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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: You're false. I'm true.
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I don't think Quakers have a monopoly of truth, and I don't think Christianity - or any other religion - has a monopoly on truth. In fact I think that there's a lot to be said for the atheist postion – I'm a fan of the Zen Buddhist story of the empty rowing boat. Give nme honest atheism over bogus religiosity any day. Ah, but what is bogus?
I would agree that worship choices are at least partly about taste, and I'm happy to accept that others have different tastes. All I can say is that that video clip sent my bullshit detectors into meltdown. Now maybe my bullshit detectors are faulty – or maybe you think they are - fair enough. We could just agree to disagree, but ...
You seem to be arguing that just because - in your view - religious faith is self-evidently proof of a total lack of judgement - religious people cannot or should not exercise any kind of judgement in relation to any kind of belief. If this were the case, religious people would be totally credulous and intellectually dysfunctional. I put it to you that that is manifestly not the case - and it is, therefore, your assumptions, not ours, that require a radical re-think.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
...All I can say is that that video clip sent my bullshit detectors into meltdown. Now maybe my bullshit detectors are faulty – or maybe you think they are - fair enough. We could just agree to disagree, but ...
...but I'm not sure it was bullshit. Seriously, why is it bullshit to love the Word of God? You may not believe it, but you don't have a monopoly on truth do you?
The preacher's flamboyancy and wacky ways of expressing his ideas - well that's another story. ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
Posts: 2080 | From: Leicester | Registered: Apr 2012
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
...All I can say is that that video clip sent my bullshit detectors into meltdown. Now maybe my bullshit detectors are faulty – or maybe you think they are - fair enough. We could just agree to disagree, but ...
...but I'm not sure it was bullshit. Seriously, why is it bullshit to love the Word of God?
Loving the Word of God is one thing, and the idea that rubbing a bible over your body is either pleasureable in itself or an appropriate way of expressing and sharing that love, is another. quote:
You may not believe it, but you don't have a monopoly on truth do you?
Did you actually read the whole of my post?
I can believe that X is sincere when he says that he loves the Word of God.
I can understand that, in the context of a certain time and culture, X thinks that loving the Word of God means he should burn heretics at the stake. I think he's wrong, but I get where he's coming from.
When it comes to various forms of ecstatic worship. I don't doubt the sincerity of the congregation even though I don't necessarily share their interpretation of the experience.
But someone rubbing a bible over his face while smiling with apparently orgasmic joy? I smell bullshit. I know sexual stimulation actually happens in the brain, but even so ....
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
... it is a kind of pragmatic thing,
It's also truth.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
It seems hypocritical to me that adherents of one religious faith should dismiss that of others on the basis that they think it false, when their faith is founded on exactly the same basis.
(my emphasis)
That's your mistake. It seems to me pretty obvious that different faith positions are not reached 'on exactly the same basis'. Muslims aren't (in general) Muslims because they have seen in Jesus a unique degree of holiness, or because they are convinced by the fact of the Resurrection, or because they have known God to speak through the Bible. Their faith is reached on the wholly different basis of experience and conviction about Mohammed and the Qu'ran.
You could, of course, say that they are at least using the same sort of reasoning, and the same sort of mental faculty as Christians, and you'd likely be right, but as there's nothing remotely unusual about human beings getting different answers from the same sort of reasoning, that doesn't make your case. If we were both asked, for example, to guess the square root of 1534, we'd both be using our faculty of mathematical intuition, but that wouldn't mean we'd get the same answer, or that one of us wouldn't be justified in thinking our guess closer to the truth than the other's.
Another example: you and I see the same data (the huge variety of religious belief and practice in the world) and apply what I guess to be about the same level of intellectual ability to that data, and you conclude that human beings as a whole clearly don't known The Truth, and none of their religious beliefs seem very likely, whereas I see an innate and universal tendency in humanity to strive to know and love our Creator, conclude that there is very likely truth in the various manifestations of that drive, and resolve to follow the one that seems to me to be best. Obviously the faith most prevalent in my culture has the most immediate claim on my attention, and there is a better chance of me seeing its particular virtues. Other faiths are less accessible to me, and so less likely to appear true. But as any faith still has to commend itself to me on its merits, I'm fine with that.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Some further thoughts on the video clip in the context of this thread.
These things are often matters of degree. I think that video clip showed an intention to encourage a "romantic" view of the Bible. The touching, kissing, thing was more love as "eros" than love as "agape".
That's an important distinction. Love as "agape" is deeper than a romantic engagement of the emotions. It's a matter of will. It can include thoughtful, even critical consideration of the loved one. Whereas the kind of "eros" love encouraged in the video clip suggests "all heart".
There is also an issue of idolatry here. Loving another human being can have eros, phileo and agape dimensions. There is a dynamic interplay there. Idolising another human being is a different matter. Essentially, that can happen when eros is the controlling element.
A long term engagement with scripture has parallels with a long term loving relationship. Falling in love may indeed be an important step, but in long term relationships we need to make the often difficult adjustment to loving more deeply than that. Commitment, heart, mind, will, all get engaged in that kind of love.
A purely romantic attachment to scripture can get us mixed up for a while. The heart rules the head. Rose-tinted spectacles are the order of the day. It's not said of course, but it has anti-intellectual undertones. "Suspend your critical faculties, folks". That's quite manipulative, leaves us more open to accept without question someone else's take on the Word of God. Which may indeed include quite unloving attitudes (not agape) to people of other faiths and none.
Whereas loving with the mind is a very important aspect of a real loving engagement. It is one of the dimensions of loving God which Jesus encourages in the first Great Commandment. And love of God which is not also allied to the kind of love of neighbour who is of a different religion (which Jesus teaches in the Samaritan story) has clearly gone wrong somewhere.
[ 29. March 2013, 09:31: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
... it is a kind of pragmatic thing,
It's also truth.
I wonder if in future you could avoid quote-mining me? It's a bit rich to rip a phrase like that completely out of its context. I had to hunt down the original post myself, in order to see the context. It seems quite discourteous.
Second, for me it's not truth. Maybe you see it that way, but I don't, that's what the original post was about, and if you had cited it, other people could have seen that.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
So? I don't think this means I'm sawing off my branch, Dafyd. I'm simply asking those who hold exclusive beliefs to explain how they dismiss the opposing exclusive beliefs of others.
You have stated opinions from your point of view.
Eliab has made my points better than I could. To add to his post: you have political opinions, yes? And they're at least partly based on your opinions about economics? And you're aware that other people hold different opinions based on the same data? How do you dismiss the opposing beliefs of the other people?
There you have your answer.
Your problem is that you're thinking of religious beliefs as a strange set of beliefs with nothing in common with any beliefs you have. If you started from the premise that religious believers are human beings fairly similar to you you'd have much fewer problems understanding.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Some further thoughts on the video clip in the context of this thread.
These things are often matters of degree. I think that video clip showed an intention to encourage a "romantic" view of the Bible. The touching, kissing, thing was more love as "eros" than love as "agape".
