone saying "I wish."
There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your vain philosophy...
Alas, you fail to note the category of things for which there is no evidence, but which require belief in order to be possible, and hence real, and hence true. Some things are made true in virtue of being believed. So no, it's not like saying I hope/believe the coin turns up heads, because my hoping/believing that the coin turns up heads, has nothing to do with it actually turning up heads. It's more like saying I hope my wife will be faithful to me, because if I don't hope that, I won't marry her, and then certainly her being faithful won't even be possible. But my hoping in that case is the substance of things hoped for (that which will bring it about) and the evidence of things not seen - who really knows if she'll be faithful or not? Except that by faith, one can make it the case. By lacking faith, one will certainly lose.
That's precisely why faith acts as a rehtorical enforcer. The world anyone hopes for gets attached to faith, creating a situation where people think faith is required to hope.
Hope becomes confused with belief, which in turn becomes confused with truth, such that people think they need to have faith or else what they hope for won't come true. But, of course, hope has nothing to do with it-- turth is what matters.
A faithful wife is defined by the truth of her actions. Hope doesn't matter. A woman you despair would cheat might never do so. It's her actions, not your hopes, that define that. Her faithfuness is entirely possible, despite your lack of hope.
Similarly with God. What matters with God is not hope, but truths of the world and ethics. The theist follows God because of what God means for the world, and that it improves our actions and lives.
Nope, because I won't marry her if i don't have faith in her. Faith is a pre-requisite for her faithfulness.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
Faith is hoping and acting on that hope. It's being committed.
Which is why it's rehtorical-- faith is convincing you to marry her. It has nothing to do with with truth, nothing to do with describing her or her behaviour.
Faith is not required for her faithfuness (she might be faithful to someone else she's involved with), just marriage to you.
It does have something to do with truth, because if I don't have faith in her, I don't marry her, and thus there will be no truth of her being faithful to me.
To you, as you have refused to marry her. But that's your action, not her loyalty to her partner.
In the context of belief in God, this would merely mean you choose not to follow God. You would just marry some other belief instead. This is why it's particularly rehtorical-- you are demanding faith in God to get people to follow God. It's not an argument made on truth (ethical or descriptive reason to believe in God), but an act made to cause followers of God.
We were discussing faithfulness towards me though in this particular circumstance, I thought that was evident.
Your faith isn't just following God, it's your commitment to God. It's this commitment and the actions that follow from it that are the fruits.
Fruits which are irrelevant to the faith argument. It doesn't mention them. It can't, for that would take knowledge. Instead of arguing what is true (the fruits of the theist belief), the faith argument only deals with appeals to fear and hope. It's a rehtorical argument made to cause commitment to God without considering truth.
Substitute faith in God with Hitler, what's the difference? If you reason with me why there is a difference and that one should commit to God over Hitler, then why not reason, instead of have faith, that one need not believe in God?
I don't think this is a wish of mine, but rather an observation.
The doctrine of theistic beliefs have the notion of some sort of "eye in the sky" authoritarian surveillance with the ability and licence for eternal judgement.
This is not me criticising the notions of theistic beliefs as much as I am simply describing the beliefs.
My not believing in a theistic deity subsequently eliminates this "eye in the sky" authoritarian surveillance with the ability and licence for eternal judgement; thus no reason to fear.
Quoting Agustino
Is this really an advantage?
If this were the case, why don't these theistic individuals all wish to die?
Why do they cry at a funeral?
It always seems rather inconsistant to me. On one side they are overjoyed to be with their loved ones who have passed away in this eternal paradise (my take is that it is a holy celestial North Korea) and yet have such sad funerals. Exactly how well does this delusion function really?
Quoting Agustino
The definition of a medical trial (or clnical trial): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_trial
What you are refering to is medical practice. Personally I would rather have a medical professional practice medicine if I were hanging on to life by a thread rather than conduct a medical (clinical) trial.
Quoting Agustino
You mean mumbling to yourself using a post hoc ergo propter hoc approach to the outcomes... uhh... no it doesn't count.
