Originally posted by Laurelin:
(As for that YT video ... eww.
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) )
quote:I agree.
Originally posted by Yorick:
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?
quote:I think at a certain level, Christianity springs from historical events which either did or did not occur, in a sense which other faiths do not share (AIUI). IMO, Christianity stands or falls on the historical fact or fiction of the resurrection of the man known as Jesus Christ. The likelihood of this event being fact, not fiction, can be probed by reasoning and enquiry, at least to a certain extent.
Originally posted by Yorick:
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?
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(Barnabas's post.)![[Cool]](cool.gif)
quote:I think it would be more correct to say, 'what people believe he said.'
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I would happily be a universalist and believe that all paths lead to the same God, were it not for what the Founder of my faith actually said ...
quote:I think I'd want to qualify this a bit, speaking for myself. I'm a Christian because, AFAICS, Christianity (as I've come to understand through my own upbringing, experience and tradition - I wouldn't to claim my understanding of Christianity the whole of it) is true for me and more true (if that's possible) than other faiths/religions/atheism. I don't really know how to make that more specific, because I don't mean it necessarily in an "objective" sense: I haven't (for example) sat down and compared the different claims, histories etc of different religions to draw conclusions about which way I should follow.
Originally posted by Boogie:
agree.
All faiths have some of the truth, none has The Truth. In fact, I would say that all faiths (and none) have some of the truth as so much sense is spoken by atheists too.
quote:More accurate still "what I think the founder of my faith meant when he was reported as saying..."
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:I think it would be more correct to say, 'what people believe he said.'
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I would happily be a universalist and believe that all paths lead to the same God, were it not for what the Founder of my faith actually said ...
quote:Myeah. May I ask if you were brought up in a Japanese culture in which Shinto was a strong influence in your upbringing? Or in Islamic Palestine?
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I'm a Christian because, AFAICS, Christianity ... is true for me and more true (if that's possible) than other faiths/religions/atheism.
quote:You may be right (and actually I was hoping my post was woolly enough to have left that possibility open). I do sometimes wonder what would've happened if I'd been brought up in a Muslim, or Shinto or Hindu or whatever culture.
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:Myeah. May I ask if you were brought up in a Japanese culture in which Shinto was a strong influence in your upbringing? Or in Islamic Palestine?
Originally posted by Stejjie:
I'm a Christian because, AFAICS, Christianity ... is true for me and more true (if that's possible) than other faiths/religions/atheism.
No, I presume you were brought up in a Christian culture, and I therefore suppose your inclination to believe in the ‘higher truth’ of Christianity is the arbitrary consequence of that, nothing more, nothing less.
quote:Or even "What I interpret my church leadership as saying they think the founder of my faith meant when he was reported as saying..."
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:More accurate still "what I think the founder of my faith meant when he was reported as saying..."
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:I think it would be more correct to say, 'what people believe he said.'
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I would happily be a universalist and believe that all paths lead to the same God, were it not for what the Founder of my faith actually said ...
quote:Quite...
Originally posted by Laurelin:
(As for that YT video ... eww.
quote:I think you might be sampling from a biased population.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
quote:That's all your feelings. Presumably people who hold exclusive beliefs feel differently. So the above beliefs and feelings have no more basis than the beliefs you're criticising.
Originally posted by Yorick:
I feel the intellectual dishonesty isn’t in upholding exclusive belief, but in dismissing the exclusive beliefs of others when those are the same way based. In other words, it may be valid to believe you’re exclusively right, but it is invalid to deny others similar exclusivity in their opposing truth claim. And that’s not just hypocrisy; it’s illogical nonsense that undermines all truth claims so based.
Trouble is, you can’t sidestep the paradox with universalism. How can you meaningfully permit the validity of truth claims that directly contradict yours?
quote: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.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
That's all your feelings. Presumably people who hold exclusive beliefs feel differently.
quote:Well, I did, actually.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
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quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
quote:See how the Satanic creed of relativism is eating into men's souls, Yorick? And the women's. Even as I speak, Beelzebub and his chthonic minions are lurking in every class-room, every university seminar room, hoping to see an increase in the 'I don't knows', which are uttered. Is this the pathway to hell, that I don't know the truth? I don't know.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
quote:Actually, upthread South Coast Kevin made a very important point re historical fact of the Resurrection, which I would agree with, and which leads me to a broadly exclusivist view. IE, if Jesus really physically did rise from the dead, Islam, whatever excellent and true things it otherwise says about God, ultimately fails in at least half of its creed ("There is one god", yes, though Jesus is God, "and mohammed is his prophet", not if Jesus really did rise from the dead he ain't). If Xianity is left out of the equation, I think some of the (eastern?) religions could reach a relativist understanding with each other. Xianity however forces one to make a choice.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
quote:Well, you might be, or might not be - as Captain Rum said to Lord Blackadder - "Opinion's divoided!" but consider this. John said that Jesus said lots of things and he didn't write most of them down. So he must have picked the statements he did pick with care. When John was writing his gospel, what was the pressing issue that might have led him to include the "I am the way" passage? Was it the question of other religions? Probably not; if John's audience was mostly Jewish, as the early church was (and certainly Jesus' audience, if he did say the things attributed to him here, was!) then the thought of the Roman or Greek gods being anything more than futile idols would probably never occur to them. They didn't need a saying of Jesus to shore that up. However, there was by all accounts a bit of a revolving door between Christianity and mainstream Judaism, and John's concern here may have been people going back through it into mainstream Judaism. So the thrust of the saying then might be an encouraging "No, I really am the way, don't go back!" - from what I can gather, John's gospel dates to a period when Christianity and Judaism were parting company, so that the former was beginning to be seen as a religion in its own right rather than as a fringe sect within the latter, so a very significant time for that message.
Originally posted by Laurelin:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
Er ... *puts up hand*
This seemed clear enough to the folks keen to tell me I'm only hearing 'Chinese whispers' where the words of Jesus are concerned ...
quote:Please, please, don't put all of us RCs into the same exclusivist bag! I for one am firmly, and happily, trinitarian inclusivist -or rather, what I would sign is quite along these lines.
but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
...
quote:I don't think that last comment is correct. Your previous paragraph is dotted with 'ifs'. OK, if you accept those points in the affirmative, then Christianity forces a choice. But if you keep the ifs as just iffy, then it doesn't. It's OK to say that you don't know.
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
quote:Actually, upthread South Coast Kevin made a very important point re historical fact of the Resurrection, which I would agree with, and which leads me to a broadly exclusivist view. IE, if Jesus really physically did rise from the dead, Islam, whatever excellent and true things it otherwise says about God, ultimately fails in at least half of its creed ("There is one god", yes, though Jesus is God, "and mohammed is his prophet", not if Jesus really did rise from the dead he ain't). If Xianity is left out of the equation, I think some of the (eastern?) religions could reach a relativist understanding with each other. Xianity however forces one to make a choice.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue?
Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
quote:Missing the sting of the philosophical whip, are we?
Originally posted by Yorick:
Well, this is all very reassuring, but does nobody here believe their religious faith is exclusively true whilst that of others is untrue? Where’s a Roman Catholic when you need one?
quote:I don't think this is the case. Either A or B, or both, could have a condition that means the wall does indeed appear to be the colour they report it as, while in reality being a different colour.
Originally posted by IngoB:
A: I see the wall is white.
B: I see the wall is black.
Either A or B, or both, are stating a falsehood. A and B cannot both speak the truth.
quote:I disagree again; both could be giving truthful statements of their beliefs. Which means, of course, that I agree with you regarding the equivalence of 'seeing' and 'believing' in this context.
Originally posted by IngoB:
A: I believe that the wall is white.
B: I believe that the wall is black.
Again, at most one of them can be right. It doesn't matter at all that we have replaced seeing with believing.
quote:The problem with your analysis is that there isn't really anything BUT 'style' to be offended about.
Originally posted by Yorick:
I questioned whether the criticism was valid, given that the preacher was apparently quite sincere (about which there was agreement) and that the response in the congregation was ostensibly positive. It seems the negative reaction from Shipmates was based primarily on their personal taste being offended by the preacher’s style.
quote:Karl, fair enough.
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal
... John said that Jesus said lots of things and he didn't write most of them down. So he must have picked the statements he did pick with care. When John was writing his gospel, what was the pressing issue that might have led him to include the "I am the way" passage? Was it the question of other religions? Probably not; if John's audience was mostly Jewish, as the early church was (and certainly Jesus' audience, if he did say the things attributed to him here, was!) then the thought of the Roman or Greek gods being anything more than futile idols would probably never occur to them. They didn't need a saying of Jesus to shore that up. However, there was by all accounts a bit of a revolving door between Christianity and mainstream Judaism, and John's concern here may have been people going back through it into mainstream Judaism. So the thrust of the saying then might be an encouraging "No, I really am the way, don't go back!" - from what I can gather, John's gospel dates to a period when Christianity and Judaism were parting company, so that the former was beginning to be seen as a religion in its own right rather than as a fringe sect within the latter, so a very significant time for that message.
