Are all Religious Beliefs Irrational?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

"God could make a square circle."

You are making a false comparison. I see no reason why an all powerful being could not invoke its experiences in others allowing them to experience what it experienced or even join with that human so they can share the experience together.

If the human brain is just a fancy bio computer then it is just data. At any rate, I don't have a lot of interest in debating what imaginary beings can and can't do. I'll leave that up the the nerds at the comic book store debating over if the Hulk can lift Thor's hammer.

"The evidence for God's existence, such as it is, would be in whatever convinced the person that God exists and is worthy of love, not in the love itself"

So you speak for every single believer on the planet now? When a theist says, "I believe in God because I can feel God's love." You think they are just lying?

I think they're expressing a sincere conclusion that may or may not be correct. They're attributing something to "God's love." What that is depends on the person, but we can generally get to it by asking why they think they "feel God's love" or how they think Go's love manifests itself.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yet in 1Jn 3 vs 4&8, clearly states that God is Love itself.

Which is nonsense at worst and metaphor at best.

Do you think that God is merely love? That God is incapable of that which a mere emotion can't do?

 

[pearl]

Do you think that God is merely love? That God is incapable of that which a mere emotion can't do?

Hebrew Scripture is replete with the images of God's love, a jealous love that 'lusts' for his people, a lover scorned yet waits for love returned, the 'Song of Songs' (Song of Solomon) etc.
If love were that easily defined as a mere emotion, or a biological or chemical reaction, we would put out of business all the poets that speak of love.

To quote Neal Donald Walsch;
"Love is the ultimate reality. It is the only. The all. The feeling of love is your experience of God. "

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Hebrew Scripture is replete with the images of God's love, a jealous love that 'lusts' for his people, a lover scorned yet waits for love returned, the 'Song of Songs' (Song of Solomon) etc.
If love were that easily defined as a mere emotion, or a biological or chemical reaction, we would put out of business all the poets that speak of love.

To quote Neal Donald Walsch;
"Love is the ultimate reality. It is the only. The all. The feeling of love is your experience of God. "

Love is an emotion. Emotions are felt by minds. Do you think that God needs to exist in a mind?

Love is powerless on its own. It can't do anything except by motivating someone to action. Do you think that God is powerless and dependent on others?

Edit: you talked about "God's love"; if God is love, then this could be expressed as "love's love." (Edit 2: or as "God's God") What does that even mean? Taken literally, "God is love" makes normal discussions of God incoherent.

 

[pearl]

Edit: you talked about "God's love"; if God is love, then this could be expressed as "love's love." (Edit 2: or as "God's God") What does that even mean? Taken literally, "God is love"
makes normal discussions of God incoherent.

Because the only love you consider a reality is human love which is experienced as emotion. That is not God's love which is better defined as 'agape'. It is not eros, which is a love that seeks fulfillment in that which is loved, nor philia, which is companionable love or friendship. Agape is a purely other-directed love, a love that seeks no response and demands no return, a love centered totally on the beloved.

 

[Segev Moran]

Someone on these forums has suggested to me that all religious beliefs are irrational. Do you agree?

I Agree.
In a way.
I would re-phrase to: Not All religious beliefs are irrational. unfortunately, many are.
Most people live there day to day life based on the scientific reality. usually when one does not, he will be considered irrational with the exception of some religious beliefs of course (i still can't understand why, really).

Why or why not?

Why?
because most religious people don't really stick to their literal scripture, rather take it as a tales to be learned from.
Why not?
because many people stick to the literal scripture rather accepting undeniable facts. (like the age of the universe, for example)

Can you provide examples of a rational religious belief?

Of course.
Love your friend as yourself.
It is a very rational claim made by the earlier Jewish rabbi(Akiva).
Jesus phrased it (if i am not mistaken) as "love your neighbor like yourself".

The Hebrew bible suggests "shmita", which means every 7th year is an year that the people can eat for free without payment from every crop. (for the poor), and old debt is forgotten.

the christian bible repeats the concept of providing for the poor.

there are many great social concepts we can find in any religion.

I think we should respect the ancient people's attempts to make sense of this universe with very little knowledge (relatively of course).

But people who genuinely believe that the bibles or whatever scriptures are to be taken literally and without exceptions, are undoubtedly irrational thinkers.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Because the only love you consider a reality is human love which is experienced as emotion. That is not God's love which is better defined as 'agape'. It is not eros, which is a love that seeks fulfillment in that which is loved, nor philia, which is companionable love or friendship. Agape is a purely other-directed love, a love that seeks no response and demands no return, a love centered totally on the beloved.

Still sounds like an emotion to me. In any case, it doesn't sound like the sort of thing that can exist outside a mind to experience it, to say nothing about it running around creating universes or manifesting itself as a first-Century Jewish carpenter.

Do you mean to say that God feels agape? Or are you continuing with this line of nonsense that God is agape?

 

[pearl]

God is agape?

The philosophical dimension to be noted in this biblical vision, and its importance from the standpoint of the history of religions, lies in the fact that on the one hand we find ourselves before a strictly metaphysical image of God: God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape. We can thus see how the reception of the Song of Songs in the canon of sacred Scripture was soon explained by the idea that these love songs ultimately describe God's relation to man and man's relation to God. Thus the Song of Songs became, both in Christian and Jewish literature, a source of mystical knowledge and experience, an expression of the essence of biblical faith: that man can indeed enter into union with God—his primordial aspiration. But this union is no mere fusion, a sinking in the nameless ocean of the Divine; it is a unity which creates love, a unity in which both God and man remain themselves and yet become fully one.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

As Nowhere Man said - partially. "God will help us". Rational. Dispels negativity. A lot of psychology is involved in human life.

