View Full Version : Is Faith in God Rational?
What does it mean to be rational? Why, if we should, should we be religious? If religion is based neither in logic nor empirical evidence, is it still rational to believe in it.
VAMPIR
10-31-2006, 10:12 AM
That's the most rational think man can do.
VAMPIR
10-31-2006, 10:15 AM
... logic nor empirical evidence...
The religion and trust in God is not the same. Often are opposite sides...
Alanna_Halfelven
10-31-2006, 11:31 AM
I think belief in religion is a case of personal experience. It comes down to being open to the possibility that there's a god/gods because we don't understand everything and yet everything exists. From there, the belief comes from events in one's life that can be seen as connected to the deity e.g. feeling the Holy Spirit or praying and the prayer being answered (an atheist could argue that its coincidence). It's often something personal to the person that makes sense to them and perhaps not to others.
In religion (Christianity anyway) there are mysteries that we cannot fully explain e.g. what heaven's really like or for Catholics, details about purgatory as well. But again this doesn't hamper a belief in God because of the personal experiences that a person's had and again, the fact that we can't explain everything, even in the natural world.
So really I suppose it depends how you define rational. It seems rational to me in terms of my personal experiences with the Trinity.
Sandee
10-31-2006, 02:32 PM
Like Alanna said above, it is mostly personal. It makes good sense to ME to have faith in God and it won't necessarily be so for someone else.
It's the logical conclusion I came to as a result of personal experiences and occurrences that I just can't explain because others won't relate to those and will either attribute them to coincidences or brush them aside. I have considered the matter a lot and have had many moments of doubts but I still pray anyway and I see more reasons to believe with time - especially with the different patterns in my life that no person, other than me, can evaluate.
In short, it's rational for ME.
I see the evidence (indirect and deductive) and logic (according to a set of factors that point to the possibility). In short, I see what you don't see because I interpret things differently.
For example, my reasoning tends to be like this:
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showpost.php?p=202294&postcount=88
PJP posted something that I perused through way back as well: http://www.thephora.net/forum/showpost.php?p=202309&postcount=92
I asked myself these questions a long time ago. I contemplated a lot and prayed to God for clarity and insight for those questions that burdened me, especially the possibility of his existence. I, eventually, came across reading material and such that supported my beliefs. It's not just because I was looking for it (I had looked before) but it is because I was more sincere. I got a lot of food for thought as an answer to my prayers.
Arminius
10-31-2006, 02:33 PM
I picked no, its not rational. Faith is an irrational quality, but it has positive traits too. It gives people comfort, and thats a good thing.
Fade the Butcher
10-31-2006, 02:39 PM
Is it rational to believe in Stay Puft the Marshmallow Man?
Arthur Daley
10-31-2006, 03:07 PM
Certainly. Though I personally favour a more scientific designation of a 'creative force' of which I cannot precisely define.
Sandee
10-31-2006, 03:09 PM
¡ ≥ ∞
This message is hidden because ¡ ≥ ∞ is on your ignore list.
Much better.
Mackie
10-31-2006, 03:13 PM
faith rational... hard to say. is love rational? hardly. is it a positive thing? yes.
Hrolf Kraki
10-31-2006, 03:36 PM
I believe that faith in not necessarily a diety, but in some sort of higher power is rational. For the longest time, I believed that this must be some sort of very irrational idea based on a lack of knowledge. However, with all my readings of astrophysics I have come to the conclusion that the belief in a higher power is most certainly rational. I will try to explain why in a later post...
Zrinski
10-31-2006, 03:53 PM
I agree with Cernobog and Leifr completely.
Btw. I think the term "God" is wrong. If you ask me if I believe in some superior consciousness/divinity than I would have to say yes. Anyone who ever contemplated about the nature of life and his/hers existence must have come to the conclusion there just must be something higher...something we do not comprehend. In fact it would not be so much a conclusion as a knowledge we had from the first moment we appeared in this world.
Today Faith(as in religion) and rational contemplation about "God"(higher consciousness) are two different things. If you ask me if a belief in "God" as the religions preach is rational I would have to say definitely not.
Slavic Enforcer
10-31-2006, 03:56 PM
It is rational and by the way,
when you are near to death you'll all pray, and surely not to a drunken God wirh viking helmet.
Hrolf Kraki
10-31-2006, 04:02 PM
It is rational and by the way,
when you are near to death you'll all pray, and surely not to a drunken God wirh viking helmet.
I do not see how a divine deity could possibly have one single image. It makes more sense that this deity would have an infinite amount of images which would present itself based on how the believer saw God. Therefore, if one sees God with a viking helmet and a challis of mead, then so be it.
I picked no, its not rational. Faith is an irrational quality, but it has positive traits too. It gives people comfort, and thats a good thing.
^ ^ Agreed
Geist
10-31-2006, 04:09 PM
Its a question of truth however. If you resolve to find comfort then you most choose an inauthentic life. I am not sure I could do that.
Sandee
10-31-2006, 04:23 PM
Well, like Leifr Eiricsson said, even if people find comfort in praying to a Deity and an aspect of what they consider God, it doesn't mean that a creator's real existence rely on the faith, devotion and belief of the people.
I am personally aware of people around me but I am not aware of what some stranger might be doing in a remote part of the world. Just because I'm not aware of his presence doesn't mean he doesn't exist.
Now the question might be: Does such a creator care for people worshiping him and does he procure any comfort? He might and He might not. It doesn't disprove his existence in the case that he doesn't or if people don't believe in him.
Geist
10-31-2006, 04:25 PM
I am personally aware of people around me but I am not aware of what some stranger might be doing in a remote part of the world. Just because I'm not aware of his presence doesn't mean he doesn't exist.
You can prove his existence by visiting him. You will have empircal proof that he exists. You cannot do so with God.
Sandee
10-31-2006, 04:33 PM
You can prove his existence by visiting him. You will have empircal proof that he exists. You cannot do so with God.
Analogies are never perfect. :p
However, the concept of a spiritual/supernatural force transcends that which is material/natural and thus, his presence can only be indirectly inferred.
There is no way to prove his existence by using material/natural means. You can't prove the existence of something immaterial/supernatural using material means.
I think God has such attributes as being able to pervade its creation (holding it together) and yet be apart/distinct from it.
Geist
10-31-2006, 04:37 PM
However, the concept of a spiritual/supernatural force transcends that which is material/natural and thus, his presence can only be indirectly inferred.
There is no way to prove his existence by using material/natural means. You can't prove the existence of something immaterial/supernatural using material means.
I think God has such attributes as being able to pervade its creation (holding it together) and yet be apart/distinct from it.
How can you indirectly infer something that you cannot empirically verify? If you cannot even show its existence then there is no real reason to believe in it.
Material/natural means are the means that one proves the existence of things with. Immaterial things can be at least inferred by showing their causes or effects (that is they will have some material/natural after effect). There is nothing such as this that we can infer God with except belief or faith which confuses or undercuts itself.
It is essentially a leap of faith, and thus not rational.
Insidium
10-31-2006, 04:40 PM
No. Religious faith is inherently irrational. "Religious experiences" are perfectly normal phenomena, that have occured to people out in nature, people creating art, people spending time with lovers, and people of every religious creed out there. They are often accompanied by and unidentified but highly pleasant, euphoric state, which is why the automatic assumption is that it is God.
There is an inherent incongruence between religion and science. Every time the two conflict, science is shown to be right; religion, wrong. There is a naturalistic explanation to everything, including religious experiences.
Sandee
10-31-2006, 04:45 PM
Well, it is just as good a hypothesis as any for the first primal cause of everything that came to be and surrounds us (I'm not limiting it to this universe).
Insidium
10-31-2006, 04:49 PM
No, because it doesn't really tell us anything. It does not explain the mechanism of how things came to be, and gives us no method to - even theoretically - replicate it. In other words, it is a cop-out, an admission that we will never really know. If we still followed religious doctrine for fighting disease, we would be excising demons instead of giving antibiotics. ;)
Hrolf Kraki
10-31-2006, 04:56 PM
Now the question might be: Does such a creator care for people worshiping him and does he procure any comfort? He might and He might not. It doesn't disprove his existence in the case that he doesn't or if people don't believe in him.
Shallowness does not seem likely a trait for a divine creator. I, myself, can be somewhat shallow at times and even I wouldn't give a shit whether people worshipped me or not. Therefore, I sincerely doubt that any creator would care what lowly lifeforms think on one single planet out of the possible billions that exist. Also, the idea of Hell or eternal damnation is the most absurd idea I have ever heard of in my entire life.
Hrolf Kraki
10-31-2006, 04:59 PM
How can you indirectly infer something that you cannot empirically verify? If you cannot even show its existence then there is no real reason to believe in it.
Quarks were believed to exist without any verification for almost 30 years. New breakthroughs in particle physics finally were able to prove that they do indeed exist.
In the early 1960's a theoretician, Murray Gell-Mann, proposed the quark theory. He named the quarks then even though they had never been observed. It took experimentalists nearly 30 years to find proof of the existence of all six quarks. The Top was the last quark discovered in two experiments called CDF and D0 at a sister lab to Jefferson Lab, Fermilab, outside Chicago. They announced their discovery in April, 1994.
