So you reduce rationality to probabilities? Ok, fair enough. That makes rationality relative of course, rather than an absolute. Under those parameters, you may argue that it is more rational to believe that Brazil will win the next WC than to believe Argentina will win the next World Cup. I say, yes that may be true, based on our accepting certain logical assumptions, but nevertheless it is not necessarily irrational to believe that Argentina will win it. As long as you understand that probabilities are also based on assumptions, and you acknowledge that you are not talking absolutes, which is all that I asked from you to begin with, then I have no problem with your reasoning.
Wait, I never said anything else. In fact I said from the beginning that a belief is rational when it's more likely to be true than false. The question is how to determine what's more likely and probabilities are the best way of doing that, because mathematics are as objective as possible. I never claimed to be talking about absolutes when talking about properties of nature. The only time I spoke of absolutes, I specifically made a point in explaining that this is only valid in regard to man made constructs (like mathematics), not properties of nature. But at the same time, probabilities are not simply based on assumptions. The calculation I gave you for example is based upon testable evidence, namely the age of the universe and the fact that there haven't been any changes in the nature of reality since its beginning. There's nothing circular about it and neither anything based upon untestable inner experiences or subjective feelings, and that's what makes the calculation and therefore the conclusion reasonable. Probability calculation, while being objective itself, is absolutely useless when based upon untestable evidence. For example: God told me that 9 out of 10 human beings are irrational, therefore the chance of you being rational is 1/10, so without having met you or talked to you, it's reasonable to believe that you're irrational. While the calculation is objectively true, the result is not, because it's based upon an unprovable assumption. If a single untestable assumption is necessary in order for you to get to a certain result, then believing in this result is by definition irrational. If for example string theory is a necessary pillar of belief X, then to hold belief X would be irrational as string theory is untestable (at the moment). If your calculation is not based on untestable assumptions, it might still be irrational, although that's a different topic (going into the direction of your economists example). But the mere fact that your belief is based upon untestable evidence already disqualifies it from being rational (and this is an absolute). And once again: This doesn't mean that I attach any value to calling it irrational. For example, while it's not rational to hold belief X, it might very well be worthwhile to pursue belief X, because if it did eventually make a testable prediction, you could not only rationally believe in belief X, but also in string theory.
Since you edited your post while I replied, here are some amendments: This goes back to your economics example. Technically, rationality is absolute. Practically it's not. We have to allow for some wiggle room. But this doesn't prevent us from being able to absolutely qualify certain beliefs as rational (e.g. 2+2=4) or irrational (e.g. an afterlife). Only when the subjective interpretation of objective facts becomes more and more important for the conclusion does it become relative. Let me give you an example: 1)You're coaching an athlete, a sprinter. He's running the 100m while you're stopping his time with a stop watch. The time you get is 9s. So is it rational to believe that he ran a new world record? We have a piece of objective evidence, your stop watch. But we also know that human reaction isn't instantaneous. In order to form a rational opinion, we'd need to make as many experiments with you as possible, in order to find out your reaction time and how you behave measuring 100m runs. But since that's not practical in reality, we can give you some wiggle room and debate whether or not it's rational for you to believe that it had to be a world record. Personally, I'd come down on the no-side, as the evidence wouldn't be good enough for me. It too much depends upon your subjective feeling. But as I said, that's debatable. 2) On the other hand, if we had some high tech measuring machinery there instead of your stop watch, and it did show that it was a world record, your belief would be absolutely rational. 3) The other extreme would be for you to have no measuring device at all, in fact, you're not even watching your athlete run, since you're having a beer at the nearby bar. Your belief that he had a world record time because you had an inner experience that told you so would be absolutely irrational. But, in our discussion, we only have talked about whether or not case three can possibly be rational. Whether it can possibly be rational to have beliefs about reality that aren't based on material evidence. And here I'm firmly on the no-side.