That's an important distinction. Love as "agape" is deeper than a romantic engagement of the emotions. It's a matter of will. It can include thoughtful, even critical consideration of the loved one. Whereas the kind of "eros" love encouraged in the video clip suggests "all heart".
I imagine that the video was taken in a church where the emotions are more freely expressed in worship than in the kinds of churches attended by most of the posters here. This doesn't mean that the preacher or members would never approach the Bible with a more critical frame of mind; I'm sure they have Bible studies where they do more than kiss the Bible!
The preacher was expressing his love for the Bible in a non-intellectual, rather cheesy way, but it's a big leap from doing that to condemning everyone else who worships differently. They're two separate issues.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Absolutely. I'm not saying the preacher/singer doesn't sometimes adopt a more cerebral approach. It's just a sample of one event, really.
I'm suggesting that it's important to recognise that the approach is unbalanced if the main thrust of reverence is done the way of that video clip. Engagement of the mind is a crucial factor in reverence for scripture. I hope that's taught as well.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
I imagine that the video was taken in a church where the emotions are more freely expressed in worship than in the kinds of churches attended by most of the posters here. ...
The preacher was expressing his love for the Bible in a non-intellectual, rather cheesy way, but it's a big leap from doing that to condemning everyone else who worships differently. They're two separate issues.
Is anybody here condemning everyone else who worships differently? No.
I have no difficulty with the idea that some people worship in atmosphere of high emotion. We're focusing on what this specific preacher did with the Bible. Your interpretation of his actions is different from mine, and - in the absence of further evidence - there's no way of knowing which of us is right. However, Yorick's position seems to be that those of use who believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (formerly known as God) are in no position to pass any kind of judgement on any kind of belief and/or religious behaviour. That's what I'm taking issue with.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Is anybody here condemning everyone else who worships differently? No.
Well, you did say your 'bullshit meter' was going off. For me, that kind of language would indicate serious disapproval, but maybe it's just a run-of-the-mill phrase in some people's vocabulary. I've probably misinterpreted exactly what you mean by it.
I do agree with you that we all have the right to disagree with other people's beliefs, regardless of the nature of our own. There are many ways to be religious. Some ways involve an appeal to reason, to the inherited traditions of the Church, or an incorporation of further scientific or theological discoveries. It's unsurprising that Christians who acknowledge any of these things are critical of those who don't, and vice versa. A shared belief in God doesn't mean that differences of approach are irrelevant. After all, you don't have to believe in God to believe in various other supernatural phenomena that remain to be scientifically proven.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
@Dafyd quote:
Your problem is that you're thinking of religious beliefs as a strange set of beliefs with nothing in common with any beliefs you have.
Well, there have been at least three attempts to draw parallels between religious beliefs and other beliefs on this thread, and ISTM that none of them demonstrate your point particularly well. Ingo hand waves away the difference between seeing and believing in his black wall/white wall example. I mean, come on Ingo, what we're talking about here is the colour of a wall we don't definitively know exists or not, that has as many hues as the number of people claiming to have seen it and no widely agreed methods of working out which is correct, if indeed it has a colour or an existence at all. And this despite millennia of rational inquiry into the matter.
Eliab’s example is even worse. We have a perfectly good way of deciding whose guess of the square root 1534 is closest to the actual answer– our belief is neither here nor there. I suppose you could draw an analogy with some religious and magical thinking - there are people who turn their backs on good answers in favour of their own or other people’s guesses, but I’m sure that’s not the analogy Eliab was trying to make.
Which brings us to your example of political opinions and economics. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been following politics for nigh on forty years, and in all that time the opinions and predictions of economists have had exactly the same degree of accuracy as the average political pub bore. So yes, we all have differing opinions on the same data, and they are all as useless as each other in helping us decide what the truth of the matter actually is. (Daniel Kahneman’s, “Thinking Fast and Slow” pretty much explains why.) And anyway, most political opinions are formed out of a messy mixture of background, personal prejudice, susceptibility to unscrupulous rhetoric, tribalism, class, personal experience and a whole lot more.
Come to think of it, you could be right about the similarity between political opinion and religious beliefs. But the OP asks how religious beliefs are upheld with any degree of intellectual honesty. I’m not sure the world of politics is where you look to find the answer to that one.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
So yes, we all have differing opinions on the same data, and they are all as useless as each other in helping us decide what the truth of the matter actually is.
If so, then it applies even more to your own post. So if your post is correct, then the opinions you express in your post cannot be held with intellectual honesty. If your post is wrong then it's wrong.
So either way your post is self-refuting.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
It seems hypocritical to me that adherents of one religious faith should dismiss that of others on the basis that they think it false, when their faith is founded on exactly the same basis. That’s okay though. Religious people can be hypocrites. No earthquake here.
But how can a person uphold their faith as true with any kind of intellectual honesty when they dismiss that of others, similarly based, as false? To do so brings all religion down to the same denominator, right? If it’s just a question of asserting that all other religions are de facto false, and yours is a priori true, how do you refute their contrary assertion with any sort of integrity?
You have made a valid point, Yorick, but I would like to respectfully suggest to you that you are assuming a certain definition of 'faith'. Correct me if I am wrong, but I sense that you assume that religious people (and I am not at all comfortable with the ill-defined term 'religion') subscribe to their views without any evidential or rational justification. If that really is true, then you are right: no religious person would have any grounds for dismissing or disagreeing with the views of any other religious person.
As a Christian, how do I see "intellectual honesty"? Well, it is about submission to the evidence, realising that evidence has to be interpreted according to a sound and well justified methodology. Having considered the evidence of the reality in which I live, I have come to the conclusion that Christianity is essentially true (the evidence being that of: the nature of reason, morality, consciousness, free will, historical evidence, the complexity of nature, and, yes, personal experience, and I am sure there are other reasons that do not immediately spring to mind). Obviously it goes without saying that millions of other people have come to a different conclusion, having interpreted the data of reality quite differently. I disagree with those other conclusions, but intellectual honesty compels me to consider those viewpoints, and to assess whether such views can speak into my interpretation of reality, or could even radically challenge it. I am yet to be convinced that the philosophy of naturalism, for example, does justice to the data of reality. I therefore disagree with that paradigm, although I would suggest that 'disagreement' is different from 'dismissal'.
Likewise, there are many other viewpoints which do not conform to the philosophy of naturalism (which are therefore termed 'religious' views) which also contradict my conclusions. How am I supposed to relate to these views? Do I dismiss them? No, I don't think so. I am prepared to listen and learn, but intellectual honesty requires me to evaluate those views and consider whether they are a coherent inference from the observed and experienced nature of reality. For example, a pantheistic and monistic view of God, which therefore embraces contradiction, is one which I would criticise. But my criticism of it is not based on some nebulous anti-intellectual version of faith, which is more akin to personal religious taste, but it is based on rational consistency.
