Is it reasonable to believe in God?

[historia]

Is it reasonable to believe in God?

Note, the question here is not whether you think it is true that God exists, but simply whether such a belief is reasonable or not.

[TRANSPONDER]

No. I see no valid reason to suppose a 'spiritual world'. I see that as very much related to art, mudic, poetry, dance, theatre and the like human constructs, based (so far as I can see) in evolved instinct. Even if I were to credit a case for some sort of supernatural (not known to science or observed in nature) physical effect, it would have to be intelligent, or the product of intelligence, to lead to a god.

You have two things to validate there, even iof you don't drag the Bible or Christianity into it.

On mt last Forum, we had a sort of atheist holding camp od 'atheism and agnosticism'. While some see 'agnostic' as (effectively) irreligious theism, it is more correctly non -belief in a god, but half willing to believe. On the face of it, that is where you are - a non religious theist of the 'Cosmic mind' persuasion.

If of course (as I suspect) you believe in the god of the Bible, that's a third layer of Theism you have to validate. You have some work to do before you have a case to p[resent rather than faithclaims based on fuzzy feelings.

[William]

Is it reasonable to believe in God?

Note, the question here is not whether you think it is true that God exists, but simply whether such a belief is reasonable or not.

Theists think that it is reasonable and develop ideas for it, believing those ideas to be true.

Nontheists do not think it is reasonable and develop ideas for it, believing those ideas to be true.

Others remain undecided - some continuing to study the implications of the question asked while some don't give it another thought.

[JoeyKnothead]

The physical world, being physical, is separate from God, which has a non-physical spiritual existence, at least originally. I keep stressing this essential spirit aspect of God and you keep ignoring it.

Maybe folks'd not ignore that aspect if there could be some truth put to it.

...
So whatever you want to call it, spirit and matter are distinct primordial elements, not just in the bible but in our experience on earth.

Otherwise where else do you categorize things like ideas or values?

Ideas and thoughts're products of a sentient, physical brain.

And sure, I get it, you could reduce this spirit realm down to neural pathways in our heads, or physical words on a page, but that's not quite right either, is it? Such things have an existence of their own. Ideas for example can be shared, despised, or sought after... They can gain power over time and form a real movement around them... They have identifiable qualities like truth or specificity... They have their own way of existing but exist no less than physical beings with hard evidence.

They're transmitted by various means to other brains or man-made devices. We don't need to invoke the spirit realm to know how communication works.

The spiritual, unlike the physical, is not a subject of physics but rather of (moral) philosophy and theology.

That's the same place where hopes and wishes sit.

As always, I await better understandings from others.

Don't ask me, I'm just here to fuss

[William]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #123]

Ideas and thoughts're products of a sentient, physical brain.

Perhaps no more'n this sentence being the product of a computer.

Is a computer alive? A dead physical brain produces no thoughts or ideas.

A working brain ["alive"] is useful in working with ideas and thoughts but is it really the thing which produces those ideas and thoughts?

[TRANSPONDER]

Is there any good reason to think that it isn't? A computer is in many ways a rudimentary artificial brain. Sure once programmed (like DNA programmes us) it can generate its' own ideas and responses. We know what produced it - we did.

The question is whether there is any good reason to suppose an intelligent creator (God) made the computer that is the human mind (1). There was always a gap for God there (consciousness - at one time considered an atheist - stumper) but it has been closing as these questions about the human mind (remember - morality was also considered a top apologetic for God, but now it is more an argument against) get answered (by research). Bottom line is that unanswered questions are always going to be a gap for God - anything that science hasn't found the answer to yet - evidence for a god.

For the non - believer, they are just 'unexplaindes', they are not evidence for a god.

Same old illogic - Theists think God is real until disproved by the atheist professors explaining everything down to the last nanoparticle and proving it in real time before yore werry eyes with a time machine. Of course that is unlikely so they think they win with the god - claim intact But that is not how a logical argument works.

The god - claimant has the burden of proof to show a reason to believe in a (deist) maker of the human mind and everything else. They know this, as from Paul to Plantinga evidence that God has to be the only explanation is understood and retreat to 'atheists have to disprove God' is a final denial, not a case.

Upshot is that logically, gaps for god are not a valid case for an intelligent creator, but they are a hidden place where a god - claim can lurk. This is why burden of proof is such a hotly debated issue. Theists must have it that the God - claim is taken as the default and atheists have to disprove every last gap for gods (and there aren't many left), but LOGIC says the whole god - case requires to be made valid to start with. That's the hardest thing to get believers to grasp, or accept, even if they grasp it.

