strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
False dichotomy...
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
What is more important for the future well-being of humankind: Faith or Reason?
- Thread starter Jeremiah
- Start date
False dichotomy...
Here, let's do an experiment strike.
What justifies your belief that a God exists?
We shall see if it fulfills any definitions of "faith" or "reason."
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
Belief implies doubt. There is no doubt that God exists.
Not necessarily, knowledge is a form of belief (it is justified true belief).
If you claim that your belief that a god exists qualifies as knowledge the question is the same: what justifies your belief/knowledge?
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
I do not claim as such.
So...
You say you do not believe a god exists and that you do not know a god exists.
That qualifies you as an atheist.
Surely there's a misunderstanding here somewhere, since I'm pretty sure you're not an atheist. That or you're deliberately dodging a difficult question.
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
You cannot know or understand God. But at the same time, if you only believe, then you risk creating your own God. God will show himself when we allow it. To believe he will won't change that fact. To know he will won't change it either. If you allow it, it will happen.
You could say that I know it will happen because it has happened. Not only to myself, but others as well. That part is knowledge, based on experience. Why it happens, how it happens, what God is...that part, I don't know. I have experienced it, that's all.
jarofthoughts
Empirical Curmudgeon
Holy dodging the question Batman! 
I'm undecided on whether I want to take the time to talk about basic epistemology or not for fear that it won't go anywhere. I guess I'll test the waters.
If you answer "yes" to the question "Does God exist?" then you are making a belief claim. You believe that God exists. You deny this by saying "belief implies the possibility of being wrong," but that's not true: even knowledge is a belief (in that knowledge is justified true belief).
If you say that God exists but that you don't believe it or know it, that's an entirely nonsensical statement... sort of like saying "I'm pregnant but I'm not pregnant." It totally flies in the face of epistemological structure. If you assert that a God exists, that is a belief statement (that doesn't mean it's a false statement, as you've for whatever reason come to believe). If that belief statement is justified and true, it is also knowledge.
So, again, what justifies your belief that a god exists? If you're still afraid of that word, then what justifies your assertion that a god exists (same thing)?
ellenjanuary
Well-Known Member
Quantum decoherence.
Well, in physics; the problem of infinity is renormalized. Yet, mathematics can handle infinity. A/(1-r), for example; the sum of an infinite geometric series. (.999...) = 1 as an infinite series; but in a finite universe, even if we were to write the terms 9/10, 9/100, 9/1000 etc. as small as a quark - the universe would fill with 9s and leave no room for a mathematician with a pencil to do the figuring. There's obviously something more going on than the laws of physics allows.
How can one be pregnant and not pregnant? EPT shows blue, but the doctor says no, but nine months later, 1+1=3. The hidden assumption being that there is an "absolute" fact; but there isn't. If I meet you at the store and say, "I have two children;" but later, we swing by the house only to find that SaLuSa has beamed them off to Sirius -do I actually have two children? And if I insist, but my shrink swings by, suggests for my mental health that my delusions be reinforced lest an explosive psychic break occur -what of the non-children then?
I don't believe in god because god is beyond belief; I should know, I met the guy (ain't a guy, but...). It really ain't that complicated.
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
I've already said God isn't knowledge, so why do you bring up epistemology?
A belief and a justified true belief are the same thing. A belief is 'I believe this'. A justified true belief is 'I believe this because of blah, blah, blah...'.
Yes, of course. And the fact that you believe that it is justified and true doesn't make a difference?
Yes it is nonsensical. Yes it flies in the face of epistemology. It isn't epistemology, so I don't know why you assumed it was. Not everything is knowledge.
So you ask the same question and expect a different answer? Is that not the definition of insanity?
For the sake of argument, I will say again that it is personal experience that justifies my belief that God exists. I will also say that, based on this experience, this is the only way to experience God.
Last edited:
If you reject calling your belief in God a "belief" because "that implies it could be wrong" then you're implying you know God exists. You're just playing semantics as others have pointed out.
No, they're quite different things. "The sky is purple" is a belief, though it isn't justified or true. I'm not sure what kind of semantic system you've developed to describe your epistemology (to the extent that you don't even call epistemic statements epistemology, even!) but it sure is confusing the heck out of several of us.
Any statements about what's true are epistemic in nature. You're making a statement about what's true: that God exists, and that such is true. You are talking about epistemology; you just have wildly different semantics that most people use for discussing such topics. It's a source of a lot of confusion (I'm not the only one who's noticed) and I think it also leads you to make incorrect epistemic judgements from some examples you've given of your semantics.
Ok, so you're comfortable with accepting personal experience; a variation of anecdotal evidence. Normally such things require external justifiers or else they're extremely weak -- do you base your assertions about God on anything else or just on weak internal justifications? It would be strange to make an assertion such as "It's not a belief because that implies the possibility of being wrong" (i.e., implying that your assertion can't POSSIBLY be wrong) when it relies on such a weak justifier as an internal/anecdotal justifier... that's extremely disproportionate to the actual strength of the justification claimed. Which takes us back to the problem of faith and lacking justification.