Ok. So now you are defining rationality as believing only statements that are more likely to be true than to be false. Does that mean that you draw the line between rational and irrational at 50 percent odds? Anything over 50 percent odds of being true is rational because it more likely to be true and anything under 50 percent odds is irrational because it is more likely to be false? And who is the final authority who determines the exact odds?
It's not just now that I do it. I've done it repeatedly throughout our entire discourse. Sometimes more, sometimes less explicit, but it was never about absolute proof or absolute truth. In fact this is what I wrote in my very first reply to you: Logic is a well defined set of operations. You can easily prove me wrong. Just demonstrate that god's existence is more likely than his nonexistence by using these operations. A little later I said this: It's simply unreasonable to believe in the existence for something you don't have the slightest shred of evidence for. Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? No. Then I said this: Belief is when somebody thinks a position to be more likely true than false. I think we can all agree on that. So yeah, since we talk about belief, not knowledge, 50%+x is enough to justify it. For example, at a Roulette table, if you ask me "do you believe that the ball will land on either red or zero next?" I'd say yes, because it's more likely that the opposite, even if it's only by a tiny margin. Ideally, the odds are self evident, as in the Roulette example. If we don't have that, we need to employ approximations, like occam's razor. This is what I said early on in our discussion: Occam's razor doesn't prove anything, but it's a good rule of thumb when it comes to calculating probabilities. As I said in my last couple of posts, the more subjective this becomes, the more critical we have to be. Generally, it's always better to be conservative and use a generous margin of error in order to not be too confident. I went over this in my athlete example. The probability of unprovable beliefs however automatically approach zero, as for every true claim, there's an infinity of false claims, so it's 1/infinity=>0 So since we exclusively talk about the nature of unprovable beliefs, we don't need to bother about how to determine probabilities of beliefs that are based upon verifiable evidence. I also previously said something along the lines of: Basing a belief on objective evidence doesn't automatically make it rational, basing it on subjective feelings however automatically makes it irrational.
So if we say for example that the odds for Spain to win the World Cup are established by experts at 5 to 1, would you say it would be irrational to believe that Spain will win the World Cup? And is rationality relative in your view? Would you say for example if Spain is at 5 to 1 and Argentina is at 7 to 1, that it is more rational to believe that Spain will win than to believe that Argentina will win? Or would you say that both are equally irrational propositions?
Yes, since Spain not winning would be more likely. But you could rephrase that question to "which team is most likely to win" and Spain would all of a sudden be the rational answer. Strictly speaking, for every question there's usually not more than one answer which is (based on verifiable evidence) more likely true than false and therefore rational. Everything else is simply irrational. But I don't see the harm in introducing degrees of irrationality...
I don't think I can accept that as other than conjecture at best. But conjectures are unproven, so I guess it would also fall into the category of approaching zero. Actually, I would propose that the probability of the truth of unprovable beliefs can vary immensely depending on the generality or specificity of the statement that we choose to believe. For example, lets say over 2000 years ago Greek philosopher A said, "I believe in the existence of Atoms", and Greek philosopher B said "I believe in the existence of atoms that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons." Leaving aside the fact that in this example both philosophers were proved right a couple of thousand years later when technology and science caught up with supposition, I think it's fair to say that because of his statement being more general, the odds of philosopher A being right would have been much higher than the odds of philosopher B being right. Would you say philosopher A would have been more rational than philosopher B or are both equally irrational in your view? Likewise, if person A says that he believes there is life in other planets and person B says he believes that there are blue beings living in the planet Pandora, both persons are as of today stating unprovable beliefs. Yet person A is stating a more general belief, and person B is stating a more specific belief. I think you would agree that, regardless of where we set the odds, the odds of person A being right are much higher than the odds of person B being right. This does not mean that person B cannot possibly be right, but the belief of person A is a much more likely proposition. Would you say in this case A is a more rational proposition than B or are both equally irrational in your view? Another problem with your point of view leading to your conclusion that people who believe that which cannot be proved are irrational, based on your assumption of establishing rationality according to odds, is that when we make a statement of belief as a possibility, then the odds move up to 100 percent. For example, lets take these four statements: a) I believe there are blue beings living in the planet Pandora b) I believe there is life in other planets c) I believe there is no life in other planets. d) I believe there may be life in other planets. Now, we may assign very low odds to statement A and much higher odds to statement B. We may also perhaps assign relatively high odds to statement C, and certainly we could debate about the relative probability of B and C, and frankly I think it is a subjective opinion, so it would be very difficult to establish specific odds. But the sum of the odds of statement B being correct and the odds of statement C being correct would have to equal 100 percent, (odds for B + odds for C = 100 %), So statement D has a 100 percent chance of being correct, because we are opening our mind to the idea that there may be life in other planets, and yet we also leave it open to the idea that there may not be life in other planets. So no matter which of the two is right, we would still be right. 