[Luis Dias]

How can you possibly know? And Ratzinger would tell you otherwise, btw. He should know it better than you, he's a theological expert.

[InsaneBaron]

How can you possibly know? And Ratzinger would tell you otherwise, btw. He should know it better than you, he's a theological expert.

Wait, where did Ratzinger disagree?

[Bobboau]

There are many discussed reasons. You, as I, do find them insuficient. But they exist, and people who believe in them are worth every bit of intellectual respect.

I'm sorry I've only been half paying attention to this thread could you give me a tl;dr summary of these?
[edit]never-mind, I misread your post, sorry]/edit]

[watsisname]

Luis, Herra is agreeing with you that the question is important, if one views that set of propositions as true.  He is asking why this should matter when considering that there is a large set of contradictory propositions that have equal footing.  I.e. why is it important to choose one of them as being true in the first place?

[Luis Dias]

Yes, but he had said something different before, namely, that it didn't even matter whatever was the case regarding god and our stance with him/her/it. That was what I was pointing out it is not true. It *does* matter if a particular set of propositions is true. Herra states something analogous to *Well that's all very arbitrary to me, why not the reverse?*, and that's fine, but there is a really large proportion of human beings on this planet who really believe in a set of propositions similar to what I have stated, and if this belief is so widespread, then I do think that it at least deserves attention and questioning.

I also find Herra's apparent calls to Apatheism a tad silly given his constant and never ending apologetics to atheism. Clearly, these questions are important to Herra, otherwise he wouldn't have wasted so much time with them.

How can you possibly know? And Ratzinger would tell you otherwise, btw. He should know it better than you, he's a theological expert.

Wait, where did Ratzinger disagree?

I was mistaken. He actually stated otherwise, now I have researched and found my statements wanting. I am sorry for that.

[Herra Tohtori]

Yes, but he had said something different before, namely, that it didn't even matter whatever was the case regarding god and our stance with him/her/it. That was what I was pointing out it is not true. It *does* matter if a particular set of propositions is true. Herra states something analogous to *Well that's all very arbitrary to me, why not the reverse?*, and that's fine, but there is a really large proportion of human beings on this planet who really believe in a set of propositions similar to what I have stated, and if this belief is so widespread, then I do think that it at least deserves attention and questioning.

Clearly, if a person thinks something is true, it is going to affect their life regardless of whether that belief is true or not. In that respect, I do agree that beliefs and faith play an important part in human lives - that should be obvious.


But circular logic is circular.

The only reason people consider these things important is because their religions state they are important. That doesn't give any factual basis to think that the things proposed in a religion are actually true.


That's what I refer to when I say it isn't fundamentally important whether any given set of propositions given by a religion is true. Since there is no way to gauge any unknowable claim's truth value, they are all equally meaningless, regardless of how important each defines themself to be.

I also find Herra's apparent calls to Apatheism a tad silly given his constant and never ending apologetics to atheism. Clearly, these questions are important to Herra, otherwise he wouldn't have wasted so much time with them.

Apatheism is not necessarily the right word, though I definitely would endorse avoidance of any religion regardless of whether you personally have faith in any divine or supernatural things or not.

These questions are important in the sense that my personal reaction to religions is pretty much confusion and dismay. I can't think of a reason why people would subject themselves to such horrible, immoral ideologies, especially regarding claims that are fundamentally unknowable. It baffles me as to why people consider any other person an "expert" in these matters. No one can actually know anything about these things, so it follows that no one knows the nature of god (if applicable) any better than you.

That is why I consider following another person's ideas to be an ill-advised decision and I think it's important to prompt people to question such a decision. Just because a lot of people believe in a particular set of propositions does not make those propositions particularly important, nor does it make them actually true.



The particular question of "Does God Exist" is not really important in my view because I consider the concept of God itself invalid or at least badly defined to begin with. The question "How do you define God" is much more interesting to begin with, because it establishes what kind of being or entity we're looking for. But typically, to do that, most people use concepts like "divine" or "supernatural", and that's where I see a logical fallacy, as outlined before.

It just so happens that in my understanding of cosmology there is no room for the traditional definition of "God". Any entity that might be called "God" I see as a natural occupant of Cosmos, regardless of its specific nature. The closest you could get to the traditional definition of "God" in Abrahamic religions is the Admin of a simulated universe, but then I don't really see what would be divine in such an entity. Sure, you could call it a God if you wanted, but what difference would it make if you actually could know the facts about it?


I'm actually fine (to some extent) with people having faith in something and even considering it important. I can understand that, it's not like I'm free of irrational beliefs. And I sort of have higher respect for someone who says "This is what I believe, and I can't explain why" than someone who says "This is what I believe, and my faith is supported by logic", because it seems to me that in most cases it is simply not true.


If it were true, a believer whose faith was supported by logic would change their view if a fallacy was pointed out in their logic. This usually does not happen, so I conclude that even if some people think their faith is supported by reason and logic, in most cases it actually isn't. The faith reinforces the idea that the "logic" to support it is correct. When a person is introduced to a fallacy in their presented logical support for their faith, they have a cognitive dissonance where they have to choose between continuing to believe their faith is supported by logic, or acknowledging that the logic is faulty.

