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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Reasons for believing
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peter damian
Shipmate
# 18584
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Posted
Maverick here says ‘don't fancy that you can prove the existence of God or the opposite. In the end you must decide how you will live and what you will believe.’
But is it possible to believe something while at the same time accepting that neither the belief nor the contraray is provable? I think we all want to have a reason for believing. But what else is a reason but an argument we would give if asked why we believed? Is it rational to accept both that this is a reason, and yet at the very same time to accept that this reason does not prove the belief?
[ 11. June 2016, 13:54: Message edited by: peter damian ]
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
Yes, I believe for a reason and that reason is not sufficient 'evidence' for others to be swayed. Every faith journey starts and progresses in a pilgrimage that walks alongside others but which is particular to the individual.
We may, and should I believe, share our faith experiences with others if it comes up in conversation, but it is better to encourage other people to seek for themselves rather than to try to copy us.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
The thing is, "proveable" just means "conforming with my other beliefs".
My belief in the existence of God is not proven. It is an idea that I belief is consistent with my experience and understanding of reality. More than that, it provides for me some explanations of reality that I would have to find other explanations for - that is, it makes a simple and straightforward explanation of my reality (somewhat in line with Occam).
However, I accept that this is not the only explanation. It is quite possible to build an understanding of reality that does not include the existence of God. And that can be just as acceptable, consistent, and straightforward.
It is all about worldviews. I have one that I consider consistent (but is probably not). Other people have other and different worldviews, that are as valid as mine. this fact should not disturb me, any more than the fact that David Icke genuinely believes what he claims should impact my belief that he is wrong.
So yes, I have no problems with the fact that I might be completely wrong. I fully understand that it is impossible to prove this either way, because any proof would need to start from a pre-existing belief one way or the other.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
All good. Belief in God is belief in something more complex, queerer than an infinite, eternal multiverse, which, in itself is, to paraphrase Haldane, "... not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose".
A transfinite and immanent God on whom I'm mapped, fully felt and known and sustained, by whom I'm thought completely autonomous is unnecessary. Unbelievable. A belief too far.
But for Jesus.
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Love wins
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The thing is, "proveable" just means "conforming with my other beliefs".
Not quite. It means "deducible from true premises." Of course we argue about what the true premises are, and no two people will agree on that. But deducibility is less subjective.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Thora Hird, when being interviewed about her faith, was asked how she thought those without any need of faith managed in life. She famously told the interviewer "I don't know. How about you go and ask them".
It makes me think people who have personal faith are not required to justify it to others or apologise for it. A person caught in religious dogma is in a different situation, if a reason can't be found to stick with it then maybe it would be better to back out if possible.
Rational argument on the existence and physical intervention of a divine Supreme Being doesn't cut much ice these days.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The thing is, "proveable" just means "conforming with my other beliefs".
Not quite. It means "deducible from true premises." Of course we argue about what the true premises are, and no two people will agree on that. But deducibility is less subjective.
I am not sure we are arguing that differently. "True premise" is a matter of our beliefs. the nature of "deductability" can also be based on how we argue, how we belief that things are deduced.
But I know what you mean, in that there needs to be some form of deduction process. And it does need a degree of consistency between ontological base belief and a particular accepted idea.
I am just aware that someone could have a totally consistent worldview, that makes absolute sense, total internal consistency, but with a completely different and disconnected belief. It could have a distinct ontology, and a distinct understanding of deducability, with noting in common with me and my worldview. It can be perfectly valid, just not something I can ever engage with.
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
But is it possible to believe something while at the same time accepting that neither the belief nor the contraray is provable?
In the last analysis, you can't prove anything. If you start with certain premises or axioms, you can reach certain conclusions, but how do you prove the premises or axioms?
Moo
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I am just aware that someone could have a totally consistent worldview, that makes absolute sense, total internal consistency, but with a completely different and disconnected belief. It could have a distinct ontology, and a distinct understanding of deducability, with noting in common with me and my worldview. It can be perfectly valid, just not something I can ever engage with.
I don't believe that someone human could have a completely different worldview that you couldn't ever engage with. At the very least, they must have learnt it themselves somehow, which means that you must be able to learn it yourself. And as you're both physical and biological organisms you would be able to interact.
