A Fresh Case for Faith - You might even find it convincing! ;)
Offline Introduction
Those of you who have been around a while will have noticed that once in a while I try and post a defence of theism or faith.
Something about the attack on faith/theism in general struck me as wrong, and I've been trying to pinpoint where I disagree with it.
In the past I've tried the "moderatism good, fundamentalism bad" approach but that was dumb.
For starters, as has been pointed out to me many a time, believers don't neatly split into two such categories.
Even if they did, a blanket defence of moderatism and attack on fundamentalism was completely wrong.
Moderates come out with all sorts of stupid things and fundamentalists don't get everything wrong.
This time I have a different approach.
I will try and show that Faith can be a good thing if done a certain way, and that this way reflects an ideal that all faith-believers hold.
If so, it would mean that religion can be a good thing if done "properly" and it would be more accurate to criticise faith for when it fails this ideal rather than criticise it altogether.
Outline of the Argument (Don't address this - full argument to be presented in a later section)
The argument is based on premises:
1) "Should I believe X?" is a question about what we should or shouldn't do, a question of practical reason
So if "We should only believe what the evidence shows" is true, it's justified by practical reason.
My argument will claim the justification will depend on the situation.
So in some situations the we must make sure our belief is justified.
In other situations, belief without evidence will be permissible - there will be no reason why they shouldn't.
2) The definition of faith
Faith is commonly defined as "Belief without evidence"
I don't disagree that faith involves "Belief without evidence" but I think that with religious faith there is a further part as well:
"The believer thinks that it will lead them to virtue."
All theists believe that having faith makes them a better person.
If they do something they believe to be wrong, they will claim that was a lack of faith.
If they were ever to find that their faith was leading people to do wrong, they would consider that faith to be false and make changes accordingly.
While we don't believe that having faith causes God to act through them, we can accept that having faith has a psychological effect on the person, and these effects can be either positive or negative.
Believers say that "True Faith" will lead them to virtue.
We could see this "True Faith" as a synonym for an "Ideal Faith", where the psychological consequences of belief are purely positive.
So it's perhaps easy to see where my argument is going to go.
First it will try and determine which situations where "belief without evidence" is permissible.
It will try and find out what a believer has to do to ensure that they don't "believe without evidence" in situations where evidence is required.
It will also look into what the believer has to do to ensure that their beliefs have "positive consequences"
It will then argue that so long as they meet these conditions, their faith would be a good thing.
Before I present the argument...
I'm taking full burden of proof on this claim.
I've taken the time to formulate it into a formal argument with steps and premises clearly shown.
Because this is no easy task, I've just got a couple of requests on how it is addressed.
1) There should only be 2 types of fallacy - "unsound premise" or "non sequiter"
I've got two types of premise:
Hypothesis - This is where I will appeal to your own observations.
I will try to give examples that I think will be confirmed by your own experiences.
If the premise doesn't conform with your own experience then you will disagree.
In each premise, the writing in blue will focus on it's justification and suggest questions to answer when addressing it.
Argument This premise is supposed to logically follow from other premises.
Either the argument is valid or a non-sequiter.
If you find the argument valid but the disagree with the premises then please address the premises instead.
In each premise, the writing in blue will focus on it's justification and suggest questions to answer when addressing it.
2) If you disagree with a premise, please quote the entire premise
Sometimes why address posts line for line.
Not always a bad thing but this can sometimes cause lines to be separated from their context.
If you quote the entire premise in full then I won't have an excuse to bitch and moan and accuse you of taking the line out of context. 
3) Please avoid using positive claims in the argument
Sometimes when we disagree, we put forward our own argument to contradict theirs.
This is usually fair enough, but it's not the best way to address this argument.
Partly because my argument has taken burden of proof so should stand or fall on it's own validity so positive arguments aren't necessary.
Bringing in a positive claim kind of ignores my argument in favour of your own.
It also means you'd be shifting the burden of proof on to yourself.
Some premises will ask for alternatives in which case a positive argument will be necessary, I'm just asking for them to be avoided where possible.
You don't have to follow these guidelines - I'll still read your reply.
But they will ensure that the argument is addressed clearly and efficiently and reduce tangents and misunderstandings.
This would reduce frustration on both sites of the debate.
The argument
Section 1: Defining Faith and how it can be a virtue
The argument of this topic is that faith can be a virtue if done a certain way. I need to show that Faith can be a virtue under certain conditions. I'll do this by looking at the definition of Faith and introducing the concept of "Ideal Faith".
I then need to show that the believer can have a methodology that ensures that their faith is as ideal as possible. An "Ideal Faith" wouldn't be very relevent unless believers could achieve it in real life.
After that I'll outline what I consider to be the only possible objections.
1a) Hypothesis - The definition of faith
A commonly accepted definition of faith is "belief without evidence".
However, I don't think that this is sufficient.
I think that a further part of the definition needs to be added:
"The believer thinks that this faith will lead them to virtue"
My argument for this is that theists believe that "true faith" will cause them to do good.
When they admit to doing wrong they will claim that was due to a lack of faith rather than their faith.
If they ever admit that a "faith" is causing wrong doing then they follow this up by condemning this faith as "false".
So my premise is that a person with religious faith believes that this faith will lead them to virtue.
If they were to ever find that this faith was causing them to do wrong then they would no longer keep to it.
I'm not expecting a lot of disagreement on this premise but if you do then I'll hear your argument.
If you disagree that faith is supposed to lead the believer to virtue?
can you give an example of a believer who doesn't hold to this definition?
A believer that thinks a "true faith" would cause them to do things they consider to be bad?
Remember, I'm only claim that the believers think that their faith is the cause of their virtue and not to blame for any vice.
I'm not claiming that it actually is.
1b) Argument - The definition of faith implies a concept of "Ideal Faith"
In the above premise we see that people with faith believe that this faith will lead them to virtue and not to vice.
If a faith leads them to vice, they call it "false".
They say that "True Faith" will lead to only virtue and not vice.
This "True Faith" basically means "Ideal Faith" - when faith meets its ideal.
So "Ideal Faith" is belief without evidence that actually does lead the believer to virtue and not vice.
If the definition of faith includes:
"The belief is supposed cause virtue and not vice in the believer" as per premise 1a
Then there is a clear definition of Ideal Faith - belief without evidence that actually does cause only virtue and not vice.
Remember, I'm only arguing for the concept/definition - I'm not arguing that anyone actually has this "Ideal Faith"
1c) Argument - "Ideal Faith", by definition, is a good thing
If a person has a set of beliefs that leads them to virtue and not to vice, then it is surely a good thing by definition.
If X causes only good consequences and not bad consequences then X must be good, right?
1d) Hypothesis - There are only 2 objections I need to deal with
In this hypothesis I claim that there are only 2 objections that I need to refute.
1) Isn't belief without evidence is a vice?
That means that faith can never be a virtue.
It means that "Ideal Faith" is incoherent.
(Addressed in section 2)
2) Can a believer possibly ensure that their faith is Ideal?
Or is Ideal Faith not possible to make happen in the real world?
Even if Ideal Faith is theoretically possible, it's no good unless it can work in the real world.
(Addressed in Section 3)
These are the only objections I am aware of so they're all my argument addresses.
If you come up with a further one, post it here and I'll try and address that too.
So, any further objections to Ideal Faith?
This might be a part where positive arguments in the reply might be unavoidable
1e) Argument - By following 4 rules a theist can ensure that their faith is ideal
This premise will be justified in Sections 2 and 3 so this is a preview of what's to come.
The 4 rules are as follows:
1) Beliefs that inform practical decisions need to be based on evidence
2) The believer must have an open mind. A willingness to learn and change.
3) Issues of morality need to be settled through reason
4) Issues of psychology need to be settled through reason
Rules 3 and 4 are technically covered by rule 1 The reason for their emphasis will be covered in Section 3.
Premise 1d claims that there are only 2 objections to Ideal Faith
Premise 2d claims that belief without evidence is okay so long as rule 1 is followed.
Premise 3c claims that a believer can ensure their beliefs provide good consequences by sticking to rules 2-4
The conclusion of 1e clearly follows from these premises.
The only question is whether these premises are true.
Summary of Section 1
"Ideal Faith" is when faith beliefs have a psychological effect on a person that causes virtue - improves their lives.
This is clearly a good thing.
The two objections were whether this good "Ideal Faith" was actually possible.
These will be addressed in the next 2 sections.
Section 2: Belief without evidence isn't necessarily a vice.
In the last section I made the claim that there was such thing as "Ideal Faith" - believes that led the believer to virtue and happiness through psychological effect.
However, faith involves belief without evidence, and if belief without evidence is always a bad thing then this "Ideal Faith" is a self-contradictory idea and isn't possible.
This section is to show that under certain conditions that belief without evidence is 'permissible' (the fancy philosophical term for saying "there's nothing wrong with it" ) and thereby refute this objection.
2a) Argument - "Should I only believe with justification?" is a positive claim of practical reason.
Any claim about what we should do is a claim of practical reason and should be justified accordingly. So the question of whether "should I only believe with justification?" depends on whether the claim has a practical reason justification. Otherwise we are telling someone that they should do something without giving them a rational justification why.
If your claim about what a person ought to do isn't a premise of practical reason then what is it?
Why should anyone obey this claim about what they ought to do?
2b) Hypothesis - The only justification for "belief must be justified" is for particular reasons.
As in the above premise, "belief must be justified" is a claim of practical reason that must be justified itself. As far as I can imagine, there is only one justification.
When we make decisions, we sometimes require information to base our choice upon and we need this information to be accurate. If our beliefs are informing our choices then we need them to be as accurate as possible, and justification ensures this accuracy. So as long as a belief can inform our decisions we need it to be as accurate as possible.
As far as I can see, this is the only reason why we need beliefs to be accurate. If you feel you have another, feel free to present it, although the burden of proof will be yours.
If you have further arguments then post them and we'll see if they're valid.
2c Hypothesis - Some kinds of "belief" don't inform decision-making.
In this section I will be claiming that it is possible to believe that something is true but at the same time will not use this belief to inform practical decisions.
My claim is that when someone believes something on faith, they are in the state of mind where they believe it is true, that it happened, but when it comes down to making a decision they will find an excuse to rule it out of the process.
For example, one person might believe that eggs balance during an eclipse.
If you question them they'll insist that they believe it.
That said, if you were to challenge them to put money on it, to see if they could do it next time there was an eclipse, the chances are they won't go for it - they will come out with an excuse.