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quote:I think those two positions are much nearer that you suggest. It is not a matter of undisputed historical fact that Jesus was resurrected- the oral account of the event was recorded in written documents some time later, and it is only a matter of belief. In that respect, it is no different from the historicity of the account that Allah spoke to Mohammed.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
...historical events such as Jesus' resurrection. That either did or did not happen, and each of us can use the tools of historical enquiry to make our mind up. Other religious claims are much more in the realm of belief (e.g. Mohammad - apols for spelling - believed he heard from Allah) and are therefore harder to probe, than the claimed historical events at the heart of Christianity.
quote:Granted. But like I said, it got me a thinking about this other more substantial matter.
Originally posted by orfeo:
The problem with your analysis is that there isn't really anything BUT 'style' to be offended about.
quote:In which case both are stating a falsehood, and we have additional insight why they are doing so (i.e., not intentionally, but due to corrupted sensory input). This changes nothing in my analysis though.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I don't think this is the case. Either A or B, or both, could have a condition that means the wall does indeed appear to be the colour they report it as, while in reality being a different colour.
quote:A statement can be false or true concerning its content (here: the proposed wall colour) or concerning the act of speaking (whether words reflect mind). I've been talking about the former (which is about "reality"), not the latter (which is about "honesty"). For religious belief, I assume in general that people believe what they say they do. That doesn't change the fact that where beliefs contradict each other in content, at most one of them can be true.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
I disagree again; both could be giving truthful statements of their beliefs.
quote:And I'm saying that you are wrong to do so, as far as this discussion is concerned. At best, this makes a difference concerning whether one can "prove" one party to be right and the other to be wrong. But I believe X and you believe not-X, then I need no further "proof" to say that you are wrong. That is an automatic consequence of me saying that X is true, and the law of noncontradiction.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
This is why I was keen to shift the discussion on to historical events such as Jesus' resurrection. That either did or did not happen, and each of us can use the tools of historical enquiry to make our mind up. Other religious claims are much more in the realm of belief (e.g. Mohammad - apols for spelling - believed he heard from Allah) and are therefore harder to probe, than the claimed historical events at the heart of Christianity.
quote:I wasn't meaning to say it is 'a matter of undisputed historical fact that Jesus was resurrected', rather that its veracity can be investigated to a greater extent than claims of receiving a vision from God can be.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Your claim that the Christian story is more ‘highly true’ than the Islamic one is basically unsound. You're all in the same dodgy boat.
quote:Quite - some people can be very disingenuous when it comes to christian truths - they imply that we think if christianity is true then all other religions must be completely and utterly wrong. This isn't true at all - why can't christianity be more true than other religions? Why can't it be THE truth, while still other religions have some truth in them?
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
Actually, upthread South Coast Kevin made a very important point re historical fact of the Resurrection, which I would agree with, and which leads me to a broadly exclusivist view. IE, if Jesus really physically did rise from the dead, Islam, whatever excellent and true things it otherwise says about God, ultimately fails in at least half of its creed ("There is one god", yes, though Jesus is God, "and mohammed is his prophet", not if Jesus really did rise from the dead he ain't). If Xianity is left out of the equation, I think some of the (eastern?) religions could reach a relativist understanding with each other. Xianity however forces one to make a choice.
quote:That's an interesting point, about some religions being half-right or partly right, but I'm always curious as to how people evaluate this. Is there a handy checklist which we can tick off, and then give a particular religion a score? Monotheistic, tick; having a creator God, tick; involves participatory worship, tick; I can't think of any more. I suppose lizards get you negative points.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:Quite - some people can be very disingenuous when it comes to christian truths - they imply that we think if christianity is true then all other religions must be completely and utterly wrong. This isn't true at all - why can't christianity be more true than other religions? Why can't it be THE truth, while still other religions have some truth in them?
Originally posted by ButchCassidy:
Actually, upthread South Coast Kevin made a very important point re historical fact of the Resurrection, which I would agree with, and which leads me to a broadly exclusivist view. IE, if Jesus really physically did rise from the dead, Islam, whatever excellent and true things it otherwise says about God, ultimately fails in at least half of its creed ("There is one god", yes, though Jesus is God, "and mohammed is his prophet", not if Jesus really did rise from the dead he ain't). If Xianity is left out of the equation, I think some of the (eastern?) religions could reach a relativist understanding with each other. Xianity however forces one to make a choice.
Oh, I just thought I'd mention that in recent years "exclusive" has been redefined - it used to mean a closed church (ie brethren) where only members could partake in Holy Communion, not christians from other churches. But now it's been redefined to mean "anyone who isn't a religious pluralist." Nobody actually got round to telling me this, I had to find out for myself that the word had been redefined.
quote:Er, no. At least, not any more so than we can with the Islamic story. The 'transformation of the early followers' you describe is an historical 'fact' only in the same way that Allah's chat with Mohammed is an historical fact. It's no more historical and it's no more factual.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
...how do you explain the apparent transformation of Jesus' first followers into courageous martyrs if not by a genuine belief on their part that their failed, executed leader had come back to life? This is a question of historical enquiry and ISTM we can discuss it with some level of objectivity.
quote:Thanks. Now my screen needs to be wiped of coffee.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose lizards get you negative points.
quote:How? The best case you have is some blokes who think they talked a bloke they thought was dead. And they did not recognise him at first encounter. That is if you accept the gospels were written by the listed authors.
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
]I wasn't meaning to say it is 'a matter of undisputed historical fact that Jesus was resurrected', rather that its veracity can be investigated to a greater extent than claims of receiving a vision from God can be.
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quote:If one believes his own religion is the true religion, then yes, he would do exactly that - using his own religion as a checklist. Some may not like that, but at least it retains a bit of integrity.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's an interesting point, about some religions being half-right or partly right, but I'm always curious as to how people evaluate this. Is there a handy checklist which we can tick off, and then give a particular religion a score?
Monotheistic, tick; having a creator God, tick; involves participatory worship, tick...
quote:Right again! You're doing well today quetzalcoatl.
...I can't think of any more. I suppose lizards get you negative points.
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quote:I think what we have in all cases is that people look at their own experience, and weigh the experiences of others in light of them. If for instance someone thinks they had a vision of Christ, then it makes perfect sense for them to think Christ exists and is real, and to say that someone who says otherwise is flat-out wrong.
Originally posted by Yorick:
We only have stories about claims in both cases.
quote:...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?
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 ...
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quote: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.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:...but I'm not sure it was bullshit. Seriously, why is it bullshit to love the Word of God?
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 ...
quote:Did you actually read the whole of my post?
You may not believe it, but you don't have a monopoly on truth do you?
quote:It's also truth.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
... it is a kind of pragmatic thing,
quote:(my emphasis)
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.
quote: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.
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:It's also truth.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
... it is a kind of pragmatic thing,
quote:You have stated opinions from your point of view.
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.
quote: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!
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".
quote:Is anybody here condemning everyone else who worships differently? No.
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.
quote: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.
Originally posted by QLib:
Is anybody here condemning everyone else who worships differently? No.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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?
quote: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.
If so, then it applies even more to your own post.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote:If you are saying anything more than that people disagree with each other about stuff, then yes, I'm completely in the dark.
You have understood nothing of what I was saying.
quote: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.
Of course, your description of the supposed uncertainty is nonsense, and I reject it as such. But that does not matter here.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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."
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
quote: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.
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?
quote: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"!
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote: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.
If so, then it applies even more to your own post.
quote:How so?
The belief that all political opinions are irrational is a de facto small-c conservative endorsement of the status quo.
quote: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.
If your post is self-refuting, it doesn't follow that all political or religious opinions are not amenable to rational enquiry.
quote: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?
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Morality can be seen largely as a function of practicality. The necessary rules to function as a society.
quote:Whoopy do. What are we going to do now, shout at each other forever?
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.
quote: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.
You may not accept my means, you may think I've been snorting angel dust. But that is simply an entirely different question.
quote: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.
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.
quote:If you restrict your reading to medieval scholasticism, maybe.
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.
quote: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.
So we can all be happy that we can agree at least enough on religious terms to disagree about them.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote:Tu quoque fallacy.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
If you restrict your reading to medieval scholasticism, maybe.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
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.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote: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".