Hrolf Kraki
10-31-2006, 05:00 PM
No. Religious faith is inherently irrational. "Religious experiences" are perfectly normal phenomena, that have occured to people out in nature, people creating art, people spending time with lovers, and people of every religious creed out there. They are often accompanied by and unidentified but highly pleasant, euphoric state, which is why the automatic assumption is that it is God.
There is an inherent incongruence between religion and science. Every time the two conflict, science is shown to be right; religion, wrong. There is a naturalistic explanation to everything, including religious experiences.
We're not discussing religious faith but rather whether a supreme being or god does indeed exist. This is a bit different than religious faith.
Helios Panoptes
10-31-2006, 06:46 PM
It is rational and by the way,
when you are near to death you'll all pray, and surely not to a drunken God wirh viking helmet.
Prove that I will.
It is not rational. It cannot be deduced, nor can it be induced. If it were rational, there would be very little faith involved. Do you say "I have faith that a thing cannot be and not be in the same respect at the same time?" Probably not.
Der Sozialist
10-31-2006, 07:05 PM
faith rational... hard to say. is love rational? hardly. is it a positive thing? yes.
How is “love” a positive thing? “Love” is only a positive thing for the person “loved” and a highly negative thing for the person doing the “loving.”
“Love” is emotional enslavement and as I have said before, if you ever find yourself “loving” someone then you must either terminate that relationship or terminate that person.
But you spoke correctly on one point—“love” is not “rational” and any man that favors logic over unreason will never have the capability of “loving” anything.
Starr
10-31-2006, 07:10 PM
Originally Posted by Slavic Wolf
It is rational and by the way,
when you are near to death you'll all pray, and surely not to a drunken God wirh viking helmet.
this could make a case for why a belief in "God" is not based on rationality for most people. Laying on your death bed praying to some supernatural being as a comfort against the unknown is not rational.
Arthur Daley
10-31-2006, 07:19 PM
The only alternative to God is a vacuum. Such a vacuum is insufficient to explain away creation or the environment in which we exist. It's a natural, quite rational progression..
Its a question of truth however. If you resolve to find comfort then you most choose an inauthentic life. I am not sure I could do that.
Why should truth alone be a mark of 'authenticity'? What if the religion in question reflects one's self? In a way, I think that religion is an attempt to project man's ideals onto God and to define his place in the cosmos, and thus it affirms life. I can see how with your kind of thinking we can be led into inertia.
You can prove his existence by visiting him. You will have empircal proof that he exists. You cannot do so with God.
The thing about empiricism is that if you maintain that it is the sole criterion for truth, then you implicitly beg the question against religion, since you presuppose that it is not true. Religious truth, by its very nature, cannot be monitored by science. To say that all there is is that which can be monitored is to make an assumption that cannot be proven or disproven.
I think of the concept of "God" as the ultimate form anthropromorphism. Instead of projecting intelligence onto animals and inanimate objects, some human beings chose to project it onto the cosmos.
Insidium
10-31-2006, 08:36 PM
We're not discussing religious faith but rather whether a supreme being or god does indeed exist. This is a bit different than religious faith.
The answer is the same. A supreme god does not exist. There is no reason to expect a supreme god to exist. Everything we observe in nature can be explained naturally. The idea of a god evolves over time, and if this occurs, he is inherently a god of the gaps. In the olden days, a god by the same name who is worshipped now (let's say Yahweh) was the explanation for every otherwise-unexplained natural phenomenon. Now we know that viruses and bacteria cause disease, not demons or curses; that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa; and that the world is a lot older than our species is. In every case, a piece of religion was falsified and thrown away when it came into contact with science. And thus, the power of god - rather, the religious establishment that is dedicated to worshipping the idea of that god - shrank, and the explanatory power of god waned.
Insidium
10-31-2006, 08:42 PM
The thing about empiricism is that if you maintain that it is the sole criterion for truth, then you implicitly beg the question against religion, since you presuppose that it is not true. Religious truth, by its very nature, cannot be monitored by science. To say that all there is is that which can be monitored is to make an assumption that cannot be proven or disproven.
We have no choice but to rely on empiricism, since it gains results and is practical. I adhere to Hume's fork, which divides statements into two types:
* Statements about ideas - these are analytic, necessary statements that are knowable a priori.
* Statements about the world - these are synthetic, contingent, and knowable a posteriori.
Burrhus
10-31-2006, 09:16 PM
The word rational refers only to arguments. An argument is the presentation of evidence in a logically valid form in support of the truth of a proposition. (Argument here does not refer to its more common reference to an emotionally charged dispute between two or more people.) Rational can by extension be used to refer to an individual in the sense that the arguments which he presents are rational. But strictly speaking, the individual is not rational. (I am ignoring the Weberian sense of rational here as irrelevant to this issue.)
That said, the question posed here would better read: Can a rational argument be presented in support of the propositions "Faith in god is rational" or "God exists"?, assuming that faith here refers to believing that the second proposition is true. Given that faith is the belief in the truth of a proposition in the absence of both evidence (sensory observation) and logical necessity (no possible counter-proposition), by the very definitions of the terms there can be no rational argument in support of either of these two propositions: god exists or faith in god is rational.
Faith in god may however be necessary towards some useful end such as in-group survival over the course of evolution. I do agree that faith appears to be necessary for in-group survival. I contend that it is not faith in god per se that is necessary but rather faith in some set of axiomatic beliefs shared in common by the group.
Religion refers to that faith and the system of other beliefs derived from that faith's axioms. The function of religion, for the group, can be understood with reference to the word's origin, as I see it, res+ligare (not re+ligare):the thing that binds together. Religion appears from historical and evolutionary observation to be necessary for in-group cohesion and survival. I believe that the loss of faith and religion is the major factor explaining the deterioration of Western Civilization. We are desperately in need of a revival.
But not a revival of the old religion based on the axioms of supernaturalism. That religion is functionally dead and remains on life support only by means of a tenacious refusal by its adherents to accept its imminent and necessary demise and pull the plug. The intellectual history of Western Civilization for the past 400 years, since the time of Galileo, has witnessed a struggle between two religions, supernaturalism and naturalism and their respective faith based axioms. The transition from the former to the latter is incomplete and, in my opinion, necessary for the survival of the West. (Obviously, I am re-defining the word religion here as not necessarily implying the axioms of supernaturalism.)
That transition has been divisive but not in itself destructive of Western Civilization. What has been destructive is the intrusion into the West of two particular supernatural religions, judaism and islam, during the time of the West's transition and divisive struggle. The conflict between christian supernaturalism and naturalism has left the West lacking the necessary solid foundation in faith and religion to maintain its in-groups' cohesion when confronted by two peoples with strong religious faiths. The West, distracted by its internal religious conflict, has failed to recognize and take seriously the the detrimental effects on its culture of the presence in its midst of peoples with strong religious faith enabling them to behave cohesively in service to their own interests.
What is to be done? The peoples of the West must resolve this conflict and face the threat presented by these competing religious groups or accept the ongoing decline and probable death of its cultures that is clearly observable to anyone who bothers to pay attention. We must again become peoples with a strong foundation in faith and religion if we are to maintain the cohesion necessary for survival. But which faith and religion? Christian supernaturalism or scientific naturalism?
I believe that scientific naturalism is the only possible course for the West to take if it is to survive. (I have added the modifier "scientific" since science is to naturalism as theology is to supernaturalism.) That christian supernaturalism is in a state of irreversible decline should be obvious to anyone who looks at the evidence. The decline in church attendance, the decline in religious self-attribution, the failure to replace an aging clergy, the weakness of christian denonimations in maintaining their historical positions on doctrine and morals amongst other signs all point to an inability on the part of christian supernaturalism to remain a viable choice as the religious foundation of Western Civilization.
I am sure that there are christians here who will disagree with me. They will point to their own stong personal convictions and faith, and of others of their acquaintance. But I would ask to them to point to evidence that christian faith is still widespread and a dominant, not merely nominal, faith in the West. In order for a religion to serve its function in binding a people together it must be accepted by nearly all of the people in a culture as it was prior to the year 1600. That christianty lacks that dominance is beyond dispute and there is no reason to believe that it will ever regain it. To bet on that possibilty when the fate of Western Civilization hangs in the balance is naive.
I would also ask them to notice the detrimental effects in the West both of the presence of people still with strong religious faiths other than christianity and of those with no faith at all. Judaism and islam continue to enable their peoples to behave cohesively in our midst contrary to the best interests of the West. At the same time postmodernism, the affirmation of ambiguity, has increasingly become the psuedo-belief-system of those who have no faith in any foundational axioms at all. Our young people, infected with this intellectual disease, are bereft of any kind of faith and drift further into an ahistorical disdain of both the past and the future. As The Sex Pistols, those harbingers of the collapse of Western Civilization, once sang:
When there’s no future how can there be sin
We’re the flowers in the dustbin
We’re the poison in your human machine
We’re the future your future
God save the queen we mean it man
There is no future in england’s dreaming
No future for you no future for me
No future no future for you
Unfortunately, sentiments such as these, commonly expressed by western youth these last 30 years, have not been understood by serious intellectuals and have been ignored as silly rantings. They should instead have been seen for what they are, the symptoms of the deadly disease of postmodernism that has infected the youth of our cultures.
