Can a belief in God be justified on a rational basis?

[Thought Criminal]

Many theists will tell you that their belief in God is based on faith, or on something equally nonrational or irrational, such as a special feeling they have, or their unshakable trust in their parents, or an ineffable experience.

Fine, but none of this carries any weight for me because, as a secular humanist, I have a commitment to believe only what is rationally justified, what a logical analysis of the evidence compels me to believe. It's possible that I might miss out on some truths this way, but I do avoid many, many falsehoods. Of course, I do want to believe whatever's true, so I'm always open to evidence.

Anyhow, this leads me to the obvious question: Can a belief in God be justified on a rational basis? If so, how?

TC

[cnorman18]

I didn't vote, because my views are a bit more nuanced than any of the choices offered.

For starters, I don't don't think "rational" is synonymous with either "objective" or "provable." That seems to be assumed here, and I don't see that that's justified.

I think that belief in God is invariably both subjective and unprovable, but I don't think that makes it necessarily irrational. I would happily admit, though, that it quite often, even usually, is.

One cannot arrive at a belief in God in an objective sense through the examination of objective evidence. There is none.

One cannot, therefore, arrive at a place where the existence of God is provable to anyone else; proof requires objective evidence, which does not exist.

That said, though, one may consider subjective perceptions, perspectives, and experiences, and reason from there. Unless one assumes that such experiences. etc., either do not exist (which is of course false) or are invariably of a delusional nature (which requires assuming a great deal that one cannot objectively know), there is nothing "irrational" about taking them seriously as a factor in determining one's subjective beliefs.

"Irrational," to me, means either "contrary to reason" or "not involving reason at all," and I don't that necessarily describes such an approach. That such perceptions, etc., are not probative, or even objectively accessible, to anyone else is a given; but that does not mean that taking them into account, inside the head that holds or experiences them, is contrary to reason.

Though I don't take this route myself, I don't think it's even accurate to say that basing one's beliefs on a source, such as the Bible or the words of a religious teacher or leader, would necessarily be "irrational," so long as one applies critical thought to what one hears or learns from such a source as opposed to simply swallowing it whole.

I think there are a couple of hidden assumptions here that are rather more than questionable, and chief among them is the idea that rationality can only lead to one conclusion. I don't think that's true.

It seems sufficient to me to say "I don't agree," when one doesn't agree. I don't think it's necessary to add, "And your brain doesn't work." Unless you have been inside that person's head and seen his thoughts unfolding, I think it's more than a little arrogant to say that he has none. That he reaches a different conclusion from you is hardly proof of that.

Another not-so-hidden assumption is that theists must ipso facto be stupid. The statement that they are incapable of understanding certain ideas, found in one poster's comments here, is a bit of a leap. Again, the fact that one's conclusions differ from another's does not mean that one is intellectually superior to him. If you think so, then there's something wrong with YOUR reasoning.

I would refer everyone to the OP of my thread entitled "What do we know, and what can we judge?" on the General Chat forum. There are some comments there on the appropriateness of passing judgment on the thought processes of others, among other things.

I think it's more productive to discuss the behavioral effects of a given belief, which is certainly warranted, rather than either its objective truth (which is, usually, finally indeterminable) or the rationality of the thought processes that led to it (which requires, essentially, mindreading).

[Thought Criminal]

Thank you for refuting all of my arguments. If you would be so kind, Id like to ask a few more questions to clarify things.

Ask as many as you like. Frankly, I think the answers already offered by others are pretty good, but since you did address me directly, I'll briefly share my own answers.

1) In your first paragraph, you say that the Big Bang is the first moment, and that all of space was in a single location from which it expanded at the first moment. My question is: Why was there even space there to begin with, what caused it to be there?

For X to cause A, X must come before A. But if A is the first moment, then it's not even meaningful to ask what caused it; it couldn't have been caused.

But you already know this, since your idea is to make God the uncaused cause. This doesn't work though. Consider the two basic opions:
a) There is a first cause and it's the BB.
b) There is a first cause and it's God, and we also have the BB.

The second idea requires us to believe in more things, but it makes no further predictions and offers no further explanations. In other words, it costs more but buys us the same thing. There's strong evidence for the BB but absolutely none for God.

One of the basic principles of scientific epistemology is parsimony, which says we should believe no more than we absolutely must. Therefore, we'd stick with (a) and dump (b) because it's more than the evidence allows.

