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

[otseng]

We?
Are you French?
You had determined that they were failures
before they were even posted.
You are not looking for someone to show you
that believing in God is rational.
Don't give me that I want to find the truth BS,
cause your mind is already made up.
According to you,
you have the truth.
So if you're convinced,
why start a thread to debate it?
Isn't that like beating a DEAD HORSE?

Moderator note:

Do not make any comments about another poster. My finger is so close to locking this thread...

[Jester]

Many kilobytes have been slain trying to determine a suitable set of axioms. If you believe that the proposition of the existence of God is axiomatic, then say so. Otherwise, please provide a list of premises and axioms which would lead a rational person to be justified in believing in God. If you agree with me that such a list cannot be found, then you should be arguing on the no side of this question.

Actually, I do agree with you.
I am not, at this time, arguing for a specific set of axioms. Rather I was arguing that there is no logical process by which we can establish an axiom as true, and that we accept such ideas on a non-rational basis.

It has been argued against my position that axioms are self-evident and perfectly clear to all. Therefore the suggestion that they are accepted for non-rational reasons is apparently disproved. I'm currently requesting the rational way that we determine the truth of some axioms over others in reaction to this statement - rather than trying to prove that God's existence as an axiom.
Hope that clairfies my postion a bit.

[Jester]

I explained to Jester that axioms, rather than being unevidenced, are self-evident, hence requiring no additional evidence. Any attempt to deny an axiom implicitly affirms it, thus causing the denial to contradict itself. This is because all valid arguments depend upon the basic axioms that make rationality possible.

What part of that was unclear?

This seems to me to be the argument that we must accept an axiom because we can't prove anything else until we do. If this is your argument, it is an appeal to consequence, which is a fallacy.

The thing that I don't understand, is the idea that a claim can be evidence for itself. How does self-evidence work logically? What determines the difference between a legitimate axiom and anything one happens to claim to be self-evident? If we have no logical process by which to determine the difference, then I do not see why we can call such beliefs rational.

Hope that made more sense.

[Jester]

This is an important issue. Can you provide an example of a "thing assumed without evidence", or "self-evident", or "axiomatic", to an atheist, or non-theist, or supernatural skeptic, that isn't liable to objective empirical knowledge? In other words, is it a "belief" that can't be made "knowledge", through objective empiricism, despite the effort involved? If I don't think something can be known by any measure of effort, I have no reason to consider it "axiomatic".

No, actually, I was merely arguing that we accept our personal "axioms" for non-rational reasons. This was in response to the suggestion that some people have perfectly rational reasons for everything they believe.

[Thought Criminal]

Moderator note:

Do not make any comments about another poster. My finger is so close to locking this thread...

With all due respect, I don't believe the problem is the thread, but rather, certain participants. If you lock this thread, I'm sure the topic question will find its way to another one, so this doesn't really solve the problem. The topic is a very basic one that we cannot avoid while debating Christianity and religion.

TC

[Thought Criminal]

This seems to me to be the argument that we must accept an axiom because we can't prove anything else until we do. If this is your argument, it is an appeal to consequence, which is a fallacy.

Actually, the argument is that we must accept axioms because any attempt to deny them merely affirms them. That's what it means to be self-evident; it is evidence of itself.

The thing that I don't understand, is the idea that a claim can be evidence for itself. How does self-evidence work logically? What determines the difference between a legitimate axiom and anything one happens to claim to be self-evident? If we have no logical process by which to determine the difference, then I do not see why we can call such beliefs rational.

I've explained this in a recent message, which I think you'll be able to find. Look for the example of "No proposition is true".

TC

[Thought Criminal]

No, actually, I was merely arguing that we accept our personal "axioms" for non-rational reasons. This was in response to the suggestion that some people have perfectly rational reasons for everything they believe.

Thank you for putting the scare quotes around that term. Frankly, the whole notion of "personal axiom" is as meaningful as "square circle". An axiom is, among other things, "a universally accepted principle or rule", so if it's only accepted personally, it's not an axiom.