Originally posted by Yorick
quote:Tu quoque fallacy.
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.
(And where did anyone say this, anyway?)
quote: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.
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.
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. 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.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:How so?
The belief that all political opinions are irrational is a de facto small-c conservative endorsement of the status quo.
quote:I never knew I was so powerful. Pass me my Guy Fawkes mask, I'm on my way.
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.
quote: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.
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.
quote:Seems to me that religion typically involves a number of mutually-reinforcing elements:
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.
quote: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".
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote: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.
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.
quote:And that, ironically enough, is a major pathway for your serpent to slither in through.
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.
quote: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.
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
quote: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.
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.
quote: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.
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
quote:Which serpent would that be? I saw a corn snake at the zoo yesterday, will that do?
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:And that, ironically enough, is a major pathway for your serpent to slither in through.
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.
quote:The truth is that large parts of the discussion about our lives, society, culture, business etc. does not have a "more robust justification" in the ultimate sense. "Because I believe it" is pretty much par for the course for the foundation of arguments between political "liberals" and "conservatives", and for most other fault lines in society, really. In truth, we rarely if ever operate on the level of first principles, and for good reasons: neither are our first principles fully clear to us normally, nor are they shared by all, nor can we typically convince the other side of our first principles by argument. We can all produce plenty of argument if need be, but most of that is sophistry, not philosophy. After all, politics exists. It would not exist if we all agreed on first principles and were led by rational argument based on these.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
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".
quote:But if you try to impose for example what you believe about the economy and the distribution of goods and jobs in society, that is different? Because you have "good reasons"? Well, news flash, a lot of people think that your reasons there are no good at all. Nevertheless, you try (within your rather limited means) to push your agenda. And others try to push theirs. And nobody is able to produce "good reasons" that will satisfy the opposing sides, which is demonstrated by the simple fact that there are opposing sides.
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.
quote:The devil. Is he not referred to as a serpent?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Which serpent would that be? I saw a corn snake at the zoo yesterday, will that do?
quote:Nonsense! The RCC produces truckloads of justifying argument on nearly everything she ever says, indeed, often so at multiple levels of hierarchy and across many centuries. Knowing what the RCC says on anything generally suffers from the opposite problem: the sheer volume and historical depth of available text means few people can be bothered finding and working through it all to get the complete picture. There are indeed some instances where the RCC explicitly limits herself to doing what she has always done. But that's precisely not a stupid maintenance of status quo, but rather a conscious and argued acceptance that certain things are beyond her own authority to change. (And that's invariably on Church-internal matters, which really should not be discussed in the same breath as matters that concern the society at large.)
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
ISTM politicians spend a great deal of time justifying their approach to policy. The RCC oft say no more than "because we've always done it this way."
quote:Indeed. That's why I favour a minarchist political system that allows each person to live their life the way they choose with the sole exception that they not cause direct harm to anyone else. Simply put, I remove the need for justification by removing the impositions on others that would need justifying in the first place.
Originally posted by IngoB:
The truth is that large parts of the discussion about our lives, society, culture, business etc. does not have a "more robust justification" in the ultimate sense.
quote:The charge is nonsense. You manage to drag up two examples, and you will be hard pressed to drag up more. Furthermore, the first of these has already been covered above, it is precisely not a simplistic maintenance of the status quo. And of course there is a lot of additional argument to be had about female ordinations from Catholics, e.g., from Catholic theologians. It's just that the Magisterium has not committed to any one explanation beyond that they do not have the authority to establish this. That leaves foot washing, which simply is not a major concern. No really, it isn't. It's an optional liturgical rite, which simply had been arranged in historical accordance with the most likely reading of scripture. And this has been de facto changed without much further ado (indeed, arguably with too little formal ado) by Pope Francis. So this turns out to have been largely a matter of aesthetic / symbolic preference in the liturgy. This is hardly the kind of stuff that concerns the wider non-Catholic society.
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
While the oft might be argued, the charge is not nonsense. Women priests and foot washing are two examples.
quote:Fine, but we do not need to discuss your romantic-anarchic political ideals any further. For the purposes of this thread, we note that the suggestion that people need to keep their religious opinions isolated from their social and political concerns establishes a double standard and hence can be rejected outright.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Indeed. That's why I favour a minarchist political system that allows each person to live their life the way they choose with the sole exception that they not cause direct harm to anyone else. Simply put, I remove the need for justification by removing the impositions on others that would need justifying in the first place.
quote:Great para, IngoB.
Originally posted by IngoB:
[QUOTE]
The truth is that society, culture, morals, the economy and whatnot is largely up for grabs. And no, we do not have a good rule either for the extent to which they are up for grabs. That's also up for grabs. Neither are we sure about the precise mechanisms that we allow for grabbing. That's also up for grabs
quote:If the Church was a merely a human institution, you would have a point. Or perhaps I should say, where the Church has become a merely human institution, you do not only have a point, but the clear evidence of history on your side. But I'm not particularly interested in the shenanigans of such awkward religious social clubs.
Originally posted by Russ:
But given how true this is, some of us find it very hard to see any sound basis for declaring that gender roles (or indeed the functions of different Church officials) should be placed in the "definitely not up for grabs" category. Leading to the strong suspicion that the principle at work here is simple conservatism.
quote:No, that's not hypocritical at all. Neither in the correct sense of the term "hypocrisy" (pretending to have virtues, beliefs and principles one does not have), nor in the common but wrong sense of "not practicing what one preaches". If I criticise Islam on points where I consider it to be wrong, I'm simply following the beliefs and principles that I actually have. And indeed, as far as this is intended to move society (or particular Muslims) towards my Christian convictions in a practical sense, I'm clearly practising what I preach (namely the necessity to bring all people to Christ). There is no hint of hypocrisy in that.
Originally posted by Russ:
But perhaps that's for another thread. This one is supposed to be about whether dissing other religions is hypocrisy. And it seems to me that you've given only half the answer; that simply believing that one's own religion is better is not hypocritical. The other half is that hypocrisy is involved when one criticises or condemns other or imply for adherence to their less-good or less-true religion without being able to make a clear case that their decision-process is in some way at fault in a way that one's own is not.
quote:[my emphasis]
Originally posted by IngoB:
The fact that I have no arguments at all for some of my faith does not mean that I cannot criticise others for disagreeing... Rather, I can criticise them only for making a wrong decision: their will, rather than their intellect, failed - as far as I am concerned...
Note that it does not matter that I know, and readily admit, that I could be wrong and they could be right. The key point is that I believe that I am right... I cannot disbelieve what I actually believe, I cannot deny my faith hence I cannot but reject the opinions of those who oppose it.
quote:You say their beliefs that they are right must both be wrong.
Originally posted by Yorick:
They cannot both be right, so both of their beliefs that they are must be wrong.
quote:Supposing we were living in the time before the world had ever been circumnavigated - I may believe that the earth is round, whereas an acquaintance of mine believes it is flat. It hasn't been proved either way, but never-the-less I am adamant that I am right and my friend is wrong. He likewise - no, we'll say "she" just to stretch the point - is equally insistent that she is right and I am wrong.
Originally posted by Yorick:
...I know you're entirely disinterested in anyone else's concerns, but how do you suppose a neutral observer might determine which opposing position represents the exclusive truth when they both believe they are right? They cannot both be right, so both of their beliefs that they are must be wrong.
quote:So, in a nutshell, what this is really all about is that you are saying that no-one can say anything is exclusively "true" unless they have "empirical evidence" to back it up - am I right?
Originally posted by Yorick:
Yes, you are missing something. This isn't actually about who is right and who is wrong, but the equality of the basis on which their claims are made for exclusive truth.
In a case of opposing exclusive truth beliefs, I'm not suggesting that both parties must necessarily be wrong, but that their basis for claiming to be right (i.e., that both they believe they are) is equally unsound because they cannot both be.
In other words, merely believing you're right cannot speak to the truth, and to refute the truth claim of one is to refute the truth claims of all.
quote:What do you mean by merely believing?
Originally posted by Yorick
In other words, merely believing you're right cannot speak to the truth, and to refute the truth claim of one is to refute the truth claims of all.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:Really?
