Can theists be rational?
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I'm not making the claim that the word can be defined so narrowly. You are. If you believe it can be, please be my guest.
A belief stronger than impression and less strong than positive knowledge that is not incoherent and is consistent with reality.
Now answer mine.
-Bri
ponderingturtle
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JoeTheJuggler
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I'm joining this a bit late, so sorry if this is all water under the bridge by now.
However, I always wonder when someone admittedly takes something "on faith" or holds a belief based on faith, isn't that the same thing as saying they believe it because someone told them it's so? If that's the case, how and why do they use rational thinking in filtering out all sorts of other things that people have told them (about Big Foot, fairies, perpetual motion machines, telekinesis, etc.)?
This comes up when you hear an adherent of a mainstream religion scoffing at the "nonsense" preached by a "cult".
Thinking this through a little bit (because there are people who use rational thinking in other areas but still accept their own religious beliefs on faith), I suppose there's an act of choosing or volition involved. They want or choose to believe what they believe, but again. . why this and not that? I can only come up with some pretty petty sociological reasons, which don't seem to account for the variety of forms of theism in people I know. For instance, I might put a lot of it down to giving credence to what parents or other figures of childhood authority tell you, but then there are plenty of people whose religious beliefs are an overt rejection of what the religion they were raised in.
I just don't know. . . .
ETA: I guess what I mean by all this, is that for an otherwise rational person who believes in a god or gods based on faith, it really isn't a "blind spot" --since they should be fully aware that they are willfully accepting something regardless of or even in spite of the evidence. I think of "blind spots" in reasoning to be irrational thinking that's the result of biases and so on that we're usually unaware of and against which we have to take as many safeguards as possible. Once we become aware of a such a blind spot, it's untenable to continue holding the same position.
If I don't cede your initial assumption (and I have no reason to do so), then you've got zero times any really big number which results in zero.
I agree with these comments. If by "rational" you mean, is it possible for anyone to make rational arguments (about other topics), then yes it's possible.
However, I always wonder when someone admittedly takes something "on faith" or holds a belief based on faith, isn't that the same thing as saying they believe it because someone told them it's so? If that's the case, how and why do they use rational thinking in filtering out all sorts of other things that people have told them (about Big Foot, fairies, perpetual motion machines, telekinesis, etc.)?
This comes up when you hear an adherent of a mainstream religion scoffing at the "nonsense" preached by a "cult".
Thinking this through a little bit (because there are people who use rational thinking in other areas but still accept their own religious beliefs on faith), I suppose there's an act of choosing or volition involved. They want or choose to believe what they believe, but again. . why this and not that? I can only come up with some pretty petty sociological reasons, which don't seem to account for the variety of forms of theism in people I know. For instance, I might put a lot of it down to giving credence to what parents or other figures of childhood authority tell you, but then there are plenty of people whose religious beliefs are an overt rejection of what the religion they were raised in.
I just don't know. . . .
ETA: I guess what I mean by all this, is that for an otherwise rational person who believes in a god or gods based on faith, it really isn't a "blind spot" --since they should be fully aware that they are willfully accepting something regardless of or even in spite of the evidence. I think of "blind spots" in reasoning to be irrational thinking that's the result of biases and so on that we're usually unaware of and against which we have to take as many safeguards as possible. Once we become aware of a such a blind spot, it's untenable to continue holding the same position.
Something I brought up in another thread: I think most--if not all-- defined Gods can be disproven (ideas that are either internally inconsistent or inconsistent with overwhelming empirical evidence). About all that's left is an undefined "God", and it's pointless talking bout trying to disprove an undefined term.
I don't know if you meant this as a joke, but it's flawed (circular) reasoning. You started with a premise that god exists in order to prove that god exists. Giving the existence of god anything more than a zero percent probability in your assumption is, in fact, assuming that god exists.
If I don't cede your initial assumption (and I have no reason to do so), then you've got zero times any really big number which results in zero.
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I'm not defending the argument cj.23 presented, but assuming a god exists would be a 100% chance. Anything less than 100% isn't assuming existence, it's assuming a probability of existence. One in a million is 0.0001% (a very low probability of existence). A 0% probably would be like stating that it's impossible that a god exists.
So you might disagree with the probability assigned, but he is not assuming that a god exists as a premise.
-Bri
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You stated that:
"I couldn't tell you, but neither do I know about all gods, so therefore I cannot say that there is no hard evidence for any god."
Please provide your (meaningful) definition of the word "god" as you use it that statement.
Thank-you, that helps me understand better what you were syaing.
Which just means I have to ask you to define "supernatural being".
JoeTheJuggler
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I disagree. First, this is all poorly defined. One in a million whats? Universes, I guess?
How was this probability calculated? (I know, it wasn't, but that's the exact problem with positing a probability for the existence of something for which there is no evidence). When I calculate the probability of heads in an honest coin toss, I divide the number of successful outcomes by the number of possible outcomes. The only way to assume a non-zero probability for the existence of something is to assume the existence of that something.
