Ok. So in order to be rational, a position must be deductively provable? That is your position?
If you want your conclusion to be rational, that doesnât mean right, it has to be provable. That doesnât mean you can prove it now, next year or in a thousand years, but it can be provable given the proper conditions. Those conditions will never exist when it comes to god.
When the atheist reaches a gap he says, âI donât know, but someday we might be able to find the answer.â The believer in god says, âtherefore god,â but he will never be able to find the answer because it cannot be found.
Hereâs something to consider: if god wanted us to know he exists, we would know he exists. However, he has decided to create enough doubt that it takes faith to believe in him. This tells us he does not want us to know he exists but believe he exists. Wouldnât he therefore make it impossible to prove his existence? If god does not want us to know he exists then I donât think anyone will be able to prove it because they would have to outsmart god.
I donât know that I agree. You believe, I presume, as I do in the idea that other people have minds? Can you PROVE it against any and all argument?
I would consider thatâs not necessarily the case. I am a theist and I have much, much more often said âsomeday we might knowâ than âtherefore Godâ.
Your conclusion does not necessarily follow from your premises. It is possible but not strictly entailed.
I donât need to. If we donât accept that others have minds then there is no point in anything. Life ends. In this type of thinking I could say that you canât prove fire is hot, itâs all just an illusion, but letâs what happens if we start setting each other on fire.
Iâve actually thought about this and changed my mind (I think I have one). I donât think the argument for the existence of god is rational. Why? Itâs not rational to try and prove something as fact when it canât be proven. I would also add, for the religious, that trying to prove godâs existence is a sign of a lack of faith.
Christians trying to make us believe in their faith of the existence of god (JeovĂĄ) without proffs is like I saying that I have a 10ft invisible dragon who fly with me over the sky and nobody can see it because he is invisible. Makes sense? Yeah, no. And guess what? HebraĂsts religions donât too!
Canât speak for all religions but the most foundational statement of JudeoChristian is
In the beginning, God [created]âŠ
Billions are not trying to prove it, merely accepting it and then seeking to build on that as a truth. Just like they accept they have a mind, do actually exist, the sun gives light, or a zillion other things that deep thinkers like to question the existence of.
Seriously, most are like me and marvel at scientific discovery. Why would we not? It shows the handiwork of God.
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I get that. Just as most atheists probably donât spend time trying to disprove the existence of god. IMO, if we take Christians for example since that is what I am most familiar with, the idea of needing scientific, indubitable proof misses the point. Even the miracles of Jesus left room for doubt.
I just think itâs silly for someone to say they can prove that god exists when they canât and, more importantly perhaps, they donât need to. The people that donât believe will probably continue not believing and those who do believe donât need that sort of proof to believe.
I also think the religious people who try and prove that god exists are somewhat disingenuous. They go from their religious beliefs, to trying to prove god via scientific and philosophical arguments, and thus, justify their religious beliefs. But, they would have you believe they went from proving there was some sort of creator to then following some religion. That makes no sense. Proving, or at least coming up with a strong argument for the existence of a creator, does not prove any religion knows who that creator is.
With Craig, he tries to prove there was some demiurge but if you question him on Christianity, itâs not relevant to that issue or he has ways out of defending it. However, since Craig is a Christian, itâs obviously relevant to him. He does not separate the two, religion and the demiurge, so why should his critics?
Does God exist is much easier to argue than anything else and thatâs why thatâs pretty much the argument people go with.
God exists and here are all the things he wants us to do, here are the punishments for not doing them, etc isnât something I really see believers do in these types of threads. Because logically those things have essentially no standing while you can make strong logical arguments for God to simply be (strong although I think impossible to prove of course).
Except thatâs the point. You say âin order for something to be rational you must be able to deductively prove itâ. But then you wonât try to prove the existence of other minds, yet you accept it as rational to believe and act on.
If you say âdeductive proof is necessaryâ then it has to be necessary for all your beliefs. You canât say âoh well, life would endâ. Thatâs not proof.
You canât have it both ways, which is my point. Currently you are applying two different standards after making a blanket statement on the standard you deem appropriate for testing rationality.
Thatâs probably a more interesting stance than the one you currently have. But it rests on the same premises as before.
Right. In any case, Iâm not attempting to convince anyone here. I am attempting to understand and define what people mean by rational, since it is very common that there are different standards applied.
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I canât prove other minds other than my own (to myself). However, we can see and experience other people. Maybe they are all conjured up by my mind.
In the case of a God / Creator, we canât see or experience he / she / it. I would say if we could see and experience a God / Creator, that it would be reasonable to believe in them, even though we are perhaps being tricked by our own minds. But if we canât experience them, what would be the justification for belief?
IMO, it is reasonable to assume what we observe is real. It isnât the same with what canât be observed.
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Yep. But at the point itâs not so much observed, but imagined/thought up. Itâs just you, all you. The question is, are you even observing something outside of your own thoughts? Thatâs the problem, you always have to circle back to rely on the brain/mind in question whose reliability is being questioned. Imagining something isnât stronger proof than a possible reality you failed to imagine.
Even if you yourself do somehow conduct your life a-reality/reality-gnostic about the reality of your loved ones, I think itâs safe to say the vast majority do not. They simply have faith and embrace it.
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I think it is most reasonable to live our lives based on what we experience. It seems that others exist, so I accept it. I donât see any evidence for God, so I donât accept it. This would apply for me, if I am in the matrix or not (or just my brain exists). It is the most rational thing to do.
I wouldnât say I have faith about others I know existing. I have reasonable expectations of their existence because of past experience. That isnât the same as faith. It isnât faith to believe that a chair will hold me up, it is a reasonable expectation based on past experiences. If every time I sat in a chair it collapsed, then if I kept repeating the act of sitting on chairs, I would be employing faith.
What if people experience God in some way you donât?
How many untold numbers have claimed to feel moved by God, the spirit, whatever you want to call it. Thereâs a lot of folks whoâll say THEY feel something transcendent draw nearer while in worship, in prayer, at their lowest points, etc.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/fale-memories-implanted-bird-brains.html
Anyways. Just thought this was neat with us having this kind of discussion.
If it was enough to convince me of his existence, I would believe in him / her / it. The issues I have is that the experiences are never something that can be proven to not be another cause. My uncle Dave found his keys after praying for them. Not evidence by my standards. God healed my cancer. Well you were getting chemo at the time too.
Why is it that God canât heal something that we donât have cures for, or naturally get better from? Does God dislike amputees? He must, because for all the other things that have been claimed to be healed by God, he hasnât healed an amputee yet.
Iâm not a faith healer type. Iâm of the cessation type. To me, God doesnât hate amputees anymore than everyone who has ever died of some old age related illness. Weâre clearly meant to be physical creatures (at least for a time) with all the limitations that brings.
Thatâs good! IMO, pretty near all the people who claim they can do faith healing are scammers. If what they were doing worked, then why are they not down at the childrenâs hospital?
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We can use science to prove cognition exists. Again, one can argue that fire doesnât really exist but what will happen if you set yourself on fire? If we operate under the assumption that there is no reality, then life ends. Life will go on if we donât believe in god.
People need to consider the alternative.