Aliens with completely different physiologies or spirits with completely different modes of existence might be able to have completely different worldviews.
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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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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
@OP
The alternative is something I don't like.
I can't prove art, music or natural beauty.
I can't prove happiness, joy or love either.
It conforms to my sensibilities.
It has nothing (anymore) to do with anything I get, like expecting answers to prayers, someone's idea of how the big bang is like Genesis, whether I get a ticket to heaven or anything else.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Stuff exists. Forever. Everywhere. And it's strange. Really, REALLY strange. In itself, right now, delocalized, indeterminate, strange. Falling from an infinite height of order to an infinite sea of entropy. Strange.
And THEN there's God!
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Love wins
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peter damian
Shipmate
# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The thing is, "proveable" just means "conforming with my other beliefs".
Not quite. It means "deducible from true premises." Of course we argue about what the true premises are, and no two people will agree on that. But deducibility is less subjective.
I am not sure we are arguing that differently. "True premise" is a matter of our beliefs. […]
Whether a premise is true does not depend on our beliefs. ‘S believes that p’ does not imply ‘p’ (unless ‘p’ is a necessary truth). A premise stating that p is true if it is the case that p, and false if it is not the case that p.
Nor does ‘proveable’ mean ‘conforming with my other beliefs’. It is proveable that the square root of 2 is irrational (see below), but this is not the same as ‘conforming with my other beliefs’.
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
But is it possible to believe something while at the same time accepting that neither the belief nor the contraray is provable?
In the last analysis, you can't prove anything. If you start with certain premises or axioms, you can reach certain conclusions, but how do you prove the premises or axioms?
Moo
Well ‘you can’t prove anything’, i.e. anything whatsoever, is not true. You can prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 (i.e. the fact it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers) quite easily. Well, I’ve forgotten the proof, but I remember it is quite easy. Similarly, you can easily prove that there is no largest prime number. Again, I have forgotten how.
The OP question is about rationality, and about the difference between having a reason for belief, and being able to prove the belief. I am sure that if you ask anyone who believes in God why they believe in God, they will give a reason of some kind. The reason might just be a strong conviction. ‘I don’t know why, but it just seems to me that God must exist’. For some people, it comes after a recovery from a serious illness. ‘There is no other way of explaining my recovery other than divine intervention’.
Is there anyone in this forum who has such a belief but happy to say they have no reason for it whatsoever? I would be interested.
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peter damian
Shipmate
# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Stuff exists. Forever. Everywhere. And it's strange. Really, REALLY strange. In itself, right now, delocalized, indeterminate, strange. Falling from an infinite height of order to an infinite sea of entropy. Strange.
And THEN there's God!
This looks like an 'argument from mystery'.
(Premiss) The universe is an incredibly strange and mysterious place. Like, REALLY REALLY strange and mysterious.
(Conclusion) God exists
[ 12. June 2016, 10:42: Message edited by: peter damian ]
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Whether a premise is true does not depend on our beliefs. ‘S believes that p’ does not imply ‘p’ (unless ‘p’ is a necessary truth). A premise stating that p is true if it is the case that p, and false if it is not the case that p.
You are being really disingenuous here. It is not about a "belief" as you are using it here. It is about core ontological belief. p is true within the context of your wordview, or not. You cannot escape that, because the meaning of "true" and "false" are based on that, as are the means of asserting either true or false.
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Nor does ‘proveable’ mean ‘conforming with my other beliefs’. It is proveable that the square root of 2 is irrational (see below), but this is not the same as ‘conforming with my other beliefs’.
Yes it is, because my other beliefs define "square root" and "2" and "irrational". These definitions are part of my core understanding.
You are confusing "belief" in the sense of something I think might be true with belief in the real sense of something that makes up my worldview.
If you want to start with a set of ontological assertions that require everything to be empirically proveable, then you have a problem with your initial assertion. If you don't, then you don't necessarily have a problem.
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
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peter damian
Shipmate
# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
p is true within the context of your wordview, or not. You cannot escape that, because the meaning of "true" and "false" are based on that, as are the means of asserting either true or false.
The classical definition of truth, originally suggested by Aristotle and given a more precise formulation by Tarski,
1) "P" is true if, and only if, P.
For example,
(2) 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white.