Which brings us back to the question posed at the beginning of this thread: Is faith in god rational? Stripping that question of the modifier "in god" we are left wth the question: Is faith rational? Or more precisely, can a rational argument be made in support of the propostion implied by the question: Faith is necessary for humans in order to survive. In that sense of the question I would answer, yes.
If one accepts the fact that christian supernaturalism will never regain the strength needed to serve as a functional religion for the West, then one is left only with the choice of naturalism as the foundation for a faith and religion capable of restoring to the peoples of the West the cohesion necessary for the survival of its in-groups. Evolutionary survival seems to demand that groups believe in something strong enough to hold them together. I suggest that the West get on with the transition from supernaturalism to naturalism and complete the change before it is too late to deal with the multiple internal threats facing it and the collapse that will ensue if we don't.
As B.F.Skinner once wrote, "There is no reason why people should care about the survival of their culture but cultures which failed to produce such people are all extinct."
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In support and clarification of what I have written above, I offer two articles by me which have appeared before on the Phora.
As the phrase "anguish of consciousness" has caused some confusion, I will try to explain it. Verbal behavior is a human response that depends on some other human response. John says, "What time is it?" and Bill says, "3 o'clock". When humans first engaged in such behavior the exchange always involved two separate humans. At some point individual humans began to respond to their own utterances, "I wonder why my leg hurts", hmmm?, "Maybe because of the rock that fell on it". This variation in behavior is the origin of consciousness or thinking.
This behavior ultimately led to belief in the existence inside of the human of some entity that was engaging in this behavior, a self (mind, soul etc.). This was a mistake but, well, it happened. The awareness of death and this belief in the self gave rise to the anguish of consciousness. What's going on here and why? Where did the self come from? What happens to the self after death? Anguish led to hypotheses in order to answer these questions. The hypotheses became beliefs and religion became the solace for the anguish. As a variation, religion then became something that could be selected for in the evolutionary process. As it turned out, it was selected for and came to serve the function of maintaining in-group cohesion.
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Religion is the human response to the anguish of consciousness. Consciousness refers simply to a human's ability to respond to his own verbal behavior; it is not the emanation of a transcendent element in the human.
Naturalism is as much a religion as any other religion such as christianity. It is a system of beliefs about the nature of reality (note that "nature" here means something like properties rather than nature as distinguished from the supernatural). All religions are based on a set of foundational axioms which cannot be demonstrated to be true but must be accepted on faith.
The basic axioms of naturalism are that the universe (reality) is eternal, material and lawful. All other religions that I know of are based on the axioms that the universe is temporal, both material and non-material (or totally non-material) and that there exists a non-material, supernatural entity who is free to intervene in the natural order and that humans are free to act within the natural order, which is to say that humans have free will.
I have faith in the axioms of the religion of naturalism. I cannot demonstrate the truth of those axioms anymore than a supernaturalist can demonstrate the truth of his axioms. The conflict is not between faith and reason or faith and naturalism; it is between two different faiths with differing core beliefs.
My main problem with Dawkins (I have other scientific quarrels with him) and the humanists is that they refuse to see that their beliefs are based on un-demonstrable axioms in a manner similar to the religions that they attack thus leading to obfuscation and fruitless debates.
Depending on which set of axioms one accepts one will come to very different systems of beliefs. Evolution is one of the beliefs that follows logically (and scientifically) from the axioms of the naturalist faith. Unfortunately, most of the confusion in the debate between evolutionists and non-evolutionists is the result of both side's failure to recognize the fact their belief is as much a matter of faith as that of the other.
One major difference between these two religions is in the methodologies employed in using their axioms to develop their belief systems. Naturalism relies on rationalism as it methodology. Rationalism here meaning belief in the truth of a proposition (other than the axioms) only when based on sensory evidence and logical analysis. Supernatural methodology depends on revelation, either from tradition or a personal relation with the transcendent entity ('god').
That is true as supernatural religions exist today but I suspect that it is not quite accurate if one looks to the origins of their belief systems. In the distant past of human thought, the foundational beliefs of supernatural religions may have been 'as rational' as was possible at the time. Primitive man observing reality and thinking as 'logically' as was possible for him, came to the beliefs about reality which are the roots of the supernatural religions of today. That is to say, what was once the best that reason could produce is no longer the case as the naturalist investigates reality.
What we have is a paradigm shift. When the axioms of a belief system lead to too many anomalies, the system collapses when a new set of axioms are put forth which subsume those anomalies into a more coherent system. That is what naturalism has done. As my faith leads me to believe.
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A theist is one who asserts the existence of god.
An atheist is one who does not assert the existence of god.
That is not the same as saying that the atheist asserts the non-existence of god. Having read much of the historical literature of atheist thought, I can think of no atheist who ever made the positive assertion that god does not exist as opposed to simply declining to assert that he does. There may be such people but I don't know of any.
An agnostic is one who has no direct, revealed, personal knowledge of god. It is not a question of doubt but one of gnosis, direct knowledge as opposed to faith based on revelations made to others such as believing in biblical revelation on the authority of its compilers or faith derived from reason (faulty in my opinion) as the best explanation for what is observed to be.
Thus all atheists are agnostics but not all agnostics are atheists. One can assert the existence of god but not based on personally revealed knowledge.
I choose to not assert the existence of god because there is no evidence for his existence which is to say that one cannot experience god with the senses of the body or any of its technological extensions. And he is not logically necessary which means that there is no observable entity or event that logically requires the existence of god to explain its existence or occurence. That is to say, there is some other explanation that can more easily or as easily explain the observation without inventing an unseen and un-necessary entity.
For example, the observed existence of the universe can more easily be explained by assuming that it is eternal and not in need of a creator. That something is eternal is as certain an assertion as can be made but as to what that eternal entity is, one is much less certain. But the evidence for the universe's existence is overwhelming and for god's totally lacking. Why invent an unknowable creator when he is not necessary?
If as Aquinas asserted (falsely in my opinion), everything which moves is moved by another, then god must have been moved by another or else the original premise of his argument is false and there exists something which was not moved by another...one possibility being an eternal, unmoved (eternally moving) universe.
That is not to say that the absence of both evidence and logical necessity demonstrates the non-existence of god. It only leads a rational man to not assert his existence but likewise does not lead him to assert god's non-existence. The very definition of a rational argument is one based on both evidence (on some level) and logical validity.
There is an even stronger argument for not asserting the existence of god. Even if god exists, he apparently does not want us (or at least some of us) to believe that he does.
Consider this: Assume that god does exist and that he made me. As I find myself to be a rational man, god must have made me so. A rational man does not assert the existence of an entity for which there is no evidence, which this assumed god has not given me, and which is not logically necessary which god is not since it is possible that the universe is eternal.
One can only conclude from this that since god made me rational, did not make himself evident and is not logically necessary, either he does not exist or he does and does not want me to believe that he does. If he wanted me to believe that he exists he would have made himself evident or logically necessary which he didn't or he would not have made me rational which (assuming that he exists) he did.
In either case I am compelled either by reason or faith in god's wisdom (if he does exist) to not assert his existence.
Therefore I am an atheist.
We have no choice but to rely on empiricism, since it gains results and is practical.
Why is 'practicality' the only thing that is inherently good?
I adhere to Hume's fork, which divides statements into two types:
* Statements about ideas - these are analytic, necessary statements that are knowable a priori.
* Statements about the world - these are synthetic, contingent, and knowable a posteriori.
I made long post questioning these assumptions, but I decided that I don't won't to involve myself in such a debate (since, most likely, you will remain in you position that this is true no matter what I say). I am just going to say that most philosophers today do not adhere to this. They believe that a prioricity is not synonymous with either necessity or analyticity, and they believe that necessity is not synonymous with analyticity. In earlier half of the last century, when positivism was the rage among philosophers, what you are espousing here was the mainstream view (as can be seen among Russell, the early Wittgenstein, etc.), but it is not today. If you haven't before, I would recommend that you look into Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity--he questioned these assumptions, and even if you don't buy his arguments, you will at least know that Hume's is not the only view out there.
Sandee
10-31-2006, 10:28 PM
If as Aquinas asserted (falsely in my opinion), everything which moves is moved by another, then god must have been moved by another or else the original premise of his argument is false and there exists something which was not moved by another...one possibility being an eternal, unmoved (eternally moving) universe.
This is attributing determinism to God when the counter-argument could as well be that he is the cause/initiator of determinism. It would be better to say it this way: God initiated the the movement process (everything that is observable) without having to be moved by another.
So, it can be seen that everything (other than God) that is moved is indeed moved by another. God doesn't have to be moved to make this possible (He pervades, sets in motion BUT is APART from his creation). He is the SOURCE of the movement. If anything at all, if we were to argue on what moves God, I would say he is moved by himself. He is the medium and the container and the cause. Everything that moves is contained by/resides in and yet is distinct from him.