It is a cheap way to attempt to convert people to faith by showing them "logical" arguments to support faith, hoping they don't spot the glaring logical fallacies. What makes it worse is when they have adopted the faith of a particular religion, it actually becomes harder to get a person to acknowledge the fallacies in the apologetics, because their faith supported by evidence becomes faith in the evidence - even if the evidence is proven faulty.

It's even worse because many religions define a person's worth through faith and the questioning of their faith is seen as an insult to the person.

[Luis Dias]

Clearly, if a person thinks something is true, it is going to affect their life regardless of whether that belief is true or not. In that respect, I do agree that beliefs and faith play an important part in human lives - that should be obvious.


But circular logic is circular.

The only reason people consider these things important is because their religions state they are important. That doesn't give any factual basis to think that the things proposed in a religion are actually true.


That's what I refer to when I say it isn't fundamentally important whether any given set of propositions given by a religion is true. Since there is no way to gauge any unknowable claim's truth value, they are all equally meaningless, regardless of how important each defines themself to be.

You write a lot, Herra, but you keep making the same mistakes. No, what is "True" is important here. If hell were real, then I'd say that it was a very important fact to know, whether if you believe in it or not. You still claim this would be unimportant, but the problem here is one of logic. You are conflating two issues. One is the importance of Hell if it were true. The other is its probability of existence, or accepting the seriousness of its hypothesis to begin with. These are separate and you conflate them.

It baffles me as to why people consider any other person an "expert" in these matters. No one can actually know anything about these things, so it follows that no one knows the nature of god (if applicable) any better than you.

It baffles you for no good reason either. A good empiricist will recognize the existence of these highly intelligent people making these metaphysical arguments and "bafflement" about it is unhelpful. You should instead engage with it and try to understand where this strain of thought is coming from. Clearly, it's not "stooopid", but actually smart and thoughtful, or otherwise it would be as respected as astrology is. By the looks of the amount of intelligent brains one can easily see that it isn't the brainless ****fest you claim it is.

I'm actually fine (to some extent) with people having faith in something and even considering it important. I can understand that, it's not like I'm free of irrational beliefs. And I sort of have higher respect for someone who says "This is what I believe, and I can't explain why" than someone who says "This is what I believe, and my faith is supported by logic", because it seems to me that in most cases it is simply not true.

This is why you keep having problems with these conversations: your logic is amazingly condescending. To decree religious belief as irrational assumes there is no rationality behind it, when it clearly is. Now, we can claim, as I do, that this rationality is wrong, but ****ing irrational?!?? That won't do. No.

[karajorma]

You write a lot, Herra, but you keep making the same mistakes. No, what is "True" is important here. If hell were real, then I'd say that it was a very important fact to know, whether if you believe in it or not.

However there is a nearly infinite number of these important questions then. Is Hell real? Is God real? Is Krishna real? Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster real?

All of these questions are important if they are actually real. So look at this as a matter of priorities. If I have a high priority task I absolutely need to do today which will take most of the day, I can say it's important. If I have 5 of those all of which have the same priority it becomes harder to say which one is important. If I have an infinite number of tasks, then none of them are important simply because there is no reason I can say any of those tasks should be done before the others and saying "I have one billion important things to do today" is ridiculous. I'll leave it as a open question whether actually doing one of those things as opposed to simply ignoring the entire lot is the rational choice or not.

So I kinda see where Herra is coming from. Given an infinitely large number of "important" questions each of which have an infinitesimally small chance of actually having the correct conditions to be the "Truly Important Question", it's not unreasonable to say that none of them are actually very important.

[Herra Tohtori]

You write a lot, Herra, but you keep making the same mistakes. No, what is "True" is important here. If hell were real, then I'd say that it was a very important fact to know, whether if you believe in it or not. You still claim this would be unimportant, but the problem here is one of logic. You are conflating two issues. One is the importance of Hell if it were true. The other is its probability of existence, or accepting the seriousness of its hypothesis to begin with. These are separate and you conflate them.

No. When you make a claim that is fundamentally unknowable and non-falsifiable, it doesn't become important even if it proposes itself to be important. That's my whole point.

No one can know if [supernatural claim] is true or not. The hypothesis is entirely man-made; there is no way for anyone to have factual information on it.


You can make infinite amount of claims that "if they were true" would be extremely important. It does not make the claims important, and it definitely shouldn't make it the most important thing in our lives to figure out an answer to an unknowable question.

If it did, there would be nothing anyone would ever get done, being obsessed with figuring out whether all kinds of imagined things are true or not. There is absolutely nothing in God-claim or Hell-claim that sets them apart from any other outlandish, unreasonable claims that anyone could make up.

It baffles me as to why people consider any other person an "expert" in these matters. No one can actually know anything about these things, so it follows that no one knows the nature of god (if applicable) any better than you.

It baffles you for no good reason either. A good empiricist will recognize the existence of these highly intelligent people making these metaphysical arguments and "bafflement" about it is unhelpful. You should instead engage with it and try to understand where this strain of thought is coming from.

Rational observation reveals that highly intelligent people are making claims of some certainty about unknowable things. This is irrational. The baffling part is where one identifies these people as highly intelligent, yet engaging in irrational behaviour.

And anyone following a religious authority of any kind is ignoring the blatant fact that clearly, they cannot know the things they are speaking of.

Clearly, it's not "stooopid", but actually smart and thoughtful, or otherwise it would be as respected as astrology is. By the looks of the amount of intelligent brains one can easily see that it isn't the brainless ****fest you claim it is.