See e.g. Wikipedia article on the Semantic Theory.
This is not the same as ‘p is true within the context of your worldview’. If you are using a non-standard definition of truth, you need to say this. You also need to avoid circularity. If you say e.g. ‘p is true if and only if p is true within my worldview’, then you have an infinite regress, since the word ‘true’ appears on both sides of the definition. I am not saying you have done this, but your conception of ‘truth’ seems an odd one to me.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Och no peter, I conclude no such thing as I'm making no such proposition. That the multiverse (stuff) is infinite and eternal is true. Therefore there is infinite order and infinite entropy, as all stuff we can ever know runs down. Which says nothing about God, who is unnecessary.
He nonetheless is. Because Jesus.
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Love wins
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
How do you define "snow", "white" and "is"? How do you define your terms your principles? If nothing else, these are defined within a language structure.
And yes, I do hold that there is no such thing as objective truth. And that it doesn't matter, because there is something near enough, which is a consistent worldview.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Several years ago there was guy I came across on usenet - let's call him H.
H. was convinced he had discovered a fundamental problem in mathematics. He had a proof he had developed that I believe was part of an attempt to prove Fermat's Last Theorem. Unfortunately he was mistaken and his proof was incorrect. Several people pointed this out to him. H. refused to accept this. Over time - I'm talking years - he became convinced there was a vast conspiracy of mathematicians hiding the truth.
Yet he would still post variations of his proof or new ideas based on it. People would engage with him, some less charitably than others, and point out his errors. He would not accept that he was wrong. "Proofs don't duel" he would say. If his proof was true - as he was rock certain it was - and someone was able to apparently contradict it then either they were wrong or there was a fundamental flaw in mathematics. He believed the later and used to talk about how this was a disaster and it meant that all encryption etc was now inherently unsafe. He tried to get the attention of various high-level academics. He couldn't understand why he wasn't being taken seriously.
This all made me think: What does it mean to say H. was wrong? What does it mean to say something has been proved? Surely it can only ever mean it has been proved to me. In fact in this case, as the maths was above me, I was convinced it was true not on the basis of argument but on the basis that H. was contradicted by so many others so many times.
I believe that H. was probably suffering from a mental illness but I don't believe he was deliberately not seeing the truth, I think he was prevented from doing so by some part of his brain not functioning correctly. Or perhaps I should say not functioning as mine does. In any case, from H.'s point of view the thing had not been "proved" at all.
We can say he was deluded but how do we know we are not deluded? Is truth merely consensus? Most of us agree so that's the truth?
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
It means that within the context of accepted mathematics, he was wrong.
In a sense he had a point, that if he was right, the basis of mathematics was wrong. In this case, "right" would mean that he had a proof and a system that would incorporate all of the existing mathematics. It is unlikely, but not impossible.
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Blog
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Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Hmmm. Whilst walking down the gated road from Foston, where the C10th church has a Judas tree in flower, to Peatling Magna, I wondered aloud to God whether IngoB was right, despite the fact he couldn't explain how, that God is logically necessary. I'm not there yet and probably never will be, but something non-entropic, whose infinite order is not depleted by infinite work - generating universes - with accompanying infinite entropy, MIGHT only LOGICALLY be God?
I think the materialist counter to this is that non-existence and existence are possible states, as here we are, therefore no infinite order is required for universes to pop in to existence.
So, once again, not only is God not logically necessary, neither is infinite order.
Rats.
Ah well, at least we've still got Jesus. The only reason to believe.
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Love wins
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
But is it possible to believe something while at the same time accepting that neither the belief nor the contraray is provable?
In the last analysis, you can't prove anything. If you start with certain premises or axioms, you can reach certain conclusions, but how do you prove the premises or axioms?
Moo
Well ‘you can’t prove anything’, i.e. anything whatsoever, is not true. You can prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 (i.e. the fact it cannot be expressed as the ratio of two integers) quite easily. Well, I’ve forgotten the proof, but I remember it is quite easy. Similarly, you can easily prove that there is no largest prime number. Again, I have forgotten how.
Can you prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 without relying on axioms?
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
The classical definition of truth, originally suggested by Aristotle and given a more precise formulation by Tarski,
1) "P" is true if, and only if, P.
For example,
(2) 'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white.
