I’m not trying to go super philosophical, only saying that acknowledging that we haven’t solved the hard problem of consciousness does not mean it has a supernatural explanation.
I strongly disagree with this assessment of what we can see how of animals such as dolphins, whales, elephants, primates…etc. There are numerous examples of animals mourning and exhibiting social behavior well beyond just instinct.
When an animal mourns the loss of a child (a recent orca whale example comes to mind), that goes beyond feeding out of instinct.
Your position makes more sense if animals are distinctly different than humans, so I appreciate the response but I strongly disagree in regards to consciousness. I personally believe many different species have conscious experiences.
I agree there are examples of mammals showing some emotion that would seem to be conscious. By and large though, difficult to tell with their limited communication ability.
Pardon my lack of terminology. When l say conscious, l include conscience, abiliity to consider future possibilities, cognitive functions to solve problems, learning from and teaching others with little regard to time, generation, or distance, ponderance of the abstract, desire to explain the unseen phenomena we experience.
All to say, humans can ponder God. And wonder what our purpose is. Religion is how we go about that, albeit imperfectly.
I don’t know how rational it can be when the reason for believing is to explain the (currently) unexplained; the god of the gaps.
In the case of religion, at least Christianity, irrationality is a necessary part of faith since ultimately belief in God is about feelings and not intellect. This is a mistake that Christians who go about trying to prove God exists make. Faith comes from the heart, not the brain.
Most atheists do not specifically believe that there is no God, just that there isn’t a good reason to believe in one. It is a possibility, but so are many things. The reason to believe is when evidence is presented.
Additionally, if I was convinced there was a God, and the punishment for not believing in him was eternal punishing, I would not even weigh not wanting to submit as an option.
I don’t think true belief is a choice. I didn’t choose not to believe. I just don’t.
I’m not sure what you mean here. I think true belief is most often not a choice. Maybe others can force some beliefs? I don’t think so for me.
Do I think most will believe? Not sure if this is what you are getting at? In think we see lots of belief when people have been involved since childhood. I’m not convinced that people would have high rates of belief if childhood indoctrination didn’t occur, and the alternative was given equal amount of thought and teaching.
Something that would support belief in a rational way. Right now, I don’t see any reason to pick one religion vs another. It seems the evidence is usually about the same.
Why don’t you consider Islam? I think it is just as valid, and you would end up in hell for not accepting?
Then we don’t have much to discuss. The manner in which you put it here suggests that the only level at which “rationality” is acceptable to you is full deductive proof. This is not the bar for rationality we humans use for our lives. We reason inductively for almost all our decisions, weighing probabilities for future actions. We use faith in different quantities throughout our days, weeks, years.
Most of us would consider the decisions we make to be rational, whether ultimately correct or incorrect in outcome. There is thus a different bar for showing something is rational vs deductively proven or ultimately accurate.
This is my point.
They are not diametrically opposed things. We use them in tandem all the time and consider ourselves rational.
The absence of any faith, at all, whatsoever, in anything great or small, does not make a person more rational.
That’s fair. There are different paradigms for doing so in any case. My point is primarily that showing a thing to be rational is not and never has been the same as showing it to either be a) ultimately true or b) provable beyond debate.
That is not how rationality works for any of us in practice, and frankly not even in logic.
That clarification would’ve helped, as it doesn’t fit any other definition of consciousness that is readily accepted.
Do you believe in evolution?
Very true, although I would say it differently. Humans ponder explaining things, and have used gods, religion, and many other vehicles to explain what at the time was unexplainable.
That’s a very good question, and also a long involved one. Like I said, the goal for us in for our beliefs to be true–or at least approach truth the closest we can. Not only for God but for pretty much most things we have beliefs about: economics, politics and policy choices, stock decisions, understanding your son/daughter/family mind, whatever. The goal is always to understand it as accurately as possible.
So without going down the rabbit hole I’d say this: in order to address that question you have to believe that belief in God can be rational. I’m assuming this for the sake of the follow-up question you asked.
Then I’d have to come to peace with the notion I should take two possibilities seriously: a) there is a God and b) He/it might care how I live my life and what I believe. Basically, “if belief in God can be rational, then seriously considering this might have a really big impact on how I live my life”. I have to think about those. What’s that mean for me? This is the question of human will.
Then specifically I’d look at the claims each religion makes about itself and the world we live in. I’d look at how those relate to the world we actually live in–does it line up? I’d look at these and other things to determine my stance, and revisit this constantly.
I put it in this order for the simple reason that you can’t look at specifics until you accept serious consideration of the bigger things: can it be rational, and am I willing to accept the real possibility that this might have large ramifications for my life and how I live it? In other words, am I really willing to give up ultimate authority of my life if it comes to that?
Only after a person comes to grips with the potential consequences of their decision can they actually figure out how to make that decision.
For me, I don’t believe a God that was capable of creating everything would judge us on faith due to all the different faiths, it would seem we are most probable to pick the wrong one with good intentions. This is an issue I have with many specific religions.
I think if there is a God, that it would be reasonable for him/her/it to judge us on our actions. This is one of many reasons (low on the list TBH), that I try to treat everyone well.