It's like asking if Man was created by God then who created God. God is the uncaused being. His existence doesn't depend on the existence of Man.
Imagine God to be a dreamer. The existence of characters and them interacting in God's dream is due to God dreaming. However, God's very existence doesn't depend on the existence and interaction of the characters in God's dream.
Northern_Paladin
10-31-2006, 10:38 PM
Faith is beyond rationality but does not contradict it. Nothing in the realm of reason contradicts the possibility of God.
Science is limited in it's scope and the depth of the understanding it can bring the human race. Science may reveal to us the general principles of phenomenon but it will never give us complete understanding of the infinite complexies of even something as simple as rain falling from the sky. We can only under something based on the principles in which it operates. But since nothing operates independently of itself, it operates in conjunction with everything in the universe we will never understand those complexities. Otherwise we would be able to do things like predict the future with certainty or create our own Universe.
To deny God is to assume all things can be known by rationality.
Hrolf Kraki
10-31-2006, 10:52 PM
Everything we observe in nature can be explained naturally.
This is false. There are many unexplained answers in cosmology.
The idea of a god evolves over time, and if this occurs, he is inherently a god of the gaps. In the olden days, a god by the same name who is worshipped now (let's say Yahweh) was the explanation for every otherwise-unexplained natural phenomenon. Now we know that viruses and bacteria cause disease, not demons or curses; that the earth revolves around the sun, not vice versa; and that the world is a lot older than our species is.
No, that does not mean he is a god of gaps. It just means that people don't know what to believe.
In every case, a piece of religion was falsified and thrown away when it came into contact with science. And thus, the power of god - rather, the religious establishment that is dedicated to worshipping the idea of that god - shrank, and the explanatory power of god waned.
Science is more useful than religion. But that does not mean that a higher diety does not exist. I encourage you to read about cosmology and how there are so many unexplained things like the extreme disportion of matter to anti-matter. I will make a more in-depth post on all these things later when I have more time.
Northern_Paladin
10-31-2006, 10:55 PM
This is false. There are many unexplained answers in cosmology.
For one Science does not and can not explain the begginning of the Universe for which it acknowledges happened but is at a lost to explain.
Helios Panoptes
10-31-2006, 11:04 PM
Why is 'practicality' the only thing that is inherently good?
It's not. It just happens to be what some seek. If someone believes that maintenance of tradition and cultural stability are more valuable than scientific advancement, so be it. There's no way to prove them wrong. Those arguments boil down to the contestants shouting slogans at each other and carrying on about how great their position is and how backwards or vacuous the other is, without anything ever being resolved. You can say something has greater value relative to a foundational framework, but there's no getting deeper.
Boleslaw
11-01-2006, 01:19 AM
Is it rational to believe in Stay Puft the Marshmallow Man?
We're talking about God here, please stay on topic.
Either way, you're going on my ignore list. Have a nice day!
Boleslaw
11-01-2006, 01:20 AM
Yes it's rational, and Jewel earlier pointed to my reference to Aquinas' five proofs for the existence of God; which are all based on reason and common sense.
Helios Panoptes
11-01-2006, 01:25 AM
Yes it's rational, and Jewel earlier pointed to my reference to Aquinas' five proofs for the existence of God; which are all based on reason and common sense.
None of those arguments are without flaw.
Boleslaw
11-01-2006, 01:27 AM
None of those arguments are without flaw.
Yes that can be said of any argument about anything. Thank you for stating the fucking obvious. :rolleyes:
Helios Panoptes
11-01-2006, 01:37 AM
Yes that can be said of any argument about anything. Thank you for stating the fucking obvious. :rolleyes:
There is no reason to become irritated, Perun.
I'll tell you what, give me a little time and I will debate you about them in the formal debate forum. Are you interested?
Der Sozialist
11-01-2006, 01:40 AM
8. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.
Does the universe have an explanation, Perun?
No. Religious faith is inherently irrational. "Religious experiences" are perfectly normal phenomena, that have occured to people out in nature, people creating art, people spending time with lovers, and people of every religious creed out there. They are often accompanied by and unidentified but highly pleasant, euphoric state, which is why the automatic assumption is that it is God.
There is an inherent incongruence between religion and science. Every time the two conflict, science is shown to be right; religion, wrong. There is a naturalistic explanation to everything, including religious experiences.
Insidium is a tireless mouther of tired stereotypes.
Ancient pagan philosophers believed that this universe of ours is eternal. Modern science, atheists included, believes that it has had a beginning, and will have an end, like the Christians (following the Bible) also do:
http://www.rae.org/philop.html
"While almost all early religions and philosophers believed in either an eternal universe or one that emerged from an earlier substance (the body of a murdered god, for example) Philoponus argued strongly against the notions of infinite space and time. Since the world is a creation, it cannot be infinite, he hypotheized. His reasoning made use of infinite cardinal numbers and pointed out the logical problems found in infinite series. For example, if the amount of all numbers is infinite, and if the amount of all even numbers is infinite, there must be a one to one correspondence between all numbers and the even numbers. Commonsense says there should be twice as many odd and even numbers as there are even numbers. Since it seemed absurd to suppose there really are, infinities of any countable sort of thing are an absurdity, said Philoponus. He is the first person known to have made this argument."
Just one example of the Bible being fundamentally right.
Petr
Der Sozialist
11-01-2006, 01:44 AM
There is no reason to become irritated, Perun.
I'll tell you what, give me a little time and I will debate you about them in the formal debate forum. Are you interested?
I would like to participate if such a debate is held.
Ancient pagans philosophers believed that this universe of ours is eternal. Modern science, atheists included, believes that it has had a beginning, and will have an end, like the Christians also do.
Just one example of the Bible being fundamentally right.
How is that an example of the Bible being right? Science believes X. THe Bible believes X. Therefore, the Bible is right.
Also: why should science be something to validate the Bible. You claim that science is wrong with evolution. Apparently, if it agrees with the Bible, it validates it, and if it does not, it is wrong.
How is that an example of the Bible being right? Science believes X. THe Bible believes X. Therefore, the Bible is right.
Without the influence of Christianity, pagan philosophy would have never reached that correct conclusion. Indeed, no real science would have been born without the contribution of Christian theology.
Petr
Der Sozialist
11-01-2006, 01:54 AM
Without the influence of Christianity, pagan philosophy would have never reached that correct conclusion. Indeed, no real science would have been born without the contribution of Christian theology.
Petr
You are forgetting just how much Christian theology was based on science in the first place.
Der Sozialist
You are forgetting just how much Christian theology was based on science in the first place.
Exactly how?
No real scientific method existed until the late Middle Ages.
Petr
Der Sozialist
11-01-2006, 02:01 AM
Exactly how?
No real scientific method existed until the late Middle Ages.
Petr
Aristotle was the founder of the scientific method and while he did make “leaps” of reason (if you will) the scientific method has not changed much. He is probably the first to try and approach “nature” in what would be considered a “scientific” way.
Sandee
11-01-2006, 02:02 AM
I think the concept of eternity is attributed to the non-material entity (God and souls).
The material/physical world has a beginning, is being sustained and will have an 'end'; then the process begins all over again. This is what I've been taught (religious perspective).
There's another question I'm asking myself though: If matter cannot be created nor can it be destroyed (Law of conservation of matter and energy) then how did it come to be? :confused:
I think it cannot be destroyed by physical/natural means; apparently this is what our religious texts seem to suggest. Interestingly, it is written that the soul cannot be destroyed and is eternal.
How will things end? I don't know. Could it be that everything gets wiped out and there's nothing but a vacuum left; thus this leads to a supernatural being intervening and creating 'matter'? Or is merely a convergence to one point which leads to the 'end' of material existence as we know it.
If matter remains constant, does this disprove the intervention of a Creator? Not necessarily.
Without the influence of Christianity, pagan philosophy would have never reached that correct conclusion. Indeed, no real science would have been born without the contribution of Christian theology.
Petr
So? Many things often arise out of their opposites. From the tone of your posts I get the impression that you think science "owes" something to christianity, and that the general aversion of most scientists to the christian faith is just plain ungratefulness on their part.
Aristotle was the founder of the scientific method and while he did make “leaps” of reason (if you will) the scientific method has not changed much. He is probably the first to try and approach “nature” in what would be considered a “scientific” way.
Aristotle would not rely on experiments to test his fancy rationalist hypotheses, whereas the Bible happens to contain a perfect slogan for an opposite mindset:
"Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good."
- 1 Thessalonians 5:21
Also, Jesus Christ's declaration that "by their fruits you shall know them" makes us dislike empty fruitless hypotheses that do not produce any results.
Petr
Without the influence of Christianity, pagan philosophy would have never reached that correct conclusion. Indeed, no real science would have been born without the contribution of Christian theology.
Petr
This tells us nothing as to whether or not Christianity is true. Chemistry arose from alchemy, but that in no way tells us that alchemy should be conceived as true.
I would like to participate if such a debate is held.
As would I.