This is not the same as ‘p is true within the context of your worldview’. If you are using a non-standard definition of truth, you need to say this.
Tarski's theory is not a definition of truth. Rather it's a criterion by which you can identify truth operators (or successful candidates for truth operators) within formal languages.
Aristotle's criterion, IIRC that truth is to say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not, is not a less precise version of Tarski's, since Aristotle is not in anyway talking about formal languages.
The deflationary theory of truth was inspired by Tarski's criterion. It asserts that to say that '"X" is true' is just to assert that X. (Or to say that one agrees with or would agree with anyone who asserts 'X'. Or that the audience ought to agree with anyone who asserts 'X'. Or some such formulation.) That is compatible with claims that sentences are true only within worldviews, since the statement '"x" is true in my worldview' just means I will agree with anyone who asserts x within my worldview. 'X' is true in your worldview means you ought to agree with anyone who asserts x within your worldview. And so on.
The deflationary theory is for that reason leant upon heavily by people who want to retain a role for 'truth' within relativist or anti-realist accounts.
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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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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
How do you define "snow", "white" and "is"? How do you define your terms your principles? If nothing else, these are defined within a language structure.
If you go beyond formal languages, natural languages include terms that are used to fix reference as well as terms that have sense. Such terms include but are not limited to indexicals, such as 'I', 'that', 'here', and so on. These terms are not defined within the language structure. Rather they're used to mediate between the language and the world the language is used within. Any two natural languages has to be open to usage beyond the language structure.
quote:
And yes, I do hold that there is no such thing as objective truth. And that it doesn't matter, because there is something near enough, which is a consistent worldview.
I really think the term 'objective truth' is too ambiguous to be useable in meaningful discussion.
More importantly, I think it is difficult to describe the concept of a worldview in more than merely summary terms without some conception that the worldview tries to map reality independent of that worldview. So that the concept of 'truth' as 'assertible within this worldview' aspires to 'truth' as 'describes reality as it is independent of any worldview'.
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Can you prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 without relying on axioms?
Certainly not. How does this figure into the question of whether you can prove anything? Nobody can prove anything from nothing; all definition other than pointing and naming is circular. We need ground to stand on. But for the most part the ground we stand on is pretty firm. When I say "I have a rock in my hand" the vast majority of English speakers know exactly what I mean. They may not know the size of the rock I have. but they know what a rock is, and they know what "I" means when I say it, and they know what "have in my hand" means.
Things can get more difficult, and do, but that's why we have discussion, and further definitions, and photographs, and google for God's sake.
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
And yes, I do hold that there is no such thing as objective truth. And that it doesn't matter, because there is something near enough, which is a consistent worldview.
I really think the term 'objective truth' is too ambiguous to be useable in meaningful discussion.
But surely the OP is lamenting the sense of objective truth in terms of the existence of God? All I am saying is that the initial question doesn't bother me at all because it is seeking something I don't feel is valid. Within my consistent worldview, God exists. Within other peoples consistent worldview, God doesn't exist.
And I use consistent in a broad sense. because nobody's worldview is entirely consistent.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Don't worry (!), this is of course rhetorical, I'll answer myself like Kierkegaard probably in this comment, but does the materialist conclusion that stuff exists because that is an existential alternative to not existing, i.e. it might as well as not; nothing or something aren't just abstract alternatives but philosophy really is real, the creative principle independent of a philosophizer, preclude infinite order?
Makes my 'ead spin.
There is infinite order in the ultimately contingent, just-so reality that stuff might as well exist as not? The second law of thermodynamics is not broken on the infinite scale? Both lakes either side of the mill wheel are infinite. The upper lake is a real philosophical principle.
And what happens to all the space-time in the clapped out universes expanding eternally to Cocytus' shoreline in the sunless sea where every last proton has evaporated? You may well ask!
...
Or is that nuts and there HAS to be a God doing it apart from the One only revealed in Christ?
Hmmm. It's nuts. But that don't mean it ain't so.
Again, thanks Jesus!
Our ONLY hope in the light of the Pulse of darkness.
[ 13. June 2016, 09:19: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Can you prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 without relying on axioms?
