Can theists be rational?

[Herzblut]

Well, except for slaves, and women, and non-land-owners, and...

Exceptions prove the rule.

You first.

German Constitution, Article 1
[Human dignity]
(1) Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the
duty of all state authority.
(2) The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable
human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.
(3) The following basic rights shall bind the legislature, the executive, and
the judiciary as directly applicable law.

 

[Belz...]

What's this "dignity" of which they speak ? How is it defined ?

 

[Herzblut]

What's this "dignity" of which they speak ? How is it defined ?

Good question. It's not defined by Law at all. It's interpreted by jurisprudence of a Supreme Court, our Federal Constitutional Court. The court might be called by people who think that particular laws are anti-constitutional.

 

[fls]

Exceptions prove the rule.

With exceptions like that, who needs enemies.

German Constitution, Article 1
[Human dignity]
(1) Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the
duty of all state authority.
(2) The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable
human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world.
(3) The following basic rights shall bind the legislature, the executive, and
the judiciary as directly applicable law.

Western Civilization is 60 years old?

Linda

 

[Herzblut]

Western Civilization is 60 years old?

In Europe, yes, many societies are postwar, even post-soviet.

It's your turn.

 

[fls]

It's your turn.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Linda

 

[Darat]

As Admin:

Folks not been following this thread for a little while but the discussion seems to have lost any relevance to the original topic? Perhaps time for a split or simply to start a new thread or two?

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I am not deluding myself Paul, this is for real and God is not a liar. We really can trust the Bible. Have you ever read "Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust The Bible" by Erwin Lutzer? If not I would like to recommend it. In fact I just met a brother in Christ who gave me hope for you skeptics. His name is Charlie Campbell. He was like many of you until someone gave him the answers to why we should believe in God and the Bible and now he has a whole ministry dedicated to answering the tough questions skeptics ask. Maybe it takes a skeptic to reach a skeptic? Anyways here's a link and there are some great articles and books available! Check it out... http://www.alwaysbeready.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=46

I think theism would have a much stronger case if it weren't for apologetics. Really, hide away pages like that and hide them good. Lest fence sitters see them.

 

[westprog]

As Admin:

Folks not been following this thread for a little while but the discussion seems to have lost any relevance to the original topic? Perhaps time for a split or simply to start a new thread or two?

I've no objection, but I expect it to split some more if it keeps going.

 

[westprog]

Isn't the search for a satisfactory solution part of the point of this thread? One of the arguments for theism is that it provides a basis for morality which we would otherwise lack. I think L The Detective and I are looking for a rational basis for morality, a satisfactory solution.

It isn't that I don't think that it's possible to produce a purely rational morality - it's that I think it's possible to produce a wide range of moralities, each as good as its starting premises.

We don't really attach the same value to other human beings, though. We feel differently about different people. There's not much point to a morality that pretends otherwise - it won't be empirically grounded, for one.

I don't see that a morality has to accommodate how we behave - it should deal with how we would like to behave. We clearly don't act as if other people were as we are - but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't aspire to that.

 

[fls]

As Admin:

Folks not been following this thread for a little while but the discussion seems to have lost any relevance to the original topic? Perhaps time for a split or simply to start a new thread or two?

The idea that theism provides a basis for morality that otherwise would be a free-for-all is one of the purportedly rational arguments for theism, so it seems to be quite relevant to the original topic.

However, yy2bggggs had a good point about whether anyone is checking in on a 2500 post threads other than a few die-hards.

Linda

 

[westprog]

The idea that theism provides a basis for morality that otherwise would be a free-for-all is one of the purportedly rational arguments for theism,

Whether or not theism can convincingly provide an actual moral code that is clearly true is another matter. Religion provides a blanket which seems to cover all different kinds of behaviour.

While atheism might not be able to provide a theoretical basis for morality, in practice atheists seem at least as capable as theists of having a moral code, even if it is conceptually built on sand.

 

[Darat]

The idea that theism provides a basis for morality that otherwise would be a free-for-all is one of the purportedly rational arguments for theism, so it seems to be quite relevant to the original topic.

However, yy2bggggs had a good point about whether anyone is checking in on a 2500 post threads other than a few die-hards.

Linda

Ah right - that's what comes from not following a thread - I'd missed the "drift-point".

 

[fls]

It isn't that I don't think that it's possible to produce a purely rational morality - it's that I think it's possible to produce a wide range of moralities, each as good as its starting premises.

Of course it's possible to form a range of logically consistent morals. What I'm looking for is a morality that is fairly independent of its starting premises. Or maybe depends upon minimal and/or universally accepted premises.

I don't see that a morality has to accommodate how we behave - it should deal with how we would like to behave. We clearly don't act as if other people were as we are - but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't aspire to that.

Why? This provides no rational basis for morality, then. After all, "like to behave" would simply be some arbitrary, subjective, highly variable premise.

Linda

 

[yy2bggggs]

While atheism might not be able to provide a theoretical basis for morality, in practice atheists seem at least as capable as theists of having a moral code, even if it is conceptually built on sand.

Atheism doesn't provide much of anything, as it's not a belief system. You must mean secular philosophy.

But the theistic foundations for morality, though they sound good on the surface, seem to suffer all the same, and the foundation sounds like the appropriate area to describe the problem. You run into odd issues such as bootstrapping moral behavior (why do good things? Because God commands it! But are you motivated to do what God commands because you want to be good, or for pain avoidance--the latter of which isn't really moral?), the Euthyphro dilemma , etc.