From the tone of your posts I get the impression that you think science "owes" something to christianity, and that the general aversion of most scientists to the christian faith is just plain ungratefulness on their part.
That is precisely my viewpoint, modern atheists are both morally and epistemologically dining on foods stolen from Christian table. Fallen men are an incredibly ingrateful lot.
Petr
Arminius
11-01-2006, 02:20 AM
That is precisely my viewpoint, modern atheists are both morally and epistemologically dining on foods stolen from Christian table. Fallen men are an incredibly ingrateful lot.
You're generalizing. :nono:
You're generalizing. :nono:
Strange that you're not criticizing, say, Insidium about that.
Petr
Arminius
11-01-2006, 02:27 AM
Strange that you're not criticizing, say, Insidium about that.
Because you implied all atheists, inluding me. You happen to be wrong about me, though. Thus, I object.
Der Sozialist
11-01-2006, 02:40 AM
Aristotle would not rely on experiments to test his fancy rationalist hypotheses, whereas the Bible happens to contain a perfect slogan for an opposite mindset:
He lacked many devices that would make experimentation possible. However, this does not discredit his advances in “observation.”
He lacked many devices that would make experimentation possible. However, this does not discredit his advances in “observation.”
Aristotle did not even bother to confirm his idea that objects of different size drop at different speeds by going to the nearest cliff (this Galileo's experiment was originally performed by Christian 6th-century creationist John Philoponus).
Petr
Boleslaw
11-01-2006, 03:02 AM
There is no reason to become irritated, Perun.
Well Im a little cranky at the moment, so forgive me for that.
Plus, no offense, but I do find it annoying how whenever I make any little comment on spirituality or metaphysics you seem all to eager to jump in and nitpick immediately. Considering the fact, as I said, I wasnt even the first person to mention Aquinas' five proofs in this thread.
I'll tell you what, give me a little time and I will debate you about them in the formal debate forum. Are you interested?
I'll pass. Right now Im not in the best of moods for such an extensive discussion. Plus, discussions about the matter tend to bore me real quick. I gurantee you would not find it too pleasing anyways.
You wouldve had a better time discussing the matter with jcs if he were still here. However, you can try with Carl Rylander; even though he's Orthodox. Or maybe Petr.
Ahknaton
11-01-2006, 03:03 AM
I don't believe that belief in God is "rational", it's an act of faith. I do believe that a mature conception of God can be consistent with a rational worldview however. As is agnosticism and atheism. Certain items in one's worldview out of necessity must be axiomatic, and just accepted as "givens", to avoid circular reasoning.
The survival instinct is similarly "irrational", as is love. How can you prove that it's better to be than not to be by rational means? Perhaps a better term than "irrational" for faith in God would be "a-rational" or "post-rational".
Ahknaton
11-01-2006, 03:09 AM
A question for the theists: isn't the belief that God's existence can be "proved" through rational argument and deduction a little bit heretical, since it implies that we can come to know God by our own means, instead of relying on God's grace in revealing Himself?
I don't believe that belief in God is "rational", it's an act of faith.
To put it succinctly, faith is definitely something more than than mere reasoning, but it also it not below or totally beyond reason either.
(Likewise, genuine Christian love is something more than everyday moralism, but it sure isn't something less than everyday morality, like antinomians claim.)
To me, the essence of faith is trust. Trust in the integrity of God, that He will keep the promises He has given to us through the Bible.
Petr
A question for the theists: isn't the belief that God's existence can be "proved" through rational argument and deduction a little bit heretical, since it implies that we can come to know God by our own means, instead of relying on God's grace in revealing Himself?
The orthodox Christian position is that all men deep down really do know true God to some extent, but actively drive this primordial knowledge away because they want to be their own masters.
Romans 1:20 - For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.
In the end, it's the matter of crooked willpower, not of deficient knowledge. Even many great non-Christian philosophers have concluded that reason is mere slave to the will.
Like this guy puts it:
"So don't let the media twist this one out of shape: as poorly as ol' Pat may put things, this time he touched on the truth: what happened in Dover, and in many other places (look at California!) on election day was a continued manifestation of the hatred of the natural man for the God he knows is there, but is intent upon denying and suppressing. "
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1544&highlight=robertson
Petr
Sandee
11-01-2006, 04:01 AM
A question for the theists: isn't the belief that God's existence can be "proved" through rational argument and deduction a little bit heretical, since it implies that we can come to know God by our own means, instead of relying on God's grace in revealing Himself?
Well, personally, I am not a blind follower. I went through a period of total disbelief to a period of acknowledging that I might never know and then to one of accepting that it is a possibility that I choose not to dismiss; because it does make sense to me. I believe that doubting leads to instrospecting and reflecting on whatever pertains to God.
If you take this material world to be a creation of God, it's not wrong to observe and analyze it; as this gives you an idea (in part) of the complexity of the nature of God and his works. It is impossible to know him in whole/fully. It's akin to studying a painting and trying to understand the mind and thoughts of the painter at that moment. The same could be said about a writer's mind and his literary works. You can deduce and interpret but you'll never know that person in whole. Yet, it isn't a futile attempt to try IMHO.
God does reveal himself to us by giving us knowledge (material and spiritual). In as far as we can perceive/comprehend that knowledge, it serves its purpose. Would one be able to explain Astrophysics to a child that has no foreknowledge of Physics and Astronomy and can't even grasp language yet? Even our material knowledge is limited and it evolves with time. It's the same with spiritual knowledge. We do not have the mental capabilities to comprehend the whole but we can start with understanding its parts or its effects or what is caused and observable. By studying what is caused, we can have an idea of what is the source. I don't think that God has a problem with that. :p In fact, in our religion it is encouraged to ask questions and to introspect.
Like I said, we are limited by our material senses so we can only infer from observations. We have to deduce by carrying out experimentations. While science has advanced a lot and can explain a lot of things, it's still in its infancy stage. We still can't explain the primal cause of the universes and how matter came to be, etc. However, we have mastered practical knowledge. We will progress more but I do not see Man understanding the totality of creation. The very word creation suggests a creator. If you believe in an eternal state of matter, it still doesn't disprove the possibility of a designer/intelligence or a medium/vessel (God). The material aspect could be a part of the whole.
In our spiritual texts, we are taught that one has to seek him as well; plus the more you persist in researching, the more he reveals and provides you with the necessary knowledge and insight (one that you can comprehend). This is my personal experience.
Spiritual knowledge knows no bounds. It is written in our texts that we will never know God fully. Our spiritual knowledge, just like material knowledge, is evolutionary. Only the Creator can know himself and his creation fully. What is contained in spiritual texts is enough to give one an insight into the works of God but not enough to explain God and his creation fully.
Der Sozialist
11-01-2006, 04:13 AM
Aristotle did not even bother to confirm his idea that objects of different size drop at different speeds by going to the nearest cliff (this Galileo's experiment was originally performed by Christian 6th-century creationist John Philoponus).
Petr
Was it size or weight (I thought it was weight)? I really cannot remember as of the moment. Not that it matters anyway. However, I believe your assertion is incorrect. Edit: Aristotle (sorry about that) had obviously seen “lighter” objects fall at different rates than “heavier” objects otherwise he would have never had that intuition. However, he had obviously not noticed, or took into account, that air friction could be a sizeable factor in the rate of descent for objects of different shapes.
Nevertheless, Christianity was influenced by Greek “Science”. This was primarily where the geo-centric theory comes in.
Insidium
11-01-2006, 04:20 AM
Why is 'practicality' the only thing that is inherently good?
What other criteria do you propose?
I made long post questioning these assumptions, but I decided that I don't won't to involve myself in such a debate (since, most likely, you will remain in you position that this is true no matter what I say). I am just going to say that most philosophers today do not adhere to this. They believe that a prioricity is not synonymous with either necessity or analyticity, and they believe that necessity is not synonymous with analyticity. In earlier half of the last century, when positivism was the rage among philosophers, what you are espousing here was the mainstream view (as can be seen among Russell, the early Wittgenstein, etc.), but it is not today. If you haven't before, I would recommend that you look into Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity--he questioned these assumptions, and even if you don't buy his arguments, you will at least know that Hume's is not the only view out there.
I'll look for this book. I read the wikipedia article and found this:
Kripke also raised the prospect of a posteriori necessities—facts that are necessarily true, though they can be known only through empirical investigation. Examples include “Hesperus is Phosphorus”, “Cicero is Tully”, “Water is H20“ and other identity claims where two names refer to the same object.
I believe Hume placed these within his first category - "bachelors are not married," etc.
I'd be curious in your extrapolation...
Hippias
11-01-2006, 04:35 AM
Depends on what is meant by "faith." If by faith you mean belief in something (like Christianity) bereft of rational argument, then I would say no.
However, if faith is taken to mean belief in something one is not certain about, but assumes to be true, then I would say yes. We are never entirely certain about most of our day to day beliefs, but we assume them to be true nonetheless.
What other criteria do you propose?
I am not proposing any criterion. I am going to say though that there are things which we value that do not have any practical value. Art and philosophy do not. (If you say that the pleasure that they bring the participants is its practical value, then you will have to maintain the same thing for religion.)
