Would you buy it?

[Wotan]

Obviously, you're not going to let anyone tell you that it is. So why even ask?

Bull!
IF you have a justification for belief in a Abrahamic god present it. But saying I believe it because I WANT to is not a justification.

 

[Looncall]

If one carries the benefit of assumption, ones arguments needn't "stand up to the standards of proof." Validity (and, necessarily, intellect) does not rest with logic.

If you cannot produce justification for your ideas, what status do they have? Why should anyone consider them to be anything but an odd quirk of the intellect, or even a malaise of the mind?

 

[Willamena]

If you cannot produce justification for your ideas, what status do they have? Why should anyone consider them to be anything but an odd quirk of the intellect, or even a malaise of the mind?

Justification is not inherent of proof, logic, aesthetics, assumption or any other device that utilizes it; rather, they are inherent of it. Justification has happened when something is just (made right). To the person who holds the image of 'just," the just thing has all the status that "right" lends it; to the person who doesn't, it doesn't. Producing justification will not produce belief, because it is not the same as believing something is just. The latter is up to each of us.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

I'd send one to my favorite Republican. With instructions to open it soon.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

People will believe in theism whether there is justification or not, but I was referring to your dualisms regarding theism/atheism and pleasure/pain. In both cases one isn't required for the other; in both cases one can exist even if the other does not.

The idea that pleasure/pain is a dualistic system reminds me of a joke that my Dad would tell me:

- Why are you beating your head against that brick wall?
- Because it feels so good when I stop.

It's funny because it suggests such a ridiculous way of looking at the world... but it's the same way of looking at the world implied in the idea that the existence of good requires the existence of evil.

Are you saying positive one (+1) can exist without negative one (-1)?

I've only been able to find a couple of cases of zero-sum games:

- the laws of conservation of mass and energy
- artificial systems with invented rules

What reason do we have to think that good/evil or pleasure/pain are also zero-sum games?

 

[Looncall]

Justification is not inherent of proof, logic, aesthetics, assumption or any other device that utilizes it; rather, they are inherent of it. Justification has happened when something is just (made right). To the person who holds the image of 'just," the just thing has all the status that "right" lends it; to the person who doesn't, it doesn't. Producing justification will not produce belief, because it is not the same as believing something is just. The latter is up to each of us.

This has something of word salad about it.

Your a use of the word justification is one that I have not encountered before. I have usually known it to mean support or explanation by evidence or reason. A justification of a belief is reason(s) to accept the belief as true. I have also seen it used as meaning some sort of excuse for something.

 

[Willamena]

This has something of word salad about it.

Your a use of the word justification is one that I have not encountered before. I have usually known it to mean support or explanation by evidence or reason. A justification of a belief is reason(s) to accept the belief as true. I have also seen it used as meaning some sort of excuse for something.

One cannot provide (give to others) support by evidence or reason unless one holds support by evidence or reason. Both are justification. I can't explain why it appears as a word salad to you.

 

[Atomist]

Yeah, and?

Theism is an epistemologically unjustified belief.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

Theism is an epistemological unjustified belief.

You mean "epistemologically."

 

[Atomist]

You mean "epistemologically."

oops fixed it...

 

[angellous_evangellous]

oops fixed it...

Nice.

 

[Midnight Pete]

Bull!
IF you have a justification for belief in a Abrahamic god present it. But saying I believe it because I WANT to is not a justification.

Really?

You are one scary dude for saying that.

 

[Gloone]

Really?

You are one scary dude for saying that.

She, the OP is describing idolatry / paganism not any monotheist religion or belief, so I wouldn't worry about it to much anyways. If she was trying to relate this to monotheism then she definitely missed the mark.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

She, the OP is describing idolatry / paganism not any monotheist religion or belief, so I wouldn't worry about it to much anyways. If she was trying to relate this to monotheism then she definitely missed the mark.

How do you figure?

If you took the OP and replaced "the box" with "Jesus" and "purchasing the box" with "accepting Jesus", you'd get something that lines up very closely with many people's accounts of their Christian faith.

 

[Midnight Pete]

How do you figure?

If you took the OP and replaced "the box" with "Jesus" and "purchasing the box" with "accepting Jesus", you'd get something that lines up very closely with many people's accounts of their Christian faith.

Maybe you should not concern yourself with the personal beliefs of others. Just mind your own business.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Maybe you should not concern yourself with the personal beliefs of others. Just mind your own business.

So... you jump in on a reply from me to someone else to tell me to mind my own business? The irony is palpable.

 

[yourhopeboundheart]

Maybe you should not concern yourself with the personal beliefs of others. Just mind your own business.

Religious Education Forum / Religious Topics / Religious Debates /General Religious Debates


?

 

[Meow Mix]

Would it matter if they did?

No, but understand the gyst of what I'm saying: if you believe without justification then literally any belief can be held, even ones which contradict internally and externally. That isn't rational.

One step forward, three steps back.
Consider what you said here: (In fact you can't even be sure that anything that you think is "true" since the very concept of truth relies on our capacity to "figure" things "out.")


Then you say: (Let's be realistic here: to be rational we must justify our beliefs. If you're admitting that theists can't justify theism, then you're essentially giving up the ghost and saying theism is irrational.)

The first statement was in response to:

I was never answering that question, as I have said before. And also as I said before, the question is irrelevant. What is, is. What is not, is not. That is not for us to figure out.

I was saying that it's "not for us to figure out" what is or isn't, then there's a severe epistemic issue there.

My second statement is true. To be rational we must justify our beliefs. I can justify mine. Yet when I ask theists for justification the conversation just goes in circles.

 

[Meow Mix]

The pleasure of eating the spinach comes from the work of eating it.
A little sacrifice but still a sacrifice.
If there is no energy put forward there will be no gain.
Without the work of energy there is no benefit of energy.

Fine, an omnipotent God can directly cause the sensation of the taste. Pleasure logically existing without pain. Agreed?

 

[Meow Mix]

So if you think religion is just a makeshift faith, then you haven’t even made a scratch in its surface.

I made no such assumption. I drew an analogy and asked how it was different. I request justification for theism and never receive it. All I get are red herrings and runarounds.

Now, lets further this concept and talk about some cultures and relate it to America. People, who are born as Americans, granted are born with freedoms, liberties, individual rights,things that most people would risk an arm and limb for. People had to make struggles and sacrifices before America became what it is today, in its short history. Now, the same underlying principles can be found and seen in Abrahamic religions, they did not just appear or come into existence overnight, and fall out of the sky onto a silver platter.

I guess when you hear people say something like God is an all loving god, people are just trying to describe god as they know god. If you think god is non-existent then that is just the way you “know or see” god. If you see god as a box, what does that box represent? My answer is not much of anything. What is yours?

I'm just asking for justification for theism and how believing specific theisms is any different from believing in the box. It's pretty straightforward.