100 percent odds. So, I would conclude that based on your own definition, approaching all ideas with an open mind is indeed the most rational way to look at reality, and the only sure way to be right. You can't be more rational than 100 percent. That, of course, gives us also the added practical advantage of being able to apply the possibilities that work best for us in practical terms, without necessarily having to discard them because "they sound irrational". So, for example, US Hockey players at Lake Placid in 1980 may have chosen to believe, against very high odds set by experts, that when their coach told them that "on this day you are the best team in the planet", such a statement is indeed possible. That belief worked for them, and it helped enable them to beat the much more talented Soviet Union. The Soviet Union may have had huge odds in their favor, and it would have been rational to believe that the Soviet Union was going to win. Yet the US players belief in possibilities, their belief that they could beat the Soviet Union, was also rational. -100 percent odds-. Denying the possibility that they could win would have been less rational, less than 100 percent odds. They chose to believe, and they won. Irrational?
No it's not conjecture. I can easily demonstrate that. But first, let's look at this: First of all, it does get frustrating that you constantly misrepresent me. I repeatedly said that it's not about proof but evidence. This is a crucial distinction and I don't get why this is so hard to understand. But leaving that aside: It is correct, phrasing a belief is essential to it being rational or not. The more vague you get, the more likely your belief is true. For example, the belief that a god may exist is rational. If you look back at what I said, I always contended that the existence of a god is possible, just not likely. However, the more vague a belief is, the more useless it is as well. Now I can tie this up with my initial statement: Let's say that I believe that unicorns exist. That in itself is of course an empty statement, for it to convey any meaning, I need to explain what I mean by unicorn. 1) I can say that unicorn means whatever. In that case, my belief is obviously rational. If everything can be a unicorn we can be certain that unicorns exist, because we know of things that do exist. It is however a useless belief. The term unicorn doesn't add any understanding and is therefore superfluous. I can reduce it to the belief that things exist. 2) However, as soon as I get slightly more precise, my chances of being correct approach zero. Let's say I define unicorn as such: It has the appearance of a white horse, only that it also has horn on its nose. Notice that I'm still very vague as I didn't say anything about the nature of the unicorn, only about one of its properties, its appearance. However, now I can make an infinite amount of contradicting claims, each with the same probability of being correct. For example, I could also say that a unicorn has the appearance of a white horse, only that it also has a horn on its nose and a black dot in its back. Or two black dots, or three, or four, etc. to infinity. Since all these claims have the same probability of being correct, the chance of my initial claim being correct is 1/infinity=>0 The problem is variability. For every claim I can come up with there's an infinite number of variations, each of which has the same probability of being correct. If you don't have any evidence for your belief, you have nothing that could preclude these variations. Another example: Some people say that god is love. Well, if that's the definition, then I believe in god, because I believe that love exists. But it would render the term god superfluous, as we already have a word to describe love: Love! But let's say you define god as such: God is love that transcends human beings and manifests itself in the supernatural realm. Again, I'm still very vague, but concrete enough to make variations. I could say that god is hate that transcends human nature and manifests itself in the supernatural realm. Or god is fear that transcends human nature and manifests itself in the supernatural realm, or any combination of those three, maybe he's 2.5% love, 7.7% hate and 89,8% fear. Again I have an infinity of similar claims, each contradicting the other ones and each with the exact same probability of being true. So each claim has the probability of 1/infinity=>0 A belief that is based upon objective evidence however is not variable. Since the belief is a direct result of the evidence, you can't change that result without turning it from a rational into an irrational belief. Example: Premise: a=2, b=3, c=a+b Conclusion: c=5 So to believe that c=5 is reasonable, but as soon as I vary that, it becomes unreasonable. c=6 for example is not supported by the evidence. Another example: Premise: c=a+b Conclusion: c=5 Here I don't have any evidence, so I can vary my belief and have the same chance of being correct. Maybe c is 5, maybe 6, maybe it's three cars and an apple or maybe it's an elevator. All of this is equally likely, therefore every belief I have about the nature of c approaches a 0% likelihood and is therefore irrational.