I'll look for this book. I read the wikipedia article and found this:
Also see here:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rigid-designators/
Sections 3.1 and 3.2 deal with contingent a priori and necessary a posteriori. The distinction between analytic and synthetic a priori truths, of course goes back to Kant.
I believe Hume placed these within his first category - "bachelors are not married," etc.
I'd be curious in your extrapolation...
I am not sure whether or not Hume discussed examples like these, but I doubt it. They are necessary truths, like the 'bachelors are not married', but the difference in this case is that they are known by experience, and they are not known solely by definition. If I am to find out that Cicero is the same person as Tully, I must do so by way of experience. But 'Cicero', as you will find out if you read him, is a rigid designator, which means that it denotes the same individual in all possible worlds. If X is identical with Y, then they are the same individual in all possible worlds--so, also, in the case of water, if it is identical with H2O, then it must be H2O in all possible worlds (if it were, for instance, H3O in a counterfactual situation, then it would not be water). We find out water's chemical makeup through experience. (If you want to criticize this line of reasoning, then fine, but I am not going to argue for it. I am just showing the reasoning behind these examples.)
Edit: I should maintain that I am not arguing for this position. I am just demonstrating it.
Burrhus
11-01-2006, 06:56 AM
This is attributing determinism to God when the counter-argument could as well be that he is the cause/initiator of determinism. It would be better to say it this way: God initiated the the movement process (everything that is observable) without having to be moved by another.
So, it can be seen that everything (other than God) that is moved is indeed moved by another. God doesn't have to be moved to make this possible (He pervades, sets in motion BUT is APART from his creation). He is the SOURCE of the movement. If anything at all, if we were to argue on what moves God, I would say he is moved by himself. He is the medium and the container and the cause. Everything that moves is contained by/resides in and yet is distinct from him.
It's like asking if Man was created by God then who created God. God is the uncaused being. His existence doesn't depend on the existence of Man.
Imagine God to be a dreamer. The existence of characters and them interacting in God's dream is due to God dreaming. However, God's very existence doesn't depend on the existence and interaction of the characters in God's dream.
Originally Posted by Burrhus
If as Aquinas asserted (falsely in my opinion), everything which moves is moved by another, then god must have been moved by another or else the original premise of his argument is false and there exists something which was not moved by another...one possibility being an eternal, unmoved (eternally moving) universe.
Please note that I was only pointing out here that Aquinas' argument is not logically valid and not that the conclusion is necessarily false. If an argument that starts with the assumption that "everything which moves is moved by another" comes to the conclusion that " god is not moved by another" which contradicts the original assumption, then that argument is logically invalid and the argument is therefore not rational.
That is to say, if god is not moved by another, then the assumption that everything which moves is moved by another is a false assumption. That does not imply that god does not exist or that he is not an unmoved mover, it simply demonstrates that the argument is not rational.
Burrhus
11-01-2006, 07:05 AM
Originally Posted by Helios Panoptes
None of those arguments are without flaw.
Yes that can be said of any argument about anything. Thank you for stating the fucking obvious. :rolleyes:
If Socrates is a man and if all men are mortal, then Socrates is mortal.
Where is the flaw in that argument? Generalizations can be troublesome.
The orthodox Christian position is that all men deep down really do know true God to some extent, but actively drive this primordial knowledge away because they want to be their own masters.
I think that what Akh was saying was that to try an argue it would be to assume that faith is not sufficient for justification of Christian belief. Believers may know God in the way that you say the scriptures assert that they do, but arguing for the existence of God is another matter. If you and I both know that God exists, then what point is there in you constantly barraging us with articles in order to change our views? Wouldn't we be able to come this belief ourselves since it is innate in us? And wouldn't arguments (fallible human creations) have little bearing on whether or not we choose to embrace belief in God?
Burrhus
11-01-2006, 07:33 AM
Petr: Insidium is a tireless mouther of tired stereotypes.
Civility please, Petr.
Petr: Ancient pagan philosophers believed that this universe of ours is eternal.
Some of my Greek ancestors were wise men indeed.
Petr: Since the world is a creation, it cannot be infinite,
Since? Since implies acceptance of an assertion as an axiom which is not the case here. He should have written, "if the universe is a creation". The universe may be a creation but I do not accept that assertion to be true. It may be eternal.
Petr: he hypotheized. His reasoning made use of infinite cardinal numbers and pointed out the logical problems found in infinite series. For example, if the amount of all numbers is infinite, and if the amount of all even numbers is infinite, there must be a one to one correspondence between all numbers and the even numbers. Commonsense says there should be twice as many odd and even numbers as there are even numbers. Since it seemed absurd to suppose there really are, infinities of any countable sort of thing are an absurdity, said Philoponus. He is the first person known to have made this argument."[/I]
The flaw in his argument here is that he is assuming that the universe is a countable thing and concluding that it is therefore not infinite. But "countable thing" and "not infinite" mean the same thing. He has simply arrived at a tautological statement of the form, A=A. True but trivial.
Petr: Just one example of the Bible being fundamentally right.
I will grant the possibilty that the bible contains just one example that is fundamentally right but this is not it.
No. It can be racionalized, it isn't rational. If it was it would not be "faith".
Sandee
11-01-2006, 11:17 AM
Depends on what is meant by "faith." If by faith you mean belief in something (like Christianity) bereft of rational argument, then I would say no.
However, if faith is taken to mean belief in something one is not certain about, but assumes to be true, then I would say yes. We are never entirely certain about most of our day to day beliefs, but we assume them to be true nonetheless.
That's what I had in mind when I voted (sort of). It (belief in an uncaused being responsible for life and creation) is as much likely a hypothesis as any. I assume there is a God and I might never truly be certain or in possession of all the facts but I have strong convictions that point to that possibility.
Basil Fawlty
11-01-2006, 11:49 AM
Please note that I was only pointing out here that Aquinas' argument is not logically valid and not that the conclusion is necessarily false. If an argument that starts with the assumption that "everything which moves is moved by another" comes to the conclusion that " god is not moved by another" which contradicts the original assumption, then that argument is logically invalid and the argument is therefore not rational.
That is to say, if god is not moved by another, then the assumption that everything which moves is moved by another is a false assumption. That does not imply that god does not exist or that he is not an unmoved mover, it simply demonstrates that the argument is not rational.What you say would be true if Aquinas treated God as a determinate something, but as he doesn't you are criticising a strawman.
btw, I still owe you some responses on the naturalism threads, I have been offline for nearly a week now so I need to a bit of catching up over the next few days.
Insidium
11-01-2006, 03:49 PM
That's what I had in mind when I voted (sort of). It (belief in an uncaused being responsible for life and creation) is as much likely a hypothesis as any. I assume there is a God and I might never truly be certain or in possession of all the facts but I have strong convictions that point to that possibility.
Not really - most good hypotheses are falsifiable.
Draco
11-01-2006, 03:55 PM
I'm the only "not sure". I feel if God or some such thing exists, then yes, it's rational. If not, it is irrational to believe in something that does not exist.
As I genuinely have no idea (and genuinely don't care, yay for hubris) I am unsure.
Helios Panoptes
11-01-2006, 09:19 PM
I'm the only "not sure". I feel if God or some such thing exists, then yes, it's rational. If not, it is irrational to believe in something that does not exist.
As I genuinely have no idea (and genuinely don't care, yay for hubris) I am unsure.
Do you think it would be rational to "believe in" something that happened to exist if one had no good justification for the belief?
Burrhus
11-01-2006, 10:56 PM
What you say would be true if Aquinas treated God as a determinate something, but as he doesn't you are criticising a strawman.
Please define determinate. How does a determinate something differ from an indeterminate something? Given that both are something, are they not both included in everything?
Pending your reply, I stand by argument.
Basil Fawlty
11-01-2006, 11:10 PM
Please define determinate. How does a determinate something differ from an indeterminate something? Given that both are something, are they not both included in everything?
Pending your reply, I stand by argument.God is not a being of any kind for a being must be determinable, i.e. have limits. To make of God a being would be to attribute limitation. Aquinas struggles with the difficulties imposed by this whereas a straight forward Platonic theology (via negativa) is better suited to discoursing about the divine. Meister Eckhart put it well when he said "everything we say about God is untrue."
Burrhus
11-01-2006, 11:31 PM
God is not a being of any kind for a being must be determinable, i.e. have limits. To make of God a being would be to attribute limitation. Aquinas struggles with the difficulties imposed by this whereas a straight forward Platonic theology (via negativa) is better suited to discoursing about the divine. Meister Eckhart put it well when he said "everything we say about God is untrue."
If I read you correctly, you seem to be excluding god from the category "everything". If that is the case, then Aquinas' argument is even more invalid (hmm?, is that possible? I think not.) than I had demonstrated.
Excluding god from the category "everything" tacitly assumes his existence (as having been defined as not in that in that category prior to beginning his argument). Thus, as the conclusion merely demonstrates the truth of an assumption, the argument is not valid.