Perhaps the excuse will be that while they think that it's true, they're not sure enough to put a risk on it.
Perhaps they will make claims that it can be done but they won't necessarily be able to pull it off or that there's something wrong with the test.
Whatever the excuse is, it will leave them with the fact that they believe something it true, but won't allow it to affect their decision making.
An example in religion could be the Catholic Holy Communion.
Find a Catholic who believes in the Transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
They will say that they believe it is the truth, that the wine literally transforms into Jesus' blood.
So suggest to them that we test Jesus' blood type, and then we could use this ritual to turn wine into blood and use it for medical operations - it could save people's lives.
See what they say.
The chances are that they will say that while they believe that the wine turns into blood, trying to use it for medicine won't work and use some theological reason/excuse to say so.
Perhaps they'll say "God won't let you abuse the ritual and he'll change it back", or something like that.
The fact of the matter is that we have a religious belief that they hold on faith, but they hold it in a way that it will never inform their practical decisions.
The belief plays a different role in their lives.
If you disagree with this example then what part do you disagree with?
That the believer really believes in transubstantiation or that they wouldn't actually act on it?
Why do you disagree?
2d Argument - Belief without evidence isn't a vice so long as a condition is met
So long as the belief is like the Catholic one above, then it cannot mis-inform our decision making. If hypothesis 2b is correct and mis-information is the only reason why beliefs need to be justified then this would mean that to believe such beliefs without evidence would be okay.
Premise 2b claims that belief without evidence is only bad if it misinforms decision making.
Premise 2c claims that certain types of belief don't mis-inform decisions.
The obvious conclusion that it's not a bad thing for these particular beliefs to be believed without evidence.
I expect disagreement to be with the premises rather than the inference here.
Summary of Section 2
This section was to address the objection against Ideal Faith that said:
"If faith is belief without evidence, won't that always be a vice rather than a virtue?"
So long as the argument in this section holds that objection has been refuted.
But it does put a constraint on Ideal Faith - the belief must be of a kind that does not inform practical decisions.
This is why Ideal Faith requires the believer to follow the first rule from Section 1d:
1) Beliefs that inform practical decisions need to be based on evidence
So long as they stick to this rule, belief without evidence is permissible.
Section 3: How a theist can ensure their faith leads to virtue?
So far we have established that under certain conditions, faith can be a virtue.
That's possible for the believer to have a set of beliefs that lead them to virtue and not vice.
However, this isn't enough.
It's possible for the lottery ticket to lead you to winning a lot of money, but because it's a matter of random chance whether it's a winner, playing the lottery isn't a good strategy in the rule world where you have little chance of winning.
In the same way, if it was only a matter of random chance whether a person's faith was actually Ideal, that it did them good rather than bad, then faith wouldn't be a good strategy to play in the real world either.
The aim of this section is to give the believer a methodology so they can ensure that their faith is as ideal as possible.
This is necessary for faith to work in the real world.
3a) Hypothesis - How we usually test whether xxx is good for us
In life we have various activities and hobbies and we often evaluate whether they are good for us.
Rather than strictly knowing in advance, we try something that we find appealing, and then over time we see whether it is having a good effect on our lives or whether it is having a bad effect on our lives and make changes accordingly.
e.g. Jane takes up Yoga thinking that it will be good for her health.
As time goes on, she notices that she feels less stiff so it is having a good effect, but she the time she's spending on it takes away from other things in her life so she makes a change and cuts down on the sessions, deciding to do more if she ever starts feeling stiff again...
I see no reason why faith shouldn't be treated in the same way.
A starts by finding a religion appealing and will have to make changes depending on how this religion affects their life.
So long as they remain open to honestly question it and they accurately evaluate whether it is good for them, they will encourage the parts of religion that help them and make changes where it doesn't.
Over time they will hone their religious practice so mainly good consequences come off out of it - the faith becomes Ideal.
This might seem like a slow process, allowing problems to crop up on the way, but this is how we have to deal with everything in life.
You cannot absolutely assess something before hand.
We have to try things out and see how they go and make changes where necessary.
My hypothesis in this section that the "Try things out and make changes as appropriate" approach is a suitable approach to deal with beliefs and the consequences they have on us.
Perhaps we find that thinking a certain way is making us more impatient and intolerant so we make changes.
Maybe we find that thinking another way makes us more relaxed and competent so we encourage it more.
My claim is that the only way to know is to try things out and take it from there.
If you disagree then what would you suggest as an alternative?
In what way would this alternative be better?
3b) Argument - 3 rules will ensure changes for the better
In order for a person to make changes for the better, they need to be open minded enough to see where change is required, and they need to be informed enough to make changes for the better.
I'm going to add 3 more rules to Ideal Faith: (See Section 1d)
2) The believer needs to be open minded and honest to make changes when necessary.
3) Morality and values are to be determined through reason/moral philosophy.
4) Psychological effect is a question of science/reason.
These rules are to ensure that decisions about their faith actually improve it.
If a believer was evaluate their faith through the values "people must be obedient to the bible" then this is going to cause bad decisions.
Or if they believed that the way to become a better person was through authoritarian submission to the local church leader then this too will prevent them from making rational changes to their faith.
The point of rules 3 and 4 are to ensure that certain of the believer's beliefs cannot be based on faith.
These particular issues need to be settled through reason.
(Technically this was covered in Section 2 with the rule that "beliefs that inform decisions require reason"
Rule 2 ensures that the believer is ready to make changes if necessary.
Rule 3 ensures that the values they judge their beliefs by are as rational as possible.
Rule 4 ensures that their theories of the psychological effect of their belief is as accurate as possible.
There is still room for error but this is surely as good as we can humanly expect?
3c) Argument - There is a method to ensure that a believer's faith is as ideal as possible
In Section 1d I listed 4 rules that the theist must follow to make their faith Ideal.
If you agree with 3b then you agree that this will ensure that over time they will improve their faith to provide them with positive psychological consequences.
If you agree with 3a then you agree that "over time" is a necessary process for these things as we have to learn from experience and make decisions using the best information we have at that moment in time.
This would mean that if theist followed the 4 rules then we could consider their faith a good thing as they were honing it to provide them with purely benefitial psychological effects.
This would answer the objection raised in Section 1e, that Ideal Faith can "work in the real world" so long as these rules are followed.
So long as you agree with premises 3a and 3b then a method has been provided.
I expect that the disagreement will be with the premises rather than this inference.
3d) Anticipated Objection - Can we choose beliefs based on consequences?
An objection I've been passed to this argument is that we cannot simply choose our beliefs based on what is good for us.
Even if you think that a belief is good for you, that doesn't mean that you actually think that it's true.
That's some Christians live in fear of hell, because despite thinking that they ought to believe, they find their faith weak because they find it difficult to actually believe.
So if the ideal theist is evaluating their beliefs in terms of psychological consequences, how will that result in what they actually believe?
I will give an example on how this can actually work.
Some of my beliefs have strong rational foundations.
They are built on a mixture of experience and arguments which leave me very sure and confident in them.
To persuade me to change them would take a strong argument which I would put under serious scrutiny.
But not all our beliefs have such strong rational foundations.
Some of them are uninformed and are quite loose and fickle as a result.
They can be easily swayed and influenced.
Maybe we will believe the person who seems the most confident, who seems the most learned, or maybe just the last person we talked to.
The point is, we don't have enough information to make a decisive rational decision on these beliefs so whether we believe them will be affected by non-rational events.
That doesn't mean that we have no control over how our beliefs are being affected.
Maybe by hanging around a particular group, or by reading certain books, or by indulging certain thoughts, our beliefs will be influenced in a certain way.
If we feel that a "worldview" is benefiting our lives (e.g. makes us happier and nicer) then perhaps we will read more that encourages it.
If we find that it's damaging us in some way (e.g. making us prejudiced and hateful) then we might decide to distance ourselves from it and read material that opposes it.
For me, the question of whether there's a God is one that I've looked too deeply into to be swayed like this. My atheism has strong rational foundations and I think that it is psychologically impossible for me to have faith and become a theist.
However, just 4-5 years ago, before I had looked into it so deeply I was of the "loose opinion type" who could be swayed.
Back then it would have been possible for me to have faith on this issue.
I would have gone through theologies, reinforced them when they were working for me, distanced myself when they weren't.
Since then I've looked into it deeply and attained a rational foundation for an atheistic worldview, but there's still subjects that I don't have such a strong opinion on, and in those subjects I could potentially have "faith" in issues.
How? By indulging myself in non-rational means of persuasion, e.g. immersing myself into a worldview and then reinforcing or distancing myself depending on whether I found it to be good for me.
I believe that this is how many people out there treat their religious/spiritual beliefs.
It's a practical method how people can influence what they believe by whether it is "good for them" to believe it.
This should have given an example as to how a person has a control over what they believe.
That they can put themselves in a position where their mind will accept beliefs for non-rational reasons.
This won't work on beliefs that they have a strong rational foundation for holding but many of our beliefs don't have this.
Summary on Section 3
A method was provided for a believer to keep their Faith Ideal, i.e. ensure that their beliefs had a purely psychological effect on them.
Combined with Section 2, this has answered all the objections in Section 1e.
It would seem that Ideal Faith could be considered a virtue so long as the 4 rules were kept to.
I've also answered an objection on whether it is possible to change your beliefs based on whether you like their psychological effects.
With a defense of an "Ideal Faith" that a believer can have if they follow the rules, it's now time to relate all this to the real world, so how people really do treat their faith.
Section 4: How this all relates to real-world belief
So to summarise what we have so far:
All theists believe that "true faith" leads to them to virtue - has a positive effect on their lives. If they were to ever find that their faith was causing them problems, they would make changes.
This gives us a definition of "Ideal Faith" - beliefs that really do have a positive psychological effect on their lives.
We've also shown that there's a methodology a believer can use to ensure that their faith is as ideal as humanly possible.
So how Ideal is the faith of real believers in the real world?
4a) Hypothesis - How the faith of real believers relate
Here is a picture how "Ideal Faith" relates to real belief.
While I don't think that any real person achieves a perfect "Ideal Faith", I think we can still use it as an ideal to compliment/criticise real faith by.
Ideal Theist - Perfectly Ideal.
Their faith is flawless.
It gives them perfect psychological effects and it never mis-informs their decision making.
For obvious reasons, human beings aren't capable of this.
Liberal Theist - As Ideal as humanly possible.