In my view, 'religion' is not some special category of belief about reality, that relies entirely on imagination and myth. A 'religious' viewpoint (i.e. viewpoint which affirms that there are dimensions of reality above and alongside the natural order) is simply a philosophical position. In terms of philosophy there is an epistemic continuum from the most nihilistic version of materialism (e.g. mereological nihilism) right through to the most supernaturally infused worldview. All these philosophies contain some element of faith, if 'faith' is to be understood in terms of adherence to concepts which cannot be fully proven. Certainly philosophical naturalism relies on a degree of this kind of faith, given that this philosophy affirms the limitation of human reason (as well explained by the atheist philosopher Peter Millican in his analysis of the Kalam Cosmological Argument).
It is certainly right that religious people should be challenged in the area of intellectual honesty (I really couldn't agree more!), but this challenge is for all of us, theist, atheist, pantheist, whatever...
[ 31. March 2013, 16:05: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
There is a quote in a book I loaned out to someone (can't remember who) that goes along the lines of "God appears to different peoples in ways that they can understand."
I have a belief in G*d that is based in Christianity. I grew up with Christianity and feel it to be quite normal and believable.
On the other hand I know that strictly buying into Christianity means believing in a god who:sent a son to a small backwater country with a message that all of us have to hear and believe in order to not roast in Hell; at a time when mass communication was non existent; who intended that the son be killed in a cruel manner; because this god could not forgive us of our sins in the absence of that sacrifice; being the same god who ended all human sacrifice at the very beginnings of his religion; who says slavery is OK, and; oh yes, there is other human sacrifice later in the Bible that goes along with it is OK to kill every person in a town whose walls came tumbling down because some guys marched around and around blowing the equivalent of vuvuzelas. Gotta call bullshit on all that.
So, I realize I do not believe in the same god who strict adherents of the Bible believe exists.
Does that make me a heretic or non Christian? I believe in the divinity of Christ which is definitional to being a Christian.
To me, as long as I am willing to tolerate the bullshit pieces of my religion, perhaps I ought to be OK with the elements of other people's religions that I think are bullshit as well.
I think perhaps G*d is Ok with being worshiped in different ways as well. But, I am just a fluffy headed liberal.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
If so, then it applies even more to your own post.
Well, I'm not claiming any superior intellectual honesty, but I'd say that would only be the case if you construe that part of my post as a political opinion, in which case the self refutation rather illustrates the point that political opinions have little to do with how the world actually is and are not amenable to rational inquiry. Just like religious beliefs.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Ingo hand waves away the difference between seeing and believing in his black wall/white wall example. I mean, come on Ingo, what we're talking about here is the colour of a wall we don't definitively know exists or not, that has as many hues as the number of people claiming to have seen it and no widely agreed methods of working out which is correct, if indeed it has a colour or an existence at all. And this despite millennia of rational inquiry into the matter.
You have understood nothing of what I was saying. The point was not at all that religion is certain. Of course, your description of the supposed uncertainty is nonsense, and I reject it as such. But that does not matter here. What matter is that if A and B by whatever means - from the cleanest of philosophical arguments to drug-driven delusion - come to make semantically strictly incompatible claims, then at best one of them can be right, and therefore A and B can validly and logically accuse each other of peddling falsehood. That's it. End of story. The idea that I cannot reject Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, Taoism and whatever else as Christian, just because Christianity is a faith and the rest are too, is the most atrocious staggering bullshit. Of course I can. As soon as I say something like "Christ is God Incarnate" we have a belief that people from these other religions do not share. And latest when they have had the meaning of all words involved explained to them, they will reject my claim as false. And I maintain it as true. We contradict each other, on this matter at least. Hence as far as I am concerned, their religion cannot be true, since it contains at least one falsehood. In fact, their religions contain many falsehoods (and some truths), and I can of course say so with complete logical freedom. This is totally irrespective of whether I can "prove" anything I say by any standards. Yorick is just regurgitating Bright trash. There's absolutely nothing of interest to see here, we can all just move along.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Eliab’s example is even worse. We have a perfectly good way of deciding whose guess of the square root 1534 is closest to the actual answer– our belief is neither here nor there. I suppose you could draw an analogy with some religious and magical thinking - there are people who turn their backs on good answers in favour of their own or other people’s guesses, but I’m sure that’s not the analogy Eliab was trying to make.
Are you arguing that questions like "Is there a God?" and "Who is this God person anyway?" don't have real answers? Because that's the only way that I can see that your point might be a valid objection to my analogy.
If you grant that there either is, or isn't, a God, and if there is, some statements about her may be true and others false, it follows that some guesses about God are truer than others. It doesn't matter when (if ever) we get to find out who is right for that point to be sound.
If someone disagrees with me on some statement about God, I can be certain that one or other of us is mistaken, and, to the extent that I have reasons for my belief, it is not intellectually dishonest for me to have an opinion about which of us that is.
(My point was not that religious answers are as straightforward to find as square roots. But I think you know that, really).
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
@Ingo. Hm, it's getting a bit blustery in here.
quote:
You have understood nothing of what I was saying.
If you are saying anything more than that people disagree with each other about stuff, then yes, I'm completely in the dark.
quote:
Of course, your description of the supposed uncertainty is nonsense, and I reject it as such. But that does not matter here.
It matters here. It is the only thing that matters. For example say you, me and Eliab are standing together and Eliab says, "That wall is white," you reply, "No it's not, it's black," and I say, "Hold on a minute, what fucking wall?" For us to proceed we have to examine the uncertainty, otherwise we are reduced to endless repetition. Which, admittedly, is pretty much where the world is as far as gods are concerned.
quote:
What matters is that if A and B by whatever means - from the cleanest of philosophical arguments to drug-driven delusion - come to make semantically strictly incompatible claims, then at best one of them can be right, and therefore A and B can validly and logically accuse each other of peddling falsehood. That's it. End of story.
That's the beginning of the story. They can validly and logically accuse one another of peddling falsehood if they have logically valid reasons for doing so. It seems to me that you are bringing logic into the argument only to chuck it out again as irrelevant when it suits you.
quote:
The idea that I cannot reject Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, Taoism and whatever else as Christian, just because Christianity is a faith and the rest are too, is the most atrocious staggering bullshit
I don't understand the faux outrage here. All the OP is asking is how you justify your faith as true and others as false, if indeed you do so. So far all your response amounts to is, "It doesn't matter how, we just do."
Fair enough as far as it goes. That is to say, not very far at all.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
It seems hypocritical to me that adherents of one religious faith should dismiss that of others on the basis that they think it false, when their faith is founded on exactly the same basis. That’s okay though. Religious people can be hypocrites. No earthquake here.
But how can a person uphold their faith as true with any kind of intellectual honesty when they dismiss that of others, similarly based, as false? To do so brings all religion down to the same denominator, right? If it’s just a question of asserting that all other religions are de facto false, and yours is a priori true, how do you refute their contrary assertion with any sort of integrity?
Faith isn't about 'intellectual honesty', is it? It's not necessarily about the intellect at all. If it were, then children and people of low education or intelligence would have no right becoming Christians. It would merely be a passtime for theologians in their ivory towers.