My bad a guess a better example for you would be, the same reason people stop believing in ghosts, or you can add all the other gods that have ever been created in the past.
Hitchens (C) with a spot on analysis of the current stata of the Roman Catholics in Slate today: the Roman Catholic Church holds it better for the cries of raped and violated children to be ignored, and for the excuses and alibis of their rapists and torturers indulged, and for a host of dirty and willful untruths to be manufactured wholesale, and for the funds raised ostensibly for the poor to be paid out in hush money and shameful bribery, rather than that one tiny indignity or inconvenience be visited on the robed majesty of a man-made church or any limit set to its self-proclaimed right to be judge in its own cause. http://www.slate.com/id/2267098/
Maybe Santa does live in the North pole, he is just outside our "physical abilities to locate or define" Pink Invisible Unicorns are real, and you can not prove it otherwise so There I stopped believing in Ghosts when I could not see any, maybe some day I will see a ghost and I will believe again, until then ghosts do not exist in my mind, same as the gods (god). Is that better? So I will say, that I can not prove your god does not exits, you can not prove that my gods do not exist, but that does not mean that your god is real, and that does not mean that my gods are real. So you can go on believing in your god, and let me go on believing on my pink invisible unicorn.
Because the question assumes that somehow, some way, you're going to convince someone that it makes even one iota of sense to believe that something exists, and you can talk to it and it influences the world, but we can never ever actually see, hear, touch or otherwise verify it's existence. In that respect, it is entirely like a leprechaun. Maybe you're just not looking hard enough..? And belief in something that, by your definition, is completely disconnected from material existence is somehow better? By hiding god this way, you render him moot. Why would anyone rationally believe in something unknowable, when the alternate explanation (He's a story someone made up to gain control over you) is infinitely more plausible (i.e. doesn't require belief in anything unknowable or that exists outside of the real world)?
Sounds good. I really just want to know the numerous reasons why people don't believe. Its interesting to me.
Sounds great. If that works for you I am all for it. I am actually not trying to convince anyone of anything. If you go back and read the whole thread I only posted when I objected to a few people's use of the word "indoctrination," and then following that having to try to explain that China and Vietnam do not actually have freedom of religion. I started this thread, not to create some kind of trap, but sincerely to hear people's reasons for not believing or moving away from faith. I don't feel the need to define my perspective on things by negating someone else's, nor do I feel that I need to trash or belittle other people's honestly held beliefs.
To bad if you feel that comparing your god to a leprechaun or a unicorn is offensive. But remember you believe in one god, you do not believe in the other gods that existed in the past, if they are real, you are offending them and you are offending all the people that did or still believe in them. Do you believe in saints, Genies (I believe Muslims in East Africa still believe in some devil type thing), spirits, and reincarnation? What do you think about them, which is the way I feel about your god and your religion. So there that is the best I can tell you, the same thing you feel about Zeus, Tlaloc, and Poseidon, is the same way I feel about Yahweh. The same way you feel about Mohamed, Smith and Homer (Greek not Simpson) is the same way I feel about Jesus.