No. Argument from popularity. If there's two different belief systems and one has larger number of people supporting it, that doesn't make it more valid than the other. Neither one still presents any worthwhile reason to believe in it without a circular argument from within that says it's important to believe in this particular branch of nonsense.

In this respect there is no fundamental difference between salvation doctrines and astrology.

I mean, if the stars dictated your life, the challenges and opportunities you have any given day, wouldn't it be important to know it? Call your local Astrologist now, don't forsake yourself to endless misfortune!

I'm actually fine (to some extent) with people having faith in something and even considering it important. I can understand that, it's not like I'm free of irrational beliefs. And I sort of have higher respect for someone who says "This is what I believe, and I can't explain why" than someone who says "This is what I believe, and my faith is supported by logic", because it seems to me that in most cases it is simply not true.

This is why you keep having problems with these conversations: your logic is amazingly condescending. To decree religious belief as irrational assumes there is no rationality behind it, when it clearly is. Now, we can claim, as I do, that this rationality is wrong, but ****ing irrational?!?? That won't do. No.

Condescending? What?

Look up the definition of irrational. I'm not the one who came up with it, but it is a word that describes what faith is.

Faith is irrational by definition. How is it condescending to point out that fact? It doesn't synonymously mean that people who have faith "are" irrational in the sense that they cannot behave in a rational manner. Clearly, they regularly do behave in a rational manner - you can't usually point out to people on the street and separate religious and non-religious people based on their outward appearance or behaviour (though sometimes you can). But the part of their world view governed by faith remains irrational, and that's a fact.

For someone to claim their faith is supported by reason/logic/evidence, it isn't faith at all. It is an attempt to rationalize a belief system, a crutch in the absence of faith. And in every case so far I've observed, the reason/logic/evidence has been faulty and lacking.

A religious person who acknowledges their faith is irrational, is more rational than a religious person who insists their faith is rational, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.


Actually, you know what's really condescending? Blank tolerance of any belief systems.

Which one is more condescending?

A. "Ok. You go ahead and keep believing what you believe."

B. "I think you're wrong, I disagree with your views, and this is why."


To me, it seems like the unsaid part of option A is "I still think you're wrong, but I don't think you have the ability to change your views, even if I tried to convince you of how absurd they are". It's the way you would talk to a child or mentally disabled person when you think you would just confuse or upset them by trying to correct their way of thinking.


Of course that doesn't mean one should go full autistic every time you encounter someone who's religious or has different political views or has whatever difference in opinion compared to yours. It's a smart thing to gauge how receptive the other person would be to an attempt to convince them otherwise, and if they express that they aren't interested to be convinced otherwise - drop the matter.

But it doesn't mean you should "accept" and "tolerate" every kind of nonsense anyone happens to believe in.


Sure, everyone has a right to self-determination and if they want to spend their money on astrological advice, I'm not going to stop them. If someone really wants to torment themselves by the idea that their un-believer child will go to hell, I can't really affect that either. But then you have cases where religious or cultural norms demand parents to mistreat their children for example, and that's where we get back to one of the original points of the discussion: Faith, being irrational by definition, can lead people to making irrational decisions that harm other people.

[Luis Dias]

However there is a nearly infinite number of these important questions then. Is Hell real? Is God real? Is Krishna real? Is the Flying Spaghetti Monster real?

All of these questions are important if they are actually real. So look at this as a matter of priorities. If I have a high priority task I absolutely need to do today which will take most of the day, I can say it's important. If I have 5 of those all of which have the same priority it becomes harder to say which one is important. If I have an infinite number of tasks, then none of them are important simply because there is no reason I can say any of those tasks should be done before the others and saying "I have one billion important things to do today" is ridiculous. I'll leave it as a open question whether actually doing one of those things as opposed to simply ignoring the entire lot is the rational choice or not.

So I kinda see where Herra is coming from. Given an infinitely large number of "important" questions each of which have an infinitesimally small chance of actually having the correct conditions to be the "Truly Important Question", it's not unreasonable to say that none of them are actually very important.

You are conflating two issues. One is the importance of Hell if it were true. The other is its probability of existence, or accepting the seriousness of its hypothesis to begin with. These are separate and you conflate them.

****ing hell.

[Herra Tohtori]

Perhaps we have a different understanding of what "important" actually means.

[Luis Dias]

No. When you make a claim that is fundamentally unknowable and non-falsifiable, it doesn't become important even if it proposes itself to be important. That's my whole point.

Then write it that way. This was not what you had said. You said that even if God were real it didn't matter, that we shouldn't try to guess what and how it behaves, etc. I merely told you the obvious: that if you allow yourself to entertain this hypothesis, then you must also entertain the fact that it's an important fact of the world. If you, OTOH, say as you are saying that this hypothesis is irrelevant, man-made, non factually based, arbitrary, so on and so on, then you are saying that you won't entertain the hypothesis. But this is a different thing to say. If you keep changing what you say, I'll have trouble keeping up with you, that is not surprising.

No. Argument from popularity. If there's two different belief systems and one has larger number of people supporting it, that doesn't make it more valid than the other. Neither one still presents any worthwhile reason to believe in it without a circular argument from within that says it's important to believe in this particular branch of nonsense.