I think intellectual arguments for or against Christianity can only get you so far, despite the fact that such arguments provide lots of amusement for earnest young chaps on the internet. 'I'm right and you're wrong' is a statement of faith, not a scientifically verifiable comment about objective matters.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2
Faith isn't about 'intellectual honesty', is it? It's not necessarily about the intellect at all. If it were, then children and people of low education or intelligence would have no right becoming Christians. It would merely be a passtime for theologians in their ivory towers.
I understand what you are saying, but I don't think that 'intellect' should be defined in a way that limits its use to academia. The intellect functions on different levels, and there is certainly a logical justification for certain religious claims that can be grasped even by those with a limited education. The ideas of love, compassion, sin, guilt, creation, purpose, salvation etc, can be appreciated at different levels of intellect, all of which are logically coherent. Intellectual honesty is about being true to the light each of us has been given. This inevitably means: "I believe and am convinced that this is true, and therefore obviously I cannot agree with ideas which contradict this position." To suggest that the use of logic in matters concerning the ultimate meaning of life, is somehow dishonest, because it means being critical and discerning (and therefore selective in one's assent to differing claims), is a quite astonishing proposition. I would have thought that the acceptance and affirmation of contradictory claims is actually what is implied in "intellectual dishonesty"!
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I think intellectual arguments for or against Christianity can only get you so far, despite the fact that such arguments provide lots of amusement for earnest young chaps on the internet. 'I'm right and you're wrong' is a statement of faith, not a scientifically verifiable comment about objective matters.
I agree that Christian apologetics is limited, and a Christianity based entirely on intellectual arguments is barren and unlikely to inspire much devotion or commitment. Central to the persuasive power of the Gospel is the convicting, comforting and empowering work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, I do not think it is possible to just 'argue' someone into the Kingdom of God. Honesty compels me to admit that without a real experience of God, I would struggle to be a Christian simply on the basis of intellectual arguments alone, even though I find these arguments utterly persuasive. Such arguments serve to strengthen our faith, and they legitimise Christianity as, at least, a plausible view of reality in the eyes of anyone who is intellectually honest and inquisitive.
The issue I have with the OP is what I discern to be the subtext: that all religious views are arrived at by a method fundamentally different from the conclusions of the prevailing philosophy underlying the contemporary opposition to religion, namely, atheistic naturalism. The presumption is that religions use an entirely subjective device called 'faith', whereas naturalism uses the robust objective scientific method. This is a false dichotomy, because science itself is based on this kind of 'faith', given that the empirical method cannot be validated by its own methodology. There are certain assumptions we have to make and accept about reality, in order for science to be valid at all (e.g. the uniformity of nature), and these assumptions lie outside the range of scientific verification. There is no scientific experiment that tells us that the scientific method is the only valid avenue to truth. Induction (the method of inferring truths about nature from experiments and observations) is, by definition, probabilistic thinking.
The simple common sense data of "white doors" and "blue walls" etc are open to all whose senses are functioning properly, but this kind of information is limited, and tells us nothing about many aspects of reality, such as morality, purpose, the nature of reason, free will, consciousness and so on. So when you suggest that "objective matters" are those which are "scientifically verifiable", you are tacitly admitting that most of what makes up the reality of life is subjective, being outside the range of the scientific method. If that is so, then Yorick's comments about religion should also apply to other areas, such as morality, reason, consciousness, and the fundamental nature of reality (including a large part of the study of origins). Are we seriously expected to accept that it is "intellectually dishonest" to dismiss (or rather, disagree with), for example, moral views that diverge from our own?
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
Morality can be seen largely as a function of practicality. The necessary rules to function as a society.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
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Posted
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Originally posted by Grokesx:
If you are saying anything more than that people disagree with each other about stuff, then yes, I'm completely in the dark.
No, I'm not saying more than that. But I'm also not saying less than that. Yorick and you seem to say that one cannot really disagree about religion. It's all the same. That's plain dumb.
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Originally posted by Grokesx:
It matters here. It is the only thing that matters. For example say you, me and Eliab are standing together and Eliab says, "That wall is white," you reply, "No it's not, it's black," and I say, "Hold on a minute, what fucking wall?" For us to proceed we have to examine the uncertainty, otherwise we are reduced to endless repetition. Which, admittedly, is pretty much where the world is as far as gods are concerned.
It doesn't matter at all. Again, you are confusing the ability to prove something with the ability to disagree with one another in a logically valid manner. To take your example, it is entirely irrelevant whether Eliab can prove that the wall is white, whether I can prove that it is black, or whether you can prove that it does not exist. The only thing of relevance is that at most one of us can be correct. We can and do agree that the claims we are making are mutually incompatible. Hence by whatever means I make my claim that the wall is black, I can make the claim that Eliab and you are telling falsehoods. You may not accept my means, you may think I've been snorting angel dust. But that is simply an entirely different question.
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Originally posted by Grokesx:
That's the beginning of the story. They can validly and logically accuse one another of peddling falsehood if they have logically valid reasons for doing so. It seems to me that you are bringing logic into the argument only to chuck it out again as irrelevant when it suits you.
The only thing everybody needs to agree on is the disagreement. If I don't know what the heck a wall is, or if we are not agreed that something cannot be both (completely) black and white, then we have a problem. There are some problems like that in religion, for sure. But there's also plenty that we all can agree enough on to define our disagreements. And then it is logically possible to disagree, obviously.
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Originally posted by Grokesx:
All the OP is asking is how you justify your faith as true and others as false, if indeed you do so. So far all your response amounts to is, "It doesn't matter how, we just do." Fair enough as far as it goes. That is to say, not very far at all.
To the contrary, fair enough. Look, I can prove the existence of God, monotheism, most of God's classical features like omniscience - and so can anybody, it's just straightforward metaphysics. Will that impress Yorick? Naw. Will it make a Hindu Catholic? Naw. Religion is not something "simple" vs. reason, though it perhaps should be. So we can all be happy that we can agree at least enough on religious terms to disagree about them.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Dafyd
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
If so, then it applies even more to your own post.
Well, I'm not claiming any superior intellectual honesty, but I'd say that would only be the case if you construe that part of my post as a political opinion, in which case the self refutation rather illustrates the point that political opinions have little to do with how the world actually is and are not amenable to rational inquiry. Just like religious beliefs.
Opinions about political opinions are effectively political opinions. The belief that all political opinions are irrational is a de facto small-c conservative endorsement of the status quo.
Even if you don't agree with that, your post uses the same kinds of argument by which people reach political opinions. Therefore, claiming that the results apply to one and not to the other would be special pleading.
If your post is self-refuting, it doesn't follow that all political or religious opinions are not amenable to rational enquiry. It merely shows that your post is not part of rational enquiry.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Grokesx
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Posted
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The belief that all political opinions are irrational is a de facto small-c conservative endorsement of the status quo.
How so?
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If your post is self-refuting, it doesn't follow that all political or religious opinions are not amenable to rational enquiry.
Of course it doesn't. I suppose I should pepper my posts with caveats about the philosophical weight you should ascribe to each point, or set out my premises and logical steps like everyone else on here doesn't. My fault for using the word rational, I suppose, it always attracts the philosophy police.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Morality can be seen largely as a function of practicality. The necessary rules to function as a society.