Really? Maybe I misjudged you then. I think our discussion began when you said this: My only issue was with your use of the word "only". It seemed to me to be too closed minded. But if you assert that it is rational to believe that a god may exist, then I have no argument with you at all. Had I understood that you accepted this, it would have saved me a lot of arguing. Although, I have to say I do enjoy immensely arguing with you. It's always nice to argue with people who can argue, well..., rationally, - At least based on my judgment of what is rational, you on the other hand might say that my judgment is irrational so maybe my belief that you are arguing rationally is also irrational - I agree with your idea for the most part, except I don't accept your point about those beliefs being useless and superfluous, because we know by experience that beliefs, no matter how ridiculous we may find them to be, are not useless and superfluous. I gave you the real life example of the US Hockey team at Lake Placid and how -by their own admission- their belief in the possibility that they could win helped them achieve what many thought was impossible, beating the much more talented Soviet Union. It is the power of hope. Not useless, not superfluous. But let me be even more ridiculous. Lets say I am an absurd optimist and I believe that I can, at my age, win the Boston Marathon. I think as a possibility -I may be able to win the Boston Marathon- it is not an irrational statement. But if I take it as fact -I will win the Boston Marathon- it is indeed irrational. Now I am sure that you will point out -even not knowing me- that my odds to win the Boston Marathon are astronomical. And yet my belief that I can win it will be a motivating factor in pushing me to train, and it will improve my odds of winning. Most likely what would happen is that I will not win it, but thanks to my belief that I could, I may be able to complete it, and possibly finish much higher up than I might have if I was a skeptic who believed all along that I don't have a chance in hell. And who knows, maybe I win my age group. Again, it is the power of hope. Likewise, lets say I hold this belief: "I can win the California Lottery". I think that is a rational statement, even though the odds are overwhelmingly against it. The statement "I will win the California Lottery may be irrational" But my more general belief that I can win will lead me to actually buy the tickets, and who knows, I might win. Somebody does win most of the time. And even if I don't win this week, or next week, or the following week, still the rational dream that I might win it, and might buy my dream home, travel around the world, and so on, remains alive, and enhances my reality. Once again, my general belief leads to action based on hope that is not useless and not superfluous, and produces positive results. Now lets take this to the realm of philosophy. I think based on your last post that you stated that "I believe that God may exist" is rational, but "I believe that God does exist" is irrational. As I said time and time again, I believe the former, so I conclude that you do believe that I am being rational, and your statement that I was irrational may have been prompted by a misunderstanding of my beliefs. Where I would disagree with you is in saying that such a belief is useless and superfluous. Just as when people believe that they can beat the Soviets at hockey, win the Boston Marathon or win the Lottery their belief is not useless and superfluous, because of the variable that I mentioned, the motivating power of hope, I contend that it is also true that my belief in the possible existence of a deity is not useless and superfluous, for the very same reason. I don't think so. We can say love exists just as a chemical reaction, or as a real idea in the realm of the mind. But when we believe in the possibility that deity is love, that brings a lot more possibilities and it activates the power of hope. My personal belief is that intelligence and love are part of the nature of the universe itself, just as light and sound. Pantheistic, you called it. I just call it possibility thinking, and it does make sense to me, when I look at my reality including the physical realm that I can observe, as well as my mind. I am not sure how you define the supernatural real. Are you using "supernatural" as anything that may exist but cannot be observed and measured by our physical senses, such as the mind, love, intelligence, deity etc? Or are you using it more specifically as that which violates the laws of the material world, such as miracles, apparitions, and so on? Because depending on which definition you are using, the discussion can go in a different direction. I don't agree with this last statement. I am not sure how you can measure these ideas in order to say that they have the exact same probability of being true. I certainly agree that there is a possibility that deity can be defined as hate, or as fear. Based on that scenario, we can conceive of a deity that would plant natural observable data that is false in order to confuse us, as some fundamentalists believe. But while certainly the measuring of the probabilities is very subjective, I think by studying my own self and my own universe I've been able to conclude that the probability that deity is love is much higher than the probability that it is hate. The very fact that the universe can be understood rationally and that it is governed by logical laws that we can understand and live by, so that we can tell David Hume that the future will in fact be as the past, is evidence to me of the possibility of love. And looking at myself, I see in myself a being capable of love and fear and hate, and yet I see my own nature as much more likely being love than fear or hate, because I am attracted to love and repulsed by fear and hate, so