Originally posted by Yorick:
(though I'm interested to know how you would diagnose yourself as unaffected by secondary psychotic delusion, per Jasper)
You are just dragging down the debate. Psychology has a role in helping people that acutely suffer, or acutely inflict suffering on others. There the notorious imprecision and necessity for subjective judgements on part of the practitioner, that plague all clinical and forensic psychology, play less of a role. What psychology can offer then is generally still better than what "common sense" would suggest as course of action, and there is an immediate need for action in such cases. But using psychology as a rhetorical tool in religious debates is a really bad idea. In particular given that the judgement to be mentally ill can have severe consequences for the freedoms that society grants. If you want to play that game, I can of course argue that your atheism is a combination of severe cognitive, emotional and social failures, a cluster of correlated mental impediments that are probably loosely related to autism and paranoia. Do you really want to go down that path? I do not.quote:No, I haven't failed to address that at all. I take it as a given that most people who disagree with me on religious manners do so in a "honest" manner. Indeed, my very point has been that we are all in our rights to consider each other wrong.
Originally posted by Yorick:
but you seem to have failed to address the key issue that EVERYONE is in the same position as you- and that many of them think you are wrong as far as they are concerned.
quote:I'm entirely disinterested in your approval of my position, unless I need to combat you to maintain my freedoms (see above). That does not mean that I'm disinterested in other people's concerns in general. The case for classical theism is intellectually watertight. I'm serious about that. You can know that God exists, based on the observation of nature. Once you accept that, then we can elevate the debate to a different level. We cannot discuss the differences between Isalm, Hinduism and Christianity in precisely the same way.
Originally posted by Yorick:
I know you're entirely disinterested in anyone else's concerns, but how do you suppose a neutral observer might determine which opposing position represents the exclusive truth when they both believe they are right? They cannot both be right, so both of their beliefs that they are must be wrong.
quote:Frankly, your grasp of logic (Boolean and otherwise) is, well, unsound.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Logical NAND
Person A: I believe x not y.
Person B: I believe y not x.
Person C: You cannot both be right, so the belief that you are is equally unsound in both your cases.
quote:He'll love you!
Originally posted by Desert Daughter:
Anyway, what Ingo is saying is just the same as Martin Luther: "Here I stand, I cannot do any differently".
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
quote:Well exactly!
Originally posted by IngoB:
All C can say definitely without that information [additional truth about x and/or y] is that A and B cannot both be (entirely) correct and consequently cannot both be sound in believing in their own (perfect) correctness.
quote:You believe it's a question of logic; however, your attempt at logic is fallacious. You're confusing NAND and NOR.
Originally posted by Yorick:
Dafyd, it isn't a question of belief on my part. It's logic, isn't it?
quote:As far as I'm concerned they can say their beliefs are exclusively true to their heart's content. Just so long as they don't try to force me to live as if I believe those things are true as well.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
So, in a nutshell, what this is really all about is that you are saying that no-one can say anything is exclusively "true" unless they have "empirical evidence" to back it up - am I right?
quote:No, you've been saying that neither of them can have a sound belief. It may not be what you've been meaning to say, but there it is...
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:Well exactly!
Originally posted by IngoB:
All C can say definitely without that information [additional truth about x and/or y] is that A and B cannot both be (entirely) correct and consequently cannot both be sound in believing in their own (perfect) correctness.
Isn't that precisely what I've been saying?
quote:You are simply confusing truth with proof there. A statement does not become true, because I can prove it true. A statement is true, hence I may be able to prove it true.
Originally posted by Yorick:
In a case of opposing exclusive truth beliefs, I'm not suggesting that both parties must necessarily be wrong, but that their basis for claiming to be right (i.e., that both they believe they are) is equally unsound because they cannot both be.
In other words, merely believing you're right cannot speak to the truth, and to refute the truth claim of one is to refute the truth claims of all.
quote:Ah, but recent news reports have stated that eating bacon is bad for you - it's no longer a belief, it is an exclusive truth, because there is empirical evidence to back it up.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If someone believes that eating bacon is utterly wrong and claims that their belief is exclusively True, that's their prerogative and good luck to them. If, however, that belief leads them to seek to ban bacon from the entire country so that nobody can eat it, they can fuck off.
quote:I find it interesting that the opinion you have expressed here is not verified or supported by the kind of evidence that you think could confirm the truth of any claim, namely, empirical evidence. In other words, your view is self-refuting. There is no ("the earth is spheroid"-type) evidence that informs us that "spiritual claims lie outside the truth / falsehood distinction". Such a position cannot be observed, measured or repeated by means of the empirical scientific method. Therefore, according to your own reasoning, it cannot be verified, but "merely believed" as a blind leap of faith.
Originally posted by Desert Daughter
On another, but related note, I personally do not think that the spiritual realm (to use a wide and intentionally woolly term) underlies the same binary true/not true distinction as, for example, the question of our planet being flat or more or less globe-shaped.
quote:Frankly, they can still fuck off if they think I'm going to stop eating it just because they say so. And if I can affirm that stance in the face of empirical evidence, you can bet your back teeth I'll affirm it in the face of a mere belief.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:Ah, but recent news reports have stated that eating bacon is bad for you - it's no longer a belief, it is an exclusive truth, because there is empirical evidence to back it up.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If someone believes that eating bacon is utterly wrong and claims that their belief is exclusively True, that's their prerogative and good luck to them. If, however, that belief leads them to seek to ban bacon from the entire country so that nobody can eat it, they can fuck off.
Don't argue, the scientists say it is so.
quote:I think we have been through this before. But here's a simple analogy (not a perfect one, but it can illustrate some key points). You have been kidnapped with several other people and you are getting dumped by airlift in the middle of the desert with no supplies. You are told by your kidnappers that the desert is too large to escape in basically all directions, except for one, where if you start marching now and strain very hard, you may just make it to the edge of the desert, and thereby safety and help, before you die.
Originally posted by Yorick:
IngoB, I'm sure you realise that I wasn't suggesting you are psychotically delusional, but just to be clear on this I absolutely do not think you are, and I sincerely apologise if you found my comment to be a personal attack. In fact, I was enquiring (somewhat rhetorically, I admit) about how you differentiate between your certitude that you are right about the truth of your worldview and secondary psychotic delusion, which seems pretty similar to me on the surface of it. I have no doubt that you can, but was simply wondering how.
quote:But therein lies the problem, because the claim that the situation is one that requires urgent action is itself a matter of faith. There is no certainty about the need for action in the way that there is for a group stranded in the desert.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Faith is not irrational. It is a rational response to a situation that has remaining uncertainty but requires decisive action.
quote:Hmm, no. It is actually a certainty that we will die. In that sense we are all left in the desert. Of course, you can have the opinion that this life is all there is, and then can come to various conclusions based on this. But in terms of my analogy, this would be a direction (or a collection of roughly similar directions) that one could walk towards. And no, I don't think that people who think like this are not marching and staying put. If you really have considered your life properly with this assumption of finiteness and earthly limitation, then consequences arise that require decisive action. People that are refusing to walk, in my analogy, are rather the apathetics. It is when you actually refuse to consider your life, when you just do not think about it, that you avoid the pressure to make decisions about it. I think a good many atheists are really quite far from that. They are marching, and some of them with a single-minded determination that would put many a saint to shame. Just, in my opinion, in the wrong direction...
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
But therein lies the problem, because the claim that the situation is one that requires urgent action is itself a matter of faith. There is no certainty about the need for action in the way that there is for a group stranded in the desert.
quote:Sure. But the point is, if it makes no difference whether you walk or not then there's no inherent reason why one shouldn't just get comfy and save oneself the effort.
Originally posted by IngoB:
People that are refusing to walk, in my analogy, are rather the apathetics.
quote:The only value I can glean from that statement is as an illustration of the thread title — particularly being directed, as it is, at Yorick.
Originally posted by IngoB:
You can know that God exists, based on the observation of nature. Once you accept that, then we can elevate the debate to a different level.
quote:If you believe that there is no difference, then that's just the direction in which you are going to be walking. "Getting comfy" is not a neutral activity. Again, the only people that are not really walking at all are those that do not even consider such questions.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Sure. But the point is, if it makes no difference whether you walk or not then there's no inherent reason why one shouldn't just get comfy and save oneself the effort.
quote:And you are just plain wrong. The sort of proof I'm talking about requires no faith whatsoever, it's pure metaphysics. It does require deriving conclusion from nature of a non-empirical type. It does require trusting reason to correctly operate in the abstract realm. If you want to call that "conjecture", fine. I call it reasonable realism. But then the rest simply holds true, it is a matter of philosophical demonstration. Super-nature is inferred from the strict impossibility of nature being sufficient to explain itself. This is not "a current lack of empirical data and theoretical analysis thereof", this has a similar character to mathematical proof.