Basil Fawlty
11-01-2006, 11:58 PM
If I read you correctly, you seem to be excluding god from the category "everything". If that is the case, then Aquinas' argument is even more invalid (hmm?, is that possible? I think not.) than I had demonstrated.I think you have to go back to Aquinas and study him more closely, and Scholasticism in general before you can make a proper assessment.
I'm not so much trying to defend Thomism (I'm not) as cautioning against the strawman danger.
Excluding god from the category "everything" tacitly assumes his existence (as having been defined as not in that in that category prior to beginning his argument). Thus, as the conclusion merely demonstrates the truth of an assumption, the argument is not valid.No, that is a blunder. You cannot attribute existence to God, especially in a heavily Platonising theology like Eckhart's but even for Thomas.
Sandee
11-02-2006, 12:02 AM
Everything as in every thing material. God transcends the material and thus is spiritual; but he can still initiate the movement of matter without having to be part (materially) of the 'every thing'. This is what I got from that argument.
Does he absolutely need to be part of the 'everything' PHYSICALLY for the argument to hold?
So if I make a sketch and just because I'm not part of the sketch, does it necessarily mean that I am not the author of the sketch? :confused:
Starr
11-02-2006, 12:10 AM
I accidently selected yes, when I wanted to select no.
I'm the only "not sure". I feel if God or some such thing exists, then yes, it's rational. If not, it is irrational to believe in something that does not exist.
Those who do believe have no way of knowing, that god exists or does not exist, but yet they still cling to the belief, some with an intensity you won't find with anything else, for whatever reasons. And are going by "faith" alone. Isn't that irrational even if God exists?
For one Science does not and can not explain the begginning of the Universe for which it acknowledges happened but is at a lost to explain.
Yes, this seems to basically be as unexplainable as the question that people will throw out of what created God, or how this being or whatever it is came into existence.
Arminius
11-02-2006, 12:11 AM
So if I make a sketch and just because I'm not part of the sketch, does it necessarily mean that I am not the author of the sketch? :confused:
Yes, this makes sense to me. God can "exist" on a higher brane, which isn't linked with our space-time. He wouldn't be subject to the laws of our dimensions (physical laws), yet he can still create. Just like the drawer can draw an image which is limited to 2 dimensions, so can a God create something which is limited to the 4 dimensions. :)
Der Sozialist
11-02-2006, 12:28 AM
Those who do believe have no way of knowing, that god exists or does not exist, but yet they still cling to the belief, for whatever reasons. And are going by "faith" alone. Isn't that irrational even if God exists?
If by “God” we are referencing a Christian God then my answer is: Is it “rational” of me to expect to be a millionaire after buying a lottery ticket?
Everything as in every thing material. God transcends the material and thus is spiritual; but he can still initiate the movement of matter without having to be part (materially) of the 'every thing'. This is what I got from that argument.
Does he absolutely need to be part of the 'everything' PHYSICALLY for the argument to hold?
So if I make a sketch and just because I'm not part of the sketch, does it necessarily mean that I am not the author of the sketch?
One of the major problems with Aquinas argument is his conflation of temporal concepts with concepts that are fundamentally not temporal. Not to mention, the argument that everything “has a cause” is not as obvious as it once was thanks in part to the recent advancements in Physics.
antibuddha
11-02-2006, 02:29 AM
Perhaps this a trick question, but if the "rational" knowledge that there is or cannot be a god brings either personal despair or cultural decline, is it then "rational" to continue disbelief if it brings harm, or at least lessens enjoyment of life? I am assuming a belief in rational self-interest here, and that a godless universe implies a lack of meaning since these are the most generally common attitudes. I suppose my question is, if it was in all's best interest to pursue a fabrication, would it be rational to do so?
Draco
11-02-2006, 03:50 AM
Do you think it would be rational to "believe in" something that happened to exist if one had no good justification for the belief?
No. If I lack good justification for the belief, I can safely assume it has not impacted me and thus is irrelevant to my life.
Insidium
11-02-2006, 05:37 AM
http://www.fullmoon.nu/articles/art.php?id=tal
This is a pretty interesting read.
Burrhus
11-02-2006, 11:13 AM
Basil Fawlty: I think you have to go back to Aquinas and study him more closely,
As a former catholic seminarian, I am not unfamiliar with the works of Aquinas.
Basil: and Scholasticism in general before you can make a proper assessment.
God forbid we drop philosophical acid and start hallucinating about haecceitas and quidditas.
Basil: I'm not so much trying to defend Thomism (I'm not) as cautioning against the strawman danger.
In what way have I misrepresented Aquinas' argument?
No, that is a blunder. You cannot attribute existence to God, especially in a heavily Platonising theology like Eckhart's but even for Thomas
How does saying, "You cannot attribute existence to God" differ from saying, "god does not exist"? Did not Aquinas purport to be offering a rational argument in support of the proposition that an unmoved mover, aka god, exists?
Wouldn't Aquinas fall on the Aristotelian side of the philosophical fence rather than on the Platonic side?
Burrhus
11-02-2006, 11:17 AM
Everything as in every thing material. God transcends the material and thus is spiritual; but he can still initiate the movement of matter without having to be part (materially) of the 'every thing'. This is what I got from that argument.
Had Aquinas written, "everything which is both material and moves is moved by another" you would have a point.
But he didn't. And that's the point.
Basil Fawlty
11-02-2006, 11:50 AM
As a former catholic seminarian, I am not unfamiliar with the works of Aquinas.Ah, that was in the back of my mind last week on foot of a comment you made.
God forbid we drop philosophical acid and start hallucinating about haecceitas and quidditas.:rofl: And why not?
In what way have I misrepresented Aquinas' argument?I may be wrong here but I got the impression that you were taking A to be making a determinate being out of God. However, I do think A does have a problem here in the way that Eckhart does not.
How does saying, "You cannot attribute existence to God" differ from saying, "god does not exist"? The latter statement is formally correct if meant in the Eckhartian sense, however, when moderns say 'God does not exist' they mean something quite else. For them it is not a statement of via negativa theology but a profession of atheism.
Did not Aquinas purport to be offering a rational argument in support of the proposition that an unmoved mover, aka god, exists?He does indeed. But the mover is entirely unlike the moved. I felt you were trying to assimilate both under the same kind.
Wouldn't Aquinas fall on the Aristotelian side of the philosophical fence rather than on the Platonic side?Yes, he would, although recent scholarship has brought out the Platonic currents in his philosophy more clearly. Eckhart on the other hand represents a reverse tendency - overt Platonism within an Aristotelian framework.
I think the main question here though is not a scholarly one but a philosophical one. If I may mix idioms here, God is the term to describe the condition for the possibility of anything at all, the Unmoved Mover in Aristotelian terminology. In this way, we can avoid getting entagled in pseudoproblems concerning God's "properties" as if "he" were a being like any other, in this case a supreme being, but a being nonetheless. This is where all the problems come in.
So part of the wider problem in a discussion like this is the mixing up of religious categories with purely philosophical ones, an unfortunate inheritance from a time when religion arrogated and subordinated philosophy to itself (the "handmaiden"). Unfortunately there is a counter tendency to this which occurs from the 17th century onwards; philosophy is now to be conceived as a handmaiden to natural science, and a particular conception of science at that; techno-science. Both of these relationships are wrong, disasterously wrong, in my view, the question of being cannot be subordinated to some prior conception of being. In both cases the question is supplanted by a dogma, so what we often see here is a clash of dogmas (e.g. Naturalism vs.Creationism) out of which nothing can ever be resolved.
Captain Marinesko
11-02-2006, 11:53 AM
What does it mean to be rational? Why, if we should, should we be religious? If religion is based neither in logic nor empirical evidence, is it still rational to believe in it.
Short answer: No.
Burrhus
11-02-2006, 06:18 PM
Originally Posted by Burrhus
As a former catholic seminarian, I am not unfamiliar with the works of Aquinas.
Basil: Ah, that was in the back of my mind last week on foot of a comment you made.
When will the Irish learn to speak proper English? Before or after the British do? (That's humor, Basil. I'm not one of those satanic nazi anti-Gaelicites. My dearly departed, sainted mother was Irish.)
But what does "on foot of a comment" mean?
Burrhus: God forbid we drop philosophical acid and start hallucinating about haecceitas and quidditas.
Basil: And why not?
My ears would start bleeding and the ghost of Samuel Johnson would appear and drop a rock on my foot.
Burrhus: In what way have I misrepresented Aquinas' argument?
Basil: I may be wrong here but I got the impression that you were taking A to be making a determinate being out of God. However, I do think A does have a problem here in the way that Eckhart does not.
You may know more about Aquinas than I do and if so where does he make the distinction between god as an indeterminate being as opposed to a determinate being? And where in his argument for god's 'existence' does he employ that distinction?
Given that Eckhart was 14 when Aquinas died, I don't suppose that you are suggesting that the former influenced the latter. Why introduce Eckhart and mysticism here at all when the topic is: Is faith in god rational?
Now, Basil (and by-standers subject to collateral damage), take cover because I am going to drop a massive philosophical bomb on ya'll. Assuming that you have read many of my posts you may have noticed that I never use the word "being" as a noun; I always use the word "entity". Being as a noun has no semantic reference for me.