Quoting Agustino
Every bit of theistic doctrine presents a god beyond comprehension (aka "unknowable"); thus it is not a criticism, but rather a description. Everyone one of these god incarnations in theistic notions are somehow supernatural; thus beyond comprehension... thus unknowable. (although I find it to be quite odd how these believers always seem quite convinced that they know exact character trait as well as like and dislike of these unknowable creatures... uhh... really?)
Quoting Agustino
Then these people of faith should finally have the good taste and stop arguing. They have nothing to back a claim and thus nothing to present other than an unfounded personal notion of what they prefer the universe to be without any critical investigation.
I cannot for the life of me understand a virtue in faith of this religious manner of speaking. Why live a life of false pattern recognition for the sake of ease? Why dumb down investigation for the sake of having an answer to be consistant with a preconception bias? Why insist there must be an organizing force for the sake of making one feel better?
I know many don't care for Richard Dawkins, but I like this comment he mentioned:
"We constantly create false positives. We touch wood for luck, we see faces in toasted cheese, fortunes in tea leaves. These provide a comforting illusion of meaning. This is the human condition in our bewildering and complex world. (and) In the irrational mindset, if you believe in the mystical pattern you have imposed on reality you call yourself 'spiritual'."
The problem as I see it is that many of the theistic notions lead to rather totalitarian forces that place an end to investigation. Indeed, if you start with the answer prior to the investigation, then you have a bias that is unavoidable and will in the end be defended at all costs. I view this sort of mindset to be a cancer of the mind or a surrender of the mind. It has an extreme arrogance of certainity without ever making an effort to investigate. It has a final answer before the first question is ever asked. As I said... I cannot see much virtue associated with such a surrender of the mind. This is what really needs to be discussed and why it is constantly being discussed. Live and let live is one thing, but that is not written into any doctine of these theistic notions. As I see it there is much to be discussed because if not there may be no discussion allowed in the name of this sort of totalitarian invisible proxy of constraint and censure.
Meow!
GREG
In short...
“Science adjusts its views based on what's observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.”
? Tim Minchin
Meow!
GREG
Yes, the theist will say likewise.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
As the theist does not believe that death is the end, he has no reason to fear it. Quite simple. Don't you see how stupid all of this is? You caricature the theist, the theist can just as easily caricature you.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Yeah, describing them in a way that no theist would agree to them. I guess we should take that as clearly a fair description.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Because it's not up to them to decide when to leave the world. It's also immoral to desire to die sooner than your time, because it is disobeying God's will. Furthermore, you could add that since death is inevitable and its time is decided by God, there is no reason to wish for it, since whether you wish it, or you don't, it will come at its allotted time anyway.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Because, at least until death, they will be separated from the loved one? They cry more for themselves than for the person who has died. Only the atheist is under the delusion that he's crying for the person who has died ;)
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
How quaint that no theist describes Heaven in these terms, don't you think so? It seems quite evident to me that your dislike for authority is one of the main reasons behind your atheism - and yes, an emotional, not a rational reason, exactly as I have claimed before.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Yes, moving from medical trial to clinical trial is called moving goal posts.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Medicine isn't so "clear-cut" that someone can just "practice medicine".