Yes, that's true. Science can certainly help us with the efficient application of moral principles, but these principles are not revealed by science alone. The chemical analysis of an explosive substance will not inform us as to what we should do with it: use it to demolish a dangerous building in a controlled explosion, or use it to kill people?
In my view (and in the view of any person of good will), the moral position is, of course, that such a substance should not be used to cause harm to people. But this is not at all obvious from mere science. It is a position that we accept "by faith". We assume it is right, and, yes, we can see the practical benefits of this principle. But these benefits are not fundamentally established by the scientific method, given that they are defined according to a principle of teleology: for what purpose are we doing this?
So if I accept "by faith" that it is morally right to use explosive in a way that seeks to bring benefit to other people, I will unequivocally dismiss that view that states that it is morally right to blow up people with this same substance (a 'moral' position held by various terrorist groups in their quest to eliminate those they perceive to be their enemies and oppressors, in the war they think they are fighting). Am I being "intellectually dishonest" to dismiss that other moral position, because it is established by the same method of faith as my own?
I think most people would be amazed that anyone could ask such a question (for which the answer is so obvious), and yet this question is in the same epistemic category as the religion question Yorick is asking.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Grokesx
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Posted
quote:
Hence by whatever means I make my claim that the wall is black, I can make the claim that Eliab and you are telling falsehoods.
Whoopy do. What are we going to do now, shout at each other forever?
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You may not accept my means, you may think I've been snorting angel dust. But that is simply an entirely different question.
Different to the fact that we disagree, yes. But if we are going to get into the area of the OP, namely upholding your faith as true while denying others, that is where you need to go.
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If I don't know what the heck a wall is, or if we are not agreed that something cannot be both (completely) black and white, then we have a problem. There are some problems like that in religion, for sure. But there's also plenty that we all can agree enough on to define our disagreements. And then it is logically possible to disagree, obviously.
But what are you saying here? That we can have disagreements without exploring them? Help me out because I really don't understand what you are talking about.
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Look, I can prove the existence of God, monotheism, most of God's classical features like omniscience - and so can anybody, it's just straightforward metaphysics.
If you restrict your reading to medieval scholasticism, maybe.
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So we can all be happy that we can agree at least enough on religious terms to disagree about them.
Okay then, in the Bible faith is described as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In Islam faith or Iman seems to mean firm belief arising out of knowledge and conviction and some random Hindu Swami on the intertubes says faith is to believe what you do not see and the reward of faith is to see what you believed. Now, to this religious outsider these descriptions do not offer much of a clue to the substance of religious difference, nor yet do any conversations I've had with people of different faiths over the years. The OP says something similar in fewer words and it is, as you mentioned in your bluster, something of a recurring question in atheist circles. Usually questions recur if the answers are not satisfactory or are misunderstood. Either way, we are not getting very far with it here.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx
The OP says something similar in fewer words and it is, as you mentioned in your bluster, something of a recurring question in atheist circles. Usually questions recur if the answers are not satisfactory or are misunderstood. Either way, we are not getting very far with it here.
Or questions recur when there is little or no desire (on the part of the enquirer) to question the coherence of an underlying presupposition. In this case, it is the seeming unwillingness to acknowledge that the philosophy of naturalism is built on the same kind of 'faith' that (it is alleged) 'religious' views rely on. And then there is the concomitant exaltation of the scientific method, which is held to usurp the function of logic as the primary tool by which truth is discerned.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
… if A and B … come to make semantically strictly incompatible claims, then at best one of them can be right, and therefore A and B can validly and logically accuse each other of peddling falsehood. … The idea that I cannot reject Islam … and whatever else as Christian, just because Christianity is a faith and the rest are too, is the most atrocious staggering bullshit … Hence as far as I am concerned, their religion cannot be true, since it contains at least one falsehood.
But that’s the whole point, IngoB. Their religion cannot be true as far as you are concerned, and your religion cannot be true as far as they’re concerned. You're both on equal terms in your opposing views.
So, (as far as I’m concerned) you’re both making claims about exclusive truth that are equally invalid given that they are contradictory on the same grounds. If their religion cannot be true because it contains at least one falsehood as far as you’re concerned, then yours cannot be true if it contains at least one falsehood as far as they’re concerned. Right?
I'm quite surprised you cannot see this.
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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Yorick
Infinite Jester
# 12169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
In this case, it is the seeming unwillingness to acknowledge that the philosophy of naturalism is built on the same kind of 'faith' that (it is alleged) 'religious' views rely on.
Tu quoque fallacy.
(And where did anyone say this, anyway?)
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این نیز بگذرد
Posts: 7574 | From: Natural Sources | Registered: Dec 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Different to the fact that we disagree, yes. But if we are going to get into the area of the OP, namely upholding your faith as true while denying others, that is where you need to go.
No, precisely not. If I want to go into apology or missionary activity, then I will have to do more. Because then I'm trying to convince, or at least to defend against the attempt to convince me. But just for stating that my faith is true and another is false all I need to know is that I believe in something, and the other doesn't.
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Originally posted by Grokesx:
But what are you saying here? That we can have disagreements without exploring them? Help me out because I really don't understand what you are talking about.
I'm saying that my ability to have disagreements does not rely on the actual willingness and ability of the people I have disagreements with to explore these disagreements. It is perhaps nice if they want to argue about it all (though by experience, this is not going to lead anywhere). But it is not some kind of precondition for the validity of the disagreement. I do not have to wait for Yorick to learn metaphysics and logic, so that he can appreciate my argument about the existence of God. I can point out his current error, and if at some latter point he acquires the mental tools for reasoning on such matters, and if I then still feel like it, we may talk about it. Of course, he is unlikely to be impressed by a mere declaration that he is wrong. He may even think I'm full of shit claiming that he doesn't have the right mental tools. But that does not change who is in error. It merely determines who thinks what at that point in time.
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Originally posted by Grokesx:
If you restrict your reading to medieval scholasticism, maybe.
Well, medieval scholasticism was indeed the last time when there was a coherent realistic philosophical system. That school of philosophy was never actually defeated by argument, and it (i.e., a refined Aristotelian approach) is very much making a comeback these days (e.g., in the "New Essentialists"). But be that as it may, the argument for the existence of God from (concurrent, "hierarchical") causation does not require a full scale adoption of this superior philosophy. It only requires the assumption that one can make valid abstract conclusions from observations of nature, i.e., that metaphysics is possible. And that is a major leap for many, in fact. But a necessary one.
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Usually questions recur if the answers are not satisfactory or are misunderstood. Either way, we are not getting very far with it here.
Dude, nobody ever gets anywhere with this. It's like WWI trench warfare. We can all do this forever, and no bomb, machine gun or poison gas is going to break the military grid lock.
The real deal is not happening at the level of argument, at least not at the level of that sort of argument. Much of "religious" change is arguably not religious at all, but simply socio-cultural. People (in particular religious people) like to think that religion is a kind of "fundamental" choice, but the truth is that for most people it isn't. It's part of the general sway of things people do and answers to logic in roughly the same way as preference in pop music does. But yeah, there's such a thing as "real" religious conversion. However, again you will find that argument does not play a lead role there. I've never heard of anyone getting argued into a new faith.