Even conceding the issue of the existence of god(s), the standard apologetics for a theistic basis for morality aren't satisfying at all.

 

[fls]

Whether or not theism can convincingly provide an actual moral code that is clearly true is another matter. Religion provides a blanket which seems to cover all different kinds of behaviour.

I agree. But I suspect it is the source of Herzblut's "inviolable human dignity". You need a Magic Sky Daddy to declare humans uniquely different, because there's not really an empirical or logical basis for the idea.

While atheism might not be able to provide a theoretical basis for morality, in practice atheists seem at least as capable as theists of having a moral code, even if it is conceptually built on sand.

We can recognize that our interests lie in things 'like us' and the universality of morals that reflect that hierarchy with respect to self, family, communities, and states - ETA: and species. We can also recognize that the self as a frame of reference is more consistent than attempting to describe the individual from an arbitrarily chosen perspective. Both of those things seem far less sand-like than something like the Ten Commandments.

Linda

 

[L The Detective]

While atheism might not be able to provide a theoretical basis for morality, in practice atheists seem at least as capable as theists of having a moral code, even if it is conceptually built on sand.

If by sand you mean logic, then yes... I think that sand would be harder for some ideas than it would be for others, up until the point where it becomes rock. It all depends on the strength of the logical foundation. And I believe that applies to any theistic moral code as well.

 

[kurious_kathy]

I think theism would have a much stronger case if it weren't for apologetics. Really, hide away pages like that and hide them good. Lest fence sitters see them.

Well I'm not much of an apologeticist but I do believe we need them to help explain things well to those who are truly seeking the truth. The reality is the truth has been here all along but people just aren't open to find it enough! Christians do have answers to the really tough questions in life, but someone must be open to what they have to say.
Here's another link from Charlie Campbells website "On Evidence For God and Why Evil and Suffering" http://www.alwaysbeready.com/images/library/campbell-charlie/studies-topical/whyevil/whyevil-a.htm

 

[Beth]

It seems to me that the concept of God is more akin to wormholes than Gandalf since we (humans as a whole) are far more certain that Middle Earth and Gandalf exists nowhere except in the minds of people who are familiar with the novel and/or movies of LOTR than we are about the existance or non-existance of god or wormholes.

I don't know, Beth. Do we know that Middle-Earth wasn't inspired by some divine vision that Tolkien had of a time in our distant past ? Same for the Hyborian world and Howard ?

Well, I can at least place a subjective personal probability on that event at below 0.0000001.

Now, why would it be different for God and the Bible ?

Because no sane rational person that I know of has claimed that Middle earth or the Hyborian world actually exist. There exists weak anecdotal subjective evidence for the existance of God. Thus, God has more evidence. As for the Bible, I believe bibles exist. Don't you?

Interesting. How did you come to this conclusion? I have no idea how to discern what a universe created by a god would look like as opposed to a universe that wasn't.

We wouldn't, necessarily, though I supposed that could constitude an entire debate.

Indeed. I gather you now agree that we are not able to discern any difference. Is that correct?

But that's not my point: The universe behaves as though it was assembled through physical laws alone. God is an unnecessart entity. Occam takes care of god, so to speak.

Okay. Occam's razor does not preclude any possibility; it's a useful rule of thumb in assessing subjective probabilities. It's not convincing proof that no gods exist. However, if you start with null hypothesis of no gods existing, it is a fine argument for deciding that the evidence available is insufficient to reject that null proposition.

But there are other indications that a smart person was NOT involved in the creation of, say, the human eye.

I have no quarrel with evolution. It seems as obvious to me as it does to you.

In pantheism the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent. More detailed definitions tend to emphasize the idea that God is better understood as an abstract principle representing natural law, existence, and the Universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) than an anthropomorphic entity.

I don't see how this salvages the idea of a god. It just eliminates god altogether and takes "universe" and renames it "god" in order to keep the name.

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it would be the difference between what you think of as being you (God) and a reference to the collection of various atomic particles that comprise your physical body (Universe). At least, that's how I think of Pantheism.

Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature that he configured when he created all things.

And so, again, he's useless. Not impossible, mind you. Not at face value, anyway. But then I'd like to hear how a being creates physical laws. Or did he learn how to create false vacuums ?

Useless? I'm not so sure about that. But useless and non-existant are two different questions. I'm not even sure if the answer to one is dependent on the answer to the other. If you want to debate whether such a god is useless, I must ask you to define what you mean by useful/useless first.

I think our disagreement then is simply on the degree of certainty that we each individual hold that some god exists. You put quite low. I put it about 50% for concepts such as the deists or pantheists hold.

Why 50 % ? Because it could be and could not be ? That's true for the Easter Bunny, too.

I discussed this at length in a thread with Linda. I'll try and hunt up some of those posts if you're really interested.

 

[L The Detective]

Well I'm not much of an apologeticist but I do believe we need them to help explain things well to those who are truly seeking the truth. The reality is the truth has been here all along but people just aren't open to find it enough! Christians do have answers to the really tough questions in life, but someone must be open to what they have to say.
Here's another link from Charlie Campbells website "On Evidence For God and Why Evil and Suffering" http://www.alwaysbeready.com/images/library/campbell-charlie/studies-topical/whyevil/whyevil-a.htm

That's great, I believe the same thing. I believe we need to help others to find the truth. It just happens that my truth, that God is an illusion and that we can live happily without him, is the complete opposite of yours. But that doesn't mean you should stop trying! Good luck to you. I'll be doing my best, too!