Originally posted by kankucho:
Based on the observation of nature, you can be sure that nature exists. That's all. It is mere conjecture (let's be nice and call it belief) that nature can imply, or even prove, super-nature.
quote:This has nothing to do with any special claim about my mental abilities. It is a simple fact that the discussions between say a Christian and a Muslim operate on a different level than between an atheist and theist. It's a question of what is admitted and what not, by both sides, and what shared criteria of judgement exist. There simply is not much one can usefully talk about with an atheist. Arguments about say the necessity of the crucifixion given the state of the world simply remain pointless when there is not even an agreement that there could be such a thing as a Son of God.
Originally posted by kankucho:
The side order of 'elevate your consciousness to my way of thinking' is totally uncalled for.
quote:Sir Bedevere: ...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.
Originally posted by IngoB:
Super-nature is inferred from the strict impossibility of nature being sufficient to explain itself. This is not "a current lack of empirical data and theoretical analysis thereof", this has a similar character to mathematical proof.
quote:Again, really?
Originally posted by Yorick:
Sir Bedevere: ...and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana shaped.
King Arthur: This new learning amazes me, Sir Bedevere. Explain again how sheep's bladders may be employed to prevent earthquakes.
Such clueless mockery convinces me of just one thing: you are not worth talking to. Not because you hold a contrary opinion, but because of the way in which you are holding it.quote:Fair enough. To be honest, I’m not getting much from your assertiveness at the mo, so I guess its a bit pointless for both of us.
Originally posted by IngoB:
you are not worth talking to.
quote:Agreed
Originally posted by IngoB:
If I criticise Islam on points where I consider it to be wrong, I'm simply following the beliefs and principles that I actually have.
And indeed, as far as this is intended to move society (or particular Muslims) towards my Christian convictions in a practical sense, I'm clearly practising what I preach (namely the necessity to bring all people to Christ). There is no hint of hypocrisy in that.[/qb]
quote:Don't see that it's a failure of will - seems to me that there are Muslims whose will to find God and please God through Islam is quite as strong a will and as well-meaning a will as yours.
I cannot criticise them on account of not following my arguments (that I do not have and/or do not present). Rather, I can criticise them only for making a wrong decision: their will, rather than their intellect, failed - as far as I am concerned.
). quote:Well, I do not buy the analogy. You are equating God to a dishonest used car salesman, after all. That biases any further evaluation of the situation in a way that I find unhelpful.
Originally posted by Russ:
I may believe my car is better than yours, but cannot claim any credit for that. You made a wrong choice, but there is no failure on your part unmatched by a corresponding failure on mine.
quote:There certainly are occasions where a simple assignment of blame would be inappropriate. But there also are occasions where that is quite justifiable, IMHO. It is simply not true that all people at all times are striving for truth, good and beauty with all their facilities and powers to the best of their abilities. Sometimes it is exactly the opposite, and the wide spectrum between these extremes shows as much darkness as light. And yes, it is true that I cannot ultimately see into anyone's heart. But it is also true that I'm not utterly clueless about all things that are going on in other people. Sometimes people are a mystery, sure, but sometimes they are also an open book.
Originally posted by Russ:
Any suggestion on my part that you deserve to suffer for your wrong choice would be hypocritical - claiming to be wiser or more sensible or in any way more deserving than you, when all I'd be would be luckier.
quote:Again, the specific charge of "hypocrisy" does not hold any water there.
Originally posted by Russ:
Hypocrisy lurks, ISTM, in the doctrine of a just God operating a system of salvation by right belief.
quote:Sorry, but I don't think that Yorick has made much sense so far on this thread. Best I can tell, he thinks of belief as of some kind of measurement apparatus, like a Geiger counter. So if I say "this guy is believing in something wrong", then Yorick translates that into "the use of the belief apparatus by this person has resulted in a faulty measurement". If I then say "I am believing in something right", then Yorick translates that into "this other person is now using the belief apparatus, obtains a measurement, and claims it is good". Whereupon Yorick comes to the conclusion "but if you say that the belief apparatus is unreliable, because it has been faulty in this other person, then your claim is necessarily also unreliable, since you are using the same belief apparatus to perform your measurement." And thus Yorick thinks that he can reject all belief based on believers contradicting each other: they are all putting into question the very mechanism they are using.
Originally posted by Russ:
What You're not doing is going on to say where you think the whiff of hypocrisy that Yorick has detected is coming from.
quote:Unfortunately, I'm massively more convinced that I'm right than that I'm saved. Likewise, I'm very sure that some people are wrong, but that does not mean that I think that they are damned, certainly not with similar likelihood. I do think that all is as it should be, but not because we are as we should be.
Originally posted by Russ:
"My belief is truer than yours" is inevitable. "I'm saved and you're damned and that's as it should be" is repulsive.I hasten to add that you personally haven't said anything resembling the latter remark (at least on this thread
quote:I don't think that's what St Paul means by 'hope', but that's rather a tangent. Our hope as Christians in the sense of that quote is the content of our beliefs, what we hope for believing it to be true, not what we believe because we wish it were true. It isn't supposed to be a matter wishful thinking. And hope as a Christian virtue is about living as if God is worth it, having already come to believe that he is real and good.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote: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.
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
quote:Start with what you see and hear. You won't be able to help coming to conclusions about it. Faith is more than that, but it is based on it.
quote: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?
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.
quote:What's the thinking behind the last bit? If you are saying that your evaluation of the plausibility of religious claims is subject to bias, then I agree. It is. So's mine. We judge these things from our particular person situations, and it's as well to know that and take it into account.
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.
quote:I thought IngoB has addressed it admirably. “Having an opinion” IS asserting something as true. That's what “an opinion” is – something that I'm prepared to assert. Otherwise it's not an opinion, it's an idea.
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.
quote:I think of belief as an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, and that it differs categorically from knowledge and indeed action. Maybe that’s my problem- I’ve been criticised for it many times- but I can’t see it any other way. So, when you say you believe in God, I translate that into something like this: “It is my profoundest opinion, based on my authentic personal experience, that God exists. Strictly speaking, I don’t know that He exists, but I feel He does in a real sense, and I therefore elect by faith to uphold as true all the consequences of this.”
Originally posted by IngoB:
Sorry, but I don't think that Yorick has made much sense so far on this thread. Best I can tell, he thinks of belief as of some kind of measurement apparatus, like a Geiger counter. So if I say "this guy is believing in something wrong", then Yorick translates that into "the use of the belief apparatus by this person has resulted in a faulty measurement". If I then say "I am believing in something right", then Yorick translates that into "this other person is now using the belief apparatus, obtains a measurement, and claims it is good". Whereupon Yorick comes to the conclusion "but if you say that the belief apparatus is unreliable, because it has been faulty in this other person, then your claim is necessarily also unreliable, since you are using the same belief apparatus to perform your measurement." And thus Yorick thinks that he can reject all belief based on believers contradicting each other: they are all putting into question the very mechanism they are using.
quote:So what is 'knowledge' then, if it is not "intellectual assent to a set of propositions"?
Originally posted by Yorick
I think of belief as an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, and that it differs categorically from knowledge and indeed action.
quote:I would want to make a distinction (and I'm not the first to do so) between Belief and Faith. Faith is a real experience, and Belief is - yes - assent to a series of intellectual propositions which best seem to fit with the Faith experience. For me, Belief is always provisional and best not invested in too heavily, because these are things we can't know. Faith is what I know - and what I know is that I have had encounters with other people - including people with profound and multiple disabilities - which fit with the Quaker understanding that there is "that of God" in everyone. As Wittgenstein has it: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence And that's one reason why, in the liberal Quaker tradition, most Meetings for Worship are based on silence.
Originally posted by Yorick:
I think of belief as an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, and that it differs categorically from knowledge and indeed action. ... So, when you say you believe in God, I translate that into something like this: “It is my profoundest opinion, based on my authentic personal experience, that God exists. ..."
quote:Your post is an excellent little precis of the nature of knowledge, and I agree wholeheartedly (though I am as a schoolboy with episptemological stuff, as you know). When I talk of knowledge, I'm thinking particularly of understanding objective truth, and therefore I'm with Descartes on this. The only thing we can ever know is our own existence. Everything else is unknowable, and that includes the things we subjectively believe to be truth.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So what is 'knowledge' then, if it is not "intellectual assent to a set of propositions"?
quote:Then make your own!
Originally posted by Yorick
I am more confident, say, that two added to two makes four than I am that my secretary will make me a decent cup of coffee for me in the next hour or so.
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
quote:Well, that's basically fine, at least for part of faith. The "decisive action" I'm talking about is then the process of giving one's intellectual assent. This is a process which goes beyond the assent you give to something for which the evidence / intellectual analysis is "overwhelming". Not in the sense that the outcome is different (assent is assent), but in the sense that taking this step is something that does not simply flow from your intellect determining that only one possibility exists. (We could have a discussion whether faith is all propositional. But it sure is partly propositional, so as far as that part goes you are good.)