Consider the phrase "human being". Human is an adjective and being is a noun. What is a being? How does it differ from an organism? What are its properties? How does one detect its presence? Unless you are using "being" as a gerund in which case you are truly on slippery semantic ground.
I suspect that you believe god to be neither a determinate nor an indeterminate being. Can god not be a being at all? Is that correct? (Can one not "be" a "being"? See why I don't use the word?)
Burrhus: How does saying, "You cannot attribute existence to God" differ from saying, "god does not exist"?
Basil: The latter statement is formally correct if meant in the Eckhartian sense, however, when moderns say 'God does not exist' they mean something quite else. For them it is not a statement of via negativa theology but a profession of atheism.
As a card carrying atheist I can assure you that I do not affirm the assertion that "god does not exist". I simply fail to affirm the assertion, "god exists".
For via negativa theologians (Does that word even apply?) god is ineffable. To say that something is "ineffable" means that it cannot or should not, for overwhelming reasons, be expressed in spoken words. Kind of a discussion killer, ne c'est pas?
Burrhus: Did not Aquinas purport to be offering a rational argument in support of the proposition that an unmoved mover, aka god, exists?
Basil: He does indeed. But the mover is entirely unlike the moved. I felt you were trying to assimilate both under the same kind.
Asserting that the unmoved mover and the moved are not of the same kind implies that they are in different classes, unmoved movers in the class UM and the moved in class M. The class UM is necessarily either empty or it is not empty. In any case, the class UM was defined prior to the formulation of his argument, as it not logically entailed by any premise within the argument, and is thus an unstated assumption.
If Aquinas assumed that the class UM was empty, then his conclusion contradicts that assumption and the argument is invalid. If he assumed that the class UM was not empty, then the conclusion was tautological with that assumption and the argument is invalid. In either case, a rational argument for an unmoved mover or god has not been presented. Which is of course not to say that the conclusion is false but merely that the argument supporting that conclusion is not rational.
Basil: I think the main question here though is not a scholarly one but a philosophical one. If I may mix idioms here, God is the term to describe the condition for the possibility of anything at all, the Unmoved Mover in Aristotelian terminology. In this way, we can avoid getting entagled in pseudoproblems concerning God's "properties" as if "he" were a being like any other, in this case a supreme being, but a being nonetheless. This is where all the problems come in.
Basil: "God is the term to describe the condition for the possibility of anything at all" resolves semantically to the assertion that the term god refers to a condition. What is a condition? To what does the term condition refer?
It seems to me that your reliance on the via negativa theological postion which asserts neither the existence nor the non-existence of god obviates any rational discussion about either faith in god or his existence. The ineffable nature of that theology puts one's interlocutor in the untenable postion of accepting it and remaining silent or rejecting it thus terminating the discourse.
Paradoxically via negativa theology is identical to what I consider the atheist position to be. I also assert neither the existence nor the non-existence of god. Nor, however, do I claim that god is a condition. It seems to me that the term god refers to an unnecessary hypothesis constructed to account for what is simply the condition, or state of being (verb), of an eternal and eternally moving universe.
Basil: So part of the wider problem in a discussion like this is the mixing up of religious categories with purely philosophical ones, an unfortunate inheritance from a time when religion arrogated and subordinated philosophy to itself (the "handmaiden"). Unfortunately there is a counter tendency to this which occurs from the 17th century onwards; philosophy is now to be conceived as a handmaiden to natural science,
I believe that it is the other way around...philosophy is the overseer of science (and all science is natural).
Basil: and a particular conception of science at that; techno-science. Both of these relationships are wrong, disasterously wrong, in my view, the question of being cannot be subordinated to some prior conception of being. In both cases the question is supplanted by a dogma, so what we often see here is a clash of dogmas (e.g. Naturalism vs.Creationism) out of which nothing can ever be resolved.
Basil: "the question of being cannot be subordinated to some prior conception of being". Being as a noun or being as a verb?
The clash is not one of dogmas (at least not on the naturalist side) but one of faiths and, not between naturalism and creationism but rather between naturalism and supernaturalism. The word religion can no longer be constrained to necessarily imply theism. The foundational axioms of naturalism are as much faith based as those of supernaturalism and better suited to support a religion that can once again bind the people of western cultures together.
Vindex
11-02-2006, 07:04 PM
Satan is God.
www.JoyofSatan.com
Sandee
11-03-2006, 12:28 AM
My personal thoughts.
I'll use potential energy and kinetic energy to examplify. God is the source of those energies. He is potent and the potency. He is the underlying force that drives the energy conversion as well.
Now, Basil (and by-standers subject to collateral damage), take cover because I am going to drop a massive philosophical bomb on ya'll. Assuming that you have read many of my posts you may have noticed that I never use the word "being" as a noun; I always use the word "entity". Being as a noun has no semantic reference for me.
We do tend to take words for granted. A being is the expressive condition/state of an identity and the identity included. God is a good example just like souls.
Either way, thanks for pointing that out. It is not a verb only because a verb will denote only the action. It is not a noun only as a noun will indicate only the identity (unexpressed). It is both but it is considered a noun for the sake of convenience (it is taken as a whole). The state of be and being acts as whole (be+ing) i.e it can act as a noun that can express itself. The being (noun - taken as a whole) creates (verb).
Consider the phrase "human being". Human is an adjective and being is a noun. What is a being? How does it differ from an organism? What are its properties? How does one detect its presence? Unless you are using "being" as a gerund in which case you are truly on slippery semantic ground.
I suspect that you believe god to be neither a determinate nor an indeterminate being. Can god not be a being at all? Is that correct? (Can one not "be" a "being"? See why I don't use the word?)
God is indeed an entity/identity but he's also referred to as a being (noun) because creation itself is said to be the physical expressive condition being projected/materialised (verb denoting an action in the past) and it is constantly being maintained (action in the present) by Him. This stems from his spiritual nature (the source of the potential energy and kinetic energy). He acts. He is a being and a driving force that holds together creation. He is the source.
As a card carrying atheist I can assure you that I do not affirm the assertion that "god does not exist". I simply fail to affirm the assertion, "god exists".
That's fair enough.
Asserting that the unmoved mover and the moved are not of the same kind implies that they are in different classes, unmoved movers in the class UM and the moved in class M.
The material manifestation (expressed state of the kinetic force) and spiritual manifestation (potential and kinetic force and source-spirit) are not of the same kind.
The distinction has to be made. The 'unmoved' (potent+potency) is the unexpressed spiritual source of the potential/kinetic force. The state of the moving body is the potential/kinetic force being expressed. The source of the potential energy/kinetic exists. God is equated to that energy source. Matter derives its motion from the God identity.
The class UM is necessarily either empty or it is not empty. In any case, the class UM was defined prior to the formulation of his argument, as it not logically entailed by any premise within the argument, and is thus an unstated assumption.
No, it just exists and can be observed when it expresses itself. The energy is just being converted to something observable (matter). God is the source of all energies.
In short, you're right in that the spiritual spark (God) is eternally moving (without needing to be moved as it is itself in an eternal state of motion). God doesn't have a beginning. Matter does however and the material manifestation derives its motion from God. If the source is taken away, there will be no matter.
Matter is, in that sense, a temporary manifestation. There will be destruction followed by again the creation (motion initiated), sustainance (motion being maintained) and again destruction (motion stops). It is a cycle. :) The spiritual spark however will remain eternally moving and it is the constant source. It is constantly applying a current/force to matter to keep it moving. The source of that current/force is God. :)
Burrhus
11-03-2006, 12:50 AM
(In reply to a post by Burrhus) In short, you're right in that the spiritual spark (God) is eternally moving (without needing to be moved as it is itself in an eternal state of motion). God doesn't have a beginning.
I can be neither right nor wrong with respect to an assertion that I never made, namely, "that the spiritual spark (God) is eternally moving (without needing to be moved as it is itself in an eternal state of motion)."
I neither believe nor assert the truth of any such proposition. In fact I believe that the universe is both eternal and a purely material entity and that motion is an eternal condition of the universe. It was not moved by another.
Sandee
11-03-2006, 01:02 AM
I can be neither right nor wrong with respect to an assertion that I never made, namely, "that the spiritual spark (God) is eternally moving (without needing to be moved as it is itself in an eternal state of motion)."
I neither believe nor assert the truth of any such proposition. In fact I believe that the universe is both eternal and a purely material entity and that motion is an eternal condition of the universe. It was not moved by another.
My bad. You'll have to forgive me here. My point is that I see your stance but I attribute this factor to the spiritual entity and not to matter (which you do). I had a little moment of confusion there and I expressed myself wrongly (You'll have to forgive me as English is not my first language; I do have a good grasp of it but I also, oftentimes, wrongly structure my thoughts)... :)
So, is it safe to say that you don't believe that there ever was a beginning to the universe?
Burrhus
11-03-2006, 12:37 PM
(In reply to Burrhus)So, is it safe to say that you don't believe that there ever was a beginning to the universe?
That is correct.
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