2) You start your second paragraph off by assuming that it's possible that space wasn't the beginning, but that there was something before it that could have caused it to come into existence. It looks like your contradicting your first paragraph. In any case, you say that whatever this power might be, it need not have the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, etc. Maybe you're right, maybe you're wrong. I'm afraid humans honestly have no way of knowing what sort of power or intelligence is required to create the universe. You closing remarks are correct however. I was arguing for the logical possiblity of God. That's all that there is: possibilities. I said this was a mystery, and that there are multiple possibilities. You obviously have chosen the possibility of there being no God, while I have chosen otherwise. What exactly was your argument for why my possibility is irrational while yours is rational?

Above, and in my previous message's second paragraph, I entertained the unsuported idea of the BB somehow (don't ask how) being caused, purely to show you that this doesn't help your case. If I had endorsed an uncaused universe and then endorsed a caused one, as opposed to merely entertaining the notion to prove a point, then there would have been a self-contradiction. Be very careful not to make false accusations.

A strong atheist would deny even the logical possibility of a God, but that's not required for atheism in general. For example, while I'm actually a strong atheist with regard to all forms of God defined in a way that is meaningless, incoherent or generally logically impossible, I'm a weak atheist with regard to all other gods.

In other words, I can shrug off the mere possibility and remind you that, while many things are possible, few are actual. So if you want to say that some sort of God is at least logically possible, I'll generously grant you that. But if you want to claim any God exists, you'll have to show compelling evidence, not just wave our hand around and insist that you just want to believe.

What would be irrational is believing that God exists when there is no reason to, as rationality does not allow arbitrary belief. Even if two things are possible, we can only believe what the evidence shows to be most likely, and that means applying parsimony.

3) In your last paragraph, you state that I'm being dishonest by attempting to use a God of Gaps argument. Believe me, I have no intention of being dishonest, I'm trying to be as honest as I can in my arguments. If this really is a complete mystery, than all anyone can do is fill in the gap with something. You're entitled to fill in the gap with your hypothesis of a natural cause where the universe always existed. I find your hypothesis to have to many unanswered questions. But at the same time mine also has unanswered questions. As of now it just seems to be personal preference as to which hypothesis one wants to explore. But I think you're the one who is ultimately dishonest and deceptive when you try to discourage people from trying to find God.

Yes, desperately dishonest because if there is actually a gap, that means we can't fill it with anything right now. Saying God did it doesn't tell us anything more, so it's unparsimonious. It's effectively a misleading placeholder until the day we find a real explanation.

It is far more honest to admit to current ignorance so that perhaps we can one day overcome it. Of course, it doesn't help that, historically, these gaps wind up actually filled by science, and God is kicked out, only to be brought out again to pretend to fill another gap.

It is never merely a matter of personal preference. If we don't know, we can only say we don't know, not that God did it. Your deep error is in wanting to jump from "Well, we haven't completely ruled out every possible form of God" to "Therefore, I'm going to believe in God despite it not being ruled in by any sort of evidence." This is, to be frank, intellectualy dishonest and reprehensible, and I will continue to discourage such errors.

Feel free to try to find God, but don't ever pretend you already have.

TC

[Thought Criminal]

I didn't vote, because my views are a bit more nuanced than any of the choices offered.

I actually tried to add a fourth option, for none of the above, but it got swallowed somehow. I think there's a bug in the polling UI.

For starters, I don't don't think "rational" is synonymous with either "objective" or "provable." That seems to be assumed here, and I don't see that that's justified.

I think that belief in God is invariably both subjective and unprovable, but I don't think that makes it necessarily irrational. I would happily admit, though, that it quite often, even usually, is.

One cannot arrive at a belief in God in an objective sense through the examination of objective evidence. There is none.

One cannot, therefore, arrive at a place where the existence of God is provable to anyone else; proof requires objective evidence, which does not exist.

That said, though, one may consider subjective perceptions, perspectives, and experiences, and reason from there. Unless one assumes that such experiences. etc., either do not exist (which is of course false) or are invariably of a delusional nature (which requires assuming a great deal that one cannot objectively know), there is nothing "irrational" about taking them seriously as a factor in determining one's subjective beliefs.

Rationality requires us to be consistent. We can't apply one standard of belief for ourselves, and a higher one for everyone else. If someone claims pigs fly, citing only "subjective perceptions, perspectives and experiences", we would rightly reject their claim as unsupported. The purely subjective cannot be evidence, so no rational belief can be justified by it.

