The reasonable belief in God
Offline First let us distinguish the separate definitions of reason. There is a scientific reason (often called empirical knowledge), there is ethical reasoning (what makes you happy? What is the greatest good for the greatest number?), and there is logical and mathematical reasoning (absolute or tautological knowledge). The former two use the tools of the latter in order to function coherently and provide the best answers that we, as humans can come up with.
So, here is the question: why would it be reasonable for you to believe in a God? Obviously there is no empirical reason to do so, and this is what Atheists first point to when they discuss religion. God is not observed with our senses, he does not speak to you (or at least most of you), there is no evidence for him, and therefore no scientific reason to believe in him. Therefore there is no reason (either scientific, ethical, or logical) to believe that God took a direct hand in the things which science can explain. There is no reason (of any kind), with the evidence that we have now, to believe such ridiculous notions as "God made the world in six days," or that the earth is six thousand years old. There is no reason to believe in the absolute truth of the Bible.
Now, skipping the second form of reason for now, there is also no true tautological reason for the existence of God. Many philosophers have tried to prove God through "pure reason," and I will not go into a long discussion of their attempts or arguments here--because I simply don't buy them. There simply is no way that I know of to prove the existence of God.
However, when we discuss the ethical reason for believing in God, we are faced with a much different question. We are not asking whether there is empirical evidence for the existence of God. We are not asking whether or not it can be proved absolutely--but we are asking the bold question of whether or not it is best for our lives and our personal happiness. Now I am not talking about any of the bullshit spouted about that "believing in God will make you a better person" or that "taking Christ as your lord and savior will help you to lead a better life." This is utter nonsense. It is not religion which gives you a better life, but your ability to critically analyze what is right and wrong. Religion is not the proper guide to either science, math, or your personal ethics, and in fact it has been used frequently to misguide large groups of people into doing very horrific things. To put it bluntly, priests are the worst guarders of morality. At best they can enforce it, at worst they horribly corrupt it.
However, when you ask the question: "what happens after I die" the evidence in this world suddenly becomes worthless. We know that our bodies rot away into dust, but this does not bring us any comfort. In fact, it is this fact, and this fact alone, which can potentially make us fear death--fear it with such an inward pain that it can ruin our life. But wait! If our life is to be ruined by this fear of death, if we are to be afraid of what happens in the shade beyond--is that not reason to believe in a God? Is that not then reason to believe in an afterlife? There may be no evidence for a God, but there is evidence of death--is death not reason enough to put your belief in something, so that you might live this life without fear?
When you honestly ask yourself this question, I think you will find that it is the fundamental one. It was Voltaire who wrote that "if God did not exist then it would be necessary to invent him." The reason why we would want to invent him would be so that we can live this life to its fullest--to use reason to analyze the world around us and ardently find answers to our deepest questions, while still believing that when we die, we could continue to live on. To know that there was no reason to fear death, and to instead just enjoy life.
~Deist
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Now you are just grasping at straws. You realize that I am serious, and you realize that what I am saying is rational. You just can't understand how something can be both rational and non-empiricle. How someone can do something wich is reasonable without actively seeking truth, how someone can use reason to pursue other ends than truth.
You see, reason is a tool, not an end. If your end is happiness, the conditions of your personal human position in the universe will determine the most reasonable beliefs in order to obtain happiness. True, empiricle evidence can help you significantly on these decisions, but it cannot help on all the decisions. I think this is what people mean when they say ethics are subjective.
What I am saying is quite reasonable. And that scares you, because you don't want to admit that belief in God can be reasonable. You have strung "accepting because of reason" to "accepting because of empiricle or logical proof" unjustly, and you do not want to unbind the two terms.
Or maybe I am wrong. I am not a phychologist after all. I cannot interpret what is going on in your skull.
