Can theists be rational?

[Bri]

Then it's rather a pointless criteria, isn't it? Nothing would fail.

That's why they call it "rationalization." Some beliefs require more of it than others. Beliefs for which there is no definitive evidence are relatively easy to rationalize and difficult to disprove.

On the other hand, just because a belief isn't irrational doesn't mean it's not improbable.

-Bri

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

I can see that for some people they would rather believe in god than not. Thus, convincing themselves of the existence of god is the most rational course of action. If they are able to do so, then they did so rationally.

By that argument, where do you draw the line? Is everything we believe rational if we decide that confidence in false beliefs is beneficial as long as no one pops our bubble?

That's called rationalizing, not rational thinking.

 

[articulett]

Consciousness without matter seems much more unlikely than sound without matter. And we can say for certain there is no sound in a vacuum, because there are no atoms and molecules for sound waves to travel upon.

Isn't claiming to "know" a god or souls exists more irrational that claiming to "know" that sound can travel in a vacuum? What could possibly make the former statement more rational than the latter?

 

[cj.23]

Right "rational" can be employed in a number of ways. A rational argument is one that is coherent and logically consistent - as I already said. So arguments are rational or irrational. That is not the same as true or not true. Rational arguments do not have to be scientific, or even falsifiable - they just have to be sound. The essay I lined by Austin Cline explains this pretty well I think.

Historically "rationalism" is the other way of knowing, the major alternative to, empiricism. Plenty of people here (Athon f'rinstance) can run you through the history of science and philosophy involved, but a rational argument is a logically deduced argument - one which does not make reference to observations or experiment. Think much medieval theology, at least the stsematic end - once you accept the predicates, everything follows. An even better example is mathematics, which is a purely rationalist business. Empiricism was regarded as a shabby cousin by many, because natural phenomena were mutable and observations could be inaccurate - misperception - so applying logic and reason to issues (seen as opposed to the lesser and tawdry antics of the empiricus) was the way forward. Mathematicians, logicians, theologians, and programmers are arch-rationalists; Scientists, naturalists and "I won't believe it till I see it with my own eyes types" are despised empiricists. Modern hypothetico-deductive science is mainly a mix of both.

Rational as most often employed merely means "capable of thought", though often as opposed to "emotive." It is still sometimes used this way in psych, where oddly I score very highly on rational over emotive, but as i fundamentally distrust psychometric tests i would not put too much emphasis or trust in that.

Anyway good article on Rationality in philosophy here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationality

Generally though it's hard to tell what is meant unless you specify. It is entirely possible to make a rational argument for the objective existence of God, and even easier to demonstrate that one can construct a cost/benefit analysis for the rational belief in a deity, regardless of ones existence. You can even make a Bayesian case, as some have - not that it convinces me one iota, as it comes down to what numbers you choose to plug in. Most atheists are NOT pure rationalists in the philosophical sense in my experience - they rely on empirical data. Yet one can also construct rational arguments for "no God" and rational cost/benefit analyses showing atheism is the way to go. Neither side can claim a rational monopoly in any sense - so once again, as I said initially - rationality is a property of an argument, not the arguer or the conclusion.

If I ever get Dawkins to agree to debate, I shall try this on him.

cj x

 

[cj.23]

Consciousness without matter seems much more unlikely than sound without matter. And we can say for certain there is no sound in a vacuum, because there are no atoms and molecules for sound waves to travel upon.

Isn't claiming to "know" a god or souls exists more irrational that claiming to "know" that sound can travel in a vacuum? What could possibly make the former statement more rational than the latter?

Um, interesting. I don't think we can equate sound without matter and consciousness without matter so clearly, because a major problem arises immediately. All the consciousness we know interacts within matter, but to a non materialist like a dualist consciousness is not a subset of matter, or an emergent property thereof...

Because entity G (hypothetical God) can exist external to our knowledge, as we do not know that consciousness is a by-product of highly organized matter. We know it is associated with highly organised matter - no more, no less. (I've spent the whole evening addressing errors one finds in understandings of the famous Phineas Gage case in term of modern neurology, so I'll keepr this short.) The only way we can prove the non-existence of entity G, that it not hiding somewhere, is to be omniscient (which some might argue would make you G anyway.) This holds so long as we merely define G as a non-material consciousness: absence of knowledge of such no more falsifies G than absence of knowledge of Australia in the Roman Empire meant it did not exist (and of course many correctly postulated a southern continent, for the wrong reasons...)