They have their failings as we all do, but for the most part their faith sticks to the rules of Ideal Faith, so it generally has a good effect on them.
These guys are more or less as rational as non-believers.
Fundamentalists - Far from Ideal.
These guys have some aspects of their faith that meet the ideals, but they also have lots of failings too.
Moderates - Somewhere in between Fundamentalists and Liberals.
The point here isn't to vindicate the liberals and/or demonize Fundamentalists.
The point is that all of these people will have faith, some parts Ideal, some parts not.
Good faith is to be commended and bad to be criticised.
The 4 rules/standards should give guidelines one how faith can be judged to be good/bad and treated accordingly.
Even the fundamentalist will have good aspects to their faith that we can commend, just that they'd have bad parts too that require criticism and change.
Likewise, the liberal theist will sometimes come out with complete garbage that needs criticism.
(I mean, it happens to the best of us right?
It's not like us atheists are any exception to having stupid ideas from time to time?
For example, if you disagree with the rest of my topic then you have to agree with me on this point atleast! )
Does this meet your experience of real life believers?
I'm sure you've observed that all types of believers have both positive aspects and negative aspects to their faith.
That even enlightened liberals come out with garbage sometimes and not everything fundamentalists say is bad.
Perhaps your personal experience is different?
4b) Argument - The closer a theist adheres to the 4 rules, the more Ideal their Faith is
So if "bad faith" is causing problems, encouraging theists to abide by these 4 rules will improve their faith and do a great deal to solve the problems.
That is, attacking faith altogether isn't the only solution.
We can criticise it in a way that attacks the bad aspects of faith while preserving the good parts.
This follows directly from Premise 1d
4c) Argument - Reforming faith is generally a better approach than attacking it altogether
This isn't an absolute argument.
With each believer there will be a different way that's advisable to argue.
Some people will find it easier to give up faith altogether than to reform it.
However, in general there will be the following advantages to an argument based on reforming faith, compared to an argument based on attacking faith altogether.
This is for the following reasons:
1) Sweeping attacks on religion and faith are false
If a theist keeps to the 4 rules, calling their belief irrational is like standing up in the middle of a Starwars film and shouting "This is a lie!! No one can know what happened many years ago in a galaxy far far away!!"
It's attacking a strawman as the Starwars film never claimed to be truthful.
In the same way, if someone has faith then criticising it for not being proved misses the point as the believer is committing to it for a different reason - because of the effect that it will have on their life.
2) This gives religious folk and excuse to dissmiss our arguments
If a theist was to waltz in here and start an argument by saying "Why do atheists think they know for certain there's no God" or "atheists have rejected Jesus because they are bitter and angry" we'd roll our eyes and not even care what else they have to say.
We already know that they don't have a clue what they're talking about.
If we are attacking something positive, and misunderstanding their faith, they're going to be similarly dismissive of our own arguments against them.
People are very defensive about their beliefs at the best of times.
If they find the slightest flaw in your argument they're going to use it as a excuse to dismiss the entire lot.
Fighting for the 3 standards of Ideal Faith would still be an uphill struggle but it would have less flaws and weaknesses.
3) A more direct way to tackle the issues at hand
Furthermore, if we were to argue based on the 3 standards rather than attacking religion as a whole, we would be directly tackling the real issues at hand.
The 3 standards of Ideal Faith reflect the reasons why many of us criticise faith in the first place.
We would be directly addressing the issues that we previously tried to solve indirectly by attacking faith altogether.
4) It argues in terms of practical reason in a way that can easily appeal to a person's common sense.
Rules like "positive claimaint has burden of proof" and "beliefs must be based on evidence" make sense to people who are used to scientific debate and are used to the context and situations in which these rules arose so see the sense in them.
They can be counter intuitive to other people, which includes many of our target audience.
5) "Bad faith" can only use "good faith" for cover when good faith is attacked also
Sometimes terrorists like to hide amongst civilians so the military can only attack them by hitting the civilians with collateral.
The terrorists are using the civilians as cover.
However, if the military were to develop weapons and techniques that could pick out terrorists from the civilians then this 'cover' won't work.
The cover only works against weapons like bombs that attack everyone in the area.
In the same way, "bad faith" can only hide behind "good faith" when "good faith" is attacked by an argument.
If the argument especially targets "bad faith" rather than attacking all types of faith then it will be impossible for "good faith" to be used as cover.
This will make attacks against "bad faith" more effective.
What I'm ultimately trying to say here is:
Providing my arguments above are valid, sweeping attacks on religion, faith and theism are false and unhelpful.
They are not only attacking good things in the crossfire, these good things then provide cover for the bad things.
Arguments based on the 3 standards of Ideal Theism would cut out this "collateral damage" problem and attack the things we do have a problem with more efficiently.
It would be arguments that the liberal theists and theist-sympathizing non-believers could relate to and get on board with.
And I can't see it sparing any "bad" beliefs in it's crosshairs, even those that are socially acceptable among religious moderates.
Summary of Section 4
I basically argued that if following the 4 rules makes the theist's faith Ideal, then we can challenge "bad faith" through reform rather than through attacking it altogether, and this approach has advantages.
Clearly, the main argument was in Section 1-3 where I defended Ideal Faith.
This is just some basic follow on consequences of my argument.
Summary of Entire Argument
So I've argued for a certain definition of faith that claims the belief should cause good in the believer.
If faith causes good in the believer then it's surely a good thing.
The question was whether faith can live up to this ideal and I've argued that it can so long as the following 4 rules are stuck to:
1) Beliefs that inform practical decisions need to be based on evidence
2) The believer must have an open mind. A willingness to learn and change.
3) Issues of morality need to be settled through reason
4) Issues of psychology need to be settled through reason
If so, it means that faith can be a good thing and that arguments that don't recognise this are both false and unhelpful to the cause of rationality.
Thanks for reading
Weighing in at over 6000 words this essay was quite the behemoth and I admire your patience and concentration in working through it.
I apologise in advance if I get ever bit snappy or volatile in my replies.
I can get a bit passionate and impatient in these debates, but rest assured that when I read it back to myself an hour later I will cringe with a deep red embarrassment, and have lingering regrets over how I
lost my cool for the rest of my life.
It will indeed hurt me more than it hurts you!
Either way, I'll be sure to leave myself an hour or so before making any replies - usually makes my replies more rational and less emotional.
Thanks for reading again and I look forward to your replies.
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Easy there. I didn't say you'd made assertion of any kind.
I brought in Epistemic Rights purely to make an analogy.
Still, if you want to explain it again...
Then let me rephrase my argument.
Let Ideal Faith = A
The method that will take a person close to achieving that ideal = B
If we establish A is good then the method that brings them close to achieving it will be a good thing.
Surely, right?
Both provide rules, one for developing beliefs as rational as possible, the other for developing beliefs with the best psychological benefits.
In both cases you can criticize people for breaking the rules.
Um... how does making an emotional decision contradict this?
It just says that if you use a belief to inform your decisions then this belief needs to be accurate.
Are you making the claim that all people who have faith treat morality in this way?
If not, then it has no place in this topic.
I'm not interested in defending particular "faith systems" or even the majority of faiths out there.
The only point I'm trying to argue for is that Faith can be a good thing under certain conditions.
Because of that, sweeping attacks against faith are false.
The bit in bold sums up the entire point in the 4 rules.
Yes, they are designed to make sure that faith does not hinder rationality.
You seem to be left wondering what place they have left.
Some people claim that faith has a psychological effect on people.
Maybe certain beliefs can make you calmer, less selfish, etc...
So if certain beliefs caused a positive effect on the believer, then it would be in their rational best interests to be believing it.
The purpose of the 4 rules is a method is to ensure that "belief without evidence" doesn't misinform decisions in life (rule 1) and to make sure that they develop their faith beliefs in a way that encourage ones with the good effects and eliminate those with bad. (rules 2-4)
To be honest, I struggle to see where you actually disagree with me.
I can simplify it as follows:
1) Some beliefs have a positive psychological effect on us
2) 4 rules can be followed to ensure that we develop beliefs with positive effects and ditch bad.
3) And yes, these rules will allow for us to hold such beliefs without evidence, i.e. on faith.
You haven't objected to my defence of the Ideal.
You haven't objected as to whether the method will work.
There seems to have been some confusion as to whether justification of the ideal will lead to justification of the method, but if the method works then I don't see why you'd disagree there.
I'm just baffled trying to find where you actually disagree...
Again I'll point you to Premise 2c in the original.
Clauses/excuses can be used to prevent beliefs being used to inform decisions.
I used the example of the Eucharist as that was an obvious one, but there's room for plenty more.
Christians are often loaded with these clauses to keep faith out of everyday decisions.
I'm not so sure that it does.
I think that many faith belief can be fitted with enough clauses to prevent it from being used to inform decisions.
Does it rule out belief in the existence of a loving God?
Give examples of the beliefs that it rules out.
Then it turns out that 2a wasn't a Red Herring after all. It is actually the centre of our disagreement.
Claims about what people should or shouldn't do (i.e. all normative claims) are those of practical reason.
They are of the form: If A wishes to achieve Y, and X is the best way to achieve Y then A should do X.
I don't see how treatment of beliefs can be separated from the word "do".
And I think pretty much all of our disagreement will be around this issue.
So here's my challenge - can a normative statement possibly be phrased without commanding some kind of action/verb/doing?
You're right the rules were that they had to be open minded, that they had to consider arguments for evaluation.
However, remember that for faith I outlined a particular form of evaluation.
The purpose of faith beliefs (from a practical reason perspective) is to provide positive psychological consequences to the believer. An argument of whether the belief has evidence does not challenge whether it will have positive consequences.
So if a person holds a belief on faith, and their holding of this belief is justified by the psychological consequences, their dismissal of epistemic arguments would be as valid as the dismissal of consequential arguments are in theoretical reason.
Again, our disagreement is down to the practical/theoretical reason clash.
That's what I just said, repeating what you said. It's safe to say that we have the same A and B!
No, absolutely not. That's my point. The difference between the ideal and real is of enormous importance in this case, and to my mind dissolves your entire argument. Unless you address what is actually happening in your argument (id est the striving of your hypothetical believer), you can't associate benefit to that believer. The ideal is, in fact, only barely related to the behaviour.
But Strafio, you can be specific in terms of epistemic rights. I can tell you exactly how someone has crossed the line in terms of those rights. But with being "open minded", et cetera, it's so vague as to be unhelpful.