The key here is that, if you'd laugh at their claim if you were you, you should still laugh at it even if you were them. In other words, if you came to consider whether flying pigs existed and recognized that there was no evidence to say they did, you have no choice but to reject the idea.

"Irrational," to me, means either "contrary to reason" or "not involving reason at all," and I don't that necessarily describes such an approach. That such perceptions, etc., are not probative, or even objectively accessible, to anyone else is a given; but that does not mean that taking them into account, inside the head that holds or experiences them, is contrary to reason.

That's precisely what it does mean: purely subjective experiences are not evidence, so you can't pretend to take them into account as if they were. If I have a strong feeling that you're going to kill me, but no evidence, should I kill you now in self-defense or woud that be irrational? Let's ask the judge...

Irrational means contrary to reason. Nonrational means having nothing to do with reason because reason doesn't apply. If I say I think flowers are pretty, this isn't any sort of rational judgement, just a matter of taste. There's no argument I can put forth for their prettiness and no counterargument possible. It's nonrational. Belief in God, however, is irrational.

Though I don't take this route myself, I don't think it's even accurate to say that basing one's beliefs on a source, such as the Bible or the words of a religious teacher or leader, would necessarily be "irrational," so long as one applies critical thought to what one hears or learns from such a source as opposed to simply swallowing it whole.

It's entirely irrational because true authority comes only from evidence. The reason I trust my chemistry book is that it was created as the result of the process of science, which is to say, based entirely on the evidence. If I really doubt that water can be separated into two gases with a bit of electricity, I can perform the experiment myself. I can call the authors' bluff. Try that with the Bible or some self-appointed interpreter of it.

Critical thought would tell us to stick to the evidence, not fall prey to authoritarianism.

I think there are a couple of hidden assumptions here that are rather more than questionable, and chief among them is the idea that rationality can only lead to one conclusion. I don't think that's true.

That's not being claimed. It may be that the evidence can only narrow down the answers to a particular set without showing which one is right, and it can certainly be the case that the evidence effectively rules out a large number of possibilities.

It seems sufficient to me to say "I don't agree," when one doesn't agree. I don't think it's necessary to add, "And your brain doesn't work." Unless you have been inside that person's head and seen his thoughts unfolding, I think it's more than a little arrogant to say that he has none. That he reaches a different conclusion from you is hardly proof of that.

It's not simply that I disagree, it's that I do so on a rational basis. In other words, I'm saying that you're wrong, not merely that we have different ideas. For example, I don't just disagree with flat-Earthism, it's something that can easily be shown false.

Another not-so-hidden assumption is that theists must ipso facto be stupid. The statement that they are incapable of understanding certain ideas, found in one poster's comments here, is a bit of a leap. Again, the fact that one's conclusions differ from another's does not mean that one is intellectually superior to him. If you think so, then there's something wrong with YOUR reasoning.

Not stupid, mistaken. Sometimes they're mistaken because they're stupid, but more likely it's some combination of ignorance (which, unlike stupidity, can be fixed) and the influence of emotional needs.

The fact that my conclusions differ isn't what makes me superior. Rather, I hold these conclusions precisely because superior evidence and arguments force me to, and this applies to everyone equally.

I would refer everyone to the OP of my thread entitled "What do we know, and what can we judge?" on the General Chat forum. There are some comments there on the appropriateness of passing judgment on the thought processes of others, among other things.

Rationality requires making judgements, though that's not at all the same thing as being judgemental or closed-minded.

I think it's more productive to discuss the behavioral effects of a given belief, which is certainly warranted, rather than either its objective truth (which is, usually, finally indeterminable) or the rationality of the thought processes that led to it (which requires, essentially, mindreading).

The truth matters and we can determine it. And we don't need to read minds to see if there's a rational basis; we can just ask. That's a bit part of what makes it rational.

Frankly, I don't really care if someone's false belief makes them blindingly happy; they're still false. There's some guy locked up in an institution who takes great pleasure in the delusion that he is Napoleon, but that doesn't make his belief any less absurd, or him any less crazy and pathetic. Now excuse me, Josephine is waiting for me...

TC

[Beastt]

Ill give you an argument for the general idea of God as a higher power. I'm not going into any specific religion's Gods, as it becomes more of a personal inkling at that point.