The problem with saying you know entity G exists is complex. The first modern European explorers to arrive in Australia knew it existed - but those back in Europe did not till they returned. The inhabitants knew it existed all the time - they lived there. So when does it become rational to accept Australia? Once one has encountered it - because then one has knowledge. So the theist could argue they knew something to be rationally true - God existed - because they had spoken to God, encountered God. Others who lacked that experience would doubt.

No imagine someone claims to discover that Australia is in fact a mass delusion, carefully created to promote a Baz Luhrmann film of that name. All evidence for Australia can be found ot be nonsensical, or explicable by other better reasons. Those who believe they live in or have visited Australia actually visited or live in a filmset in Greenland. That belief could be rational or irrational, depending upon the information and data available - it is unlikely to shake the faith of Australians, even if everyone else found it objectively true. To them Australia is real, and rational.

So rationality is always dependent upon the observers experience and knowledge. It becomes irrational to smoke once the health risks of tobacco are known - but it was not an irrational act for most of history?

cj x

 

[articulett]

But one can assume that sound is "immaterial" too and make the same sort of argument. It doesn't make it rational to claim to "know" sound can exist in a vacuum any more than to claim to know consciousness can exist outside a brain. It's not necessarily less rational. But I don't see how believing that consciousness can exist outside the brain is "more rational" than believing that sound can exist inside a vacuum. Sure, you can twist the semantics to make these statements seem rational... but is there really a reason to say that one is more rational than the other?

Is it more reasonable to believe in god than to believe that demons possess people? Why? Why is more reasonable to believe in one form of consciousness outside a brain and not all of them or any of them? How can that be a more rational belief that "believing" that sound can exist in a vacuum.

Everything we know about both sound and consciousness is material dependent. There's nothing to suggest that there are forms of either in the absence of material. And yet people think it's find to suppose that one particular invisible undetectable immaterial form of consciousness exists... but they'd readily raise their eyebrows if someone claimed to know of a particular "sound" that can exist without matter.

I don't find either belief harmful. But I cannot see how one can be more rational than the others of its ilk. I can understand why some people might believe some such claims over others, but I still can't see how one is more rational than the other.

 

[cj.23]

Here's a rational argument for God, drawen from the Cosmological Fine Tuning discussion. Using cosmologist Paul Davies' numbers for the likelihood of the universe having arisen by chance Forster & Marston (1989) set out the Bayesian analysis as follows -

Let us assume the existence of a deity is one in a million.
Let us assume the chance of that deity creating the universe as is is also one in a million.

OK, so
1.Prior probability: Pr [God exists]: = 0.000001
Prior probability: Pr [No God]: = 0.999999

2.Prob [universe inhabitable if God exists] = 0.000001
Prob [universe inhabitable if no designer] = 0.00 (one billion, billion, billion zeros) 1]

THEN: Prob [God exists given that Universe is inhabitable]

Prob [universe is inhabitable if God exists] x Prob [God exists]
= -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
{ Prob [universe is inhabitable if God exists] x Prob [God exists] }
{+ Prob [universe is inhabitable if no God exists] x Prob [No God] }

0.000001 x 0.000001
= -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
{ 0.000001 x 0.000001 }
{ + (0.999999) x (0.00 (one billion, billion, billion zeros) 1) }

this gives us a figure so close to 100% as to seem to establish beyond doubt the reality of God (but see below!)

Now we can clearly change our initial numbers for a deity, or use another cosmologists calculations (they are all similarly huge though), but this in a nutshell is the problem. I have pointed out all kinds of answers which do not require God can be produced, from multiple universe, to constraints, etc, etc The Skeptic article I often link is excellent
http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/skeptic13-2_Kuhn.pdf

and I'm not saying this proves anything at all -- it merely demonstrates why there is a problem, and why invoking design for the universe is not actually at all irrational. If one has a vast multiverse of universes he problem is greatly reduced but we can't show it is so yet.

So you can still argue, if you so desire, a logical case for theism. Another more playful example of mine can be found here --
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4242735#post4242735

Anyway night all, and Happy New Year!
cj x

 

[cj.23]

But one can assume that sound is "immaterial" too and make the same sort of argument. It doesn't make it rational to claim to "know" sound can exist in a vacuum any more than to claim to know consciousness can exist outside a brain.

Very interesting! I'll have to reply properly tomorrow to this bit - possibly Saturday actually as away tomorrow. Sound certainly exists as a form of "matter" using that term loosely - consciousness many have suggested is a different type of "stuff". I'll think through it and see if I can work out a proper reply.