Well, that it be based on evidence, yes. But I know what you mean. So if even 50% of the decisions made by human beings aren't based on evidence, you have a nullification of the first rule half the time. I'd argue that at least 50% of decisions made are emotional.
Yes, I am. If you have faith in a supernatural authority, then that authority must be considered when making decisions. There is no way to avoid this thought process informing practical decisions.
Actually, what you're arguing is that a faith that has never existed can be a good thing under conditions that will never exist.
That's why our opinions seem so much in sync. I agree that only given an ideal faith and ideal conditions could an ideal faith be a good thing.
I have; I maintain that it is irrelevant.
I have; I maintain that it never could.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Strafio,
I think your conflating faith-based beliefs with the general beliefs we hold, which are not faith based. The distinction is this:
My confidence in the non-faith-based general beliefs depends level of investigation, evidence, and importance. We do not typically initially arrive at our beliefs rationally, nevertheless, we still go through a process upon which we base the aforementioned confidence. e.g. I may investigate a theft and come to an assured conclusion as to who the culprit was, based on some kind of evidence; if I did not investigate in much detail then my conclusion regarding the culprit would be more open and less confident. Alternatively, I may accept someone's claim that they one £10 on the lottery with little evidence because it is not that important, whereas if they told me they won the jackpot my acceptance of the claim require good evidence. As Natural said, this whole process is evidence gathering and is overall tentative, until the evidence is conclusive. We all go through this process, although skeptics do so with more awareness and effort.
Faith-based beliefs however are accepted as true based on desire, tradition, indoctrination and authority, etc. They may go though a pseudo-evidence gathering process, such as speaking with their pastor, parents or mining their scripture, but it is not equivalent to the process outlined in the previous paragraph. What you seem to be doing is erroneously applying that legitimate evidence gathering process to faith, however if they are going though that legitimate process of evidence gathering and reasoning then they do not have faith... they are being rational!
Next, whether the faith-based beliefs brings a benefit is largely irrelevant since the underlining issue is epistemological: they accept the claim as an accurate representation of reality and it is THAT which is to be dealt with. Furthermore, believers will generally NOT accept a belief based on the effect it has; they will not tend to accept the belief through rational analysis. Virtually no one will accept theistic claims as being true simply because it may bring about a good results for them - you cannot force yourself to believe in the epistemological truth of a claim based on the pragmatic benefits of the claim! Instead, they will typically accept the claims from childhood (i.e. indoctrination), or emotional desires, or they will become convinced they are true, perhaps though faulty thinking. It may be the case that they examine the effects it has after they accept it (e.g they accept it for one of the aforementioned reasons, and then they rationalise the benefits), but at that point they would most likely be well invested in the religion and either actually reject the idea that it has a negative effect (even if it clearly does) or instead try to rationalise it away, and perhaps try to rationalise and inflate the benefits. Now I can grant they some may analyse the claims before they accept them, but as previously mentioned they may rely on faulty reasoning, or alternatively they not see the potential negative effects.
At the end of the day however I don't really care what benefit the beliefs has. If they make an empirical claim, I have every right to question it.
Also, as I've argued before on this topic, I deny that you can hold a belief which does not have no effective on your behaviour or psychology. If a faith-based belief can have a positive/beneficial effect on our psychology (as your argue) then it stands to reason that it can have a negative effect on our psychology, and since our behaviour is inherently tied to our psychology, our behaviour will be effected in some way as a consequence of the belief that we accept. All beliefs have an effect on our psychology in some way, and therefore necessarily have some effect on our behaviour. I do not think anyone would want to act according to inaccurate information about the world, and this is a reason why we should ensure all our beliefs are accurate. It is true that some people clearly do act based on inaccurate information, however the important caveat here is that these people will erroneously regard those beliefs as being true. If they really, genuinely, became convinced they were false, they would most certainly not act on them anymore.
One more thing... even if you justified this 'ideal faith', it would largely be irrelevant, given that virtually no theist actually adhere to this hypothetical faith and your rules, in particular rule (2) (having an open mind and willing to change your beliefs). Almost all theists are largely fixed in their faith (where ever it lies on the spectrum), and even the most nicest, well meaning theists will often not be willing to change their beliefs (those that do typically do so after months and months of agonising rather than a rational concession). The difference between theists is not necessarily whether they are willing to change their beliefs, but the content of the beliefs themselves. (I'd argue this for most people, who will simply not just alter their beliefs straight away). As for he other rules... (1) for most theists their faith influences more than practical reasoning, even if indirectly. (3) Although the liberal and moderate theists typically shares a lot in common with the secular humanist regarding their ethics, the theist will tend to regard it as deriving from god; they do not shut their religion off from their ethics. (4) People typically do not directly analyse their psychology, instead they tend to examine those things that effect their psychology, such as beliefs, and there is no reason why religious claims should be exempt from this process, which is what you are proposing.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
I thought the rules were pretty straight forward.
I can give clear examples of violations of each one.
1) If someone tried to use a faith belief as factual information in an argument
e.g. "God will help those who pray, so I'll pray and he'll help me with this problem"
then the violate rule 1.
2) If you question the effects of someone's faith on them and they dismiss the criticism and refuse to consider that the faith might be bad for them, they clearly aren't being open minded.
This means that they won't change their beliefs for the better.
3) Rule 3 demands that morality be determined through reason.
So using "God demands" arguments would be a clear violation of that.
4) Rule 4 is just a specific example of rule 1, relating to a psychological issue.
Can you name any specific example or situation that would leave you puzzled where they broke the rules?
Or where they didn't break the rules but in your gut you could feel that they'd done something wrong?
If
There are plenty of theists out there who believe that "God says do X because X is good" rather than "X is good because God says do X"
Believing in God doesn't mean you need to subscribe to a divine command theory of ethics.
But you haven't objected as to whether it would be a 'good' thing.
(Or to be more precise, that it is in the believer's rational interests to have it)
That's what I was asking.
I'm getting mixed messages in this bit.
In the previous post you said that the Rules would ensure that the believer acts rationally.
Have you changed your mind or do you have a different objection?
And wouldn't observing how faith/religion affects them over time and making changes accordingly give a process that caused them to keep the good a ditch the bad?
Section 3 in the original post was dedicated to arguing that the method works.
Which part of the argument in Section 3 do you disagree with?
I get what you're saying about intuition/epistemic rights and it's all good stuff.
It's not what I'm talking about when I justify faith though.
I'm talking about someone who believes in God and when challenged to justify it he says, "I have faith. Justification isn't important."
So it's a belief that he has no care on whether it is rationally justified.
Where rationality comes into it is the decision on whether to have faith.
This decision will be made with full epistemic rights/intuition, in order to make the best decision on whether faith is good for them.
So the faith will be in a belief that is irrational by the standards of theoretical reason, but the decision to have this faith will be a rational one.
It is? I think this one needs justifying.
Yes, but this is a strawman.
This overly-explicit method you've described doesn't work, but who says that's the method I'm advocating?
Consider this:
Either Jim's beliefs are naturally rational or he needs to work on them to make them rational.
Since he's a theist, you tell him his beliefs are irrational and that he should look into them.
Or perhaps you tell him that this cult/church he's hanging around with are causing him to accept irrational beliefs so he should stay away.
Or perhaps you think he's been believing the wrong books?
In whichever case, there is an action he can do that will affect what he believes.
That is, he can now make a rational decision on what to do with his beliefs.
Will he study the books you recommend and stay away from bad influences so his beliefs become more rational?
Or should
He has a decision to make on what to do, and this is clearly a decision to be decided by practical reason.
That is an example of how Jim can have rational control over what he believes and make changes based on practical reasoning.
Absolutely. I shall never jail or persecute you for your questioning!!
Viva Freedom of Speech and that!
Seriously though, you ask them to justify their beliefs and they claim it's a matter of faith.
So they have free admitted that they have no justification and that this belief is irrational.
However, they now justify their decision through practical reason, showing that their decision to have faith is rational.
What would your criticism be now?
That they are being irrational? They're clearly not as they've acting purely on a very rational decision.
That their belief is still irrational? They'll just shrug and point out that it's rational to allow yourself certain irrational beliefs.
What would be your criticism? Would this criticism be in any way justified?
I still disagree with this.
That said, it's not a point a care to argue right now.
Just establishing that having faith can be rationally justified is as much as I need to prove for my conclusions in this topic.
That said, I think that these theists are more open than you realise, and for perhaps similar reasons they also consider you to be closed minded.
According to these rules, the correct method for faith is to try what works for you through a "journey" of personal experience.
Their experience of what religion does for them is how they evaluated. The "open mindedness" is about being open-minded to experience.
You've like tried arguments based on theoretical reason, which are irrelevent to evaluations in practical reason.
Just the same how consequences are irrelevant to evaluations in theoretical reason.
They dismiss your theoretic arguments the same way you dismiss their consequential ones.
Me too!! We have so much in common!!
The psychology bit is a part I'm still finding difficult.
While I think that what you put here is wrong, I'm still struggling to find the alternative that's correct.
I'm going to play that old trick you hate so much and say "Let's save this bit for later"
It's the best for both our interests though.
It's an interesting topic so it would be good to get the rest of the issues out of the way so we can concentrate on it properly.
Are you sure you're understanding what I'm writing? Because I understand your argument, and my critique is that it is equivalent to determining the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin. I'll leave epistemic rights to deludedgod, becasue it wasn't what I was arguing anyway.
But God would always be considered in that decision making process. That means that your assertion that decisions are not informed by this belief is patently untrue. The very fact that the thought process is "God says do X because X is good" rather than "X is good" means that there is a very fundamental difference in the thought process of that person. To say that it would not affect other thoughts is to present us with a human being that does not behave like a human being.
I understand, and my response is the same. If I tell you that Tinkerbell's Magic Fairy Dust is a good thing, what have we resolved? The Ideal is never achieved, and does not exist. It will never exist, and will never be achieved. Why does it matter if it's good?
The issue is whether or not striving for that ideal (which can actually happen) is good, not the ideal. One does not follow from the other. You must show that the process of striving is good, because the nature of an unachievable goal is irrelevant.
Look, if you want to tell me that 75% of the time, if a person conforms to four rules, then that's good, I have no problem. You just haven't set up any parameters for what actually happens.
I don't know. If you had addressed that process, then I wouldn't be arguing that you left out the process! That process (which is the only part of your argument that concerns reality) has not been addressed adequately by your argument. You assume that aiming at the Ideal Faith is good, but you do not demonstrate it.