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
No, being beyond comprehension does not mean unknowable, it simply means being (currently) unknown. The theists draw a distinction here and say that God is entirely intelligible, however, not entirely intelligible for finite human intellects. Definitely they don't claim God is incomprehensible in an ontological sense - only partly incomprehensible for the finite human intellect - the same way a black hole is incomprehensible.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
How uninformed this is. Unknowable creature(s) with reference to God >:O . God is creator, not creature. That is a fundamental tenet of theism, how peculiar that your attacks merely show your ignorance of that which you want to attack.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
And who are you to issue warrants regarding what should be done and what shouldn't be done? The moral authority itself? Have you killed God to put yourself on the throne? See, that's the problem with your kind of atheism - you can't even issue moral injunctions. Once you undermine any and all authority, you undermine even your own self.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
It's not for the sake of making one feel better, it's simply because this appears evidently true to some. You can wake up and look at the splendor of the world and say "just happened by chance", not everyone can.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Yeah, I wish to ask you the same thing.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Just because Mr. Dawkins cannot reach up to the grapes does not mean they are sour.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
How do they place an end to investigation? Investigation, ie experiment, is what deals with the empirical realm. Theism deals with metaphysics. What does investigation have to do with metaphysics? Nothing. Metaphysics cannot stop any investigation, neither can any investigation change metaphysics. The two are independent.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
We always start with presuppositions which are not proven. Furthermore, there is no investigation (experiment) in metaphysics the way there is investigation in physics.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
What is there to investigate, in the sense of experiment? This is the wrong-headed approach from the very beginning. One needs to think through metaphysics, and identify the principles that are required to be accepted in order to make sense of ANY KIND of physics whatsoever. Then one needs to draw whatever conclusions there are to draw out of such principles. As for arrogance, the atheist is quite arrogant himself when, for example, he thinks the universe should be under some compulsion to follow its laws such that miracles are impossible.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
Right. The governance of society is a different subject than the attitude one is to have to other individuals. Live and let live is simply an attitude individuals should have with respect to one another - because there's nothing else they can do about each other. But I quite possibly believe that the good governance of society involves setting up a strong culture which enforces the virtues and religious practices which have always been essential for human communities through means such as education, social pressure, and so forth.
Medical trials is laymans terms for clinical trials.
Meow!
GREG
No...
... unknowable means cannot be known.
Definition of unknowable
: not knowable; especially : lying beyond the limits of human experience or understanding
Meow!
GREG
Give me one example of a theistic god that is knowable; that which can be perceived directly and not via "inspiration"... where god reveals god's self to the believer as the believer believes god has reviealed god's self... a very circular notion. Give me something that can hold up as evidence and not something that is just evident.
Meow!
GREG
Ok, even so, what does that have to do with anything? First you make an unsubstantiated distinction between a placebo in a medical trial, and a placebo in a medical intervention - what reason do you even have to suppose there may be such a distinction? That's just the same level as thinking that eating grass might cure cancer, and we need to go out and test it - investigate it, as you love to say - to see if it really does. No we don't. Nobody does science like that. We have no reason to think eating grass cures cancer, and thus we have no reason to test it.
It's evident that you're just trying to wiggle out of the truth in order to have reality fit with your preconceived worldview.
Ok so? I fail to see anything that follows out of this. Does it follow that incomprehensible is unknowable? No, because what is incomprehensible today, may be comprehensible tomorrow - and thus can be known.
To be knowable to you means to be perceived directly using the five senses. That's not necessarily what being knowable is in the first place. The theorem of Pythagoras cannot be perceived directly for example. There is no physical theorem for you to touch or see. It is an object of the intellect. But this doesn't mean that the theorem doesn't exist either.
As for an example of a theistic God that is/was directly knowable. The resurrected Jesus Christ.
One is an emprical test to see if there is an actual beneficial application to the cure disease and the other is the actual practice employing tested medicine for the curing of disease.
No offense here, but if I'm on my deathbed I'd prefer that the doctors use empirically tested medicines rather than use me as a test subject to see what happens to happen.
Meow!
GREG
I have a dinner to attend.
Meow!
GREG
Yes and the empirical test concludes that there is actual benefit in its application to cure disease. It follows then that it should be employed in the practice.
Quoting Mayor of Simpleton
You're thinking too black and white. You may be on your deathbed and no "empirically tested" medicine is able to cure you for certain, however, some yet untried medicine (which by the way isn't the equivalent of the placebo, because the placebo has been tried before) may be able to give you a small chance. Would you go for the empirically tested medicine in that case?
The cat leaves with the tail between its legs ;)
I personally don't think man can live without some sort of religion, even if that is a hallowed routine, that one faithfully practices. Truth existentially means "troth" fidelity to one's beliefs. Maybe Agostino is right, God is more interested how men live their life, then he is regarding their belief/non-belief in his existence.