It's not necessarily less rational. But I don't see how believing that consciousness can exist outside the brain is "more rational" than believing that sound can exist inside a vacuum. Sure, you can twist the semantics to make these statements seem rational... but is there really a reason to say that one is more rational than the other?

Yes. You can falsify the sound hypothesis, by testing it, because we know how sound works. I can't think of a way of falsifying the second consciousness one - hence the problem. If we can show consciousness is entirely explicable in terms of brain activity and - as an emergent phenomena - and in the last decade we have made what may be real advances towards that goal - we can refute idealism, dualism, etc. We are certainly not there yet though...

Is it more reasonable to believe in god than to believe that demons possess people? Why? Why is more reasonable to believe in one form of consciousness outside a brain and not all of them or any of them? How can that be a more rational belief that "believing" that sound can exist in a vacuum.

No idea. It may well be rational to believe demons possess people, that witches fly through the night sky on broomsticks and the moon is made of green cheese. It all depends on the evidential weight - if we can falsify those hypotheses we can disregard them. The latter two can be falsified - the former seems extremely unlikely but remains outside of our current capacity to falsify - but that by no means makes it "reasonable". I think most people here would agree it was far from reasonable!

Everything we know about both sound and consciousness is material dependent. There's nothing to suggest that there are forms of either in the absence of material. And yet people think it's find to suppose that one particular invisible undetectable immaterial form of consciousness exists... but they'd readily raise their eyebrows if someone claimed to know of a particular "sound" that can exist without matter.

A sound is matter though, in the sense that materialism includes matter and energy. Thoughts are clearly associated with axons, dendrites, synaptic gaps, neural transmitters and all that jazz - but consciousness remains an enigma.

I don't find either belief harmful. But I cannot see how one can be more rational than the others of its ilk. I can understand why some people might believe some such claims over others, but I still can't see how one is more rational than the other.

One can not be argued because it can be falsified - one can because it can't - which is not to say it should be, or that it is sane (see the demons example.)

Anyway time to go to bed, but I promise to get back to th discussion on Saturday!

night
cj x

 

[articulett]

Yes, but you can really believe you heard a sound from a supposed vacuum and still be incorrect in believing that sound can travel in a vacuum.

It always seems that using god as an explanation is more of a mystery than it explains to me.

It would be like if someone claimed an alien visitation-- and really believed it and there were some weird things we couldn't explain. That doesn't make an alien any more likely as the answer for really happened and the mystery for the lack of corroborating evidence in the physical world would be a much bigger mystery that whatever it is we couldn't explain.

Not understanding an answer, does not make plugging in a supernatural explanation the likely answer. You can fail to understand the seeming design of the universe or just our speck of it... but that doesn't mean that you can "inuit" an answer and imagine it right. Not understanding cannot make consciousness without a brain any more possible than sound in a vacuum! It just can't. You cannot leap that chasm rationally. There is no rational bridge of evidence to walk upon to get there. Hearing a sound from a vacuum might be evidence for lots of things... but the thing it's least likely to be for is actual sound in a vacuum. It's more likely to be a brain seizure or a faulty vacuum or miscalibrated instruments or an audio hallucination that sound in a vacuum. I don't see how gods or souls or angels or demons or any other invisible form of consciousness can RATIONALLY be considered anything more. Are people just pretending the ones of these they want to "believe in" are rational while dismissing all the other ones as delusions or not worth thinking about?

If you weren't indoctrinated to believe and look for evidence or proof of design, would you be a believer... and what exactly would you believe about this invisible form of consciousness? How do you explain the rest of the universe that isn't affected at all by what you believe?

To me it always sounds like any woo rationalizing whatever it is they've come to believe in. I feel like you have to already be a believer... or really really want to believe to think that you've made a rational case for claim.

If the argument you make would justify the belief of a belief you don't share, then how can it be a good argument for the belief you do have? If a woo could use your argument just as successfully as you to prop up demons or reincarnation or body thetans or channeling dead relatives... then how good is it as a rational argument for god?

 

[cj.23]

Yes, but you can really believe you heard a sound from a supposed vacuum and still be incorrect in believing that sound can travel in a vacuum.

Absolutely, and ditto the voice of God.

It always seems that using god as an explanation is more of a mystery than it explains to me.

You will hear no disagreement from me on that. Invoke God and you create all sorts of new problems, even if old Willian of Ockham might think it parsimonious.