Certainly not. How does this figure into the question of whether you can prove anything? Nobody can prove anything from nothing; all definition other than pointing and naming is circular. We need ground to stand on. But for the most part the ground we stand on is pretty firm. When I say "I have a rock in my hand" the vast majority of English speakers know exactly what I mean. They may not know the size of the rock I have. but they know what a rock is, and they know what "I" means when I say it, and they know what "have in my hand" means.
That's the point I was making. Everyone accepts certain things without proof. Given this fact, demanding proof for religious beliefs is a waste of time. I believe in God because my life and worship experiences have convinced me he exists and loves me. This is not subject to proof.
Moo
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I believe in God. My life, including the 1% worship experiences, which now feel qualitatively smaller, can't not be the reason why. I can decompose that story - don't worry I won't. Where I'm at now is that the inertia of that life's evolving belief, from which all superstition has been purged, all magical thinking pruned (LIAR!), has been picked up, sustained by God in Christ alone. His are the only claims that work for me now. The claims of 100% divine nature made through a 100% human.
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Love wins
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
That's the point I was making. Everyone accepts certain things without proof. Given this fact, demanding proof for religious beliefs is a waste of time. I believe in God because my life and worship experiences have convinced me he exists and loves me. This is not subject to proof.
Moo
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif) Precisely.
In fact, I go further, but this works pretty well for me.
By "going further" I mean that I am quite happy with the possibility that God does not exist, but I believe that my understanding of reality that includes the existence of God is valid and sustainable.
It doesn't mean it is right, but it doesn't have to be. But a reality without the existence of God makes less sense to me. However, all of that is based on my core belief system - that accepts the possibility of God, among other things. They are core and unproveable, but they are still beliefs.
--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
In logical terms to me a reality with God reifying it makes less sense, raises more questions - THE one being enough - than it answers.
Jesus is the final answer I realise.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Doone
Shipmate
# 18470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
In logical terms to me a reality with God reifying it makes less sense, raises more questions - THE one being enough - than it answers.
Jesus is the final answer I realise.
Yes. I fairly frequently 'lose' God and think it's all rubbish, but Jesus is always hovering in my consciousness.
Posts: 2208 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2015
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Aye. It's the Jesus story for me Doone. Punctuated by His sublime courage above all in the incident of the woman taken in adultery. Confronting an entire fear ridden murderous culture and defeating it with a handful of words. THAT'S God in the flesh. I will never experience the supernatural in any way until I die: God will not intervene in my feelings any other way than by the hearing of the word. Ever. By His story. That will suffice for now. In the resurrection, the transcendence, we get to TALK! Can't wait ... must wait.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Raptor Eye
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# 16649
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Posted
Yes Martin. God's greatest gift to us is Jesus, through whom we identify with God.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
The problem as I see it is that Jesus as Good Example - without any sense of the supernatural - does nothing to answer our question. It means simply that we can be inspired by others (which is a good thing in itself), but doesn't answer whether there is a reality distinct from our senses.
A way of seeing the world beyond Newtonion and Einstienien physics - a way that says the world is even more wonderful that the empirical method can demonstrate - is what faith is really about.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Maverick here says ‘don't fancy that you can prove the existence of God or the opposite. In the end you must decide how you will live and what you will believe.’
Well you can prove the existence of God philosophically. I'm not aware of any philosophical proofs against the existence of God (and don't anyone give me that tabula rasa bullshit).
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
But is it possible to believe something while at the same time accepting that neither the belief nor the contraray is provable?
Of course. We do it every day. Medical treatments or natural supplements is but one example. We trust what people say.
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
I think we all want to have a reason for believing. But what else is a reason but an argument we would give if asked why we believed?
Of course we all have a reason for believing. And what's wrong with that reason when asked?
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Is it rational to accept both that this is a reason, and yet at the very same time to accept that this reason does not prove the belief?
Of course. As said before, we accept things with no evidence all the time. We assume things and we take them on trust.
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
Is there anyone in this forum who has such a belief but happy to say they have no reason for it whatsoever? I would be interested.
Is this your REAL question?
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a theological scrapbook
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peter damian
Shipmate
# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Can you prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 without relying on axioms?
Moo
Well either way you have proved it. Your claim was that you can't prove anything, no?