Originally posted by Yorick:
I think of belief as an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, and that it differs categorically from knowledge and indeed action. Maybe that’s my problem- I’ve been criticised for it many times- but I can’t see it any other way.
quote:Well, this is false as far as I am concerned. I do not believe that God exists, I know that God exists - by metaphysical argument, which I consider intellectually compelling. You could say that I believe that the Christian God exists. But again, the way you phrase this is wrong for me. Certainly my personal "spiritual" experience is one factor that shapes my belief in the Christian God. But it is not the only factor, and honestly, it is not "the" factor in the sense that you seem to imagine it to be. (To give an analogy, it would be more like the petrol you put into a car, than the steering wheel or the sat nav.) And all this is not removed from "reasoning" for me. It's not a case of "I feel it therefore it is". I know that some parts of Protestantism propose a direct link between personal experience and immediate assurance of faith, but that is not my deal and that is also not the mainstream of traditional Christianity.
Originally posted by Yorick:
So, when you say you believe in God, I translate that into something like this: “It is my profoundest opinion, based on my authentic personal experience, that God exists. Strictly speaking, I don’t know that He exists, but I feel He does in a real sense, and I therefore elect by faith to uphold as true all the consequences of this.”
quote:Again, I'm fine with you narrowing down the "act of faith" to the "act of choosing the direction" in my analogy. You go wrong simply in these two related manners:
Originally posted by Yorick:
I certainly do not see belief as action- in terms of walking in a particular direction to escape a desert, say- but I see it as the mechanism by which a choice may be made on what that direction should be. Given that this process is all about uncertainty, I feel that the believer cannot claim to know the truth about the best escape route any more than any other believer can (and, yes, I understand how you disagree with that), and therefore if he claims that all other routes are wrong he makes a nonsense of the whole belief schema of navigation decision-making, and thus action.
quote:Well, Yorick, I believe that you are standing in your own way there. This is neither rocket science nor in fact something alien to your experience. I've pointed to your career choices. It is perhaps not the best time to mention this, but I can also point to your relationship choices. (Failure is very much an option in religion, too...) Probably I could point you to some financial investments you have made. Perhaps you play poker and go "all in" on occasion. If you face a complex choice that cannot be strictly resolved with your intellect given the available information, but which requires a massive personal investment right now (and perhaps then ongoing) from you to potentially result in success (however defined), then you end up acting "in faith". That's simply what you have to do.
Originally posted by Yorick:
No matter how enthusiastically you tell me I'm stupid and wrong, I still cannot get my brain to understand things the way you do. It's like a foreign language, the vocabulary of which I technically understand but whose meaning does not make linguistic sense. I guess it's one of those, 'You cannot understand this unless you experience it for yourself' type things.
quote:Belief doesn't differ categorically from knowledge. There's no way that you can tell whether you know something or only believe-but-not-know by examining the mental activity.
Originally posted by Yorick:
I think of belief as an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, and that it differs categorically from knowledge and indeed action.
quote:That's rather odd, because we can never be aware of our own existence. We deduce our existence from our awareness of other things.
The only thing we can ever know is our own existence.
quote:Yes, I think Descartes is quite definitely yesterday's man in the epistemological stakes.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:That's rather odd, because we can never be aware of our own existence.
Originally posted by Yorick:
The only thing we can ever know is our own existence.
quote:I agree - the Belief/Knowledge distinction doesn't work. It just comes back to what evidence that belief is based on.
quote:Belief doesn't differ categorically from knowledge. There's no way that you can tell whether you know something or only believe-but-not-know by examining the mental activity.
I think of belief as an intellectual assent to a set of propositions, and that it differs categorically from knowledge and indeed action.
quote:Possibly, but only if you are assiduous in applying the same qualifier to any words you didn't actually hear spoken.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:I think it would be more correct to say, 'what people believe he said.'
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I would happily be a universalist and believe that all paths lead to the same God, were it not for what the Founder of my faith actually said ...
quote:Except that it's not just a matter of what was (or wasn't) said but also how it is interpreted. But this could develop into one hell of a tangent.
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:Possibly, but only if you are assiduous in applying the same qualifier to any words you didn't actually hear spoken.
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
quote:I think it would be more correct to say, 'what people believe he said.'
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I would happily be a universalist and believe that all paths lead to the same God, were it not for what the Founder of my faith actually said ...
quote:My dictionary defines opinion thusly: "A belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty."
I thought IngoB has addressed it admirably. “Having an opinion” IS asserting something as true. That's what “an opinion” is – something that I'm prepared to assert. Otherwise it's not an opinion, it's an idea.
quote:will eventually lead to a proposition that your specific God exists, which needs to be justified as true if you are to answer the OP. And when EE says he deduces stuff from the nature of rationality and the necessity of the moral sense, unless he can do more than simply assert his particular take on these concepts as true (and I'm not alone in having the opinion that he can't) then his claim to knowledge is as flat as the Yorkshire pudding I cooked this evening.
...you must have angels before some of them can fall, miracles must in general be possible before this particular account can be credible, God must have integrity of character before I can trust the integrity of any specific revelation...
quote:There's a difference, but it's not a clear cut difference. We know the earth is round(ish), but how many of us have actually gone into the evidence in depth? In Jesus' time, a lot of people would have 'known' the earth was flat. We used to know that Newtonian physics described the universe - now we know that it doesn't entirely do so at all levels. What status of knowledge did Einstein's theory of relativity have when he first proposed it? What status does it have now?
Originally posted by Grokesx:
So, of course we can think rationally about anything and come to any belief we care to hold by whatever means we care to employ, but to claim knowledge is a different enterprise altogether.
quote:Nope. Inference based on empirical data is rather different from "pure logic".
Originally posted by grokesx
For goddy stuff, in the absence of empirical data, you and EE are relying on "pure logic".
quote:The data has naught to do with the concept of a divine creator.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
An intelligent creator of the universe: inferred from empirical data.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Thank you for the much needed laugh.
)
quote:OK, I'm with you so far.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Despite what many people on here are claiming, there is a wealth of difference between belief and knowledge. Simply put we can have a false belief but we can't have false knowledge. When we assert a belief or opinion as true, we are claiming knowledge. The classical definition of knowledge is Plato's - justified true belief - although since the 60s, due to the Gettier problem there has been much disagreement as to whether this is adequate. I don't think it's too outrageous to say that outside of theology and po-mo, nobody thinks belief and knowledge are synonymous.
quote:I'm not sure that I am going to claim “knowledge” in that sense. Some things I know – I know what I have experienced through the Bible, prayer and worship. I know certain historical facts about the Church. I know a fair bit of Christian doctrine. I know that I have ethical convictions which I am not prepared to treat as subjective preferences. I know something about other religions. I know what many other believers have testified about their faith. I am persuaded by all those things, and more, that the Christian gospel is real, but that is an inference from (many, and powerful, and corroborating) things that I do “know” and amounts to a very strong “belief”.
So, the OP is essentially asking, how are you justifying your belief as true in order for it to qualify it as knowledge? For the natural world, the process that uses a mixture of empirical evidence and deductive and inductive logic, known as the scientific method, is the most reliable method we know of, with all the caveats about provisionality, theory laden facts and shit. For goddy stuff, in the absence of empirical data, you and EE are relying on "pure logic". (I don't know what Ingo's relying on, he's wandering around a desert somewhere saying, "It's this way, I tell you" and getting very cross when someone asks him how he knows that). But as any philosophy student will tell you, logic can only preserve truth, it can't create it. At some juncture, if you claim knowledge you are going to have to justify your premises.
quote:No, to answer the OP I need only show that I can rationally prefer some statements about God to other statements. And I've done that. We are well beyond the OP at this point.
Your chain of reasoning […] will eventually lead to a proposition that your specific God exists, which needs to be justified as true if you are to answer the OP.
quote:With you 100% there.
So, of course we can think rationally about anything and come to any belief we care to hold by whatever means we care to employ, but to claim knowledge is a different enterprise altogether.
quote:If knowledge is justified true belief, then knowledge is a subcategory of belief. Saying that there is a wealth of difference between knowledge and belief is like saying that there's a wealth of difference between hawks and birds.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
Despite what many people on here are claiming, there is a wealth of difference between belief and knowledge. Simply put we can have a false belief but we can't have false knowledge. When we assert a belief or opinion as true, we are claiming knowledge.
quote:No. Those caveats about theory laden facts and so on that you referred to when you were talking about 'the scientific method', they make this position incoherent. It is simply not true that knowledge has to consist in either justified premises deduced from nothing or in what can be logically deduced from those premises. If observed facts are theory laden, then using them as premises would be circular. Justification does not consist of building up a structure from unassailable foundations; rather it consists of plausibility across the whole structure.