It would be like if someone claimed an alien visitation-- and really believed it and there were some weird things we couldn't explain. That doesn't make an alien any more likely as the answer for really happened and the mystery for the lack of corroborating evidence in the physical world would be a much bigger mystery that whatever it is we couldn't explain.

Sure - the "Fatima miracle" f'rinstance is similar. I think the sun stayed where it was in case you were wondering - but we still have to explain what witnesses reported that day (and I think we can, naturalistically as it happens.)

Not understanding an answer, does not make plugging in a supernatural explanation the likely answer. You can fail to understand the seeming design of the universe or just our speck of it... but that doesn't mean that you can "inuit" an answer and imagine it right. Not understanding cannot make consciousness without a brain any more possible than sound in a vacuum! It just can't.

It can. Look up Boltzmann Brains - entirely hypothetical but rational.

You cannot leap that chasm rationally. There is no rational bridge of evidence to walk upon to get there. Hearing a sound from a vacuum might be evidence for lots of things... but the thing it's least likely to be for is actual sound in a vacuum. It's more likely to be a brain seizure or a faulty vacuum or miscalibrated instruments or an audio hallucination that sound in a vacuum. I don't see how gods or souls or angels or demons or any other invisible form of consciousness can RATIONALLY be considered anything more. Are people just pretending the ones of these they want to "believe in" are rational while dismissing all the other ones as delusions or not worth thinking about?

I think you can, but explaining why really must wait till I have slept at least!

cj x

 

[articulett]

You can't really falsify the sound one, because you can't test all potential sounds in all potential vacuums and you can always play with semantics. At what point does a sound become a sound, for example...

It isn't any more falsifiable than god... you can say "for this sound and this vacuum" sound did not go through it. We can say that we have no evidence for any kind of consciousness outside a brain in the same way we have no evidence for sound outside a vacuum. But we can't really falsify either. We can't falsify demon possession either. We can show that things once thought to be demon possessions are now explained by neurological disorders, but that doesn't mean that there aren't some real demon possessions. You can't falsify the notion that it's sprites that are secretly putting ideas in your head.

Failure to falsify cannot make a belief rational. Normally when we say something exists-- we mean that there's measurable evidence for it. Why doesn't god seem to fit this category? Why isn't it just as "rational" to say inucubi exist? Or is it? Surely something must account for whatever it is they are said to explain!

 

[articulett]

Yes, get some sleep CJ. I'd like to believe that you believe whatever you believe for rational reasons, but I don't see it. (But I do think you are fantastically nice human being--please don't see my inability to see your rationalization as a statement about you.)

 

[Wolfman]

Can theists be rational?

Of course they can. In fact, some of the most rational people in the history of our world have been theists...and we owe much of who we are to those people. Religion itself began largely as an attempt to rationally explain the world around us, and find ways to control it. People saw disease, earthquakes, volcanoes...and wanted to understand them. However, they lacked the tools necessary to come to the understandings that we have today; and they therefore came up with other explanations that, based on the situation they were in, seemed the most rational. And those explanations involved gods, spirits, demons, etc.

Sure, those religions were subsequently abused in the name of power and control. Sure, we have tools today that can prove that those initial beliefs were wrong. But that does not in any manner, shape, or form detract from the fact that many of the people who originated these theories were very rational thinkers.

Take any of the most "rational" minds that we have today...and have them born 10,000 years ago. Without any of the tools we have today, without any of the theories, without any of the data. And watch them attempt to make sense of the universe. I guarantee that these "ultra-rational" people would end up coming to conclusions very similar to those of our theistic ancestors.

 

[articulett]

Of course... but is it rational to keep those beliefs as science explains more.

Is it more rational to believe that consciousness can exist absent a brain (and that we could know about such things through non empirical means?!) than to believe that sound can exist in a vacuum? Doesn't the more you know make both beliefs increasingly and equally irrational?--equally unsupportable by evidence?--equally unfalsifiable? Is there a justification for believing in some invisible forms of consciousness that doesn't make such a belief as suspect as believing there are some sounds that can travel through a vacuum?