It's not an argument from popularity. The popularity itself, furthermore from highly intelligent beings, is a sign that there's probably more than just "irrational" nonsense about it. This inference is extremely solid, and there's no realm filled with lists of fallacies you can pull off here that disproves this simple heuristic. Now, you can decide to learn these rationalities or not, that's up to you. But if you ignore them or won't learn them, then two things happen: first, it's your choice, I don't think you'll lose too much without them. Second, you can't them declare them "irrational". You did not engage with them, it's you who are at fault.

If you are declaring them irrational, then the burden of proof resides on you. YOU show how all of the most respected arguments are "irrational". You won't be able to do so, because even if I disagree with them, to call them irrational is beyond reason. It's stretching your case far far too much. It won't do, because they are not irrational. They are wrong, which is a quite different thing.

In this respect there is no fundamental difference between salvation doctrines and astrology.

I mean, if the stars dictated your life, the challenges and opportunities you have any given day, wouldn't it be important to know it? Call your local Astrologist now, don't forsake yourself to endless misfortune!

Anyone who hasn't considered the hypothesis that Astrology could be real isn't a good skeptic in the first place. Even if that personal investigation only lasted a few seconds of thought.

Faith is irrational by definition. How is it condescending to point out that fact? It doesn't synonymously mean that people who have faith "are" irrational in the sense that they cannot behave in a rational manner. Clearly, they regularly do. But the part of their world view governed by faith remains irrational, and that's a fact.

Faith is irrational by definition? Now we are entering peculiar domains here. Ok Herra, show me where "faith", definitionally, is irrational. Then go on proving that "Hope", "Trust" and "Belief" are irrational things that humans do, definitionally.

Now, now, don't change your goalposts here, Herra. You make these silly wild claims, you back them up.

For someone to claim their faith is supported by reason/logic/evidence, it isn't faith at all. It is an attempt to rationalize a belief system, a crutch in the absence of faith. And in every case so far I've observed, the reason/logic/evidence has been faulty and lacking.

So all those people who reached faith through a rational reading of theological arguments, they are simply illusions of my deluded mind? They actually do not exist? Are you capable of mind-reading, Herra? Are you telling me that InsaneBaron, for instance, is simply deluded or just outright lying when he said that he reached his religiosity through reason? This is a grave accusation, I'm sure you have evidence to back this up, and no don't give me the usual "psychologists find that people sometimes do this..." ****.

Actually, you know what's really condescending? Blank tolerance of any belief systems.

Why would I pick between two condescending visions? You are having trouble parsing the difference between irrationality and being wrong.

Perhaps we have a different understanding of what "important" actually means.

I'd say that living in an eternal hellfire, if true, would be in the "important" category. If it wouldn't, then I haven't the faintest clue what you mean by "important". This reply of yours shows me you didn't understand what I told you. I'm bored already.

[Herra Tohtori]

You said that even if God were real it didn't matter, that we shouldn't try to guess what and how it behaves, etc. I merely told you the obvious: that if you allow yourself to entertain this hypothesis, then you must also entertain the fact that it's an important fact of the world. If you, OTOH, say as you are saying that this hypothesis is irrelevant, man-made, non factually based, arbitrary, so on and so on, then you are saying that you won't entertain the hypothesis. But this is a different thing to say. If you keep changing what you say, I'll have trouble keeping up with you, that is not surprising.

Just that. Even if God exists, in the sense of religious definition of the word, it remains something we can't actually have any reliable information about.

And because the nature of this God is unknowable, there would be an infinite amount of possibilities of what he likes to wear and what kind of flattery would best work to give you a good afterlife. Infinite questions to answer that would each claim to be just as important as the other. Making all of them kind of irrelevant and not, in any regular definition of the word, "important".

No. Argument from popularity. If there's two different belief systems and one has larger number of people supporting it, that doesn't make it more valid than the other. Neither one still presents any worthwhile reason to believe in it without a circular argument from within that says it's important to believe in this particular branch of nonsense.

It's not an argument from popularity. The popularity itself, furthermore from highly intelligent beings, is a sign that there's probably more than just "irrational" nonsense about it. This inference is extremely solid, and there's no realm filled with lists of fallacies you can pull off here that disproves this simple heuristic. Now, you can decide to learn these rationalities or not, that's up to you. But if you ignore them or won't learn them, then two things happen: first, it's your choice, I don't think you'll lose too much without them. Second, you can't them declare them "irrational". You did not engage with them, it's you who are at fault.

If you are declaring them irrational, then the burden of proof resides on you. YOU show how all of the most respected arguments are "irrational". You won't be able to do so, because even if I disagree with them, to call them irrational is beyond reason. It's stretching your case far far too much. It won't do, because they are not irrational. They are wrong, which is a quite different thing.

The argument of popularity you made is that there are more people that consider religious claims valid, than there are people who consider astrological claims valid, and that somehow this makes religious claims possibly more valid. It doesn't.

EDIT: In case I misread you, if you meant that the people who believe in religious claims are smarter than people who believe in astrological claims, that is instead an argument from authority and just as invalid as argument from popularity...

When someone makes claims about unknowable things, it doesn't matter how highly intelligent they are; their claims are irrational.

Anyone who hasn't considered the hypothesis that Astrology could be real isn't a good skeptic in the first place. Even if that personal investigation only lasted a few seconds of thought.

True. So what? The same could be said about any claim anyone could make.