Your question was, can a belief in God be justified by a rational basis. The one thing that always keeps my belief rational to me is that humans are kind of in the dark about what happened before the Big Bang. There might be two general stances one could take. You could either believe that the energy or matter of the universe simply always existed, or you could believe that a higher power aka "God" created the universe and the energy and matter that goes along with it.

Or one could conclude that our universe resulted from a cosmic sneeze from a pink, feathered, sentient pickle in an older universe on another plane. But is it ration to just make things up when the correct answer is; "we don't know"?

I'm not an astrophysicist, but I've heard people argue that there was no "before" the Big Bang. They simply say that the Big Bang was the beginning, and that God should be out of the picture. I find there arguments to be weak because Ive yet to hear a reason from them on why the Big Bang had to be the absolute beginning, and it still leaves us asking the question "Why was there a Big Bang in the first place?

I'm just starting to work through the thread but I'm fairly certain that this has probably already been addressed at this point. Space and time are inextricably linked in our universe. So to assert anything "before" the Big Bang runs into a difficult hurdle. If space didn't exist, then neither did time. However, I'm not so certain that this precludes the possibility of events, occurring sequentially, leading to the Big Bang, but without time as the physical property to which we're usually making reference.

What caused this universe to be filled with something rather than just being nothing?"

You live on a Newtonian scale within the universe. On our scale, we tend to see things as coming from other things, though this is very much a deception we feed ourselves in our attempts to conceptualize reality. Asking what caused the universe to be filled with something assumes that there was a cause, rather than a state which simply exists. And when you look at the contrary possibility, you run into the same problem; (i.e. What caused the universe to be nothing rather than something?). You're looking for reasons where there may not be reasons -- only reality. The universe either had to contain something or it had to contain nothing (not that humans really understand the nature of nothing). I see no reason to suggest either one as being more likely or more in need of an explanation than the other.

I think that it's a complete mystery to us. And if it's a complete mystery, than I believe one is rationally justified in believing a higher power "God" started everything, just as much as one in justified in believing that this natural physical world somehow always existed on its own.

I'm not sure you recognize this but your assertion seems to be; "We don't know, therefore, belief in God is rational."

Ignorance concerning any portion of reality doesn't make fabricated tales a rational concept to hold as reflective of reality -- especially when they don't fit what reality demonstrates. Reality is demonstrably cold and indifferent to the plights of humans. This is likely the cause of the surge in interest of Pantheism as people struggle to hold onto their God concepts, while recognizing that the Christian God simply doesn't fit the model.

Finally, if one is rationally justified in believing in a higher power just as much as one is justifed in not believing in one, than the person who does believe is also rationally justified in trying to seek out this higher power and learn more about them. That is where specific religions come in; it is people trying to come closer to this higher power.

You're attempting to draw an equivalency which simply doesn't exist. While it's true that there are things we don't know, that doesn't make inventing a super-human to explain them a rational solution. So it's not as rationally justified to believe in a "higher power" as to disbelieve in one. There is still no credible evidence to support the idea of a higher power and much evidence which refutes such a belief.

You can't learn anything about a supposed "higher power" until you can first demonstrate the evidence which shows them to exist. And no one can ever learn anything by ignoring evidence which demonstrates that there is no cause to believe that such a power exists. Until people are ready to accept truth on its terms, they will never find truth.

[LittlePig]

I don't think we need religion, either.

Do you need a car, or is it just useful?

When you invent the clean machine of the sparkly future, you'll have a lot of customers. Until then... back to real economics.

I can't drive my religion to work, load it up with groceries, or use it to cross the country, so how exactly is this a meaningful analogy?

The analogy is meant to express that one 'needs' what one feels one needs. You don't unequivocally need a car. That is, you can live without it. Some people actually do live without a car, sometimes even out of principle. But it is rather handy in helping you to get what you want, even if it also contributes to environmental woes for us all.

Many people feel that religion gives them something, at least on an emotional level if nothing else. Is that without value? Do we not have strong emotional needs as human beings? I'm sure we can get by without filling a number of emotional and other needs in this life, but if the cost fits our budgets, I don't see why we should.

I say we don't need it because people seem to get by just fine without it. Better, even, that they do with it. Who actually needs a lie?

Are you sure about that? Maybe you get by better without it. I know people who don't seem to. I don't think I'm qualified to be the judge of what other people really need and don't need, and I'd prefer that other people didn't make those judgments about me.