When I said earlier that "what you're arguing is that a faith that has never existed can be a good thing under conditions that will never exist," I wasn't kidding.
Your Ideal Faith will never exist; your four conditions will never be met fully. So why bring reality into this argument at all? Just make the argument for an alternate reality, where such things are possible, and leave human beings of it.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Not all Christians do this nor any Christian in all cases. You can't dictate that every believer will impose this on themselves while simultaneously adhering to their faith. What would be the protection against such encroachments on practical decisions?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
Clearly not, simply by definition. A normative statement by definition contains an ought (or words to that effect). That being the case, a normative statement would be unjustifiable unless some particular conditional were attached, the conditional stating that the action that one ought to do will lead to the consequence one desires. That's why I started to attach conditionals to statements. ie we should follow our epistemic rights if we want our beliefs to be accurate. The reason I neglected this at first is because it seems so obvious, just by definition, that we want our beliefs to be accurate.
Therein lies the problem. We could say that A wishes to achieve positive psychological consequences and the best way to do that would be to believe X, but of course, we are talking about beliefs, and people by definition want their beliefs to be accurate. To say that a certain action is rationally justifiable is to state that it can be justified practically, but beliefs fall into a special category of action because beliefs are propositions about the world which we hold to be accurate, and accuracy demands theoretical reasoning. Your argument is that it is rationally justifiable to commit this action of believing if it is justifiable on practical grounds, . I have now found the crux of the disagreement here. You say that the justification for the content a belief and the justification for believing can be separated. But I say that's silly, because beliefs by definition have a necessarily conditional tagged on to them: We believe them (obviously). It seems we are splitting a very fine hair, namely, is the statement "I can justify believing that X is the case" equivalent to the statement "I can justify the contents of proposition X". If they were the same then your argument fails. I submit to you that they are the same because the statement "I can justify the contents of proposition X" is equivalent to "I can justify the statement "the contents of proposition X are true". At the same time "I can justify believing that X is the case" is equivalent to "I can justify believing the contents of proposition X are true".
So now the only difference between the statements is "I can justify the statement..." and "I can justify the belief...". So, are they the same? It seems pretty clear to me that they are only different for an outside observer. Let's consider two hypothetical people. We'll call them Ted and Jane. Jane is dying of cancer. Let's say that Jane is in the denial stage of Kubler-Ross. Now, suppose Ted said "I can justify the statement that Jane is not dying of cancer". This statement would be false. What if Ted said "I can justify Jane's belief that she is not dying of cancer"? This is pretty obviously correct. Ted, by reference to the Kubler-Ross model, can indeed justify Jane's belief that she is not dying of cancer. What about Jane? As with many people in the first stage of KR, Jane is likely to reason something along the following lines "Well, I feel fine, so this can't be happening" or "maybe the tests are false positives" etc. To be sure, these are ad hoc and flat out invalid justifications, but they are justifications none the less (just not very good ones). However, it would be absurd if Jane consciously reasoned the following: "I don't want this to be happening, so it isn't". To be sure, you could of course argue that this is her unconscious reasoning, but that's a wholly different matter. You could certainly argue that people will unconsciously justify certain beliefs on practical grounds. The problem comes down to the fact that in the mind of the person holding a belief, the justification of the action of belief, and the justification of the belief itself must be the same, otherwise they wouldn't be believing it.
Now you're just dodging the question. I submit to you again what would occur if the individual in question was presented with a theoretical argument which disproved or rendered invalid their belief, and that they could understand this argument. If the individual refused to relinquish their belief without any appropriate counterargument, then that individual would be closed minded and dogmatic. I suppose what I'm really trying to say is how does this individual respond to rational criticism of the content of their belief?
Dismiss in what context? Usually here, we talk (actually, pretty much always) about the accuracy of beliefs (because like I said before, nothing else about beliefs actually matter). In this context, it is valid to dismiss beliefs on theoretical grounds and invalid to dismiss them on consequential grounds.
That doesn't make sense. Why would the call for justification be closed minded?
Really? You can't think of any beliefs one could hold that would fit this criteria?
For example, right now hold the belief "no star exceeding the Oppenheimer-Volkoff Limit can violate the Penrose Conjecture". I don't think this particular belief has any observable effect on my behavior or psychology, and if a naked singularity is found, then I guess the belief will have to become "there do exist stars exceeding the OV limit which satisfy Robert's solution to the Einstein field equations". I don't think this transition will be particularly jarring for me to make, in terms of behavior and psychology, even though it would be a truly monumentous discovery if we ever found one.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
Well what I mean is that given the right circumstances all beliefs we hold will influence us to some degree. It seems to me that to say we can hold a belief that cannot or will not affect our psychology and behaviour is to say that there is no possible circumstances that can cause such an effect, which it seems is tantamount to not holding the belief to begin with.
In any case, the point I was making is that Strafio's argument entails that these faith-based beliefs to not influence our decision making, yet how is his possible? If beliefs influence our psychology, and our psychology influences our behaviour and decision, then it seems to be that the things we belief to be the case will affect our decision making. Strafio seems to allude to this when he says these faith-based beliefs will effect us in a positive way, however, as I say, if that can happen then is equally possible for the beliefs to have a negative effect. His work around for this is that these hypothetical theists will use reason, evidence, science, etc, to examine the belief, but this seems to be contrary to what actual faith is all about. Furthermore, if one goes to such lengths then why not examine the accuracy of the belief in the process, after all, examining the psychological and behavioural consequences entails that they examine the content of the belief.
I think the first thing Strafio needs to demonstrate is why the focus should be removed from the truth of the claims and placed on the consequences of the claims. We don't do this for anything else. Why should theism get special treatment in this regard? It seems to be that this is just a way to try and rationalise false or unjustifiable claims. This is not to say consequences are not important, but it must be balanced with the truth of the claim, and it cannot validate truth claims (i.e. you cannot say "I believe X is true" and then justify that by saying "it has good consequences." The former is what theists tend to say, and the justification Strafio is proposing is a non sequitur.) Even if the theist wishes to focus on the consequences rather than truth, I do not see why others have to play along, and in that sense it is wrong to suggest that people should not examine and criticise the claims of theism from perspective of truth.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
After reading your last post, DG, I realize I should modify my earlier statement that:
As you say, there are beliefs that would be extremely unlikely to affect everyday decisions, but I do think that at least some of the beliefs required in most, if not all, religious contexts are very much about various aspects of behavior and how one interacts with others. Such beliefs typically involve the nature and source of moral 'law', which is intrinsically part of practical decision-making, I would think.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
To be honest, no.
I'm finding it difficult to establish where your disagreement lies.
It's nice that the misunderstanding goes both ways.
I wasn't debating against epistemic rights - I actually agree with them.
I was just trying to use them as an analogy.
So long as they don't believe in divine command, (i.e. Morality is defined as God's orders) then
It matters because my argument relies on all my premises.
I need to know which of my premises I need to defend.
It happen that Natural, Topher and DG have all disagreed with the Ideal and I've had to defend it against them.
With you I'm still trying to work out where the debate lies.
I think that you disagree that the 4 rules would ensure a good faith develloped...
Perhaps you'll spell it out to me in your reply.
(Quoting the premises from the original argument that you disagree with would help also)
I thought I addressed fairly reasonbly in the original post.
Section 3 of the argument deals with the process/method.
Section 4 makes comparisons between Ideal faith and believers in the real world.
Look at the premises and tell me where you disagree.
Indeed, otherwise we wouldn't have a problem with them.
This "Ideal Faith" would do nothing to defend fundamentalism.
That said, I think there's a large amount of "liberal Christians" out there who more or less meet the ideal.
They have their slip ups like the rest of humankind, but for the most part treat their religion very rationally.
The same protection against any bad decision - people will criticise it and question it.
Not the most detailed answer, but it's a complex subject.
For now I'm just trying to establish "Faith is a good approach to life if someone is following the 4 rules"
If you agree with that much then we have no further disagreement in this topic.
Okay. That's agreed.
Our disagreement is whether accuracy is always a person's primary aim when it comes to belief.
(I included the word "primary" because sometimes we have conflicting aims and a more important one can over-rule a less important one)
E.g. a man is tempted by a donut (i.e. has an aim to taste and eat it) but wants to stay healthy (so has a more important aim that contradicts the other one)
Anyhow, I'm going to take my time with your arguments so I haven't got a rebuttal just yet, but I should within a couple of days or so.
If it's a direct argument that they understand then it would be very psychologically difficult not to believe it, whether they wanted to or not.
An effort to force themselves to believe... I doubt the benefits of faith would be worth such a mental strain and I'm not sure such a battle against a person's own critical faculties is healthy.
So I agree.
If a person meets a direct argument that they understand and cannot rebutt then they should go with it, even on matters of faith.
I think real life theologians respond to this by re-defining God to something with a religious significance but spares them from actually believing in anything supernatural.
E.g. Spinoza's Pantheism or Radical Theology.
But if their aim wasn't accuracy (hypothetically - I'm going to debate you on this later) then theoretical reason would no longer be what mattered in defending their faith.
So they would have the same right to dismiss his theoretical reasoning as it was irrelevant to their justification of holding these beliefs.
Meh!! Touché!
At the moment DG and I have agreed that how we treat beliefs depends on the aim.
He has arguments that the aim is accuracy.
If my disagreement is correct and we sometimes have a different aim, how we treat beliefs should be based on their aim.
No special exception for theism btw, it would apply to all beliefs that could meet the conditions of the 4 rules.
Flying saucers, Pixies, The Force, etc...
The theist isn't defending that "X is true", they are defending their decision to have faith and set reason aside.
I repeat the same question to you as in the last post.
You criticise the belief and they admit they hold it on faith rather than reason.
You might then criticise them for having faith and ignoring reason, but if they were to successfully argue that it was in their rational best interests to do this, what would your criticism be against them?
I would content that how we treat a belief should depends on the reason(s) they give for holding the belief.
But that is the claim they make. Theists do not principally say "I believe X is beneficial" rather they say "I believe X is true". If they believe X is true then they are obliged to demonstrate it. If they also believe X is beneficial, then they are obliged to demonstrate that too.
How people should justify their claims depends on why they hold them, and most theists believe what they believe because they think it is true. If a theist held a belief purely due to its benefits then sure, they would only need to demonstrate its pragmatic value, however, as deludedgod has demonstrated to believe something is tantamount to believing it is true. Furthermore, hardly any theist will be solely concern with the pragmatic benefits of their belief, indeed theists will typically be very concerned with the truth of their theology.