Faith is irrational by definition. How is it condescending to point out that fact? It doesn't synonymously mean that people who have faith "are" irrational in the sense that they cannot behave in a rational manner. Clearly, they regularly do. But the part of their world view governed by faith remains irrational, and that's a fact.

Faith is irrational by definition? Now we are entering peculiar domains here. Ok Herra, show me where "faith", definitionally, is irrational.

Faith in the context of this argument meaning belief in supernatural things of some degree, typically a deity, without any possible way to present evidence to support the belief. Also the associated doctrines.

I'm fairly sure we weren't discussing what it means if you sign a contract "in good faith" (legal definition) or if you're faithful to your spouse, but rather specifically in the sense of religious faith.

Then go on proving that "Hope", "Trust" and "Belief" are irrational things that humans do, definitionally.

Now, now, don't change your goalposts here, Herra. You make these silly wild claims, you back them up.

Who's being a pedant now...? Faith as a word is synonymous to those things, but it doesn't necessarily work the other way. For example, I see a definite difference in nuance between saying "I trust you", and "I have faith in you". But I'll work with what you gave me.

Hope is a manifestation of wishful thinking. It is irrational, so that one was easy.

Trust is reliance on something; whether it be trust in a person, physical thing, or something else. For example, a wall climber trusts their safety harness because they know it's strong enough to support their weight. Trust in person can mean that you rely on them to keep information confidential, or rely on them to complete a task given to them. If you know a person is competent and reliable, it is a rational thing to do to trust in them. If on the other hand you don't know them yet and give them a task or confidential information, trusting them with it could be seen as irrational. On the other hand, in certain situations trusting a stranger is the rational thing to do according to game theory... so it depends highly on context.


Trust can be based on facts, in which case it is rational, or not, in which case it is irrational. In the context of the discussion, trust is not very relevant but I suppose you could say a religious person might trust a religious authority - which is an irrational thing to do.

Beliefs, likewise, can be based on evidence or not. In the case of former, a belief is rational - to the extent that fact is usually defined as a well-supported true belief - while in the case of latter, a belief without evidence is irrational.


So yes: In the context of this discussion, faith is definitionally irrational, as are hope (wishful thinking), trust (in religious authorities), and belief (without evidence).

So all those people who reached faith through a rational reading of theological arguments, they are simply illusions of my deluded mind? They actually do not exist?

They are making claims of knowing unknowable things.

This is a position that cannot have a rational basis. The people claiming this clearly exist and you are not the one who's deluded. It is the people claiming their religious beliefs are supported by rational thought, logic, or physical evidence that are delusional.

Non-denominational theology itself can be perfectly rational study of concepts relating to God or religions in general. Denominational theology, like theological doctrines of Christianity, not so much...

Are you telling me that InsaneBaron, for instance, is simply deluded or just outright lying when he said that he reached his religiosity through reason?

If you want to use the word "deluded", fair enough. He is making claims of knowing unknowable things; although to his credit he has not claimed to know things with absolute certainty - just that he himself has become convinced that whatever he believes is true.

Regardless, the expectation that you can support unknowable things through rational inquiry is, in itself, irrational.

This is a grave accusation, I'm sure you have evidence to back this up, and no don't give me the usual "psychologists find that people sometimes do this..." ****.

Why is it a grave accusation? It's not any more serious than saying that people who believe in astrology are delusional.

Why would I pick between two condescending visions? You are having trouble parsing the difference between irrationality and being wrong.

What vision would you prefer, then?

Perhaps we have a different understanding of what "important" actually means.

I'd say that living in an eternal hellfire, if true, would be in the "important" category. If it wouldn't, then I haven't the faintest clue what you mean by "important". This reply of yours shows me you didn't understand what I told you. I'm bored already.

As explained already, the contents of a claim about unknowable things do not affect the importance of the claim.

All claims made about unknowable things are fundamentally unimportant, uninteresting, irrelevant, and irrational. You could make any statement as "important" as you want, if one were to assume it were true, but that doesn't make the claim itself important. Not even if half the people in the world (smart or not) believe it.

[InsaneBaron]

Okay, so you held this entire debate not only on the assumption that I was wrong in my conclusions, but that I was downright deluded. Unless you want to fix that statement, this all seems much less civil all of a sudden.

Listen. I've given you reasons for my standpoint. I can give you more if you want, although I suspect you won't listen. You disagree with my standpoint, and I can accept that. You've given reasonable arguments for your own views. But if nothing else, you have to acknowledge that there are rational arguments for people like me to believe in the existence of a God. We both consider eachother to be wrong, and that's acceptable, but claiming that my standpoint is not only wrong but downright "irrational" is indeed quite condescending, while at the same time unlikely to convince the other person. You're never going to convince anyone of anything if you assume that when they say "I have rational reasons to believe X", they're lying or deluded.

Regarding the astrology analogy, the difference here is that, as Luis pointed out, the fact that highly intelligent people, and large numbers of them, have been convinced, at all points in history, that there was a God, and spent their time writing down the rational arguments that had convinced them of it, does not prove that Theism is true. But it does at least prove that it is worthy of serious intellectual treatment. Astrology does not have that status, not only that, astrology makes scientific claims that are, in fact, testable. Christianity, in its basic, intellectual form, does not make scientific claims because it's not a matter of science.