I'm no fancy empiricle phychologist, but it's not lost on me that you've gone from saying you have a reasonable, as in 'logically justified,' belief in a god, to saying only that you personally have a reason (overwhelming fear), as in 'motivation' to delude yourself. You're confusing two meanings of the same word to make the fatuous statement that you have a 'reasonable belief.' For that to be so in the way you've presented it, you'd have to demonstrate the claims implied, not go on about why you want it to be so. But because you're advocating belief for emotion's sake, you have no claim to the word 'reasonable.' No more than an orphan who prefers to believe his parents are Bill and Melinda Gates.
YOU ARE ADVOCATING DELUSION.
You've taken the desperate abandonment of reason found in people for whom options have run out, and decided to trickle it into daily life. This isn't a judgement of its impact on emotional states, just a fact. If you want to be deluded, I don't care -- it's not my business. But stop trying to get fancy about it, stop pretending it has some special applicability to a god, gods, or deism, for fuck's sake stop pretending it's reasonable.
A gramme's better than a damn.
To magilum:
you have yet to prove it is not reasonable, yet to demonstrate that it is not logical. You have yet to significantly attack any of my preconditions, and have instead decided to try and bring down my valid argument (hopefully you know the definition of "valid" in logic). If you want to prove it is unreasonable, you should focus your attack not on the logic, but rather the strength of the preconditions.
You have tried doing this, to an extent, by saying that "you are deluding yourself" in nice, big leters. But delusion with positive consequence and without negative consequence is good, I say. If it has positive (greater happiness) and does not have any negatives (does not affect what we learn in this life, what we do in this life, does not affect any other aspect of our life, etc.), and if your goal is happiness without consequence--then deluding yourself is VERY reasonable, i.e. logicial with strong precondistions.
If you want to prove otherwise, you have to attack the preconditions. You have to say that only believing in empiricle truth is more important than being happy by believing in what could be (when what could be does not convolute your conception of the empiricle world). IYou must realize that I am not arguing anyone to delude themselves of the real world, I am not arguing them to proclaim that the earth is six thousand years old, or that being gay is clearly immoral, or that it is alright to kill if you do it in the name of God. I am not arguing these things because these things could never follow from belief in a deist God. From a deist perspective, the only truth regarding the material world you can gain is the truth you gain from the material world. Deism does not affect how we live our life, it only affects how we fear death.
I hope this helps you either lay out your argument or come to terms with what you are arguing against. There is a reason many of the greatest philsoophers in history believed in God, and it was not just because their parents told them to. I really have done my best to try and explain to you exactly what I am saying.
However, in summary: delusion is good if it never has any consequences, but has positive results.
Somtimes Magilum people just have to leave other people to their comfortable delusions. It has been pointed out repeatedly to the Op that he is conflating words (in this case reasonable and rational), committing other fallacies, making random assumptions about other people, and generally arguing to a dead end.
If he wants to believe in god because the alternative scares him...fine. That puts him in the company of many other theists. If he wants to pretend this is rational and reasonable, well..we have already pointed out to him that it is not. He has dug in so I am leaving him to his irrationality. So be it.
What did the fear of death prevent you from doing?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
Ever considered the possibility that a godlike entity exists within the universe who didn't waste its time creating us or an afterlife for us? Most likely we're too small for it to even have noticed us as we, ultimately, will have such an infinitesimally small impact on the universe as to be practically no impact at all. As long as we're inventing Gods how much more likely do you think such a god would be?
nothing so far. But it could, potentiolly, prevent me from fighting against a totalitarian government, or seriously risking my life to protect my child, or doing something else that, if I didn't do, would leave me scarred (emotionally) for the rest of my life (to have my future child die when I could have prevented it).
There would be no reason to believe in such a God. It would not affect my life or my outlook on life, or my outlook on death. It would be like believing in an invisible purple unicorn that just likes to floats in the clouds, oblivious to anyone below it. Who cares?
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
please read the rest of the thread, I have pointed out the flaw in this argument at least three times already.
Summary: my goal is not truth, it is happiness.