Maybe being in troth with your own beliefs is more important than what is believed.
Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone! :D
Why is everyone saying Merry Christmas today? :P It's the 24th, not the 25th no (unless you are from Japan?) ? And as far as I know Christmas is 25th, 24th is merely Christmas Eve.
Stranger still... Not only can they find no rational basis for the belief in God, they demand that one is given, and if one doesn't give it then:
Combined with all the allusions to North Korea, totalitarianism and the like. This goes to show one thing - namely that the problem most atheists have with theism isn't an intellectual one (does God exist or not?) but rather an emotional and a political one - a problem of the will as Pascal would say. If there is a God - then certain things which they don't like follow. Not giving them a reason for your own belief in God will merely lead to them unmasking themselves. They're not asking for a reason because honestly they want to consider the question of is there or is there not a God - no - they want a reason to tear it down. If you give them reasons, they can fight back - but if you don't give them reasons, suddenly they are left powerless, and in that desperation will reveal that it's not intellect that is driving them, but the will - it's really about the ramifications of theism - the emotional and political ones especially.
The problem with God for them, is really the morality that comes attached with it. They're not so outraged at the existence or inexistence of God. They're outraged that homosexual sex is immoral (for example) if God exists - that's the North Korea authoritarianism for them. But they can't attack that ground, because they figured the morality/immorality of that depends on the underlying metaphysics. So the metaphysics therefore must be attacked - they say strike at the root, that is their strategy. But if someone doesn't want to debate the metaphysics with them, suddenly they don't know what to do! This guy is a theist and refuses to give reasons for his belief! Outrageous! And thus, their political concerns, which motivated them all along, but which until then they would cleverly hide, inevitably come to the front. They want to attack theism because of its consequences. And showing this is sufficient to discredit them intellectually - in truth the strategy enables them to discredit themselves. That combined with taking every chance to show their intellectual dishonesty at their many attempts to provoke one to offer reasons for belief in God certainly more than suffices. The theist wins best on the defensive, not on the offensive. Hence apologetics - defending the faith.
And the fact that these motivations of the will show themselves openly enables them to be unmasked and shown to be irrational. For example, their hatred of authority becomes evident - evident from the false association of authority with authoritarianism. But the truth is that authoritarianism undermines the very authority it claims to so love, because it removes the very reasons one has for obeying authority - namely that it makes sense, it is rational. In authoritarianism, the authority decrees whatever is to its liking, without regard to whether the decree is rational or not. But because it does so, it undermines its very authority which previously provided reasons for following. Now that it's not rational anymore, what's the reason for following it? Authority becomes transformed into irrational tyranny, which destroys all respect for it. So this is their clever ploy - in order to discredit authority, conflate it and the love of authority, with authoritarianism. That's how we go from Heaven to North Korea!
Quoting Cavacava
Is that really so? I don't think so at all - I think quite the opposite in fact. If we look at how things are, we see that people pay lip-service to God, by putting, for example "In God we Trust" on their money. But do they really trust in God? Doesn't seem like it to me at all. Do they put insurance clauses specifically precluding God's interference from liability because they want a reason to save money and to look good or because they really believe in God's interference? Do people call themselves Christians because they really follow the teachings and morality given in the Bible, or because they want to be seen and thought about well? In fact, I'd go as far as say that the world (really meaning the Western world) has never been farther from God than it is today, and it's never been close to God for most of its history either.
Quoting Cavacava
What are these indications of mass belief that you see? And what's the evidence that hermits go nuts? Some monks are hermits for very long periods of time - years upon years. And they are perfectly sane.
Quoting Cavacava
I agree. Either God or Mammon, but it has to be one of them.
Quoting Cavacava
Most likely.
Quoting Cavacava
I don't deny that people pay lip service to the idea of God,however his presence is literally all over the place in USA, and what pertains to belief in him is still argued at the highest levels (Citizens United). The clash of the Moslem and the Christian cultures, is felt around the world. Smell that dark roast coffee.