If the theists "aim" of their belief is not truth, then they should not be saying "I believe X is true".
My response would be: fine, but then do not claim it is true. The moment you do you place yourself into the scientific arena.
(Also, it seems to me that theistic faith in the context that it is employed is actually about believing in the truth of theological claims rather than pragmatic value; after all, theology is inherently about the ultimate truth. It seems that to have faith is inherently about believing in the truth of the theology.)
They may treat it rationally but they still believe it is true!
A rational liberal theist like Ken Miller still believes Jesus was divine, rose from the dead, and so on. The fact most theists will for the most part approach their religion and its effect on their life rationally (e.g. they wouldn't believe something which was knowingly bad for them) it does not negate the empirical claims they are making. If they are concerned with truth (as I contend they are) and if they make truth claims (as they clearly do) then they bear certain burdens relating to those empirical claims.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
First objection:
Second objection:
Is that clear?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I second that.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
So what you're saying is that the "Ideal Faith is good" doesn't mean much on it's own.
That's fine, I accept that.
The purpose of this topic is to win it as a premise that I can use in future arguments.
What this objection amounts to is "I agree with your result, but where exactly are you going with this?"
This objection I didn't get at all.
Yes, my argument rests on "IF Ideal Faith is good"
And you don't seem to disagree with "Ideal Faith is good", your objection rather being that you find it pointless, so why is there an objection here.
The objection that my argument rests on a premise that you don't even disagree with has left me quite baffled indeed!
So you don't disagree that following the rules will lead to the Ideal?
Your objection seems to be "Well unless people actually follow these rules it's a pointless argument"
Again, I'm just trying to win the premise "IF these rules are followed..." to see if I can make use of it in future arguments.
I take it you agree with the premise, you just don't think I can do anything with it?
Apart from the 3rd part of the first objection that completely baffled me, I think the rest of your objection is clear.
It's not that you disagree with my results, you just think that they are pointless results.
I'm okay with that because in this topic I was just trying to secure agreement with them so I could make use of them for another day.
That said, in Section 4 of the original post it tried to
In the meantime, Topher and DG do disagree with the Ideal.
Should I manage to convince them to agree with it, perhaps I'll be to take the argument further.
Until then, I just want a final yes or no as to whether you agree with these two premises. (Even if you find them absolutely pointless)
1) Ideal Faith is a good thing.
(If you find the word 'good' problematic, let me rephrase to: It is in a person's rational best interests to have Ideal Faith)
2) If the 4 rules were followed then that would lead someone to develop an Ideal Faith
Whether they are irrelevant or pointless is a question of whether I will be able to make use of them in future arguments.
In the meantime, I just want to know whether you agree or not, and if not then why not.
Whoo! For a minute there, I thought I was taking crazy pills!
Arguments with whom, the Sugar Plum Fairy?
No, it's "Your result could never, ever be applied to an argument concerning reality."
Okay, I give up. I'll go after the ideal faith instead. It just seems weird to argue about what my fairy godmother had for breakfast.
By what, androids? Yes, if androids were to follow your rules, then they will have your Ideal Faith.
And in these future arguments, I'm assuming that you will be discussing the behaviour of androids.
For humans, no.
Same objection. How would you use pointless results in another argument? And why? Even if we can all agree that leprechauns wear pants, to what etherial land does our argument apply?
But it's an even more fundamental problem: you've invented an imaginary world where your premises apply, so of course I'm forced to agree with your premises! I have no choice but to say that in your Ideal World, that your rules are true!
An example:
If leprechauns wear pants, and taking leprechaun pants to the cleaners makes them dirty, do you not agree that if they take their pants to the cleaners, that their pants will be dirtied?
Gee, I guess so.
I must agree with your premises, because you're writing all the rules in your reality. It's actually impossible for me to disagree, because I don't know what the rules are. You've established a reality where people can follow commandments to the letter, and where just aiming for a goal is the same as achieving it. What other rules should I know about?
Why is reality unimportant in your argument?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I disagree.
I agree that while we're in a state of believing we're in a state of wanting the belief to be accurate.
After all, if you don't think your belief is accurate then you don't really believe it.
That doesn't make it our primary aim though, and our primary aim is what makes the conditional for normative statements.
E.g. When I pass the fast food shop I am tempted and consciously 'want' to eat some.
However, my primary aim is to be healthy so the truth is I ought not to eat some, even though I do have a 'want' for some.
My belief that our primary aims, i.e. what is in our rational best interests, is more or less along the lines of Maslow's heirarchy of needs.
If you were to argue that accuracy was our aim, I'd probably expect an argument in terms of these needs.
Curiously, your next paragraph actually seemed to agree with me on this.
The objection it seemed to bring up wasn't that "believing because of consequences" was against our best interests, it was that "believing because of consequences" can't be rationally done in the first person.
No disagreement here.
I want to note that bit in blue is a concedes to me in the issue over what the conditional of the normative statement is.
(i.e. Ted justifies Jane's believing by whether it's psychologically necessary for her rather than how accurate it is)
Your argument seems to be:
1) If a person believes something then they think it is accurate and if the don't think it is accurate then they don't believe it.
2) Believing something on consequences does nothing to change a person's belief on whether X is accurate, so "believing on consequences" as a rational process just cannot work.
If someone claims that they are believing on consequences then it's quite likely that something else is going on, something not so rational.
3) Since "believing on consequences" isn't a viable rational process, "ensuing accuracy" is the only possible way to rationally regulate our beliefs.
I think that's what you're arguing.
I expect you'll correct me if I've misunderstood.
My counter argument will be that while we cannot directly choose what to believe based on consequences, there are more indirect processes.
Let me present an example of what I mean:
One might reflect on their own past behaviours and say:
"When I go along naturally, I believe things, sometimes get them right but sometimes get it wrong
In a past situation, I put myself in a state of mind where I was extra careful and more sceptical than normal, and this reduced the errors in my beliefs.
In another past situation, I put myself in a different state of mind where I was easier going, less sceptical and more accepting.
This perhaps allowed me to accept more false beliefs than I would usually."
So that describes 3 strategies he can play:
He can put himself in the mindset of Normal, Careful or Carefree.
When he's playing a Carefree strategy, he won't be consciously thinking "I'm taking on inaccurate beliefs here"
If he's consciously thinking about it at all it will be "Let's just roll with it, never mind the consequences."
From there he might make a decision to play a strategy depending on the situation. (I think being carefree is an advantage in some situations)
Or he might not even think about it at all and just respond to criticism of what he is doing.
e.g. "We can't afford mistakes here - you need to be extra careful" or "This isn't the time to be so careful - loosen up a bit!"
"Having Faith" can be seen as such a strategy.
They put themselves in an easy/accepting mindset, and when someone questions their beliefs they shrug and say "It's a matter of faith"
The question then becomes whether it is appropriate to play the faith strategy, and I think that's a question of practical reason.
The believer needs to work out when it is in their best interests to "have Faith" or when it's in their best interest to ensure accuracy.
The method I have in mind is similar to how we treat hobbies - try things out, reflect on whether it's working for us and make changes accordingly.
(See Premise 3a from the original post)
Fine. I disagree but I don't feel the need to argue this point.
Instead, if I ever make use of them in an argument then that will prove you wrong.
For now, I just want to make doubly sure that you don't disagree with my results.
You mean you to say that you do disagree with it after all.
Look, you've made yourself clear as day on how irrelevant you think they are, but you seem to change you mind with every sentence on whether you agree with them or not.
The bit in blue shouldn't be there.
My argument is that "Following the four rules like an android should achieve the Ideal"
Earlier in the post you said: "Yes, if androids were to follow your rules, then they will have your Ideal Faith."
That these android aren't "just aiming", they have a method by which they will achieve it.
So the bit in blue shouldn't be there.
Once I've settled these premises I'll get to reality.
I already had a go in Section 4 of the original post.
Take a look. Do you agree with my application of these premises into reality?
I agree with it so long as theists do not speak nor care about truth. The problem I have is that most theists do speak and care about truth.
Do you hold that a person cannot get the benefits of "ideal faith" through reason and evidence-based inquiry?
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
Getting the benefits of Ideal faith does require an inquiry based on reason and evidence.
You have to try something out, observe whether it's working for you and make changes as necessary.
I expect "Faith beliefs" won't be the only way to get such benefits - there's sure to be many ways out there.
I basically see someone with a different "Faith" as comparable to having a different hobby, or having different taste in music.
We all tread our own path through life, seeing what works for us.
People who use the best evidence and reason to make their decisions will tread the best path for obvious reasons.
But what you proposing it ad hoc.
By rational and evidence-based enquiry I am talking about that as a worldview, there we hold reason and evidence to be supreme. However it is ad hoc/special pleading to encourage a rational and evidence-based worldview only so long as it suites your desired ends (i.e. only use reason and evidence to examine the function of the belief, not whether it is true).
I'm sure you agree that having a rational and evidence-based worldview is overall the best kind of workdview to have, and that we should encourage it as much as possible. You agree that such a worldview can lead to the benefits your hypothetical idea faith. Why not then just encourage people to adopt that worldview?
The alternative (your hypothetical idea faith) is highly unlikely and carries certain dangers with it. Firstly, it is unlikely because it requires believers to not place much importance on truth, despite the fact that most do care about whether their beliefs are true, and most do regard their beliefs as being true. Secondly, peoples beliefs/claims, along with the methodologies they use (e.g. faith or reason) are likely to be abused or unintentionally misused. By making it acceptable to abandoned the need for reason and evidence (even if just for religious issues) we run the risk of having faith-based thinking propagate into our worldview as a good thing. You will probably say that such abuses will therefore not longer constitute 'idea faith' however there is still the negative effect that such an abuse will have; we need to look at the wider implications here.
In short, 'ideal faith' runs the risk of infecting our overall worldview (e.g. even though you prescribe it solely for religion, it can, and will likely be applied to non-religious issues), whereas discouraging faith-based thinking and instead encouraging a rational and evidence-based worldview can lead to the benefits of 'idea faith', but is also without the negative effects the 'ideal faith' can bring.
The problem with you is that you're placing pragmatism over truth, yet although pragmatism is important, it is best to examine and understand the world as it actually is, and then look at the result from a pragmatic perspective. That way we get all the benefits of pragmatism however we do not violate a rational, evidence-based understanding of reality.