At some juncture, if you claim knowledge you are going to have to justify your premises.
quote:is in the same ballpark he is playing in.
I put my trust in logic, inferring from the nature of reality, deducing from basic truths about reality (such as from the nature of reason itself, or from the necessity of the moral sense), ...
quote:Yes, I do know you have been claiming for years that to infer an intelligent creator from the complexity of life, the universe and everything is the same as the inferences physicists make.
Honestly, grokesx, after all the years I've 'known' you (in the anonymous online sense both here and in the other parallel universe we used to spar in) I really thought you knew all this stuff!
quote:I don't think we are. I wouldn't use Yorick's exact words, but I don't see where have you got past:
And I've done that. We are well beyond the OP at this point.
quote:Not that it matters. Better minds than ours have wrestled with such things for millennia. Argue long enough and one side will end up arguing for scepticism or some logical positivist bollocks and the other side will end up trying to show knowledge is nothing but belief or some po mo bollocks.
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?
quote:And? There are lots of birds that ain't hawks and plenty of beliefs that ain't knowledge.
If knowledge is justified true belief, then knowledge is a subcategory of belief. Saying that there is a wealth of difference between knowledge and belief is like saying that there's a wealth of difference between hawks and birds.
quote:And the position of not having to justify your premises makes the whole idea of philosophical argument incoherent. Which it sort of is
No. Those caveats about theory laden facts and so on that you referred to when you were talking about 'the scientific method', they make this position incoherent
quote:And the whole structure clearly contains premises. They still have to be justified. I'm assuming that the inferences in question are valid - a big assumption, I'll warrant.
Justification does not consist of building up a structure from unassailable foundations; rather it consists of plausibility across the whole structure
quote:But there isn't a wealth of difference between knowledge and all the beliefs that aren't knowledge. Some of the beliefs that aren't knowledge come close to being knowledge. Some are much further off. Sometimes they can't be told apart.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:And? There are lots of birds that ain't hawks and plenty of beliefs that ain't knowledge.
If knowledge is justified true belief, then knowledge is a subcategory of belief. Saying that there is a wealth of difference between knowledge and belief is like saying that there's a wealth of difference between hawks and birds.
quote:You're saying that the distinction between belief and knowledge is incoherent. Even I wouldn't go that far.
quote:And the position of not having to justify your premises makes the whole idea of philosophical argument incoherent. Which it sort of is
No. Those caveats about theory laden facts and so on that you referred to when you were talking about 'the scientific method', they make this position incoherent
quote:Let's take Euclidean geometry as a best case for your argument. It clearly contains premises, doesn't it? No, it doesn't. Because if you swap out Euclid's fifth axiom for any theorem deduced from Euclid's fifth axiom you end up with an equally coherent system. The difference between a premise and a conclusion is arbitrary.
quote:And the whole structure clearly contains premises. They still have to be justified. I'm assuming that the inferences in question are valid - a big assumption, I'll warrant.
Justification does not consist of building up a structure from unassailable foundations; rather it consists of plausibility across the whole structure
quote:You'd have to explain that last bit. It is doesn't make sense to me. Well, it does, in the sense that it looks like having your cake and eating it.
But there isn't a wealth of difference between knowledge and all the beliefs that aren't knowledge. Some of the beliefs that aren't knowledge come close to being knowledge. Some are much further off. Sometimes they can't be told apart.
quote:Actually, you pretty much are AFAICS. I'm not saying that at all.
You're saying that the distinction between belief and knowledge is incoherent. Even I wouldn't go that far.
quote:Fascinating as the role of Non Euclidean geometry in the shaping of concepts of maths and logic is, it's somewhat tangential to what I'm on about here.
Let's take Euclidean geometry...
quote:I really don't know what you are trying to say here. Even if the distinction between a premise and a conclusion is not clear cut, that makes no difference whatsoever to the main point, which is that if you have a belief that you assert is true as against another one which you assert isn't, somewhere along the line you are going to have to do some justifying. Otherwise you might as well try to repair your boat by chucking water in the hole.
With regards to areas of enquiry that aren't purely formal...
quote:We've completely answered that. We can assert our faith as true with intellectual honesty so far as we have justifiable reasons for preferring our faith to the alternatives. We don't need to "know" that we are right, but we need to have some cogent reason for thinking or believing that we are right.
Originally posted by Grokesx:
I don't see where have you got past:
quote:
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?
quote:I'm kind of thinking that's what Yorick meant all along when he asked about people upholding their faith as true.
We're now onto the question of whether those grounds for believing can approach 'knowledge', and what that means in practice.
quote:Seems to me that in this case (the same means used in directly conflicting claims) that there is a logically valid conclusion along the lines of "this means adds nothing to the probability that the statement is true".
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:Neither can you reject means, just because they are used in conflicting claims. If I say "X by Divine inspiration" and someone else says "not-X by Divine inspiration", it does not follow that Divine inspiration as such is invalid. It could just as well be that the claim to have Divine inspiration was false for whatever turns out to be the wrong claim
Originally posted by Yorick:
In a case of opposing exclusive truth beliefs, I'm not suggesting that both parties must necessarily be wrong, but that their basis for claiming to be right (i.e., that both they believe they are) is equally unsound because they cannot both be.
quote:The 'justified' bit in 'justified true belief' does not make the 'true' bit redundant. You can't tell a justified untrue belief from a justified false belief (without hindsight).
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:You'd have to explain that last bit. It is doesn't make sense to me. Well, it does, in the sense that it looks like having your cake and eating it.
But there isn't a wealth of difference between knowledge and all the beliefs that aren't knowledge. Some of the beliefs that aren't knowledge come close to being knowledge. Some are much further off. Sometimes they can't be told apart.
quote:Yes you are. You are distinguishing between belief and knowledge by using a philosophical argument. You say philosophical argument is sort of incoherent. Therefore, you're saying that your distinction between belief and knowledge is sort of incoherent.
quote:Actually, you pretty much are AFAICS. I'm not saying that at all.
You're saying that the distinction between belief and knowledge is incoherent. Even I wouldn't go that far.
quote:Yes. We're just arguing over whether what people are doing counts as justifying or not.
Even if the distinction between a premise and a conclusion is not clear cut, that makes no difference whatsoever to the main point, which is that if you have a belief that you assert is true as against another one which you assert isn't, somewhere along the line you are going to have to do some justifying.
quote:Yep, that is overstating the case. You are assuming that you are placing the same trust in the people claiming X and not-X, respectively. That's rarely the case in practice. Let's remember there also that Jesus explicitly used miracles to establish trust in His claims. Furthermore, a claim of Divine inspiration is an "all in" move. If I say "X according to Divine inspiration", and then X turns out to be false, I've pretty much destroyed my entire religious credibility.
Originally posted by Russ:
If you believe Y, and also believe X on the grounds of Divine Inspiration, then you might feel that an impartial listener should place more weight on X than on your "mere opinion" in favour of Y. Whereas the existence of someone else claiming Divine Inspiration for not-X is an indication that such a feeling is misplaced. Which doesn't disprove Divine Inspiration; it merely renders worthless the claim of Divine Inspiration. Or is that over-stating the case ?
quote:Is it, though? To me, the statement "I believe this to be true" is not the same as the statement "this is true". For example, if I'm at work and someone asks me whether a certain factual claim is correct I will answer "yes, it's correct" if I am 100% confident that that's the case and have the figures in front of me. If, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure it's the case but am not 100% confident I'll say "I believe it to be correct".
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As first observed by GE Moore, one cannot (without some form of irony) say 'it's true but I don't believe it'. Nor can one say, 'I believe it but it's not true'. To assert a belief is necessarily to assert it as true.
quote:Well, yes, if you have that certainty why would you say you believe it?
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:I may not go so far as to say "I believe it but it's not true" (the second part of that statement is a claim to certainty in itself, and if I have that certainty why would I say I believe otherwise?) but I'm definitely saying "I believe it but it may not be true".
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As first observed by GE Moore, one cannot (without some form of irony) say 'it's true but I don't believe it'. Nor can one say, 'I believe it but it's not true'. To assert a belief is necessarily to assert it as true.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
...But when you say you believe something you're certainly saying that you think it's more likely to be true than anything else.
