Can theists be rational?

Paulhoff said:
I want proof, the brain fools itself so easily.

Paul

:) :) :)
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What if you had had the experience? What if you couldn't find a rational explanation for something you saw other than a random hallacination in the middle of a normal day. How would you feel about it then?
 
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Malerin said:
So you consider yourself someone I trust?
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Not really... I'm pretty sure you have me filed under "mortal enemy" or something--you don't even seem to trust me to mean what I say.

But I would ask you not to let your opinion of me halt your asking serious questions... are you sure that the only reason you don't believe me is that you "don't trust me"? Wouldn't it be even more relevant that I simply cannot possibly know your house is on fire, for example?
 
Malerin said:
My point was that anecdotal evidence can be very strong, depending on who's telling you. You seemed to be dismissing it entirely. If you get a phone call from a hospital attendant that a loved one has been hurt in a car accident, it wouldn't even cross your mind not to go.
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And if you got a blurble from a tornquee that a squipdle twod had been flerged in a frarl twizdoddlement, what would you do then?

To your second point: suppose someone you trust tells you they had a supernatural experience?
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I tell them that they didn't, because there is no such thing.
 
Malerin said:
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?
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You should look up the word "extraordinary" first. So there is no history of people seeing, hearing etc things that are not true, that is a new one to me.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Beth said:
What if you had had the experience? What if you couldn't find a rational explanation for something you saw other than a random hallacination in the middle of a normal day. How would you feel about it then?
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Not a problem for me, I have learned that just because I don't have the explanation right this minutes or even later on, only means I don't know all the information about what happened, I have no need to bring an unproven unknown into the equation, I can wait for the truth and not a need for any answer.

There are always rational explanation, because you don't have one doesn't mean there isn't any. Once again the brain (you) can be fooled, you are anything but prefect.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
There are always rational explanation, because you don't have one doesn't mean there isn't any.
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A belief in the certainty of rational explanation needs a bit more faith than I have.

Once again the brain (you) can be fooled, you are anything but prefect.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Nobody's prefect, that's for sure.
 
Belz... said:
Let's take your argument to its logical conclusion, shall we ?

If you only go by what we know, there is only one set of physical constants/laws that exist. So it's not surprising at all that this universe has those exact ones.
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As I've said before, the "things are just the way they are, no particular reason" argument has never convinced me. There is also no particular reason to believe any such thing. There is a chain of reasons for what happens in the universe. Why should it arbitrarily terminate just at the point of current human knowledge? Wouldn't that be quite a coincidence?

No, it doesn't. It's been pointed out to you more than once.
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The way this "arguing" thing works - you don't just get to state your opinion and claim it's all done. I heard the arguments. I didn't agree with them.

Please elaborate.
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The uncertainty principle is not simply a matter of noting that whenever you measure something you disturb it in some way.

Wikipaedia Uncertainty Principle

Wikipaedia said:
This is not a statement about the limitations of a researcher's ability to measure particular quantities of a system, but rather about the nature of the system itself.
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I don't think you understand what I meant by "anomalies". The laws of physics, for example, could be non-constant a cross the universe, things we try to observe might not render properly all the time, science wouldn't always work, etc.

There are always bugs in a system, and no matter how advanced, or simple, the system. Trust me, I'm a computer programmer.
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And you will find, elsewhere in this thread, a discussion as to whether experiences that contradict the laws of physics and common experience should be believed or not. The simulation is self-correcting.
 
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yy2bggggs said:
But isn't this thread about the rational?
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It's about whether believing something unknown is rational. There's no certainty that "everything has a rational explanation". That's no more certain than baby Jesus being born in a manger.

We might like to think that the universe works in a completely rational way, but it may not.
 
westprog said:
As I've said before, the "things are just the way they are, no particular reason" argument has never convinced me. There is also no particular reason to believe any such thing. There is a chain of reasons for what happens in the universe. Why should it arbitrarily terminate just at the point of current human knowledge? Wouldn't that be quite a coincidence?
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No, it would be a situation in which telology does not rule the universe and where we simply must accept that what is is, nothing more, nothing less.


Whether or not it convinces you probably depends largely on your starting assumptions -- that the universe itself is meaninful or not.

It might be, it might not be. We can't know. Personally I prefer the "I don't know answer" to the "that doesn't convince me answer", but I recognize that they say the same thing only from different perspectives.

By the way, it will always terminate at the point of whoever is investigating the matter's knowledge. That's just the nature of the beast; it can't help but look that way -- but that's your point, anyway.

I still abide by Haldane's quip -- the universe is probably queerer than we can imagine. We have enough good analogies of limited thinking in beings with less sophisticated nervous systems than our own that we should realize that we are probably in the same boat when it comes to the weirdness of the universe. Our minds are clearly limited. We clearly use numerous assumptions in order to think as we do in the first place.

That is part of why I think reverence toward the ground of being is so important. We just ain't as smart as we think we is.
 
westprog said:
It's not possible to use rationality to rationally prove that rationality universally applies. That would not be rational.
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The scenario we're talking about is that you have had an experience, that you cannot explain other than by positing that you had a random hallucination on a normal day.

The rational thing to believe is that you're either ignorant, or you have had a random hallucination on a normal day.

If it's possible to use rationality to rationally prove that rationality does not universally apply, you would have a rational explanation for the same. Otherwise, to believe in the non-rational is simply irrational.

If I have two oranges in my refrigerator, and I put two more in, I should have four oranges. If I open it up and see three oranges, I assume one was taken, or that I cannot find one, or something. If I find five, I assume someone else put oranges in my refrigerator, or something along those lines. If I rule everything out, before concluding that two plus two is three or five today for no reason, I'm even willing to entertain crazy theories such as that oranges occasionally merge or split.

Maybe I'm just crazy, and maybe it's just faith, but I somehow think there should be a rational explanation for why I find three oranges instead of the four I expect, and I happen to want to call this belief rational, since it is regarding rational explanations.
 
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If this discussion wasn't 60 pages long, I might be able to find the issues actually under debate. Any chance someone would like to tackle a summary?
 
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