You however are effective saying this: believe WHATEVER you like, so long as it has pragmatic value (i.e. benefits). For you, it doesn't matter whether something is true or not; all that matters is whether it is beneficial.
Can you tell us:
a) why pragmatism is to trump truth?
and
b) why a "truth then pragmatic" worldview is not to be preferred?
This is a false analogy. Music/hobbies are subjective and internal (i.e. they relate only to us), whereas religion is external and about the objective world. The only way to treat the claims of theism in the same way we treat our taste in music is if we subscribe to epistemological relativism.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
Scroll up a bit and see mine and DG's discussion on normative statements.
They are of the form "A should perform X if A has goal Y and X will achieve goal Y"
So, by definition, what we should do depends on what our aims of.
A study of human nature, i.e. what our human aims are will bring results like Maslow's hierarchy of human needs
Those needs are the ultimate aims, the ultimate deciders of what a rational person ought to do.
Whatever we ought to do, it's justified by those aims.
My challenge to you is, if your 'ought' isn't the one of practical reason, the hypothetical imperative, then what exactly is it?
And why should someone go by what you say that they 'ought' to?
By the very nature of normative claims.
As it happens, I think that this pragmatism requires truth 99% of the time, but there are exceptions to the rule.
Todangst used to say that the problem with pragmatism was that people used it as an excuse to underestimate the value of truth.
Because truth is justified by pragmatism, not vice versa.
Because the reasoning in faith is to find out whether having faith in X is having positive effects, i.e. whether it is working for us.
So it will also be subjective and internal.
That's why many people who practice religion say "What's true for you might not be true for me"
What they are doing rationally achieves their aims.
Your objection will likely demand, unjustified, that they follow your preferred aim instead.
But I shouldn't prejudge. If you have a different objection then I'm willing to hear it.
Edit:
As it happens, this argument is valid in that it argues in terms of practical reason.
However, I have no reason to believe that the claims you make here are true.
The concerns you bring up are as follows:
1) "it requires believers to not place much importance on truth"
Not really. It still requires believers to place importance on truth where it matters.
2) "peoples beliefs/claims, along with the methodologies they use (e.g. faith or reason) are likely to be abused or unintentionally misused."
Is there anything out there that cannot be abused?
Is that a reason to try and stamp it out completely?
Because we usually side together in political debates, I'd be surprised if you accepted the argument "X can be abused so we must discourage X altogether" for anything else.
I think you make an exception for Faith here because you have a personal distaste for it.
[b]3) "encouraging a rational and evidence-based worldview can lead to the benefits of 'idea faith'"[/b[
Now I know what you mean by this I can tell you that I disagree.
The accurate beliefs that assist in these beneficial effects, e.g. facts about psychology, are ones the Ideal Theist has anyway.
Scrutinizing their faith beliefs will not provide these benefits.
It will provide different benefits, e.g. practice in reasoning and training of the critical faculties
But the Theist can get those benefits by scrutinizing other beliefs, and if their faith was benefiting them then to lose their faith would lose these benefits.
It's not that I think that Faith is the only way to get these benefits, but the non-faith alternatives will still have nothing to do with having an accurate worldview.(Except for the psychological facts etc. that the theist also have right)
I think your proposed solution demands an unbalanced devotion to accuracy in belief at the expense of our other human needs.
But the fact our aims might be pragmatic is not an argument for why truth should be abandoned. As I said, we can still adhere to the goal of pragmatism while still ensuring we are not holding false beliefs.
I'm not saying the ought to do it, I am saying most people will as a matter of fact want to hold true claims about the world and not hold false claims about the world. Most people will in fact regard their beliefs as true.
In any case, the point still remains: where is the argument for why we must abandon truth?
That is not a positive argument for why we should abandon the need for truth. The fact I may say: "I want to hold beliefs that bring me benefits" is not in of itself an argument for why truth should be ignored (indeed you say yourself that it is virtually always relevant.) I would contend that almost all people will also say: "I want to hold true beliefs about the world and not hold false beliefs about the world." The two statements are not mutually exclusive.
Let me repeat the two statements/goals:
1) "I want to hold true beliefs about the world and not hold false beliefs about the world."
2) "I want to hold beliefs that bring me benefits"
I think almost all people seek to achieve both these goals, and even if in some cases someone may prefer benefits over true for a given issue, they will still not want to abandon truth (e.g. someone may place for more confidence in the truth of a belief than the evidence allows, on the basis that it is beneficial, in other words, the benefits hold more weight for them as opposed to the epistemological evidence, nevertheless they will still care about truth and regard the belief as being true).
In order to prove your argument you must demonstrate that theists do not have the statement number one (1) as a goal with respects to their beliefs. Only then is your argument justified. It is no good saying they may have truth as a goal, just with less importance to the benefits, because the fact remains it is still a distinct goal and thereby a valid standard to justify the beliefs on.
Okay so in virtually all cases we should try to ensure our beliefs correspond with what is true about reality. Do you realise that your point goes against your argument.
Not necessarily... truth may not always be pragmatic. In any case, my point was not that we justify pragmatism with truth, but rather that we should employ pragmatism within a worldview which seeks to hold true beliefs about the world (and not false beliefs), rather than replacing truth with pragmatism.
You're still ignoring that fact that most theists will care about whether their belief is true, and regarding their beliefs as being true.
Even if theists are concerned about the benefits of their beliefs (as I would agree they will be), that does not negate the fact that they hold their beliefs to be true.
Which only goes to be contradicted by what they actually believe, for example, a Christian believes Jesus rose from the dead. Non-Christians do not. He either did, or he did not, rendering their beliefs mutually exclusive. So that statement "What's true for you might not be true for me" is necessarily false.
Strafio, how many times do I have to repeat myself: I am NOT telling people to adhere to my aims, I am pointing out that virtually all people will want to hold true belief about the world and not false beliefs. Please pay attention to what my argument is, and don't just ignore it. I've yet you actually see you deal with this point yet.
You seem to be be accusing me of telling theists what to believe or what to aim for, however this seem to be inherent in YOUR argument, which revolves around you dictating that theists do not place much importance on truth or you dictating to us where the truth does matter. This is simply out of touch with what theists say.
Instead of you telling us whether theists value truth, or where they value truth, why not actually ask them? Remember when we has this debate before, and I posted a questionnaire on a Christian web site and the feedback was virtually unanimous: Christian care whether their belief is true or false.
Because faith as it is utilised IN REALITY has no benefits. It can deliver nothing that a non-faith-based worldview can achieve but it carries all sorts of negatives. I'm say that any form of theistic faith is bad (with some versions worse that others) so my argument is NOT "faith can be abused, therefore we must discourage faith altogether."
(And to beat down the dead horse smoking or alcohol response, I think smoking is just like faith, not good in any form, and would discourage it. I think alcohol is fine when used responsibly.)
Can you tell me specifically what benefits faith can bring that cannot be achieved by anything other than faith-based thinking.
My point is that if a faith-based worldview has nothing unique to offer, and can carry some dangers, then it is not as good as a non-faith-based worldview that can provide the same effects but not have the same dangers.
No, it doesn't. It just say that whatever the order of peoples aims, truth will be one of them. That means truth is a legitimate criteria by which beliefs can be criticised.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
Also, regarding your suggestion that you're promoting a rational and evidence-based worldview...
To believe in X is to believe X is true. (Definition of belief.)
You're proposing what we do this on faith (i.e. without reason or evidence). Now I suspect you will be quick to say "oh but I am saying we must use reason and evidence" however the only element that you are saying we must apply reason and evidence to is the pragmatic value of holding the belief, yet, to believe in X is not to believe that X has pragmatic value, rather it is to believe that X is true.
This means that you are NOT encouraging us to hold our belief in X (e.g. that X is true) on reason and evidence; you're telling us what we can hold our belief in evidence without reason and evidence.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
Alright. Seeing as we seem to be strawmanning each other left right and centre, let's take it easy for a second and work out exactly where your objections lie.
1) You're arguing that that since there are non-faith alternatives that provide benefits, we should promote them instead.
I agree. I'm certainly not going as far as to promote faith here, just defending the believer as rationally justified in their decision to have faith.
However, I have the following objections to your insistence on attacking faith:
You don't need to criticise faith to promote an alternative.
Sure, you could lay into a person with an original Playstation, attack their favourite games for being pixellated with a low framerate, but what good would that negativity do?
You'd only wind them up by attacking something they love.
What's more, if they Playstation is the only thing available to them then it's worse than useless.
Most importantly though, to promote an Xbox360, all you'd have to let them do it play on it for 5 mins and let them feel the benefits for themselves.
And after all that, they might still prefer their old Playstation, because taste is ultimately subjective.
Incase my analogy lost you, I'm saying that even if there are better alternatives to faith out there, attacking faith still isn't constructive.
The best way to promote an alternative would be to show it, and then if it was really better then it wouldn't require you to lay into their faith.
And besides, it's quite possible that their are so happy with their faith they still find it preferable, that it is still better for them in their situation.
2) Faith in the real world is often abused so you'd rather get rid of it altogether
Even if you are right about the extent that Faith is abused, the arguments in Section 4 point out how it'll often be better to attack the abuse than attack faith altogether.
Partly because reforming faith will retain the benefits, partly because attacking faith altogther will be less effective.
3) You're arguing that maybe the Ideal Theist doesn't care about truth, but since most do then they can be criticised for having faith
In this one, I have to be very careful with my wording.
The whole "abandoning truth" accusation was a bit of a hysterical strawman.
The implication is either they're absolutely for truth as their number one priority or they completely toss it to the wind.
In reality, we all care about truth to differing degrees and with different priorities.
Theists tend to care about the truth enough to not contradict established fact.
So most of them reject 6 day creationism in favour of evolution and the big bang theory.
That said, there's a lot of gap territory out there where neither proof or disproof is possible.
E.g. Was there a creator before the big bang?
Is there a consciousness out there that violates the law of physics from time to time, causing miracles (but not often enough to be testable and proved)?
Since there's no evidence against, poor evidence (e.g. personal feelings, anecdotal evidence and folk stories) + motive to believe (because of the benefits) tips the balance in favour of belief.
Let's take a look at your argument again:
The bit in bold is what I'm saying that the Ideal Theist does.
There doesn't need to be an abandonment of truth altogether.
Anyhow, my argument is targeted towards sweeping attacks against faith and theism.