Finally, you repeatedly claim that we're dealing with something unknowable. This was never my claim, nor anyone else's, and it's simply incorrect. I repeatedly attempted to explain to you ways in which we can, in fact, deduce some knowlege of the supernatural. I also pointed out that theists throughout history have argued that we could know something about God because He decided to tell us about himself. You can argue that the claims are false if you like, and I would take you seriously there, but instead you repeatedly act as if the claims were never made.

[Luis Dias]

And because the nature of this God is unknowable, there would be an infinite amount of possibilities of what he likes to wear and what kind of flattery would best work to give you a good afterlife. Infinite questions to answer that would each claim to be just as important as the other. Making all of them kind of irrelevant and not, in any regular definition of the word, "important".

You're the one stating that god is "unknowable". Christians heavily disagree with you here, but that's not even what I stated. What I stated was, if God exists, if Hell is real, then it is an important fact of the world. To this you come up with the most irrelevant non sequiturs. It is important, even if it is unknowable. In that scenario, we would be facing a kind of Lovecraftian nightmare situation, wherein something really really really important was true, but you couldn't even understand it before you were faced with it. Now to this you say "but many infinite possibilities abound, so I won't make it important", and then I'll point you to the conflation I told you were making and still persist on making. Those are two very different things to say, they are not the same.

The argument of popularity you made is that there are more people that consider religious claims valid, than there are people who consider astrological claims valid, and that somehow this makes religious claims possibly more valid. It doesn't.

EDIT: In case I misread you, if you meant that the people who believe in religious claims are smarter than people who believe in astrological claims, that is instead an argument from authority and just as invalid as argument from popularity...

It's not an "argument" for the case of the matter, it's an empirical observation that gives you an heuristic to wonder whether if there's more to religious thought than "irrational nonsense", and a good one at that. It is possible they are all deluded idiots when it comes to religion, but unlikely. I won't repeat this any more. If you persist on this misreading I will excuse myself from this conversation.

When someone makes claims about unknowable things, it doesn't matter how highly intelligent they are; their claims are irrational.

Anyone who hasn't considered the hypothesis that Astrology could be real isn't a good skeptic in the first place. Even if that personal investigation only lasted a few seconds of thought.

True. So what? The same could be said about any claim anyone could make.

We're talking past each other. I'm really getting bored here.

Faith is irrational by definition? Now we are entering peculiar domains here. Ok Herra, show me where "faith", definitionally, is irrational.

Faith in the context of this argument meaning belief in supernatural things of some degree, typically a deity, without any possible way to present evidence to support the belief. Also the associated doctrines.

I'm fairly sure we weren't discussing what it means if you sign a contract "in good faith" (legal definition) or if you're faithful to your spouse, but rather specifically in the sense of religious faith.

You are doing what I asked you not to do, namely goalpost shift your way out of your claims. You claimed not that faith "contextually" was irrational, but that it was DEFINITIONALLY irrational. You are now weaseling out of that claim. Own it or drop it.

Who's being a pedant now...? Faith as a word is synonymous to those things, but it doesn't necessarily work the other way. For example, I see a definite difference in nuance between saying "I trust you", and "I have faith in you". But I'll work with what you gave me.

Oh ****ing hell. You said faith was irrational DEFINITIONALLY. Now you tell me I am the pedant one, just before going on a segway on prisoner's dillemma and so on, and how it's all about CONTEXT? Come on Herra, you're flailing here. Of course it's about context. The problem is that you declared faith irrational from the get go, definitionally. And then you wonder why you are being read as condescending.

Trust can be based on facts, in which case it is rational, or not, in which case it is irrational. In the context of the discussion, trust is not very relevant but I suppose you could say a religious person might trust a religious authority - which is an irrational thing to do.

Beliefs, likewise, can be based on evidence or not. In the case of former, a belief is rational - to the extent that fact is usually defined as a well-supported true belief - while in the case of latter, a belief without evidence is irrational.


So yes: In the context of this discussion, faith is definitionally irrational, as are hope (wishful thinking), trust (in religious authorities), and belief (without evidence).

So after all that TLDR talk about how faith is irrational in certain contexts, you conclude that faith is definitionally irrational. Can I facepalm any harder at this? No, Herra. Either faith is contextually irrational or definitionally. Not both at the same time, because that is weasily trying to win an argument using logical fallacies. And because you have found the obvious, namely that it can only be contextually, then it cannot be definitionally.

Is this pedantic? No. Because you use these absolutist terminologies in order to advance your case, it's not my fault that you use them so badly and without any kind of semantic rigor.

This is a position that cannot have a rational basis. The people claiming this clearly exist and you are not the one who's deluded. It is the people claiming their religious beliefs are supported by rational thought, logic, or physical evidence that are delusional.

Non-denominational theology itself can be perfectly rational study of concepts relating to God or religions in general. Denominational theology, like theological doctrines of Christianity, not so much...

Cannot? Oh my. I'm sure you'll now give a mathematical proof of this absolute statement. It's not only that "cannot" is an absolute statement, completely overreaching your case here, it's that it is demonstrably wrong, since many rationalities have been advanced not only for the case of God, but also for the case of God being the God of the Christians. These rationalities, you might call them weak. You might call them insufficient. You might say they are not sufficient to bridge the epistemological, ontological gap, but they are there and are not irrational. If you persist on doing so, you should at least feel compelled to show how and why they are so. Nevertheless, you could read more good philosophical apologetics and actually engage with it. Perhaps then you'll find that it's not so easy to discard it as "irrational".