 

[articulett]

So theists can be rational, but I want to know this about those who find a belief in god rational. To me, a belief in god is as rational or irrational as the following beliefs--

1. The belief that some sounds can travel in a vacuum
2. The belief that alien life forms are communicating with humans
3. The belief in reincarnation
4. The belief that the dead watch over us or can be channeled
5. The belief in Thetans
6. The belief in psychics
7. Belief in Astral Travel
8. Belief in demons
9. Belief in Sprites
10. Palmistry

Using your own definition of all terms including the word "rational", are any the above beliefs less rational than a belief in god, and can you say why? I can understand why people might believe in such things, and I've believed in such things myself, but I now find god as irrational as the above. I see all the above beliefs as equally unsupported by evidence, equally contrary to what we know about the world, and equally unfalsifiable as well as equally "useless" as an explanation for anything. To me, they are all "wrong answers" that keep the believer from potentially discovering the truth.

 

[articulett]

I'm talking about the specific beliefs themselves--not the believers or how they came to believe nor the reasons they might give for believing.

 

[The Atheist]

Define how you are employing "rational", then provide evidence for this rather amusing assertion.

cj x

Amusing be damned. Factual.

Religion cannot be a rational belief. If you think it is, please state, very specifically, which religion is rational, why it is rational and why all other ones are wrong.

Right "rational" can be employed in a number of ways.

Lots of words can, but in terms of trying to fit theism into rationality, you'd be better off trying to open a drive-in cinema in Antarctica.

Look, this is one of those subjects that's so obvious I don't usually bother discussing it. Lots of christians try to claim belief in the sky-daddy is rational, but it is not. Rationalists live on evidence, and aside from some very dodgy hearsay evidence, there is no evidence which suggests god/s have ever existed.

You can try to turn it into a semantic argument, you can try to re-write the OED for all I care, but the enormously plain fact is that belief in a sky-daddy is irrational. And please note this view is from a religious apologist who believes christianity is of net benefit to humanity. (And who just also happens to be the bleeding Grammar Tyrant!)

But rational, it ain't.

Mate, when you see me and Arti agreeing on something, you know it's time to run!

 

[Wolfman]

Of course... but is it rational to keep those beliefs as science explains more.

Is it more rational to believe that consciousness can exist absent a brain (and that we could know about such things through non empirical means?!) than to believe that sound can exist in a vacuum? Doesn't the more you know make both beliefs increasingly and equally irrational?--equally unsupportable by evidence?--equally unfalsifiable? Is there a justification for believing in some invisible forms of consciousness that doesn't make such a belief as suspect as believing there are some sounds that can travel through a vacuum?

Ya' know, I've read the OP over and over, and nowhere do I see a question being posed that asks, "If you are a theist, and are presented with scientific information that contradicts your beliefs, is it rational to hold on to your beliefs?"

The OP asked simply, "Can theists be rational?"

And the answer, even by your own admission, is a resounding "YES!"

Giving example after example of how some theists are not rational has nothing whatsoever to do with the question of whether or not theists can be rational. I can just as easily point out tons of atheists who have entirely irrational beliefs -- yet that would have no bearing whatsoever on the question of whether or not atheists can be rational.

If you want to start a separate topic to discuss whether, in the face of modern scientific theories and evidence, it is rational to hold on to theistic beliefs, feel free to do so. But as far as I'm concerned, the points you are raising are at best tangential, and at worst are an entire derail of the OP.

 

[articulett]

Well the question was can theist be rational which can be extrapolated to is god belief rational? And I was wondering if someone was willing to say that god belief is more rational than, say, belief in a perpetual motion machine?

To me, given all average understanding of those words, I don't think one is more rational than the other. So I was clarifying by what I meant when I say a theist CAN be rational. The theist can be rational; I don't consider a belief in god more "rational" than a belief in perpetual motion machines.

It was more in response to CJ than to anyone else.

 

[SirPhilip]

However I also accept that over the centuries there have been many very rational people who have believed in this god and many of them produced very rational arguments in favour of their god.

It is possible to reconcile a natural world supporting mythological events. Everyone is tasked to do this on their own though.

Steven Spielberg's The Last Crusade remains an illustration of the true human condition in this regard. Jones witnesses several actual events: he crosses an invisible bridge, meets a knight hundreds of years old, watches his father's life saved, and sees a temple crumble triggered by crossing a seal. Jones lives in a plausible world where human potential and nature somehow overlap, and share an ethical dilemma with the technologically developed Third Reich. He quietly recognizes that the laws of nature have been somehow bent, but not necessarily broken. Jones doesn't attempt to convey the rich importance of what he's observed to colleagues. Nor can he argue in any constructive way except to conclude, perhaps if you pressed him, that human potential and the natural world are not necessarily at odds.