By the time people join the trench warfare of argument, they already know their side. The jump in with their mates, grab the nearest gun and start firing in the direction pointed out to them. That is how it goes.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
So, (as far as I’m concerned) you’re both making claims about exclusive truth that are equally invalid given that they are contradictory on the same grounds. If their religion cannot be true because it contains at least one falsehood as far as you’re concerned, then yours cannot be true if it contains at least one falsehood as far as they’re concerned. Right? I'm quite surprised you cannot see this.
Let's try a simple example. In a toy world, there are exactly two religious issues, namely about X and Y, respectively. And one can only affirm or deny either.
So let's look at scenario 1.
Sect A
Claim A1: X is true.
Claim A2: Y is false.
Claim A3: Sect A possesses exclusive religious truth.
Sect B
Claim B1: X is true.
Claim B2: Y is false.
Claim B3: Sect B does not possess exclusive religious truth.
We find that Sect A and B agree on religious truth (A1=B1, A2=B2). Therefore, A3 is false, since what is entirely shared cannot be exclusive, and for the same reason B3 is true. In fact, Sects A and B could merge.
Let's look at scenario 2.
Sect A
Claim A1: X is true.
Claim A2: Y is false.
Claim A3: Sect A possesses exclusive religious truth.
Sect B
Claim B1: X is false.
Claim B2: Y is false.
Claim B3: Sect B possesses exclusive religious truth.
We find that Sects A and B only agree on Y (A2=B2), but not on X (A1 != B1). Do we know whether the claims about exclusive religious truths (A3, B3) are correct? No, we don't. But we do know that they could be correct, because the religious truth is not entirely shared, and hence could be exclusive.
Let's look at scenario 3. This is the same as scenario 2, except now the Great Yorick descends from the heaven and gives us the following information:
Revelation Y1: X is true.
Revelation Y2: Y is false.
Given this Divine information, what can we conclude? First, Sect A is correct in its religious claims (A1 and A2 are true), and Sect B isn't entirely (B1 is false, B2 is true). It follows that Sect A's claim for exclusive religious truth (A3) is correct: on one hand they did get the religious bits (A1, A2) right, on the other hand Sect B didn't, and therefore religious truth is in fact exclusive to Sect A (in the sense that only they got it perfectly right, not in the sense that only they got anything right). Likewise we can see that in addition to getting one claim about religion wrong (B1), Sect B also was consequently wrong on its claim of exclusive religious truth.
What have we learned? Making religious claims and making a claim about having the exclusive truth in religious matters are two different things. The latter is a claim about the former. In order for a claim of exclusive truth to be potentially correct, all one needs is the situation that at least one religious claim is not shared. If all religious claims are shared, then obviously one cannot be exclusive, but if at least one isn't, then one can be. In order to decide whether a claim of exclusive truth is in fact correct, we must know the truth value of all the claims it concerns (going from scenario 2 to 3 above). However, that does not at all mean that such a claim is invalid until such information has become available. Sect A was perfectly within its rights to make all three claims in scenario 2. That we were incapable of determining the status of these claims until the Great Yorick spoke does not mean that these claims could not be made, or had no truth value. It just means that we didn't know their truth value.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Thing is, IngoB, there's no indisputable certainty that any Great Yorick did descend and tell us about the veracity of claims X or Y. Indeed, that the Great Yorick did so is actually part of one of the mutually exclusive claims. And, indeed, there's also a claim that the Almighty Yobo descended from heaven and pronounced on the veracity of X and Y. Unfortunately, he didn't agree with Yorick. We need some means of knowing which of Yobo and Yorick are real, which really pronounced on the veracity of X and Y, which of them was right if they both did, and so on.
And that's the bit we don't have.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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Holy Smoke
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# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
But that’s the whole point, IngoB. Their religion cannot be true as far as you are concerned, and your religion cannot be true as far as they’re concerned. You're both on equal terms in your opposing views.
So, (as far as I’m concerned) you’re both making claims about exclusive truth that are equally invalid given that they are contradictory on the same grounds. If their religion cannot be true because it contains at least one falsehood as far as you’re concerned, then yours cannot be true if it contains at least one falsehood as far as they’re concerned. Right?
I'm quite surprised you cannot see this.
I can't see it either. Ingo believes that Roman Catholic Christianity doesn't contain any significant falsehoods, therefore since Islam contradicts it on a number of important points, Islam must, perforce, contain falsehoods.
His grounds for believing that Roman Catholicism is essentially inerrant are another matter entirely, but since he seems to have somehow convinced himself on that matter, and regardless of the existence of Moslems who believe the exact opposite, he is being perfectly consistent in arguing that all other religions are false.
Now from my point of view, I currently lean towards the belief that all major religions contain significant falsehoods, thus, like you, I see a certain symmetry between Ingo's beliefs and those of the conservative Moslem. However, that is in no way an argument that either or both religions are true or false - in other words, you are making a category error (I think that's the technical term) in drawing substantive conclusions from that symmetry of argument.
[ 02. April 2013, 13:00: Message edited by: Holy Smoke ]
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2009
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Thing is, IngoB, there's no indisputable certainty that any Great Yorick did descend and tell us about the veracity of claims X or Y. ... And that's the bit we don't have.
Sure. But that simply does not matter. What happens in going from scenario 2 to scenario 3 is merely that we become able to assess who is right about what (as long as we believe in the Great Yorick and his revelation). But our ability to assess a truth value does not create that truth. Things simply are true or false, whether we can and do know this, or not.
Sect A is completely within their rights to make an exclusive truth claim in scenario 2. In scenario 3, by virtue of listening to the Great Yorick, you can affirm that their claims were right. But this affirmation does not make them any more or less right. So if you closed your ears to the Great Yorick, then all that would happen is that you would still be in the dark about Sect A. This need not concern Sect A though (other than perhaps in their quest to make you listen to the Great Yorick). Their claims become not more or less true.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
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# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
In this case, it is the seeming unwillingness to acknowledge that the philosophy of naturalism is built on the same kind of 'faith' that (it is alleged) 'religious' views rely on.
Tu quoque fallacy.
(And where did anyone say this, anyway?)
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the use of the tu quoque is a form of ad hominem that a debater uses that "can be seen as an illegitimate attempt to deny [his opponent] his right to make a case for his position".
If I am guilty of this fallacy, then presumably there is evidence that I am attempting to avoid answering the charge of "intellectual dishonesty" and "hypocrisy" that you are making against some religious people. That is how the tu quoque works: "you are accusing me of something, but since there is evidence that you are guilty of the same thing, then I am somehow absolved of any possible guilt."