ETA: For example, I can't claim the chances of getting Glosslflamp in an honest coin toss is 1 in 3, or even 1 in a million. There are only two known successful outcomes in a coin toss, and there's no evidence that Glosslflamp (an undefined term) exists at all. So using any non zero assumption of the probability of the existence of Glosslflamp in order to prove the existence of Glosslflamp is circular reasoning.
FWIW, if there are a near infinity of universes, then one in a million is not a low probability at all. That's rather the point of the argument, I gather.
Since you could put anything in instead of the word "God" (which in this argument is not defined), you could use this to make a "rational" argument that makes it almost certain that The Tooth Fairy, the Flying Spaghetti Monster of even "the nonexistence of God" (think "not God") exists.
It is a formally flawed argument because of the assumptions.
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Ivor the Engineer
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I don't know. But if that's the case, it would not be assuming the existence of a god in any one universe, only a probability that one exists.
I assume it was a premise of the argument, which you can either accept or reject for the purposes of the argument. Still, unless the premise assumed a 100% probability rather than a 0.0001% probability, it doesn't assume the existence of a diety.
Nobody's disagreeing with you there (including, I suspect, cj.23). I'm simply pointing out that the argument doesn't assume that a diety exists, and appears to be a rational and coherent argument. Whether or not you accept the conclusion would depend on whether you accept the premises (I don't personally accept the premises, and I assume from your comments above that you agree).
-Bri
It's possible that the natural universe is a subset of a supernatural universe.
-Bri
How do you know that is "possible"?
JoeTheJuggler
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This is something that came up on another thread (where I said I have yet to hear any definition of a god that people actually believe in that I couldn't show to be internally inconsistent). By "definition" I mean all the characteristics that are necessary and sufficient for putting an object into a class and excluding other objects from that class.
Defining god as a "supernatural being", for example, is insufficient because you could put the Tooth Fairy, Zeus, Thor, Ganeesha, Gandalf the Wizard, and any number of other objects into that class, and yet these might not be what you mean by "God".
The strongest challenge I got to this was the idea of a deist god. The point of a deist god is that it is rather a rejection of other definitions of god, and not a definition itself. (They said, "that which created the universe" but I pointed out that a singularity might fit into that class, and that's not what they're talking about when they use the word "God".)
Ivor the Engineer
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The Atheist
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Rubbish. It might make them useful, attractive, beneficial, or even really bloody good, but it cannot make them rational.
I love this one, because it's so black & white.
Which is exactly what I said above!
Making a decsion on incomplete data is irrational and I'm not about to accept ignorance as an excuse. Appearing to be right can apply to homeopathy, bigfoot, parapsychology and crop circles by aliens.
But it isn't rational.
Sure. And I will freely admit that theists can be rational, and some of them - like you and a few others around here and most of them at Ship of Fools - can be perfectly rational on any subject until someone opens the bible. At that stage, rationality flies out the window and we are in Cottingley with A C Doyle.
No.
Check Darth Rotor's sig line regarding atheists.
Atheist spiritualists are most definitely not rational.
Yeah, which we agree doesn't confer any rationality on the believer in it, and I'm glad you're coming around to my way of thinking here. You accept your parents are irrational for accepting a blind belief and television, so that's a huge step in the right direction - that blind belief is irrational, even if it's right.
Gawd knows how irrational it must be when it's wrong!
Reason is close enough, and it ought to be plain that evidence is required for reasoned analysis.
*recovers breath after choking fit*
Synonym for atheist?
Wash your flaming mouth out! Have you read Darth's sig line yet?
All rationalists are atheists, but for an absolute certainty, all atheists are not rationalists.
I think they both are. Just that humanism has bloody awful PR. "God probably doesn't exist" on the side of a bus?
I'd be a little more forceful.
Good to hear. Mine hasn't, I agree with the oddest people.
Oh dear me. I'd use an emoticon thingy here if there was one which fitted.
Of all possible people in the world to make that remark, the most zealous skeptic of them all, someone who sees Dean Radin and bigfoot belief as "dangerous" says it.
Absolute genius.
Nominated.
Utter tripe.
Funny, I thought that when I first came in!
Except you said yes and I said no.... hmmm....
As noted in my reply to CFLarsen, standing on shoulders pissing is hardly a reasonable assertion. I'm a little surprised you see it that way, as while there's nothing new in the debate, I haven't noticed theists stopping advertising their doctrine, exhorting their members to find converts and paying for televised evangelism just yet.
I'd gladly lay down the righteous sword of atheism.
But I'll do it on the day I can drive 10 km in any given direction without seeing banners and billboards telling my kids they'll go to hell for failing to worship someone's sky-daddy. When my daughter (aged nine) tells me about how she conforted a little Hindu girl who bawling her eyes out after being told by a religious educationist that she will go to hell because her family don't believe in said sky-daddy, I get a little pissed off.
However, I do try to keep the target firmly on those who deserve it - i.e. those churches which promote that particular thinking, but it all grows on the back of the original and idiotic premise that the sky-daddy exists in the first place.
I've said many times to religionistas that if they started to stomp on the fundy element, I'd gladly support religion in general, but you know, none of them are ever keen to get stuck in. Aside from obvious frauds like Hinn & Phelps.
Good idea - change the subject after making completely idiotic assertion in previous post.
Well played.