Which is irrational, nonsensical, and if true not worth my time to attempt to figure out if anyone claims to be "both and neither" of anything in the same respect and at the same time. I've always considered "mysticism" to be a short term for "I will spend pages of words without saying anything at all." Maybe I'm missing something, but mystics and fans of mystics seem to be very impressed by high verbiage that uses a lot of undefined terms or terms used in inexhaustive and inexplicit ways that impart no meaning whatsoever to me.
Sort of reminds me of Martin Gardner's criticisms of Krishnaumarti in his book "Are Universes Thicker than Blackberries?" in a chapter called "The Vagueness of Krishnamaurti" (Or however you spell his name). Here's a link to Gardner bashing on Krishnamurti's mysticism: http://thinkg.net/david_bohm/martin_gardner_on_david_bohm_and_krishnamurti.html
Last edited:
Nonsense. The world isn't so black and white that we have to conform ourselves to the language chosen to describe us.
How can you claim to either believe or disbelieve in what's behind the veil when you're perfectly aware that all you can do is stare at a curtain?
Nonsense. The world isn't so black and white that we have to conform ourselves to the language chosen to describe us.
How can you claim to either believe or disbelieve in what's behind the veil when you're perfectly aware that all you can do is stare at a curtain?
We don't have to "conform" to things, but it is true that we are all either theists or atheists given that theism is a belief in the existence of at least one god and atheism is a lack of belief in god(s). Given these definitions, all sentient beings are either theists or atheists. Someone may play semantics and define terms differently -- that's fine -- but it's true that given those definitions each and every person is either a theist or an atheist, and never "both and neither at once." This comes down to logic; and it's never possible for anything illogical to be true.
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
Yet I have said that you can't know God. Do you think I am lying to you?
Confusing is good. When you are confused you learn a lot more than not.
No it is not justified or true. But you can easily make it so. I see the sky as purple. Therefore, the sky is purple. The fact that you see it as blue does not make my statement any less true than before. Because I still see the sky as purple. Until I see otherwise, the sky will remain purple.
It confuses you because you are working from a nonexistent standard of 'truth'. When you work from that position, you're bound to get confused, as we don't really know what's true and what's not. Best to let life tell you these things than assume them.
Weak internal justifications? Did I read that right? Personal experience is the strongest justification that we have. Your conviction here is based on personal experience. All this rationalization is just a bonus. Your conviction would not be nearly as strong unless you had personal experience that it is true.
And by the way, I said belief implies doubt, not 'the possibility of being wrong'. Please read more carefully.
strikeviperMKII
Well-Known Member
False dichotomy. Logical fallacy. Logic implies, but does not guarantee, truth. Logic 101.
jarofthoughts
Empirical Curmudgeon
Logic 101:
If A is larger than B and B is larger than C, then C cannot be larger than A.
After that everything else falls into place and the use of accurate definitions is the basis for all effective rational communication.
If you deny this that means that you are in fact dodging the question and you are not in any way interested in knowing what is correct, not to mention that you are just using semantics to try (and fail) to disguise this fact.
If you cannot even define what your own point of view is then discussing that point of view is void and continuing the discussion is pointless.
Meow has shown a lot more restraint than I would, and while I applaud her for it I do not think you deserve it.
This is true in some contexts but not when someone is simply being confusing with semantics. This is why it's often so important to define terms on equal ground when holding a debate. For instance if one person uses the term "theory" to mean "guess" while the other is using the term "theory" to mean what it means in science (far from a "guess"), much confusion will follow -- but it's not constructive confusion at all. That's the sort of breakdown we're having here: a semantic one. It's not constructive. We need to find a common ground on our terms. I don't insist that mine are used but I do insist that we find common terms that are understood in the same context by both parties.
To avoid getting into a discussion about the subjective nature of qualia I'll use a different example: "There is a visible, corporeal dragon in my garage." That statement can be a belief; but it's not justified and it's obviously not true. Thus it's a different sort of belief in principle from a belief which is justified and true (as far as we're able to tell).
That's what epistemology is for, though -- to discern truth; what constitutes truth (and therefore knowledge). I agree that we don't absolutely know what's true. We do know some things which are true (such as identity), but normally when we say "true" we simply mean true as far as it's possible for us to know at a given time: we've checked it for internal consistency (does it self-contradict?) and external consistency (does it contradict anything already known?)
Given the existence of hallucinations, mirages, altered states of consciousness like hypnogagia, and the human tendency to perceive what we want to be true; don't you think it's prudent to lend some criticism to things which are only internally experienced? Or should we accept every claim that people make from internal experiences such as alien abductions, incubus visitations, and so on? I myself have experienced severe hypnogagia hallucinations in my childhood -- should I have believed those experiences without any skeptical scrutiny?
Belief doesn't imply doubt considering knowledge is a form of belief; and it would be absurd to say "I know X is true but I doubt it."