Rational Belief
Offline Hi all.
I know that we go back and forth on whether it's possible that religious beliefs can be held in a rational manner. I'd like to propose the following, and see what the reaction is.
CRITERIA FOR RATIONAL BELIEF
1) Intuition/Emotion
If one has feelings or subconscious leanings in favor of belief, they may use these as their basis for a rational belief, IFF they admit the immensely subjective nature of these sentiments, and thus, the personal nature of any belief held solely on these feelings as evidence--that is, they admit that the belief is convincing to them for reasons which do not necessarily apply to any other person. Just as they are entitled to their emotions themselves, they are entitled to the conclusions they draw from the patterns or general drift of their emotions; however, they are not entitled to impose their emotions on others, so the same is the case with belief held in this manner.
Punchline: If you feel in favor of a religion, that truly is reason to say it's right for you--but not right for anyone else.
2) Theory
If one has theoretical reasoning which supports the tenants of any belief, their belief can be said to be as rational as their theory is. That means that anyone putting forth a claim to the plausibility of other life forms existing in the universe is only as justified in believing in extraterrestrial encounters as their theoretical argument's strength justifies them to be. People believing in this manner do have the possibility to convince others that the belief is justified, though etiquette dictates whether and how they should philosophize to others--but the fact that this belief deserves the title of a philosophy should be recognized.
3) Experience
If a person's experience indicates the validity of either the principles or asserted facts of a belief set, they have reason for belief which is as strong as their evidence is conclusive.
Sound fair/right? Clarification necessary?
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Intuition/Emotion gives no rational basis for belief. Period. It can only support hopes and wishes.
Theory, to the extent that is supported by reference to observations of things beyond our own mind is a valid basis for belief.
Experience, which is empirical data, of course, is the most solid basis for belief.
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
Mental masturbation no matter how ornate the language used is, is still ornate crap.
There is no substitute for empirical evidence based on observation, replication and falsification with independent verification.
That said, religion cannot stand testing, it is nothing but placebo socializing. It is artificial labeling to falsely conflate one label over another. Instead, what humans, if they are pragmatic should do, is admit that they like socializing without the superstitions or labels.
Humans have always made up god/s and social clubs. That doesn't mean that individual or club or god are credible by proxy of number. There are no superior humans. We can have sex outside or label and make babies with those outside our label, and we will all die like very human in the past and present and future.
There is no glamor to myth or superstition, much less any rational credible reason to hold such positions other than the mundane mistake humans make in mistaking a placebo for fact.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
I'd like to break in now and say three things:
1) Wanting something to be true isn't what I meant; I was referring to the case of having a gut affirmation of something. The idea that something could resonate with me as true but without any evidential or conscious merit seems within my experience; as far as "rational" or not goes, emotions are by definition not rational, but an argument which goes "it feels true to me, therefore I believe it so long as no evidence of a stronger nature exists in either direction" sounds fair. The difficulty with holding such a belief within rationality is the likelihood of evidence disproving such a tentative claim.
2) Much of science is philosophy--remember the induction fallacy? Data is the strongest proof of anything, but it's theoretical conjecture which must be combined with data in order to result in principles/laws of science, even theorems, theories, and hypotheses. It's not as useful to know "x happens" without knowing "x happens because..."; we should settle for the first only when we must due to insufficient support for the second.
But it is not rational to believe it, because there was no rational evidence behind it at all; it's arbitrary, and based on personal preference. Suggesting that it would be rational to believe something arbitrary without evidence is, well, irrational.
I don't know what's in that box, therefore it's rational to believe that there are three very small clowns in there? No, it isn't.
It's rational only to believe that you don't know what IS in the box, and to believe that an impossible thing IS NOT in the box (because that's the only thing you know isn't in the box, from deduction).
It's also rational to believe that it isn't likely that an improbable thing is in the box, provided any evidence for what is probable.
No, the first difficulty is that it isn't a rational belief at all.
You may have mistaken what was said.
The scientific method is designed to eliminate human bias- that is, 'irrationality'- from measurements of reality. This is why empirical evidence derived from proper scientific method is the only valid empirical evidence for forming a rational belief.
Scientific evidence comes with probability, and as the root for the degree of certainty an empirical belief has, that is the only extent to which it is rational unless deductive logic brings other forces to bear.
Consistency with these facts and deductive logic is what makes theories more or less probable- but it is not the theory itself that gives the observation weight.
Instead of calling it "philosophy" it is a standard, just like building codes and speed limits. It is not the old philosophy like the ancients used, and quite badly. There is very little in philosophy history that coincides with modern scientific method.
It is only a "philosophy" in the sense that so far, scientific method is the best tool we have to date to measure the world around us. But that is more a matter of pragmatism than "philosophy".
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Intuition can be informed intuition, and emotion can be a indicator, but in and of themselves I don't think they constitute grounds for rational beliefs, even if one admits whatever belief is based on such things.
Theories are varied from wild, crazy conjectures to fact-based testable theories. So, if it is the former, than any belief based on such a theory would be wild and crazy, and the latte would be testable...I'd consider the spectrum leaning towards the latter to be "rational"
Experience is a good thing for basing one's beliefs on, but experience can be deceptive too as not everything that we "experience" is actually real. One could claim to have some sort of encounter with spirits or visions of demons or something crazier than this. For this reason, I think it is necessary to distinguish between common, everyday experience and more subjective experience. Common experiences that I have that are similar to those many others have are a better basis for rational belief than personal esoteric experiences.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
"Gut reactions" as to what seems to true to the person may seem rational to the naive and uninformed, but they have a totally dismal record.
It was gut reactions that had philosophers believing that heavy objects always fall faster than light objects, that everything else in the Universe goes around the Earth, even that flies had 4 legs, and so on, when many of those intuitive assumptions could have been disproved easily, even at the time, by often simple observation and experiment.
So, no, "gut reactions" are not a rational source of beliefs, once you read a little history.
No, much of science originated in Philosophy, but has way outgrown it and many of its mistaken ideas and 'principles'.
It is Science which requires that empirical data be the basis for developing theories to provide a useful degree of explanation for what is observed.
Induction as practiced in Science is not a fallacy, the classic "fallacy of induction" is a category error on the part of the philosophers arguing that position. As long as induction incorporates a rigorous treatment of probabilities and estimates of justifiable levels of confidence in any conclusions, which should always be tentative to some degree, there is no "problem of induction", because it is not trying to "prove" anything, in the classic sense.
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
There is a rational defense for intuition as a method for making predictions (and hence supporting some tentative beliefs), in my article about pragmatism and prediction.
However, there's a huge caveat attached to that. Basically, intuition is fallible, limited, and often wrong. It is only good for making 'pretty good' guesses. It's not sufficient for what most people would consider 'rational' grounds for a persistent belief. Still, intuition is a powerful and useful tool if you keep these limitations firmly in mind.
Intuition is like sand. Don't build your castles on foundations of sand, unless you're only building a sand-castle, in which case don't be surprised when a splash of water wipes the whole thing away.
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