Climbdown much? quote:My point exactly. Belief - even very strong belief - does not make the thing being believed true.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Well, yes, if you have that certainty why would you say you believe it?
quote:Perhaps, but who the hell am I to say that what I think about anything has any bearing on whether it's actually true or not? For that matter, who the hell is anybody to say that?
You can certainly acknowledge that you might be wrong. And you're signalling that by saying 'believe' rather than 'know'. But when you say you believe something you're certainly saying that you think it's more likely to be true than anything else.
quote:One would think so. However, of the various self-proclaimed prophets who have erroneously predicted the end of the world, my recollection is that some of them managed to regain enough credibility among their devotees to do it again a few years later.
Originally posted by IngoB:
If I say "X according to Divine inspiration", and then X turns out to be false, I've pretty much destroyed my entire religious credibility.
So I would say that "Divine inspiration" typically marks a deep claim. It is where religions and people really put the trust afforded to them on the line.
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
...But when you say you believe something you're certainly saying that you think it's more likely to be true than anything else.
If it makes you happy to believe that.quote:If you say you know something it follows that you think it's more likely to be true than anything else is. Yes?
So, how exactly do you propose that that position equates in any meaningful way to 'knowing'?
quote:Yes. But what is the relevance of that point? Certainty doesn't make the thing you're certain about true.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:My point exactly. Belief - even very strong belief - does not make the thing being believed true.
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Well, yes, if you have that certainty why would you say you believe it?
quote:Can I just be clear on what you think you're saying If you say you know that David Cameron is Prime Minister, who are you to say that what you think has any bearing on whether it's actually true? Just as if you say you believe David Cameron is Prime Minister?
quote:Perhaps, but who the hell am I to say that what I think about anything has any bearing on whether it's actually true or not? For that matter, who the hell is anybody to say that?
You can certainly acknowledge that you might be wrong. And you're signalling that by saying 'believe' rather than 'know'. But when you say you believe something you're certainly saying that you think it's more likely to be true than anything else.
quote:It isn't separate from an assertion of truth. It might be a weak or faint-hearted assertion of truth, but it's still an assertion.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To say that I believe something seems separate from an assertion of truth.
quote:How can they disagree unless an assertion of truth comes into it somewhere? If there's no assertion of truth, there can't be disagreement.
Thus, I believe that life is worthwhile, but others might disagree.
quote:Some people seem to have the strange notion that Christianity is about assenting to theological propositions, rather than about a way of living.
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I must admit, this obsession with truth puzzles me. What concerns me is what works. Thus, some ways of living work for me, and some don't. I discovered that pragmatically.
Similarly, some types of religious symbol, ritual, story, work for me, and some don't.
I don't understand what it means for it to be 'true', and I don't understand how this can be known. OK, it can be believed, I accept that.
I can also see truth as something concrete and living, rather than conceptual. Ah well, a foolish ageing hippy am I.
quote:Your post doesn't work for me, so therefore, according to your reasoning, I can just disregard it.
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl
I must admit, this obsession with truth puzzles me. What concerns me is what works. Thus, some ways of living work for me, and some don't. I discovered that pragmatically.
Similarly, some types of religious symbol, ritual, story, work for me, and some don't.
I don't understand what it means for it to be 'true', and I don't understand how this can be known. OK, it can be believed, I accept that.
quote:It isn't. The term 'truth claims' might not be used and these might be the only ones that press your button, but poor and even evidence-free assertions are made in all spheres of life; politics & lit. crit. for starters.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
Why is it that only religious statements seem to get accused of being "truth claims?"
quote:Yes, but the point is that football managers never get pulled up for it (unless it does prove to be a load of tosh) as with atheists, most of the time at least.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It isn't. The term 'truth claims' might not be used and these might be the only ones that press your button, but poor and even evidence-free assertions are made in all spheres of life; politics & lit. crit. for starters.
If you can bear it, listen to the unfounded tosh spouted by football pundits.
quote:OK, moving away from football, let's look at politics. Very often there's no quibbling about what has happened, but a lot about the causes and the consequences. Whenever a politician states that X was caused by Y, another politician will respond by stating it was caused by Z! There you are, statements that are claimed to be true but with no evidence.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:Yes, but the point is that football managers never get pulled up for it (unless it does prove to be a load of tosh) as with atheists, most of the time at least.
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
It isn't. The term 'truth claims' might not be used and these might be the only ones that press your button, but poor and even evidence-free assertions are made in all spheres of life; politics & lit. crit. for starters.
If you can bear it, listen to the unfounded tosh spouted by football pundits.
I'm not complaining about football - Match of the Day wouldn't be the same if Alex Ferguson had to prefix everything with "I believe, but you may wish to differ" - but why do we need to make an exception for religion?
quote:If enough people were willing to kill and die based on Alex Ferguson's post-match comments, or if entire groups of people were being persecuted based on nothing more than the stated preferences of Arsene Wenger, then I'm pretty sure what football managers say would be treated in the same way as the pronouncements of religious leaders.
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
I'm not complaining about football - Match of the Day wouldn't be the same if Alex Ferguson had to prefix everything with "I believe, but you may wish to differ" - but why do we need to make an exception for religion?
quote:Ahhh, the persecution complex again... The truth is that 99.99% of the time, when a faith leader makes a truth claim it simply isn't a precursor to a holy war.
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If enough people were willing to kill and die based on Alex Ferguson's post-match comments, or if entire groups of people were being persecuted based on nothing more than the stated preferences of Arsene Wenger, then I'm pretty sure what football managers say would be treated in the same way as the pronouncements of religious leaders.
quote:Persecution complex? Who said anything about persecution complexes? Who for that matter possesses a persecution complex?
Originally posted by Mark Betts:
quote:Ahhh, the persecution complex again...
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
If enough people were willing to kill and die based on Alex Ferguson's post-match comments, or if entire groups of people were being persecuted based on nothing more than the stated preferences of Arsene Wenger, then I'm pretty sure what football managers say would be treated in the same way as the pronouncements of religious leaders.
quote:99.9% of the time (while we're on about meaningless percentages) the decision about whether a statement is, or is not, a call to a holy war, or for that matter an unholy one, is in the mind of the person hearing that statement. Justifying a statement on scriptural grounds only makes it a truth for those who accept scripture as such.
The truth is that 99.99% of the time, when a faith leader makes a truth claim it simply isn't a precursor to a holy war.
quote:"Treated in the same way"??
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian
If enough people were willing to kill and die based on Alex Ferguson's post-match comments, or if entire groups of people were being persecuted based on nothing more than the stated preferences of Arsene Wenger, then I'm pretty sure what football managers say would be treated in the same way as the pronouncements of religious leaders.
quote:If you read the posts to which I was replying, the answer will be clear. They're not too far north of here.
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
"Treated in the same way"??
And what way would that be? And "treated in the same way" by whom?
quote:Depends who the "anyone else" is, really.
And why should the views of those who "treat the pronouncements of religious leaders in this way" be considered more important than anyone else's views?
quote:People also waste their money on perpetual motion machines. That does not disprove the laws of thermodynamics, or in any way suggest that physicists should not propose such laws.
Originally posted by Russ:
One would think so. However, of the various self-proclaimed prophets who have erroneously predicted the end of the world, my recollection is that some of them managed to regain enough credibility among their devotees to do it again a few years later.
quote:It is fact that religion is not "fringe" even now, and certainly never has been in the past. And whether you believe in anything supernatural or not, to simply assign the label "lunatic" to what is at least one of the greatest fields of human culture, development and endeavor is just dogmatic trash talk.
Originally posted by Russ:
Now you may say, that's not mainstream religion, that's lunatic fringe. But maybe to an atheist all religion is the lunatic fringe of human thought ?
quote:I am not sure about what precisely the apostles saw, but I believe indeed that Jesus used the physical symbolism of disappearing into the sky. Jesus was very much into physical symbolism, being a physical symbol Himself, and the association of the sky with "higher matters" is deeply rooted and universal in the human psyche. Hence this was a fitting thing to do. Obviously I do not believe that "heaven" is a physical place in the upper stratosphere though.
Originally posted by Russ:
Drawing a clear, objective and well-founded line between the sort of religion that we respect and the sort of religion that invites mockery doesn't seem easy. You believe in the Ascension ? That Jesus just rose vertically into the air as if in an invisible elevator ? And kept going until he reached a place called heaven ?
quote:That would be the way to go if Christianity could be established by logical argument, like a mathematical proof.
Originally posted by IngoB
If we talk about drawing of lines, then I would simply say: start with the core, work to the edges...
...It is simply true that if the Christian is right about God, Jesus, etc., then the ascension could have happened as the Christian believes. Any reasonable atheist must agree to that.
Hence it is proper to first address these "premises".