If you look at my posts on this thread, you will see that I am doing no such thing. I am addressing your question directly, and the argument that naturalism is also based on 'faith' is relevant to the argument. This is because you are making an implied distinction between 'religious' viewpoints, on the one hand, and non-religious views, on the other. You claim that religious views are based on 'faith' (according to your understanding of the word), and you conclude that, because of this basis, religious people are "intellectually dishonest" and "hypocritical" to disagree with each other, the implication being that it is not hypocritical and intellectually dishonest for non-religious people to disagree with (or 'dismiss') religious views, because non-religious views are not based on 'faith'. But I have argued that non-religious views (that go beyond the most mundane of empirical data) are arrived at by the same methodology as you claim religious views are.
Since this is the case (and if you disagree, then please make an attempt to refute my arguments in the other posts), then the logical implication of your position is that no one can disagree with anyone else on any subject that goes beyond "white doors, blue walls" etc. According to your argument we would all be "intellectually dishonest" and "hypocritical" if we dismissed moral viewpoints that contradicted our own.
So the charge of tu quoque has no logical justification in this context.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Okay then, in the Bible faith is described as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. In Islam faith or Iman seems to mean firm belief arising out of knowledge and conviction and some random Hindu Swami on the intertubes says faith is to believe what you do not see and the reward of faith is to see what you believed. Now, to this religious outsider these descriptions do not offer much of a clue to the substance of religious difference, nor yet do any conversations I've had with people of different faiths over the years.
You have three descriptions of faith that differ slightly, but I think there is a common theme there. All three religions seem to see faith as having some basis in 'sight' or 'evidence' or knowledge', AND some basis in 'conviction' or 'hope' or 'belief'. The Muslim quote seems to focus on the knowledge side particularly, the Hindu one on the belief side, and the Christian one approximately intermediate between the two, but they seem to me to be expressions of similar ideas.
You seem concentrated solely on the 'belief' side, and thus to have taken 'faith' as meaning an essentially arbitrary belief system, as if it were the case that I believe that Jesus gave the clearest revelation of God, but I might just as easily have picked Mohammed, or Joseph Smith. But that's only the half of the descriptions you quote. Sure, they describe a process of extrapolating from data to belief that goes beyond what is 'seen', but they start from what is seen, not from pure fancy.
To get to the substance of religious disagreement, start from what is seen. Without needing to decide, for the moment, whether God exists, it would be possible for you to have an opinion on the likelihood that Jesus, Mohammed or Joseph Smith truly representing any god which might exist. You might say, for instance, that Smith is very probably a fraud, Mohammed believed in some ethical principles that you find odious, and that Jesus had rather unrealistic notions about what human beings are capable of doing, ethically speaking. And it would be logical for you to say 'I'm not convinced by any of them, but I'd rank them in the order Mohammed first, Jesus second and Smith third (or whatever)'.
And I bet you do exactly that already. There's a reason why pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters and celestial teapots get floated in this sort of discussion – it's because everyone, theist and atheist alike, recognises that some faith claims are palpably absurd. It may be vanishingly unlikely that I could convert you to the worship of Jesus, but it is absolutely impossible that I could ever get you to take the FSM seriously.
If you're with me that far, all you need to do to answer your question is to realise that religious people evaluate claims in the same way. We have the same ethical, aesthetic, and common sense that allows (and requires) us to discern the merits of various claims, in exactly the same way that you do. Of course, once God is an accepted fact, we are necessarily more credulous about claims involving him – it is not obviously absurd, given that God exists, that he should command us not to drink wine, or to avoid fornication, or to get circumcised, or whatever the issue may be, but the actual process of me, as a believer, working out which (if any) of those commands are binding on me is a very similar sort of process (what is true, what is plausible, what is worthy...) that I asked you to think about in ranking three competing claims to prophethood.
And therefore it is not true that there is nothing to choose between religions. When religions disagree, they have reasons for disagreeing, even if there is no clear decision from up on high (yet) about which reasons are better. It is possible to compare Christian and Muslim ethics, or scriptures, or views about salvation, or conceptions of what God is like, and to prefer one rather than the other for cogent and defensible reasons. And it is not true that all religions are believed 'on the same basis'. The reasons for being a Muslim are not identical with the reasons for being a Christian.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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tutler
Apprentice
# 17295
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Posted
I think this topic is basically hinging on the essential problem of truth that human beings face. We have experiences, but we have no way of definitively proving these experiences as reality. Absolutely everyone everywhere, then, whether or not they explicitly acknowledge it, takes it on faith that their experiences, however distorted, are representative of something actual in reality. The alternative, that our senses are drastically misleading us to the point that our experience of reality is completely separate and contradictory to the underlying reality, leads us nowhere at all. We have to assume that what we've experienced is real. We can be analytical about our experiences—realizing that we were under the influence of drugs when we had this experience, or were feeling particularly swept up in emotion when we had that experience—but that underlying assumption of our senses being in some way accurate remains completely unassailable if we're to be able to know anything at all.
Given that, dealing with the religious experiences of different people is difficult. You can try to deal with them on the experiential level by analyzing whether a particular experience seems feasible. But, of course, that line of reasoning goes straight out the window when the miraculous is involved.
You can try to deal with them on a historical level by analyzing whether a particular religion's historical claims are well-attested. This has some merit, but it seems to me that religions tend to fail at that point—at least so far as their most crucial historical claims go.
You can try to deal with them on a philosophical level by analyzing whether a particular religious experience fits into a given philosophical framework. Again, this can be useful, but only in so far as the given philosophical framework can itself be proven true.
You can try to deal with them on a practical level by analyzing whether a particular religious experience tends to help achieve some goal or another. This doesn't necessarily arbitrate on truth, however, as I think we can all agree that it's possible for a false viewpoint to lead to some positive outcomes.
These can all be more-or-less valid ways of approaching the conversation around religious belief, always keeping in mind the essential problem of truth in general.
Of course, I, like a lot people, have reached some conclusions on cosmology and theology. I came to these based on a combination of observation and reason. I can only do my best to ensure that my observation and reasoning is accurate, but I can't ever actually know for absolute certain that they are accurate. I have to take on faith that my senses aren't tricking me and that my reasoning facilities are sound, taking the opportunity to correct those reasoning facilities whenever I find them to be in error.
All this is to say that it's entirely possible to have founded disagreements with people about religion, but it seems pointless to me to question faith based on experience, unless you have some solid reason to suspect that someone is delusional. After all, the best they can do is the same as you. Might as well give them the same benefit of the doubt that you give yourself.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
The belief that all political opinions are irrational is a de facto small-c conservative endorsement of the status quo.
How so?
If someone proposes a change, and gives reasons why it would be an improvement, and you reply that those reasons are just rationalisations of their pre-existing position, you're preventing the change. Whereas if you say the same about a defence of the status quo, well, the status quo is in place whether or not you dismiss the arguments for it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
If someone proposes a change, and gives reasons why it would be an improvement, and you reply that those reasons are just rationalisations of their pre-existing position, you're preventing the change.
I never knew I was so powerful. Pass me my Guy Fawkes mask, I'm on my way.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
I can't see it either. Ingo believes that Roman Catholic Christianity doesn't contain any significant falsehoods, therefore since Islam contradicts it on a number of important points, Islam must, perforce, contain falsehoods.