It makes less sense to me, and heaven would be so much better with an all powerful dude/dudette throwing all the parties. Trust me, great times, great times.
This issue really isn't that important to me, and it would be perfectly understandable to believe either. I'm open to arguments either way, but w/e.
Oh, I also like the idea that people who are the skum of the earth might be judged and punished, but again, I don't know God's morality, so I don't really rely on this in any day-to-day decision making. Just a nice hope to have.
I guess as far as this argument goes, a believing in a "happy afterlife" could potentiolly be replaced with all the words "God," but they might as well be the same thing.
That is irrational. If you acknowlege you are not looking for the truth, you acknowlege that you will accept a lie/delusion. Not rational. Not rational. Not rational.
Sorry but if I repeat myself it might help you remember.
I have to restrain myself from dropping some ad hominem on you, you deserve it so fucking bad (I am aware of the irony in that statement)
alright, let me ask you a series of questions.
1) is it illogical. Does the conclusion not follow from the proconditions?
2) is it rational to desire happiness?
3) what is the definition of rational? Is the definition of rational "using logic to arrive at a reasonable conclusion using true preconditions?" If that is the case, then how is it irrational? If that is not the case, then what is the definition of irrational? Because if your argument is simply that we have different definitions, then it is not even worth arguing over.
If you can answer these three questions, and explain to me why my argument does not fit these three questions, then I will start listening to you. Otherwise, you are just repeating three words, over and over and over with no meaning.I'm going to address the last part first.
Over the internet and in text form, it is really hard to express how long and hard I laughed at you here. You have been told time and again where you went wrong and you still persist in trying to validate your delusions here. You said yourself, you started with an objective for what you wanted from your outcome. Bias has no place in logic.
I'm not going to put too much effort into addressing the rest because it will be nothing more than repeating all the stuff you have been unable to take in these last 4 pages. For this reason no matter what I say I hold no expectation you would start listening to me or anyone. Pascal's Wager has been debunked completly and you're logic ammounts to nothing more than a weak attempt at emotional blackmail.
Of course it is rational to desire happiness. Does that prove anything besides your own state of mind? No. It is not applicable to any kind of reasoning besides anything that concerns the function of your own brain, though I am afraid I must still call it into question. From here your whole argument still falls apart.
I've addressed your points ad nauseam. I've done everything to demonstrate your equivocation and appeal to consequences but draw little pictures. I am done with you.
Nope, it's the preconditions that are the problem. You have a controversial premise.
Hands up who here agrees believing in God subdues fear of death?
There you have it.
Truth Value
Aside: Personally I find pragmatic arguments too dull and mundane to make major inferences, like... say.. oh.. comsological origins, from. Pragmatism is great for identifying the location of an ingrown hair, not much good for the rest imo... but... to each their own, and you to yours.
Theist badge qualifier : Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist
www.mathematicianspictures.com
Well, I have done my best to lay out my argument as well as I can. You are all very reasonable people, you analyze everything to the greatest of your ability, and you will not stop on your attempt to find truth. I still think that there is something that I am not communicating effectively to you, that possibly I can't communicate effectively to you in text form. I see myself as a very reasonable person, and I consistently try to live up to that view. I think I understand your arguments perfectly, I just don't think that the context you are putting mine in applies. There seems to be something that I am seeing and you are not (and possibly vice versa as well), some gap between our perspectives, and it is not that one is more reasonable than the other -- but that our viewpoint of the world (because of our experiences) gives us different viewpoints of the world. If this is to be amended at all, if our viewpoints are ever to come together, then I believe that it can only happen by meditating on what has been said and let ourselves consider the point of view of the other.
I hope that by the end of this discussion, you can at least see some of where I am comming from. The discussion has broken down to such fundamental components as "what is the purpose of reason" etc. that it is difficult to trudge on from here, in the context of such a controversial topic.
So, with that, I bid you good day. This topic was very enjoyable, and most of you were very civil and intelligent, but I think it has gone as far as it can go for now.