Hey, I never met a hermit, have you? If you have literally met a hermit and he made sense to you, then clearly I am wrong, but in everything I've read, they all seem off a bit to me.
The indications of mass belief are found in the christian spine that supports most of our popular narratives. Society accepts and we expect to be happy for everafter. Our social spine depends on the values we share. Again, I think the 80/20 rule applies: 80% pay lip service to their faith, but 20% are ardent, in absolute numbers that's a lot of ardent people
We seem to agree on rest, except of course that you believe in God and I don't know.
I've gone to visit the Eastern Orthodox monks for a short time on Mount Athos, and I have visited and discussed with hermits there, including some monks who had returned from being hermits to living at the monasteries. There's absolutely nothing wrong or off with these people. Modern psychological theory, for social reasons, has transformed the desire to be alone or the desire for seclusion into a sort of mental illness. Many other ideas are associated with mental illness as well - for example chastity. But many of these people actually seem quite strong mentally, and they are very kind and otherwise can be very sociable and compassionate. I was actually impressed at their compassion and understanding of subtle social issues and cues...
Also there's a question of whether any kind of companionship is worth it. I have distanced myself from most of my old-time friends for example, because their values and things they like to do have become very different from mine. It's not that I don't like companionship, I do desire it, but it's simply that I cannot find the kind of companionship I desire in most people I get the chance to meet. So therefore it is better to be without companionship than to be with the wrong kind of companionship. So although I meet a lot of people in my work life, I have few close friends at the moment.
Quoting Cavacava
Yes, but in a democracy, the 80% control the nation's future.
Well in the case of the last election here in the states, 279 votes were all that counted, HRC received 2.8 million more popular votes than Trump, but she lost. The GOP out strategized the DEMS, no doubt about it. The majority supposedly picks the candidates, but as we saw last election here in the US (that bastion of Democracy) the primary process can/was fixed in favor of HRC. I like Italy's M5S decision to have its primary on line for its 137K members to vote, this seems fairer, if it can control the process.
Those who are most ardent about their religion tend to show up and they voice their feelings....also those who give deeply are deeply heard. Those who are nominative christians (the 80%) are typically happy to follow along with whatever their religion decides as long as it does not dive too deeply into their pockets or go brazenly against standard societal norms. I think society deep down realizes that it is better off with religion than without it, in my opinion. Or at least society does not seem to have matured to the point where it can operate in an orderly fashion for any extended period of time without Religious normative values. Even the Nazis understood society's need for religion, and they tried to establish its own churches. The conscious blending of religion with nationalism is a highly volatile mix.
Sometimes. Here "faith" (in the sense of an argument for a belief, as opposed a description of a belief) is a about a little bit more than that. It doesn't consider faith to be a truthful argument, but rather something entirely outside knowledge altogether-- one just "believes" rather than knows something about ethics or the world.
In effect, this does mean ignoring evidence in favour of belief (as one believes no matter what), but the notion faith runs deeper. It doesn't understand itself to be knowledge at all. (hence Agustino's turn to the "unknowable" here).
That's ridiculous, because neither you, nor anyone else knows the truth, in this regard. Merry Christmas to all.
No problem, you're welcome.
Quoting Cavacava
Yes but the absolute majority doesn't make sense to me to begin with in a country as large as America. It seems to me as representation of the country by geographical area has to be taken into account, otherwise a few urban regions like New York will swallow up most people (as they have already done) and then this majority would rule tyrannically and uncaringly over all other smaller regions, draining resources and people all to themselves - and forcing everyone to become like them and adopt their values. The United Kingdom has this problem, where London, Manchester and other such large cities are drawing all the resources and sucking up all the population, thus leaving the other regions forgotten. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote merely because of the progressive landslides from California, New York and so forth. But the republicans represent America much better than the Democrats do considering the geographical area that voted. I think the Republican victory is fair - fairer than Democracy as usually understood. Anyway, I think with Plato that democracy is quite possibly the worst form of government if we exclude tyranny and dictatorship.