I certainly have no intention of going hypocrite and providing sweeping defenses.
If you come across a theist who claims that finding out the truth is their number one priority then you would be quite right to argue that faith will hinder them from their goal.
But it is sometimes a good way, and an easier way, to demonstrate the benefits of one approach by framing it in context to another. Of course a rational/evidence-based (skeptical) worldview can be promoted in it own right, but you can add greatly to the strength of the worldview by demonstrating how alternative approaches are not as good.
Sometimes we must point out the laws in someones worldview, then jump in with an alternative worldview. Sometimes just promoting your alternative won't do much, especially if they already think their conclusions are correct.
The goal, as I'm sure you agree, it to plant a seed and get them to think about it on their own, however sometimes you need to create an opening--pointing out a flaw in their worldview--within which to plant the seed. e.g. Explaining why 'supernaturalism' is incoherent, then demonstrating why naturalism is more justified. It's more likely to sink in than had these flaws not been pointed out.
This is after all the traditional debate structure: you have to both refute your opponents position and support your own case.
My criticism of this is that you're never going to be able to reform faith to begin with. Once you allow for people to believe whatever they want, with only the benefits of the belief being important, then you will most likely get abuses. After all, what people find beneficial will largely be subjective, so there will be no objective basis to resolve this.
Given the seemingly inherent 'abuses' my point is to just avoid it altogether and instead focus on a worldview which does have such abuses. (I know a rational/evidence-based worldview can be abused, however at least we have objective criteria to determine if it is being abused.)
Furthermore, my argument isn't just about abuses, but rather the entire notion of allowing people to believe whatever they want about the truth of their beliefs and claims, despite the fact they truth is important to them.
This isn't true. I never said that they either have truth as their number one goal or they abandon it completely, in fact I specifically said that they may have multiple goals (such as truth and pragmatism), in addition, I specifically said that it doesn't matter whether truth is their number one goal, what matters is that it is one of their goal.
What I am saying is for your argument to work--to not criticise their beliefs based on evidence of truth--requires that they not place any value on truth. If the theist places any value on truth then it is legitimate to criticise the belief on that basis. That is all I am saying.
You seem to think that only the primary goal matters, irrespective of any other goals which may influence what they do.
This was my point! We always value truth, even if it is not always our primary goal. I'm saying that given its consistent presence and importance in our life, we should always consider it in our conclusions.
Not true. Theists do commit such contradictions. All Christians believe a man rose from the dead. Now maybe I missed a meeting, but it seems to be an established fact that humans do not rise from the dead. Clearly for the theist truth is flexible. And it doesn't matter if the resurrection of Jesus is held in a more pragmatic way (i.e. it may be comforting), it is still an empirical truth claim. I would however contest the idea that the belief is held on pragmatic value, rather, it seems it is held because it is believed to be true. Other examples is miracles, which a lot of liberal and moderate theists accept as true.
Sure, but they still believe in supernaturalism, and they still believe that god can communicate with and interfere in the world.
Right, and this brings me to another point: when neither a proof or disprove is available or possible, we must go with what we know; what we've experienced before. Ignorance is not a justification. Whilst contradicting facts does happen within the liberal/moderate theistic camp, far more think that incredulity and ignorance is sufficient, which is still deserving of criticism.
I don't know how you work this one out. You've essentially just agued that faith-based belief is justified on:
Argument from ignorance.
Argument from incredulity.
Argument from personal experience.
Argument from history/tradition.
Argument from consequences.
None of this tips the balance in favour of belief, unless you think those arguments are justified. What this shows is that it is far better and more justifiable to refrain from belief.
Indeed, and it is for precisely this reason why criticism, based on the evidence for the truth of the belief, is valid. It's valid for the following reasons:
- they hold that truth is important (so evidence of its truth should always play a role.)
- they hold that their beliefs are in fact true (so it is perfectly valid to ask for the evidence of its truth.)
- they erroneously base belief in the truth of the claims on the pragmatic benefits. (From my post which you agree with: someone may place for more confidence in the truth of a belief than the evidence allows, on the basis that it is beneficial, in other words, the benefits hold more weight for them as opposed to the epistemological evidence.) It's perfectly fine if they want to place more importance on the benefits of the belief than the truth of the belief, but they cannot then base their belief in its true on those benefits, however this is exactly what I am saying theists tend to do.
Although you may not prefer such criticisms, they all tend to be justifiable. I think you only have a problem with the more recent frank approach to criticism of religion, lead by Dawkins, Hitchens and others. Although I can understand why people may not like that approach, it is valid, and it does actually seem to work (based on the popularity of their writings, and the number of people talking about the issue of religion, and the increasing number of non-theist and those abandoning religion).
If everyone places importance on truth (so some degree), do you not think that faith will divert attention from that? Even if truth may not be a particular focus in a certain situation, why is faith a reason to divert attention from truth altogether, because despite it not being a focus, it is still important to most people.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
I keep remembering a statement by the guy taking us for a "Religious Instruction" class in High School - I assume he was a 'minister' in the Methodist Church - telling me directly that if some belief had good effects that was a justification for believing it to be true, or words to that effect. I was so shocked to hear such disregard for actual truth that the moment was burned into my memory. I can still bring to mind a slightly blurry image of him standing in front of my desk as he said it.
FYI, the practice in State-run schools in Australia at that time, at least in my home state of Queensland, to allow an hour a week for students to attend a class conducted by a religious person for 'lessons' in their nominal faith. There were classes for each of the main 'faiths'. I don't recall exactly what provisions there were if kids or their parents did not want to participate.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Okay, the topic seems to have moved on a bit.
For now you seem to have accepted that Ideal Faith is a good thing, although still not accepted that it can work in the real world.
The issues we seem to debating now seem to be as follows:
1) The most constructive/beneficial/effective way to "attack" irrational beliefs
2) Whether real world faith can be reformed.
3) Whether faith is compatible with a value for truth
Remember what we're talking about here.
The "alternatives to faith" is a different issue to having a rational worldview.
I believe that there are alternatives to faith that will provide these benefits, but it's not simply having a rational worldview.
(Just the same as faith isn't simply about having beliefs without evidence - you have to find beliefs with particular effects)
So no, criticising someone's faith and making their worldview more rational will not bring these benefits.
On the other hand, if you brought them these alternatives (maybe it's a set of "inspiring beliefs" that happen to be rational too, or maybe some other psychological approach) then if these genuinely worked for them then they'd be no need to active/aggressivecriticism.
My position is that passive criticism is ideal, but aggressive criticism can be counter productive.
Okay. If someone is dismissive of alternatives because they are clinging closed mindedly to what they already have then you're absolutely right.
This is a very particular situation though.
It doesn't apply in general.
I think that passive criticism (i.e. just being firm in your own opinion and being ready to defend it if the conversation comes up) does this job fine.
The topic outlines 4 rules that will ensure that abuse is minimal.
Do you agree or disagree that these 4 rules will manage this to a reasonable degree?
If so, where do they fail?
I expect your reply won't criticise the rules themselves but will say "the rules mean nothing if no one actually follows them!"
And you're right.
So my argument is as follows:
Either way we're trying to change "faith abuse"
One method is to make the believers have a strictly rational worldview.
One method is to make the believers have a more rational approach to their faith. (4 rules)
I expect that whichever method is most appropriate and effective will subjectively depend on who we're trying to "convert".
Section 4 of the original post argues that the "reform" method has several advantages over those that attack faith altogether.
Arguments such as that "reform" based arguments will be more intuitive to believers,
Wouldn't the 4 rules serve as such an objective criteria?
Lol! I know that your argument comes from many directions and I don't expect your mind to change until I've answered all of them!
This seems to be your main argument at the moment.
It seems to be based on a very idealised way of dealing with truth that doesn't reflect how we treat it in the real world.
In life, we have a natural subconscious mechanism for whether belief something, whether we think it's true or false.
Sometimes we need to look into it deeper, make the extra effort to ensure that we're as accurate as we can, but we usually have particular reasons for that.
On the whole, our natural process is justification enough for holding a belief.
You seem to be saying that just voicing criticism isn't a bad thing.
It'll just make its way into their subconscious and provide it's own 2c to the rest of the evidence.
Now you mention it, it's not criticism in general that I'm disagreeing with, it's the more forceful/aggressive criticism I'm against.
Forceful and aggressive criticism that puts someone in a corner, puts them under pressure, insults them for not "getting it right already", is sometimes necessary but should be reserved for such occasions.
Going back to the topic of faith, I'm not saying it's wrong to put in criticism.
What I'm defending is the theist's right to say "I hold it on faith and see no need to look into it further"
I defend this because the decision on whether we make that "extra effort" to question beliefs that our subconscious has accepted is one to be made on practical reason, and the theist might see no reason to scrutinize this particular belief.
That said, if your criticism is well done, their subconscious might take it on board and their opinion might change naturally.
So I'm not defending the theist's right not to be questioned, just their right to abstain from intense debate on the issue.
If you remember, I only started criticising your attacks on theism/faith when you started calling Aikimac irrational.
I thought that it was unwarranted name calling!
There was still room for debate without the name calling and aggression, without the impatience for the opponent to reach your own conclusions.
I think there's room for intense debate when both participants are game, and I think that there's a necessity for aggressive criticism in particular situations, but I think for the most part people have a right to avoid it.
It's not an established fact that miracles cannot happen.
That nature generally follows the laws of physics is an established fact.
Whether these laws can ever be broken is not provable, so it's an "unsupported gap" rather than a contradiction.
There is a significant difference.
And that doesn't contradict any established facts.
I don't always agree with "You cannot prove a negative", but I think it applies in this case.
You still have a criticism of believing in "gaps" that we'll come to below, but I just want to emphasize that there is a significant difference between a gap and an outright contradiction.
You seem to have moved away from personal epistemic rights to what is necessary to establish something as scientific fact.
When it comes to personal beliefs, personal experience, trusting the word of others, trusting "tried and tested" traditions, being influenced by majority opinion, following your own intuition, they are all acceptable for basing beliefs on.
We recognise their fallibility which is why we have a notion of "established fact" that is more concrete.
Showing that it contradicts established fact is the quickest way to prove a personal belief false.
The "argument from ignorance" protects faith from such quick death blows.
You seem to be demanding that personal belief meet the standards of established fact, which just isn't beneficial.
A much more sensible approach is to accept personal belief as fallible compared to established fact.
You still believe it, you just accept that there's a fallibility to your belief.