[LittlePig]

They probably shouldn't. You might find this article interesting. There might be time before the Big Bang.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... _bang.html

But I do think that god/s and time-less scenarios don't mix well.

I just want to comment that Steinhardt and Turok have been pushing this cyclical model for years now, but have gained no traction. As for LQG, it's an interesting idea, independently of this attempted application, but it does little to support cyclical theories on the whole. One thing it does get right, I suspect, is that the BB didn't involve anything infinite. Then again, this is common to all the theories that have had any success at all integrating QM with GR.

Rather than getting entirely side-tracked into a discussion on cosmology, I'll simply agree that a cyclical model is no more useful for theists than a one-shot universe.

TC

Yeah, I wasn't meaning to imply that adding time before the Big Bang would help out theists in any way. I only meant to show that there's still a lot we don't know, and probably always will be a lot we don't know, so we should be careful about speaking in absolutes.

[Thought Criminal]

The analogy is meant to express that one 'needs' what one feels one needs. You don't unequivocally need a car. That is, you can live without it. Some people actually do live without a car, sometimes even out of principle. But it is rather handy in helping you to get what you want, even if it also contributes to environmental woes for us all.

It's not a great analogy, because cars exist and actually do things, while gods do not. Religion is just a false belief that brings comfort to some, fear to others, and power to the ones who control it.

Many people feel that religion gives them something, at least on an emotional level if nothing else. Is that without value? Do we not have strong emotional needs as human beings? I'm sure we can get by without filling a number of emotional and other needs in this life, but if the cost fits our budgets, I don't see why we should.

Are you sure about that? Maybe you get by better without it. I know people who don't seem to. I don't think I'm qualified to be the judge of what other people really need and don't need, and I'd prefer that other people didn't make those judgments about me.

Yes, yes, and the addict insists that life would be empty without that crack pipe. I'm talking about truth value.

TC

[LittlePig]

The analogy is meant to express that one 'needs' what one feels one needs. You don't unequivocally need a car. That is, you can live without it. Some people actually do live without a car, sometimes even out of principle. But it is rather handy in helping you to get what you want, even if it also contributes to environmental woes for us all.

It's not a great analogy, because cars exist and actually do things, while gods do not. Religion is just a false belief that brings comfort to some, fear to others, and power to the ones who control it.

Well, it's not an analogy for god/s, it's an analogy for religious belief.

Many people feel that religion gives them something, at least on an emotional level if nothing else. Is that without value? Do we not have strong emotional needs as human beings? I'm sure we can get by without filling a number of emotional and other needs in this life, but if the cost fits our budgets, I don't see why we should.

Are you sure about that? Maybe you get by better without it. I know people who don't seem to. I don't think I'm qualified to be the judge of what other people really need and don't need, and I'd prefer that other people didn't make those judgments about me.

Yes, yes, and the addict insists that life would be empty without that crack pipe. I'm talking about truth value.

TC

I think a car is a better analogy than a crack pipe.

Truth value? I find a great deal of aesthetic value in truth of this sort, but not a lot of practical value. I think it rather naive to believe that the world would be radically better without religion. Man is the source of most of his own woes, whether those be conjured up by religion or something else.

[cnorman18]

I didn't vote, because my views are a bit more nuanced than any of the choices offered.

I actually tried to add a fourth option, for none of the above, but it got swallowed somehow. I think there's a bug in the polling UI.

I think you're right; same thing happened to me.

For starters, I don't don't think "rational" is synonymous with either "objective" or "provable." That seems to be assumed here, and I don't see that that's justified.

I think that belief in God is invariably both subjective and unprovable, but I don't think that makes it necessarily irrational. I would happily admit, though, that it quite often, even usually, is.

One cannot arrive at a belief in God in an objective sense through the examination of objective evidence. There is none.

One cannot, therefore, arrive at a place where the existence of God is provable to anyone else; proof requires objective evidence, which does not exist.

That said, though, one may consider subjective perceptions, perspectives, and experiences, and reason from there. Unless one assumes that such experiences. etc., either do not exist (which is of course false) or are invariably of a delusional nature (which requires assuming a great deal that one cannot objectively know), there is nothing "irrational" about taking them seriously as a factor in determining one's subjective beliefs.

Rationality requires us to be consistent. We can't apply one standard of belief for ourselves, and a higher one for everyone else.

I quite agree.

If someone claims pigs fly, citing only "subjective perceptions, perspectives and experiences", we would rightly reject their claim as unsupported.