Quoting Cavacava
Maybe - but they are generally kept at bay and isolated by the majority.
Quoting Cavacava
Either this, or the 80% simply use such tactics - putting in God We Trust on money etc. in order to contain the 20%. Just like in the old PF, where atheists dominated by and large, they had a philosophy of religion section, to quote SLX if I remember correctly, in order to keep God topics contained, so they don't spill over in other sections. In other words, it was better for them pragmatically speaking to have a section than to have no section at all.
Quoting Cavacava
Why do you assume that a mature society wouldn't need religious normative values to operate in an orderly fashion?
Merry Christmas! :D
Merry Christmas Agustino X-)
Hmm that emoticon seems quite dubious haha - have you sent me an evil present? >:O
I hope not; is it an evil emoticon? Oh, perhaps I see, the eyes are not merely open, but diabolically open on that one? O:)
Remember now, my tendency towards Asperger's renders me a poor reader ( and by extension, user) of emoticons. ;)
>:O LOL! Yes I remember!
:)
Don't you mean consolation? Talk of hope or forgiveness seems to already assume a god, yet one may find consolation in a variety of ways: e.g. in knowledge, beauty, melancholy etc.. Religion does not have monopoly on consolation.
Whence the need to decide whether to blindly believe in god? Priests who exploit people's fear of death should be put in jail, imo.
This is falsely dichotomous, it seems to me. Are you really saying that all atheists, or Buddhists or Taoists for that matter, worship Mammon in some way?
Quoting Agustino
Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others." I am wont to agree.
Where am I saying that? One always has faith - that's my point. And the faith is either in God or Mammon. Now the faith doesn't have to be conscious. One can be an atheist and yet have faith in the true God, just as one can have his eyes set worshipping an idol, and yet in truth he would be worshipping the one true God.
Quoting Cavacava
Yeah, capitalism will morph into corporatism - that's no good as far as I'm concerned. And if that doesn't happen, and instead the corporation will end - then there will be a massive war, and whoever emerges out of it unscathed will be a huge victor.
Quoting Cavacava
This is utopian and simply impossible considering human nature. Men left to their own devices - in other words the removal of discipline - will always lead towards social chaos. This has nothing to do with maturity. Maturity applies to individuals. A mature individual doesn't need external discipline anymore. Think analogically to gas molecules. Gas will always spread evenly in the container, even though each molecule doesn't aim for this. So too, human society will move towards chaos if there is no restraint. Not because there is something wrong with individuals (or because they aim for this), but rather because the probabilities are crooked, at a social, not at an individual level.
And think about it. One mistake counts more than one success. That's the asymmetry that skews the probabilities.
Jameson suggests the military is the mostly likely source of a new governments since strong effective chains of command are already in place, and he suggests the possibility of a utopia where everyone must belong to the military (Universal Conscription). All would be paid for since everything is done for the state. Sounds like camouflaged communism, but perhaps not. While Jameson's tongue is firmly in cheek in places, the military option is certainly possible in many countries where it's the most stable institution is the military.
Sounds as though this is describing our situation. The events here and around the world are numbing. Death, destruction and chaos have become rampant everyday events. As long as nations are insulated from the outright mayhem the majority remain convictionless. Countries like Germany who accepted over 1 million immigrants from very different cultures over the course of a year, is quickly forming convictions.
Obama was never able to close Guantanamo because the military did not want it closed. Trump's 'team' can't seem to get the information he wants from people at the Department of Defense as well as other governmental bodies. Today, the head of the Catholic Knights of Templar rebuked Pope Francis' attempt at an intrusion in their affairs, which is remarkable in my opinion. Meanwhile Trump will soon assume control which has the majority on the edge. Mr. Trump has nominated Gen. James Mattis (ret.) as defense secretary and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly (ret.) as homeland security secretary. He’s also picked Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.)to serve as his national security adviser. We all trust the military.