How is it "rational" to say "God will help us," when most of the evidence that we see -- each and every day, in every part of this world -- is that, well, no, he actually doesn't? To suppose that something which never really happens is sure to always happen seems pretty irrational to me!

ANY belief which contradicts what we observe should at the very minimum be suspect. If it pretty much ALWAYS contradicts what we observe, it would be totally irrational to hold that as a belief.

Rationality has to do with "REASON." As in, if there is a REASON to believe something, then it is reasonable (rational) to believe it. But if your REASON is "even though that's not what I see, it's what I want," then I don't think you're being very rational or reasonable.

So, open your newspaper (or any newspaper for the last thousand years) and answer this: "Is there evidence of divine help in what is reported?" If there is not, maybe it's because the help is not, in fact, there.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The philosophical dimension to be noted in this biblical vision, and its importance from the standpoint of the history of religions, lies in the fact that on the one hand we find ourselves before a strictly metaphysical image of God: God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape. We can thus see how the reception of the Song of Songs in the canon of sacred Scripture was soon explained by the idea that these love songs ultimately describe God's relation to man and man's relation to God. Thus the Song of Songs became, both in Christian and Jewish literature, a source of mystical knowledge and experience, an expression of the essence of biblical faith: that man can indeed enter into union with God—his primordial aspiration. But this union is no mere fusion, a sinking in the nameless ocean of the Divine; it is a unity which creates love, a unity in which both God and man remain themselves and yet become fully one.

A simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed.

Edit: also, it's bad form to distort the meaning of what somebody said by selective quoting.

 

[Aupmanyav]

So, open your newspaper (or any newspaper for the last thousand years) and answer this: "Is there evidence of divine help in what is reported?" If there is not, maybe it's because the help is not, in fact, there.

RigVeda says Indra helped King Sudas against a combined army of ten kings (Battle of the Ten Kings - Wikipedia).

"2. With Soma they brought Indra from a distance, Over Vaisanta, from the strong libation.
Indra preferred Vasisthas to the Soma pressed by the son of Vayata, Pasadyumna.
3. So, verily, with these he crossed the river, in company with these he slaughtered Bheda.
So in the fight with the Ten Kings, Vasisthas! did Indra help Sudās through your devotions."
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 7: HYMN XXXIII Vasiṣṭha. (Translation by Ralph Griffith)

 

[pearl]

A simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed.

Edit: also, it's bad form to distort the meaning of what somebody said by selective quoting.

There was no distortion, I assumed the 'Song of Songs' cited would direct you to the quote. Here is the site of the excerpt,
Deus caritas est (December 25, 2005) | BENEDICT XVI

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

There was no distortion, I assumed the 'Song of Songs' cited would direct you to the quote. Here is the site of the excerpt,
Deus caritas est (December 25, 2005) | BENEDICT XVI

I think you did distort my post.

As a rule of thumb: if you cut off a quote partway through a thought, there's a good chance you'll be distorting it.

So does the sentiment in that encyclical reflect your position? If so, you could have saved us all the rigamarole and just said that you think that God feels love and isn't literally love himself.

 

[Windwalker]

We can observe the effects of love.

We can observe the effects of religious beliefs.

 

[jonathan180iq]

Touché! Indeed, it seems not atypical that the words "rational" and "irrational" mean little more than whether or not one agrees with or understands some particular narrative or perspective.

(reasons why I don't tend to use either term)

This is true among common discussion - but there are tried and true methods for discerning the difference between a rational concept and irrational one.

 

[jonathan180iq]

We can observe the effects of religious beliefs.

And, like love, those effects ebb and flow because they are based on something fluid and abstract; subjective desire.

Ancient Egyptians believed that their leaders were gods - The evidence of this belief can be found in the enormous structures that they built. Is this evidence that the Pharaohs were, in fact, supernatural beings sent to live among the mortals?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

We can observe the effects of religious beliefs.

We can also observe the effects of beliefs we know to be false. There's no reason to necessarily take the effects of religious beliefs as suggesting that the things being believed in are real.

 

[Windwalker]

We can also observe the effects of beliefs we know to be false. There's no reason to necessarily take the effects of religious beliefs as suggesting that the things being believed in are real.

That's true. But my response to his saying we can believe love is real because we see the effects. Obviously, that's not the reason why we do, since the same could be said of believing the untrue. We see the effects of that as well. The reason we believe love exists is because we experience it. How we choose to talk about it, whatever mythologies we wrap around it to communicate it, are secondary to its known reality.

And to the OP, I think it is important to make a distinction between the irrational and the nonrational. Love is a nonrational experience. The ideas we have about that, the stories we create and defend are activities of the rational mind. Some of those ideas we have and the defenses of them is what may move of into the irrational, in that it goes against reason. The nonrational on the other hand, is not against reason. It is just simply not an activity of the rational mind. It doesn't violate it, whereas irrationality does.

 

[pearl]

So does the sentiment in that encyclical reflect your position? If so, you could have saved us all the rigamarole and just said that you think that God feels love and isn't literally love himself.

God is love itself, believers experience that love through Grace.
To say that God feels is to continue another argument as to the place of biblical anthropomorphism. To a mind that discounts anything considered irrational, nothing a believer could state will ever be considered rational. If there were empirical evidence for the existence of God, which there is not, the idea of faith would not exist, as it would be rendered unnecessary, If there were empirical evidence for an itinerant Jew who preached the end times, who both died and lived again, which there is not, no reason for faith.

 

[CogentPhilosopher]

We can observe the effects of religious beliefs.

No one is saying that religious beliefs does not exist.