Are you telling me that InsaneBaron, for instance, is simply deluded or just outright lying when he said that he reached his religiosity through reason?

If you want to use the word "deluded", fair enough. He is making claims of knowing unknowable things; although to his credit he has not claimed to know things with absolute certainty - just that he himself has become convinced that whatever he believes is true.

Regardless, the expectation that you can support unknowable things through rational inquiry is, in itself, irrational.

Strawmans are fallacious, you know? No one ever said that you can support unknowable things through rational inquiry. You believe they are unknowable, InsaneBaron clearly does not. It is only irrational if you assume they are unknowable. But that's not their assumption.

What vision would you prefer, then?

The vision of a world where people aren't gratuitously called irrational just because they happen to believe in some religion's tenets. A world where people are actually respectful of each other and realise there are many rationales for religion, thus it's not irrationality that is at its core.

As explained already, the contents of a claim about unknowable things do not affect the importance of the claim.

All claims made about unknowable things are fundamentally unimportant, uninteresting, irrelevant, and irrational. You could make any statement as "important" as you want, if one were to assume it were true, but that doesn't make the claim itself important. Not even if half the people in the world (smart or not) believe it.

Yes, you keep misreading what I said in order to make your own case. I'm done here. Have fun talking with strawmans.

[zookeeper]

I believe I now have faith in Herra.

[Herra Tohtori]

Okay, so you held this entire debate not only on the assumption that I was wrong in my conclusions, but that I was downright deluded. Unless you want to fix that statement, this all seems much less civil all of a sudden.

It all hinges on whether the definition of God given in the premises of faith is of the knowable variety, or unknowable variety. That is why the first question I asked was how you define God, and if I recall you responded with "supernatural intelligent being that created the world", or something to that effect.

Since then, we have had a discussion about what defines supernatural, with various definitions given. One of the most sensible definitions for "supernatural" is that it is incomprehensible, unknowable, forever impossible for humans to understand. Your definition of supernatural may vary, but then I would question what makes it different from "natural" in the first place. If it's possible to gain accurate, reliable information about God, shouldn't he stop being supernatural the moment we acquire that knowledge and understanding about the subject?


In essence, my interpretation is that you declared God to be unknowable, yet claim to have reached knowledge through rational means.

Listen. I've given you reasons for my standpoint. I can give you more if you want, although I suspect you won't listen. You disagree with my standpoint, and I can accept that. You've given reasonable arguments for your own views. But if nothing else, you have to acknowledge that there are rational arguments for people like me to believe in the existence of a God.

Unless you redefine what you mean by "God" to a significant degree, I really can't acknowledge rational arguments for believing in such a thing.

The way I see it, God can either be supernatural or you can have rational arguments to believe in a natural God's existence. You can't have it both ways.

We both consider eachother to be wrong, and that's acceptable, but claiming that my standpoint is not only wrong but downright "irrational" is indeed quite condescending, while at the same time unlikely to convince the other person. You're never going to convince anyone of anything if you assume that when they say "I have rational reasons to believe X", they're lying or deluded.

Nah, your standpoint itself might be right or wrong (for what it's worth, anyway). I wouldn't know, because I consider supernatural to be unknowable. That 's a separate thing from "rational" (based on reason) and "irrational" (not based on reason). It is the definition of supernatural that is the start of all the problems...

Regarding the astrology analogy, the difference here is that, as Luis pointed out, the fact that highly intelligent people, and large numbers of them, have been convinced, at all points in history, that there was a God, and spent their time writing down the rational arguments that had convinced them of it, does not prove that Theism is true. But it does at least prove that it is worthy of serious intellectual treatment. Astrology does not have that status, not only that, astrology makes scientific claims that are, in fact, testable. Christianity, in its basic, intellectual form, does not make scientific claims because it's not a matter of science.

You're right in the sense that astrology has made some falsifiable claims (which have of course been readily falsified by scientific inquiry); not that the people who believe in astrology care about that) whereas religions in general don't. However, I could just as well say that highly intelligent people, and large numbers of then, have been convinced that astrology was reliable and accurate science.

That doesn't mean astrology is worthy of serious intellectual treatment.


Also, I would sort of disagree with the assessment that Christianity doesn't make scientific claims. It makes a lot of claims, period. The concept of "scientific claim" is a relatively modern one; certainly the claims weren't categorized as such in the days when the scripture was canonized. The existence of soul for example is treated as a serious claim even if nowadays it would be classified as unscientific claim on the simple basis that it isn't testable or falsifiable. Certainly the cosmological claims made by Christianity have been taken seriously at some point - and some still do, even against insurmountable evidence to the contrary.

It seems a bit like cherry-picking to choose only the non-testable claims and then say that "basic intellectual form" of Christianity doesn't make scientific, testable claims. Sure, if you define things that way.

Finally, you repeatedly claim that we're dealing with something unknowable. This was never my claim, nor anyone else's, and it's simply incorrect.

In that case, we are in a serious disagreement as to what "Supernatural" means. Which, I concede, is highly possible, considering our earlier argument about the matter didn't really go anywhere; as I recall you claimed it was possible for something to exist without physical matter or energy, which I refuted.