that leads me also to believe in the higher probability that the universe and deity are governed by elements such as love rather than elements such as hate, and I judge it to be the more rational one of the options. And of course, my ability to have hope is also a mitigating factor, and an important one. I see more value in the possibility based on love than in the one based on hate. I am sure that this is true of those who believe in a specific deity with specific traits and accept their specific deity by faith. Faith comes from hope. The problem I have with religion is the contradictions. To me, for example, hell is a contradiction of the Christian faith. I don't give a shit if it's in the Bible, I see it as a logical contradiction based on what I see as the premises of the Christian faith, and of the hope that is behind it. Right, but that applies only to the material, and that which can be provable by science because it can be perceived by our physical senses. Even then, to reduce the material to mathematics has limitations. 2 + 2 = 4 only because we define four as the sum of 2 + 2. Now I can cut a piece of bread into 4 pieces and prove that 2 + 2 equals 4. But to get from 2 to 4 we have to go through an infinite number of decimals, and in the real world it is impossible to do so. Trying to cut a piece of bread, or anything else that exists in the material universe into an infinite number of pieces is impossible. So, while math helps us in practical terms, you can see how math is different conceptually than the material world, what you might call "the real world". So, we make sense of the natural world by observation and both deductive and inductive reasoning. I believe and trust science when it comes to the material world, but it is important to understand its limitations when it comes to matters of the mind and of the realm of ideas that exist but are not physical or material in nature. For that reason, I don't think it's valid to put some specific odds on the existence or non existence of deity, as you might put on the outcome of a soccer game, for example. The ways to arrive at any legitimate measurement of probabilities are all very subjective, and so each of us may arrive at a very different level of probability. Not long ago, a scientist wrote a book putting the odds of the existence of God at 67 percent. I look at something like that, and I think it's bullshit. We cannot do that. At any rate, as I personally believe God is an element of the universe that is not measured physically, as light might be measured, I don't think we can discover him in a tangible way by using our physical senses. It is the mind that can experience God, just as it experiences Love, Hope and so on. Unless God chooses to enter the physical realm, we cannot expect physical evidence. Even then, the physical evidence would be reduced to a footprint, such as the footprint Love leaves in our brain when we experience it. Then a materialist, if he discovers the footprint, would just believe in the footprint but not in the deity who left it, just as he believes in the footprint that love leaves in our brain -a chemical reaction- but not in that which left the footprint. And, based on his particular subjective assumptions, it would be rational for him to do so. So, I contend that any attempt to put odds on the existence/non existence of God is ridiculous. I do think we can say in general terms as a matter of logic that a general idea such as "God exists" is probably much more likely than the more specific "God exists and he lives at the top of Mount Olympus" or "God exists and he was born in Bethlehem 2000 years ago". The latter may work as human attempts to understand God, but I would say they are as specific deities less likely to be true than deity in general. I don't mean by that that they are impossible, just less likely based on being more specific. By the same token, the general "God exists" is more likely than the specific "Santa Claus exists and is fat and jolly and lives in the north pole and rides a sleigh with reindeer and gives gifts to all the good kids but not the naughty ones on Christmas". No matter how much some may try to make them equivalent, the latter is less likely -leaving aside other reasons- just based on the fact that it is so much more specific. Deity is a very general concept, and it really opens our mind to many specific ideas that we may accept based on hope or faith, some of which exist in the religious traditions, and others that we may conceive on our own. Yet deity remains an idea. I think it is subjective and thus useless to try to assign any odds of existence to ideas, when it comes to metaphysical matters. It is just as useless, for example, to try to assign specific odds to the idea that we exist independently of our physical body. Really any attempt to put odds on these things is subjective, irrelevant, and I would say irrational. The only thing is, we know that for lots of people these ideas seem to work in helping them make sense of themselves and their reality. Now, I would propose that just as "there is a God" is less rational than "there may be a God", it is also true that "there is no God" is less rational than "there may not be a God". So, when someone like Hawkins asserts that he can conceive of a Universe without God, I agree that he is being rational, he is talking possibilities. But when an atheist says as an absolute statement that "there is no God", I think he is guessing, just as much as the person who says "there is a God". And yet I will concede to such an atheist that, if he admits that he is starting from a supposition, I do believe he is able to argue rationally based on that particular premise, as long as his argument is internally consistent. And I concede the same to the Deist. I hope I'm being clear, in trying to explain the point I've been trying to make.