That is the case if, and only if, Roman Catholic Christianity actually doesn't contain falsehoods, as Ingo believes. Similarly for a Muslim who believes Islam is inerrant. Anyone who acknowledges this to be the case cannot accept a claim of truth from either party in the absence of supporting arguments.
A few people who have answered here dodge the bullet by a less than certain approach to the claims of their religion. This at least allows that there is an issue.
Edited to add:
@Eliab
Thank you for your post, it is food for thought. I hope to reply soon.
[ 02. April 2013, 20:44: Message edited by: Grokesx ]
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
It seems hypocritical to me that adherents of one religious faith should dismiss that of others on the basis that they think it false, when their faith is founded on exactly the same basis.
Seems to me that religion typically involves a number of mutually-reinforcing elements:
- a system of belief (metaphysics, if you will)
- a value-system or set of ethics
- a set of rites, observances or practices.
One of the many related usages of the word "faith" is to describe an individual's commitment to this package.
Supposedly non-religious individuals may have the same type of commitment to the same type of package for all the same psychological reasons, but with a primary element of the belief-system being the non-existence of anything resembling a personal Deity.
The question you're raising is something like "which of the many observable reactions that people of faith have to adherents of other faith-packages could reasonable be described as hypocrisy ?"
Hypocrisy is pretending to a level of virtue one does not possess, or by extension criticising someone else for something one does oneself.
Anyone who honestly believes that a proposition is true is not pretending to truth in advancing that proposition.
Those who think certainty a virtue may conceivably be hypocritical in pretending to a level of certainty they do not possess. But that's kind of between themselves and God.
People may pretend to disinterested concern for truth when underneath they'll twist the meanings of words to breaking point to "win" the argument for their point of view - that could be hypocrisy. But most people here seem to be pretty straight about how open or closed their mindset is.
So I don't really see that you have much of a case here.
Or we're you just saying that hypocrisy seems to be part of the personal style of a particular religious speaker ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
Actually, it seems to me that Yorick is trying (unknowingly) to revive crude logical positivism. He's claiming that statements about God (and by extension, metaphysics generally) have no truth value at all, since they are neither tautological nor empirically verifiable. They are neither true nor false, merely unintelligible nonsense. "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet" is logically equivalent to "Jesus is the Christ, Son of the Living God," and both are equivalent to "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe." The refusal of believers to acknowledge that just reveals their foolishness.
Of course, even A.J. Ayer, who came up with the idea, eventually recognized it wasn't defensible, at least in that form. Yorick needs to read a few more books.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
I think Yorick has a genuine point.
Imagine a Christian, fervently professing the faith that he was brought up in, who encounters a Muslim equally devoted to the faith he was brought up in.
If the Christian says "you wicked man, you are in breach of the First Commandment; if you do not repent of this Islamic nonsense you will burn in hell and rightly so" then this is indeed hypocrisy. He is criticising & condemning the Muslim for doing exactly what he himself has done. There is an unspoken implication that the Muslim should have open-mindedly considered all the major faiths on the planet; if only he had done so he could not have failed to conclude that Christianity is the Real Thing. Of course, for the Christian to open-mindedly consider other faiths would be to commit the sin of doubting God.
Maybe it's not clear to someone like Yorick that most of us aren't like that ?
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Different to the fact that we disagree, yes. But if we are going to get into the area of the OP, namely upholding your faith as true while denying others, that is where you need to go.
No, precisely not. If I want to go into apology or missionary activity, then I will have to do more. Because then I'm trying to convince, or at least to defend against the attempt to convince me. But just for stating that my faith is true and another is false all I need to know is that I believe in something, and the other doesn't.
That only holds if your faith has no effect whatsoever on anyone who doesn't share it. If it has a negative effect on someone else, it's reasonable to require a more robust justification than "because I believe it".
Say, for instance, that Person A's faith prohibits the use of sugar in cups of tea and Person B's faith says it's perfectly fine to put sugar in tea if you wish. Logically, they cannot both be correct - I'm happy to affirm that, and I'm happy for them both to declare the other to be Wrong to their heart's content.
But in real life it never seems to stay as just a philosophical difference of opinion. Inevitably, Person A will seek to ban the use of sugar in tea for all people. And that is where the fact that they've got no good reason to do so other than their belief comes into play.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But in real life it never seems to stay as just a philosophical difference of opinion. Inevitably, Person A will seek to ban the use of sugar in tea for all people. And that is where the fact that they've got no good reason to do so other than their belief comes into play.
And that, ironically enough, is a major pathway for your serpent to slither in through.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
@Eliab
Belated reply, but the Nietzsche and Stomp on Jesus threads are just so, I dunno, bizarre, that I can't help going back.
Anyway:
quote:
All three religions seem to see faith as having some basis in 'sight' or 'evidence' or knowledge', AND some basis in 'conviction' or 'hope' or 'belief'... You seem concentrated solely on the 'belief' side
Well, no, I don't think you can separate that lot out quite so neatly, except for hope, that is. And therein is one difference between a rational belief and an irrational one. (I use this terminology because irrational beliefs are not restricted to religion, of course). Conviction and belief require sight (or the other senses), evidence and knowledge to have any chance of being close to the truth. Hope, naah.
quote:
Sure, they describe a process of extrapolating from data to belief that goes beyond what is 'seen', but they start from what is seen, not from pure fancy.
They may start from what is seen, but two of the three descriptions explicitly say faith is about belief in, or evidence of, what is NOT seen. The obvious question that springs to the mind of an outsider is, Ok then, if you can't see it, hear it etc, by what means to you access the phenomena you have faith in? One answer is by personal experience of some sort dualism, another to liken it to love, aesthetics etc. Marvin's reply to Ingo highlights the problems there. Religion isn't wholly in the realm of personal experience.
quote:
To get to the substance of religious disagreement, start from what is seen. Without needing to decide, for the moment, whether God exists, it would be possible for you to have an opinion on the likelihood that Jesus, Mohammed or Joseph Smith truly representing any god which might exist...
....And therefore it is not true that there is nothing to choose between religion
Well, to use Ingo's example - in the usual run of things, we establish the colour of a wall after we decide if there is one there or not. But, sure, it would be possible to have an opinion about Smith, Mohammed and Jesus, but how am I to go about deciding what qualities any god that might exist has to make my comparison? The only way forward I can see is to decide what qualities I think a god might have and match that to the various accounts. But all I'd be doing would be matching concepts from my culture, education, experience and maybe even genetic make up to the accounts and come up with something unique to me. That's fine for opinion, but the OP is about asserting that opinion as truth. Nothing any theist has said here addresses that problem, AFAICS.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
Posts: 373 | From: Derby, UK | Registered: Jul 2012
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But in real life it never seems to stay as just a philosophical difference of opinion. Inevitably, Person A will seek to ban the use of sugar in tea for all people. And that is where the fact that they've got no good reason to do so other than their belief comes into play.
And that, ironically enough, is a major pathway for your serpent to slither in through.
Which serpent would that be? I saw a corn snake at the zoo yesterday, will that do? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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