I repeatedly attempted to explain to you ways in which we can, in fact, deduce some knowlege of the supernatural.

And I remember trying to point out that if we can in some ways observe "supernatural" it follows logically that the thing we're observing is, in fact, natural rather than supernatural.

Similarly if there is a way for us to observe (ie. gain knowledge of) God, that means God is a natural rather than supernatural being.


In that case, I wouldn't object to such a being's existence, nor would I question the rational methods of acquiring the evidence. Instead I would question the meaning of calling a natural being "God".

I also pointed out that theists throughout history have argued that we could know something about God because He decided to tell us about himself. You can argue that the claims are false if you like, and I would take you seriously there, but instead you repeatedly act as if the claims were never made.

No, I remember distinctly addressing a claim relating to scriptures and pointing out that none of them are reliable because they tend to be in contradiction with each other and the information they contain is highly dependent on the culture they originated in. I definitely argue that scriptures as evidence of divine being(s) are insufficient at best case scenario, since there is no evidence of them being of divine origin.

I never acted as though the claims were never made.

[Herra Tohtori]

You're the one stating that god is "unknowable". Christians heavily disagree with you here.

Unknowable is practically synonymous to "supernatural", because any other definition of supernatural simply falls apart when enough information is acquired on a supernatural subject.

It's not an "argument" for the case of the matter, it's an empirical observation that gives you an heuristic to wonder whether if there's more to religious thought than "irrational nonsense", and a good one at that. It is possible they are all deluded idiots when it comes to religion, but unlikely. I won't repeat this any more. If you persist on this misreading I will excuse myself from this conversation.

You don't have to be an idiot to be delusional. It's not like I'm saying theological doctrines (given that they are internally consistent) or apologetic arguments can't be well-structured, even seemingly rational. But they are built on irrational premise, and the number of people or their intelligence does not in any way change the fact.

Is this pedantic? No. Because you use these absolutist terminologies in order to advance your case, it's not my fault that you use them so badly and without any kind of semantic rigor.

Thankfully, forum posts are not legal documents where you have to include an entire category for DEFINITIONS before you actually get to the point. "Religious beliefs without evidence to support them will be hereafter referred to as FAITH in this document."

Seriously.

Strawmans are fallacious, you know? No one ever said that you can support unknowable things through rational inquiry. You believe they are unknowable, InsaneBaron clearly does not. It is only irrational if you assume they are unknowable. But that's not their assumption.

True. It's only irrational to think you know God if God is unknowable.

Now please give a definition of "supernatural" that isn't synonymous to "unknowable", and doesn't fall apart the moment you acquire information on a supernatural subject.

Because, you know, supernatural things become natural when you learn about them. I thought that was kinda obvious, really.

What vision would you prefer, then?

The vision of a world where people aren't gratuitously called irrational just because they happen to believe in some religion's tenets. A world where people are actually respectful of each other and realise there are many rationales for religion, thus it's not irrationality that is at its core.

I'm not sure if there's some linguistic barrier affecting things but you seem to be fixated on equating "irrational" with "idiot".

I'm not using the term as an insult or to describe a person. I'm using it to describe a position that is not rational. Belief in supernatural things is irrational, whether the belief itself is right or wrong (which we can't know). Trying to defend such a belief with rational methods is irrational.



Also, I can respect a person perfectly well even if they're being irrational about a particular thing in their lives. It's not like religion defines a person, it's just one aspect of them. And I don't need to respect a person's beliefs to respect the person.

[InsaneBaron]

Herra, I'm beating the dead horse just by making this post.

First off, you are fighting a strawman every time you complain that religion claims to know something about the unknowable. The definition of "supernatural" is not "unknowable". No religion defines it this way. Check wikipedia for goodness sake: "The supernatural is that which is not subject to the laws of physics, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature." "Unknowability" is not part of the definition of "supernatural", or the definition of "God". If you want to convince someone of something, you have to argue against what they actually believe.

Second, I entered this debate on the assumption that you had rational arguments for your beliefs, and were firmly and honestly convinced that said arguments were true. I now find out, after the discussion bogged down, that you did not share that assumption with regards to me. I consider your beliefs "wrong", that is I'm convinced that you made an error in your reasoning somewhere along the line. Luis, evidently shares that approach to my beliefs, and for that reason I'd be willing and eager to discuss the issue further with Luis, if he's interested in doing so in the future. You, however, make the claim that my standpoint is not only wrong but "irrational", namely, you claim that I'm committing some form of intellectual dishonesty by holding the beliefs I hold. (And up until I called you out on it, you treated the word "irrational" as having this meaning.) This is contrary to the principle of arguing in good faith. For this reason, unless you change your approach, I'm not interested in debating with you further.

[Turambar]

First off, you are fighting a strawman every time you complain that religion claims to know something about the unknowable. The definition of "supernatural" is not "unknowable". No religion defines it this way. Check wikipedia for goodness sake: "The supernatural is that which is not subject to the laws of physics, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature." "Unknowability" is not part of the definition of "supernatural", or the definition of "God". If you want to convince someone of something, you have to argue against what they actually believe.

But if something exists beyond nature, but it does exist, where would you place the line between "this is natural" and "this is supernatural?"  If you know something exists, would you not simply extend the definition of natural to include that thing? 

If god exists, even if it exists outside our universe and just pokes reality, that is still part of reality, it is natural.