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http://trinities.org/blog
Posts: 73 | From: london | Registered: Apr 2016
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peter damian
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# 18584
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Well you can prove the existence of God philosophically. I'm not aware of any philosophical proofs against the existence of God (and don't anyone give me that tabula rasa bullshit).
I also am not aware of any philosophical proofs against the existence of God, but nor am I aware of any philosophical proofs for the existence of God, at least not any which are uncontroversial.
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http://trinities.org/blog
Posts: 73 | From: london | Registered: Apr 2016
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Can you prove the irrationality of the square root of 2 without relying on axioms?
Moo
Well either way you have proved it. Your claim was that you can't prove anything, no?
But if you rely on axioms, they are unproven - all you have done is proven it on the basis of accepting those axioms. Which cannot be proven.
Nobody is arguing that you can't prove anything is you start by accepting certain axioms, and prove within that restraint, within that context.
If I start from the axiom that there might be a God - that there is a possibility of the existence of a divine being - then I can argue that this divine being resembles the Christian God, I can argue to the form of this being. But I can never offer any proof of that starting point, the possible existence of God.
At the same time, it is quite possible to argue from a position that the divine does not and cannot exist. I cannot prove from my position that this position is wrong. And vv.
Axioms - or ontological assumptions - are inherently unproveable. The existence or non-existence of God is one of these.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Tarski's theory is not a definition of truth.
I believe it is.
On what grounds?
(I feel that if something is a definition of truth it should be able to explain usages such as 'she is honest, so whatever she said was true' without recourse to an infinite disjunction of all possible sentences.)
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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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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
This seems like a re-hash of Voltaire's "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him", an attempt to achieve a level playing field, make it 50:50, a draw, or worse. As if God were a reasonable proposition. He isn't. At all. Not from any ones personal experience, not from observation. Nothing in mind, body, biology, physics requires God any more than it requires lesser ineffable causes.
I freak out at the anthropic constants still, but I don't give that any weight. The endless megaverse/multiverse is a fact. Or rather the eternal infinity of universes is (no multiverse object may be necessary). God or no. I can't give existence, life and mind any weight either. They don't demand God. In the face of His Absence. The origins of the universe and life and mind only in God, i.e. by Intervention, raise far more questions than they answer. About the God of meaningless suffering. The Author and Sustainer of it. It seems like a joke, such refined, exquisite, purposed sensitivity to initial conditions for the creation of helpless agony.
I've championed Fermi's paradox as proof of God here for far too long, many foolish years. It's nonsense. The nail of the coffin, nicely paradoxically, is the stupid claims of 'scientists' that we're going to the stars in a tea cup or on a postage stamp. It CANNOT be done. And no it ISN'T surprising that no civilization, with which the galaxy swarms, hasn't diverted its economy to the trillion dollar projects necessary to begin to futilely signal candidate stars within a thousand light years.
In the next few hundred years it should be possible to empirically prove that we're not alone, even though we're obviously not, by spectroscopy showing significant therefore biogenic oxygen in extra-solar planetary atmospheres. One will do. But as with interstellar radio, spaceflight, nuclear fusion, it may well be economically impossible.
Voltaire was wrong. Kind David was wrong: "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" Psalm 14:1. There is no reason in heaven or earth to believe in God.
Except Jesus. Who is EVERY reason.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Elephenor
Shipmate
# 4026
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by peter damian:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Tarski's theory is not a definition of truth.
I believe it is.
Tarski explicitly advances <<"P" is true if, and only if, P>> as an adequacy critera, not a definition of truth (an adequate definition of truth is one which can satisfy such disquotation).
This distinction is important because he does so in his famous paper "The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages" in which he demonstrates that truth cannot be thus adequately defined for high-order logics, and so speculates that for natural or colloquial language quote:
the very possibility of a consistent use of the expression 'true sentence' which is in harmony with the laws of logic and the spirit of everyday language seems to be very questionable, and consequently the same doubt attaches to the possibility of constucting a correct definition of this expression.
He also, at the start of the paper, explicitly restricts his discussion to truth-as-correspondence ("the so-called classical conception of truth").
(But having written the above, I see the wikipedia article you linked is already perfectly clear on all this, so perhaps I'm missing the point or you simply disagree with Tarski?)
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"Man is...a `eucharistic' animal." (Kallistos Ware)
Posts: 214 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2003
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