Well, that's a poor example; that can be verified. Throw a pig up into the air and see if he stays there. I'm thinking of slightly more subtle perceptions. .

The purely subjective cannot be evidence, so no rational belief can be justified by it.

I would say, rather, that the purely subjective cannot be evidence that is probative to anyone else. I call my own beliefs "subjective" and I do not attempt to convince others of their truth. I do not, in fact, claim to know that God objectively exists; I have been called an "agnostic theist," and I think that is probably accurate. I do NOT think that my beliefs are irrational because they are unprovable and subjective; they are what they are, my own subjective thoughts, and I make no more claim for them than that.

The key here is that, if you'd laugh at their claim if you were you, you should still laugh at it even if you were them. In other words, if you came to consider whether flying pigs existed and recognized that there was no evidence to say they did, you have no choice but to reject the idea.

Flying pigs again.

The fact is, I DON'T laugh at those who say they believe because of something as nebulous as a "feeling," though my own perceptions and experiences are rather more definite than that.

I would be more likely to consider the specific content of another's belief as irrational, as in the denial of evolution or a belief in miracles; but I think that a bare belief in God does not connote irrationality in and of itself.

I rather suspect that we define "irrational" differently. I don't define belief in the unproven as irrational, but only belief in that which has been proven false.

"Irrational," to me, means either "contrary to reason" or "not involving reason at all," and I don't that necessarily describes such an approach. That such perceptions, etc., are not probative, or even objectively accessible, to anyone else is a given; but that does not mean that taking them into account, inside the head that holds or experiences them, is contrary to reason.

That's precisely what it does mean: purely subjective experiences are not evidence, so you can't pretend to take them into account as if they were.

Purely subjective experiences certainly ARE evidence to the one who has them, though not, certainly, to anyone else.

Must one pretend that they are not there? That seems more intellectually dishonest than taking them into account, which one does not "pretend" to do; one does it.

If I have a strong feeling that you're going to kill me, but no evidence, should I kill you now in self-defense or woud that be irrational? Let's ask the judge...

That is not a subjective belief. That assumes that one knows the thoughts and intent of another with enough certainty to act on that knowledge.

In point of fact, that kind of subjective feeling ought not be ignored; in real life, it can increase one's awareness and vigilance in a dangerous situation. Take a self-defense class and they'll tell you about it. There is such a thing as "intuition," and sometimes it's quite accurate.

Whether such feelings rise to the level of evidence that ought to considered, when speaking of such things as religious belief, would be a decision rightly left up to the individual--especially if he makes no attempt to convince others.

Irrational means contrary to reason. Nonrational means having nothing to do with reason because reason doesn't apply. If I say I think flowers are pretty, this isn't any sort of rational judgement, just a matter of taste. There's no argument I can put forth for their prettiness and no counterargument possible. It's nonrational. Belief in God, however, is irrational.

But you see, I tend to put my belief in God in the same category as the flower. I have even described it as a matter of taste, as opposed to an objective belief. I have also called it "nonrational," as opposed to "irrational."

I have run into this before. I do not think like a Christian. Few Jews do.

Though I don't take this route myself, I don't think it's even accurate to say that basing one's beliefs on a source, such as the Bible or the words of a religious teacher or leader, would necessarily be "irrational," so long as one applies critical thought to what one hears or learns from such a source as opposed to simply swallowing it whole.

It's entirely irrational because true authority comes only from evidence.

And if one accepts the testimony of a person whom one knows and personally trusts as evidence? If one thinks of a given book as trustworthy on account of its being thought so by many generations of others? As I said, I don't take that route myself, but I think it's a bit much to dismiss such an approach as flatly "irrational." One may certainly disagree with it and think it authority-based and unwise, but to condemn it as being contrary to reason itself seems a bit over the top.

The reason I trust my chemistry book is that it was created as the result of the process of science, which is to say, based entirely on the evidence. If I really doubt that water can be separated into two gases with a bit of electricity, I can perform the experiment myself. I can call the authors' bluff. Try that with the Bible or some self-appointed interpreter of it.

I do not claim that the Bible is intended to teach either scientific or historical facts, and I do not regard the existence of God as either.

Critical thought would tell us to stick to the evidence, not fall prey to authoritarianism.

Do you really question the truth of everything you read and everything you are told? Do you really NEVER accept something that you did not previously know on authority alone?