Rationality requires that we believe only what is proven, but the entire notion of proof rests atop the axioms that allow logic. Call it foundationalism, if you like, although I'd argue for something a bit more nuanced.

TC

[Beto]

This is an important issue. Can you provide an example of a "thing assumed without evidence", or "self-evident", or "axiomatic", to an atheist, or non-theist, or supernatural skeptic, that isn't liable to objective empirical knowledge? In other words, is it a "belief" that can't be made "knowledge", through objective empiricism, despite the effort involved? If I don't think something can be known by any measure of effort, I have no reason to consider it "axiomatic".

No, actually, I was merely arguing that we accept our personal "axioms" for non-rational reasons. This was in response to the suggestion that some people have perfectly rational reasons for everything they believe.

Your argument imputes a position on me, with which I disagree, and that makes you liable to support it, don't you agree? One way to support it is to provide an example.

[Cephus]

The problem with this debate is always a problem for Theists, especially Religionists and Supernaturalists.

I agree entirely. The problem is that these people believe something that is logically and rationally indefensible, yet they insist that not only is it true, but it colors their perception of everything else in the world. It's like trying to debate the crazy guy on the corner with his hand in his shirt. "I'm completely rational, I'm just Napoleon!"

If your beliefs and your axioms are so completely out of touch with reality, your position cannot, by definition, be rational and that's the point that I've tried to make to so many theists over the years and they can't get it through their heads.

The Religious person will always claim to be using Reason (because it is a human trait) but then try to disassemble it into a child-like, cartoonish version (even the Bible says your faith must be child-like).

You're right and in a lot of ways, debating with theists is like debating with children. They want things to be true, therefore they insist that they are true, whether or not they are actually true. They want the universe to be a certain way that makes them feel good and therefore, that's how they're going to pretend it is. For most people, these kinds of childish beliefs, whether it's in Santa Claus or security blankets or monsters under the bed, go away as they grow up and learn to handle reality on it's own terms, but for God... that's a childish belief that never goes away.

[Thought Criminal]

I agree entirely. The problem is that these people believe something that is logically and rationally indefensible, yet they insist that not only is it true, but it colors their perception of everything else in the world. It's like trying to debate the crazy guy on the corner with his hand in his shirt. "I'm completely rational, I'm just Napoleon!"

The whole question here is whether there's a rational basis. The reason I ask this isn't merely to put theists in a tight spot, although I suppose that's a foreseeable consequence. Rather, my goal is to point out that people tacitly accept the requirement for a rational basis to justify their other beliefs, but make a strange exception for religious ones.

This concerns me, not only because it leads to one particular falsehood, but because it opens the door wide to others that piggyback on the first. If theists erred only in this one matter, I'd likely avoid debating with them altogether, figuring that there's no point arguing over their strange but harmless belief. I would treat theists like that strange fellow at the party who felt it necessary to brag about the benefits of coffee enemas (true story, sadly); I'd smile, nod and back away slowly. Instead, it looks like good people use religion as an excuse to do good, as if they needed one, while the very worst find a bottomless well of excuses to cause harm.

In short, because moral facts depend on mundane ones, rationality is not merely normative about what we ought to believe, it is the basis for all normativity. There is therefore a moral imperative to believing only the evidence, not just a purely intellectual one.

If your beliefs and your axioms are so completely out of touch with reality, your position cannot, by definition, be rational and that's the point that I've tried to make to so many theists over the years and they can't get it through their heads.

An unexpected result in formal logic is that, allowed even one contradiction, you can then "prove" literally anything. This is precisely what we see in the case of theism.

You're right and in a lot of ways, debating with theists is like debating with children. They want things to be true, therefore they insist that they are true, whether or not they are actually true. They want the universe to be a certain way that makes them feel good and therefore, that's how they're going to pretend it is. For most people, these kinds of childish beliefs, whether it's in Santa Claus or security blankets or monsters under the bed, go away as they grow up and learn to handle reality on it's own terms, but for God... that's a childish belief that never goes away.

That's not so much childish as simply delusional. The example of the man who insists that he's Napoleon is perhaps a very apt one here. No amount of confrontation with the facts will sway such a person.

TC