(1) I must recall a debate on the former board with a theist about the human mind and a computer - mind (the discussion was a brain in a robot), and the discussion went on for ever and all round the houses and came back to the same thing: he would not accept that potentially there was no difference between a human 'consciousness' and an electronic one, despite irrelevant attempts to show they were different. One is made of meat and was grown from cells, not metal and plastics assembled in a factory. That makes no difference to what the mind is in the end. (2) What became clear to everyone but the theist is that he saw the difference between the human mind and the robot mind as a mysterious magical quality that could only come from God (he called it 'Life') and was pretty much an (unverified) claim that God made the human mind and it didn't make the robot mind, even though that needn't make the minds essentially different in the end. This Goddunnit barrier made it impossible for him to look at the question logically and yet he thought he was the only one that could see it straight. He couldn't even see that (true or not) Godfaith was the basis of his argument. He wouldn't even accept that was it and then debate that the faith was justified. He insisted that he was arguing on logic and evidence, and it was plain that he wasn't, but arguing godfaith and fiddling evidence and logic to try to support that. In fact, par for the course, in pretty much every way...It was a revealing debate, about Theisthink, at least.

(2) Isn't this Fun? On another debate about Qualia, the Philosopher went on a long false trail of a robot doesn't have the instincts of humans. So, what? It doesn't have the baggage of human evolved instincts - that makes no difference to the mind as to what a mind is, any more than a mind that grew up in a hunter gatherer culture will differ from one brought up in a technological society. Still equivalent minds.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #123]

Ideas and thoughts're products of a sentient, physical brain.

Perhaps no more'n this sentence being the product of a computer.

It merely recorded your thoughts in digital form.

Is a computer alive? A dead physical brain produces no thoughts or ideas.

Better an indicator that thoughts and ideas are the product of the brain.

A working brain ["alive"] is useful in working with ideas and thoughts but is it really the thing which produces those ideas and thoughts?

I'd be surprised to find out it ain't.

[William]

[Replying to JoeyKnothead in post #123]

Ideas and thoughts're products of a sentient, physical brain.

Perhaps no more'n this sentence being the product of a computer.

It merely recorded your thoughts in digital form.

Is a computer alive? A dead physical brain produces no thoughts or ideas.

Better an indicator that thoughts and ideas are the product of the brain.

A working brain ["alive"] is useful in working with ideas and thoughts but is it really the thing which produces those ideas and thoughts?

I'd be surprised to find out it ain't.

It is an interesting topic, given that we know the brain is unable to show the user the fundamental reality of what we think of as 'reality'.

Even if 'the user' is the brain itself [as emergent theory implies] , the user is still unable to show itself or see for itself the fundamental reality and so all we have are impressions, which come through as ideas/thoughts.

[TRANSPONDER]

Why is that even relevant? The human brain as a computer solves problems for the purposes of survival. It is not a computer for revealing fundamental truths (and will even mislead us in order to make us cautious. Fear of the dark, sudden noises and being out of the comfort zone is irrational, but derives from avoiding any potential threats)or even what is actually so, rather than accepting how the illusion looks.

Just so, an AI will fight an electronic battle, according to what it understands (has been programmed). It is irrelevant that it doesn't know why humans make war any more than human brains do.

[POI]

Is it reasonable to believe in God?

Note, the question here is not whether you think it is true that God exists, but simply whether such a belief is reasonable or not.

Or, is it reasonable to believe life exists on other planets? But there exists a HUGE disparity between me reasonably believing, verses being reasonably convinced. Same goes for 'god.' 'Reasonable' seems to be a very low standard, when faced with the question of supposing a "life-changing god'.

[theophile]

The physical world, being physical, is separate from God, which has a non-physical spiritual existence, at least originally. I keep stressing this essential spirit aspect of God and you keep ignoring it.

Maybe folks'd not ignore that aspect if there could be some truth put to it.

...
So whatever you want to call it, spirit and matter are distinct primordial elements, not just in the bible but in our experience on earth.

Otherwise where else do you categorize things like ideas or values?

Ideas and thoughts're products of a sentient, physical brain.

Products of, sure. But not contained by. Ideas can be produced, expressed, or stored by brains or other physical matter, but they have a life of their own beyond such corporeal forms.

Take atheism for example, which is equally of the spirit realm. Are you telling me there isn't an atheism in itself? Some separate, non-physical thing that exists only as pure idea? Something that motivates and is the end of all atheist argument and research? A surplus beyond any of the physical matter that's ever been used to produce, express, or store it? Some perfect, universal theory of atheism (and everything else) whether its been conceived by a physical brain or not?

Fair enough if so. I suppose this debate does go to the very origins of philosophy and science (see Raphael's School of Athens for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_School_of_Athens).

(But hey, at least Aristotle, that great scientist, recognized the importance of this non-material substance, and called its study First Philosophy / Theology. )

The spiritual, unlike the physical, is not a subject of physics but rather of (moral) philosophy and theology.

That's the same place where hopes and wishes sit.

Is atheism a hope and a wish? It's squarely in the domain of philosophy and theology.