No doubt if it's not something you think unlikely, you do. And that may be our biggest difference; you think that God is unlikely. I don't.

As it happens, I don't accept authority without questioning it anyway. If I did, I'd still be a Christian. That's rather characteristic of Jews. We are more likely to argue than complacently accept anything.

I think there are a couple of hidden assumptions here that are rather more than questionable, and chief among them is the idea that rationality can only lead to one conclusion. I don't think that's true.

That's not being claimed. It may be that the evidence can only narrow down the answers to a particular set without showing which one is right, and it can certainly be the case that the evidence effectively rules out a large number of possibilities.

Well, of course that's true; but in a situation where no evidence is available--or, in my opinion, possible--as with God's existence, why is it irrational to come down on one side but not the other? I would agree that nonbelief is the "default" position, but if one has a subjective sense that tends toward belief, why is it irrational to regard that as a "tiebreaker"?

It seems sufficient to me to say "I don't agree," when one doesn't agree. I don't think it's necessary to add, "And your brain doesn't work." Unless you have been inside that person's head and seen his thoughts unfolding, I think it's more than a little arrogant to say that he has none. That he reaches a different conclusion from you is hardly proof of that.

It's not simply that I disagree, it's that I do so on a rational basis. In other words, I'm saying that you're wrong, not merely that we have different ideas.

But I say I disagree with you on a rational basis, too, and further, I do NOT say that you are wrong, because I don't know that you are.

For example, I don't just disagree with flat-Earthism, it's something that can easily be shown false.

Can you as easily show that a belief in God is false? I have never yet seen an argument that can go beyond "no evidence" or "unproven." That is another matter than a flat Earth, rationally speaking, is it not?

Another not-so-hidden assumption is that theists must ipso facto be stupid. The statement that they are incapable of understanding certain ideas, found in one poster's comments here, is a bit of a leap. Again, the fact that one's conclusions differ from another's does not mean that one is intellectually superior to him. If you think so, then there's something wrong with YOUR reasoning.

Not stupid, mistaken. Sometimes they're mistaken because they're stupid, but more likely it's some combination of ignorance (which, unlike stupidity, can be fixed) and the influence of emotional needs.

Again, I regard that as an example of mindreading. More often than not, you are no doubt right; but EVERY time?

The fact that my conclusions differ isn't what makes me superior. Rather, I hold these conclusions precisely because superior evidence and arguments force me to, and this applies to everyone equally.

What you just said means that everyone must agree with you, or else they are irrational. That's pretty much what I said.

I would refer everyone to the OP of my thread entitled "What do we know, and what can we judge?" on the General Chat forum. There are some comments there on the appropriateness of passing judgment on the thought processes of others, among other things.

Rationality requires making judgements, though that's not at all the same thing as being judgemental or closed-minded.

Well, read the post. That isn't what I'm talking about.

I think it's more productive to discuss the behavioral effects of a given belief, which is certainly warranted, rather than either its objective truth (which is, usually, finally indeterminable) or the rationality of the thought processes that led to it (which requires, essentially, mindreading).

The truth matters and we can determine it.

Oh? You can definitively prove that there is no God? That would be new.

And we don't need to read minds to see if there's a rational basis; we can just ask. That's a bit part of what makes it rational.

Frankly, I don't really care if someone's false belief makes them blindingly happy; they're still false.

I submit that you have not, and cannot, prove that in this instance.

There's some guy locked up in an institution who takes great pleasure in the delusion that he is Napoleon, but that doesn't make his belief any less absurd, or him any less crazy and pathetic.

That's no better than flying pigs or a flat Earth. You keep giving examples that can easily be proven or disproven. God is not in that category. If He is, then demonstrate it.

Now excuse me, Josephine is waiting for me...

TC

Josephine was a skank. Better you should be JFK. Jacqueline--now SHE was a babe.

[InTheFlesh]

Well, that's not what I said or meant. (see bolded text)

That's why I asked. Wanted to be sure.

I think the value of believing or not believing in God/s is very debatable. Humans engage in self-deception in pretty much every area of their lives, usually out of self-interest. Fairy tales obviously are good for something. From an economics POV, consumed goods are always consumed at a price and thus possess value.

I have to say that the idea of believing something that's false, or without caring whether it's false, is repulsive to me. For that matter, I would be repulsed by any person who said, "I believe in God, but I really have no idea if it's true and don't care."

TC

I have to say
that accusing something of being false
without having any proof
is repulsive to me.