Well, the two positions are not mutually exclusive. I still maintain that atheism is the only logical conclusion to the god question, but atheism doesn't mean that one has to deny the possibility of a god. An atheist simply doesn't believe in any particular god claim. A strong atheist like myself goes as far to say that he doesn't believe that one or more gods exist. But that doesn't exclude the possibility that they do. Then let me be more precise: Useless in terms of understanding, or knowing about the world we live in. As for your sports example: We all know that the more talented team doesn't necessarily win. And I know of many such examples. You might remember the 2001 Intercontinental Cup which Bayern won against Boca Juniors. Just weeks later they lost against the worst Bundesliga team that year, FC St Pauli. It's still well known in Germany because St Pauli pulled a great PR stunt after that by printing T-Shirts which said "Weltpokalsiegerbesieger", an English approximation would be "Intercontinental-Cup-Winner-Beater" (it really sounds much cooler in German though, plus it's only one word ). A lot of factors are at play there, luck being the most important one, but of course also willpower (but then I'd file willpower under team-strength as well, not just talent). And I grant you that an irrational belief might be very helpful there. But it still doesn't tell us anything about reality. I have absolutely nor problems with you here. I absolutely agree. Well, congratulations, that makes you an atheist. Again, useless in terms of an explanatory function. That doesn't mean that an irrational belief isn't beneficial in any way. In fact, it probably is, otherwise it wouldn't be so persistent. But it's still irrational. I also believe that intelligence and love are part of the nature of the universe...in the form of chemical reactions. If you say it's more than that, then you need to be more precise and say what it is. And I go back to my quote: If you believe that deity is love, then what do you need the term "deity" for? What purpose does it serve? The way you phrased that question is already somewhat telling. I actually believe that mind and love can be measured. I'm not sure that intelligence (as we commonly think of it) even exists, but if it does, it can be measured as well. Deity on the other hand is an empty word at this point. What I mean by supernatural is everything that is not natural, i.e. that doesn't follow the laws of nature present in the universe. They have the exact same probability of being true, because they have the exact same amount of objective evidence on their side: Zero. Or maybe, there's an evolutionary reason for that... You see, you're throwing out words and you put them into some sort of relation, yet they're actually distinct. What does it even mean that you're nature is more likely love than fear or hate? The sentence before you said that you're capable of feeling all of these emotions, so if you want to use the term at all, you nature is all, love, fear and hate. Well, faith doesn't necessarily come from hope. If you read the Old Testament, it's actually more about fear. And if you look at radicals of any faith, then they're obviously driven by hate. But be that as it may, hope doesn't make something true or even rational. If my plane loses both its wings high up in the atmosphere, of course I'll still hope that I'll survive, but that doesn't mean it's a rational belief, let alone the truth. Aha, so you read your pre-existing convictions into the faith. But if that's the case, what do you need Christianity, or even god for? I used math as an easy to understand and simple to formulate example. I could think of lots of other examples (and I'm sure you could too) which don't necessarily need to have anything to do with math or numbers where concrete evidence leads to one conclusion while the absence of evidence leads to infinite possibilities. Mathematics is of course idealistic, but as I said, rationality isn't about absolute proof, but about objective evidence. I disagree. We can of course put odds on god's existence. We might be wrong, but that doesn't make it ridiculous. Given that the god concept is so vague, I don't think that I could come up with a concrete number (like 67%), that would indeed sound ridiculous. But it's not ridiculous to subject the god concept to the same kind of critical evaluation we subject everything else to. You wouldn't try a cancer cure from somebody who has no evidence for its effectiveness other than his faith (in fact, all the evidence point towards its uselessness), similarly I don't buy any god concept for which there's no evidence but faith. The fact that the believers have retreated and re-defined god in a way that makes him unaccessible to scrutiny (that wasn't always the case...gods used to be very natural and very real) doesn't protect that belief from critical evaluation, just like re-defining the afore mentioned cancer cure as supernatural wouldn't protect it. It all depends on the question asked. When I ask you: "Do you believe that at least one god exists?", then "There may be a god" is not an answer, it's a yes or no question. So you can't compare these statements on equal terms. "There may be a god" is not more rational than "there is a god", they're different answers to different questions, one being a rational answer, the other not. I agree, but I don't know of any atheist who would say such a thing. It's really more a straw man than anything. Atheism is the rejection of a belief, strong atheism is a belief, but neither is claiming to be absolute knowledge. Actually, I wouldn't concede as much. In fact, I distrust anybody who claims absolute knowledge and I certainly wouldn't call them rational.
Well, it's more fun that way ... You forgot pixies, elves and the soup-monster. You know that's only the story in some western countries, right? That he lives at the north pole I mean. OK! Now let's stop being silly, shall we?! How can you see them when you've already admitted they're magical. Talk sense, dude. Then how do you know they don't exist? Why? I mean, leaving aside the observation that that makes it very convenient for those people that want to try and convince people he exists, (not you, apparently),... why? IT? God's an 'it'? LOL There's nothing 'essential' about it. Millions of people since the beginning of time managed quite happily without believing in god or even gods. They might have honoured the sun or 'mother-nature' or some other hair-brained' entity, (often for strictly practical reasons), but the idea that EVERYBODY has always had a belief in something recognisable as god is bollocks. Also, let's be honest here... the reason why religion has grown in many areas is because people were tortured and murdered if they DIDN'T believe in it. To whom? God or Leprechauns? No, it's not smug at all... it's just the normal 'garden-variety' type of insult Quite honestly, if religious people don't want to be insulted then they should STOP telling people about their bullshit theories concerning god.
Yes, how dare people talk about their theories concerning god in a Spirituality and Religion forum. I mean I don't go into the Geocaching forum to tell them how stupid their hobby is, why the ******** are you even here?
No, it makes me an agnostic who takes the possibility of God's existence seriously because it makes sense to me in my reality, fits the puzzle, so to speak, even though I don't believe it with certainty. Well, yeah. I'm open minded. I don't care about people's premises, if they agree with mine or not, as long as they work for them in the context of their personal reality. I'm really more concerned about how people build from their premises and what kind of conclusions they get from them, how their principles work in terms of making them constructive or destructive members of society. If you take a destructive person, lets say to give you an extreme example, a Hitler or a Pot Pol, I don't give a shit about the soundness of their basic premises, their starting point. I judge them and utterly reject them and their ideas based on their conclusions, which led them to act in evil ways. I'm guessing you'd agree. And the same is true when it comes to people who have a huge positive influence, like a Gandhi or a Mandela, if their conclusions led them to act based on love, for the good of humanity, who gives a ******** if I don't agree with their starting premises. Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Deist, Atheist, whatever else you can think of, it doesn't really matter. I'm still going to admire them and try to learn about them and their beliefs, in the hopes of learning something from them and from the way they understand and approach life. I'm guessing you'd also agree. So, if it works in the extreme cases, why not judge regular folk by the same standard? Anyway, I read your last post, but other than these two basic points, I'll take the time to give it the attention it deserves before I consider replying more in detail. cheers!