“Science” can’t prove anything
It’s a matter of perspective if not faith, since that’s a bad word I guess
The real solution is to never conclude, just keep moving forward
In other words “science” cannot conclude for “us” whether or not cognition exists, but if you want to walk that way, go ahead
If you’re already in it, keep going
Not everybody needs to go that way, thanks
OK.
And that is how we put a man on the moon.
Everything has an ending.
Maybe post before you start drinking.
It would have required faith to even try, much less to believe we succeeded
For things to finish is not the same as for you to end them
I did.
I did enjoy, peace 
No matter what anyone here believes about reality, or about the true existence of other minds outside their own, the vast majority accept it on faith. Surely that is agreeable? Or, that the vast majority will claim there is at least one inherently evil act if not more?
Faith isn’t abnormal, mental illness, or whatever. It’s one of the most common features of human society from one end of the map to the other. From roughly the first ritual burial, and likely before.
By the way, faith isn’t without doubt either.
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No. They accept the evidence.
Faith needs doubt.
Are you sure?
Ok, I will restate this one more time to share my position and then let it go so we don’t get go in circles indefinitely. Whatever you speak of as evidence has to be observed and processed by the very same mind/brain in question. That part is important. The evidence could be completely concocted by the mind in question to fulfill some need it has, or whatever.
With that, I’ll just leave my arguments as they are. Too many other juicy contemporary topics to discuss.
Thanks all for the relatively civil discourse.
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So, way behind in this thread but working on catching up.
Right. And this is kinda what I’ve been getting at. One of the most basic tenets of our practical life is that we believe we’re interacting with other people who also have minds and lives - granted some less acute than we’d like 
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However, a determined skeptic can force you to admit that you cannot actually deductively PROVE other people have minds. This is a long-standing problem in philosophy.
So we have a situation where something we all agreed is rational to believe is not deductively provable.
To me this means that the criteria for rationality must be different than “can be deductively proven beyond doubt”, because even such a basic tenet of our lives is impossible to prove.
This is one reason I reject the “prove it!” stance of determined atheists.
We can talk about what the criteria should be, but it can’t be that.
Without getting douchey, I agree. A die hard philosophy lover would probably try to argue that on specifics lol. Me, I’m a practical man.
This is the crux of the question IMO, meaning general rational belief in anything. This to me is a much more productive line of conversation than just “you gotta prove it”.
We take for granted numerous things we can’t experience as rational. Concepts, etc. A degree of epistemic uncertainty is the norm for us. To me a good baseline is, “does it fall into the same epistemology bucket as belief in other minds?”. Not necessarily the only one, but a good one at least.
Edit–spelling
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I agree with this, and also have to point out that people through history have claimed this very thing. So it stands according to your statement that we should consider these people rational barring other craziness.
That doesn’t mean we have to agree mind you. But we should consider them rational if they have claimed a direct experience, and don’t have other BLATANT mental issues. Because frankly, how “normal” are any of us?
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Yes, but your stated definition says that we MUST prove something deductively in order for it to be rational. Science is empirical, not strictly deductive. And despite your statement on science, philosophically it hasn’t been done. And, unfortunately, you insisted on a philosophical standard of deduction.
What I’m getting at is that you’re willing to accept different standards depending on whether you like the conclusion or not. This is a problem to me, but it does not happen with my definition of rational.
@mnben87 You mentioned solipsism in a future post to treco–I agree with you. That’s what I’m getting at. It’s rational but not provable.
This was one of my points actually. If the standard is strict deduction then there are a LOT of things that can’t be rational according to that standard. This is why I reject that standard.
Please don’t use this term lol. Evidence, just say evidence. After all, your arm might be an illusion 
I agree
Yeah, faith, trust and doubt would be irrelevant to a situation involving certainty.
Faith, trust, doubt are constantly being weighed and acted upon even if someone considers something to be close enough to certain so as to be negligable, they are still there working in the background
This is an annoying tripe of revisionist history. Yes, there were FF who were deists, yes there were FF would were Masons, the vast majority were Christians. They were not a monolithic group that thought one way, they fought an awful lot actually. Saying the FF were deists is only partially correct. And many were mason’s but masons are not a religion, they are a club. Most of the FF were practicing Protestants to varying degrees. And people like to site Jefferson a lot as a deist, but he wasn’t. He was a complicated guy, but he was a Christian in the end.
You could argue that it’s a pseudo-religion or cult of sorts, they have their own particular beliefs about God and spiritual issues.
You just stepped in a trap! This is a metaphysical conundrum, can you prove so called “reality” exists? And what does reality mean?
Try this exercise on, prove you exist.
I mean, I believe you exist and I believe you are a living thing made of matter, but I cannot prove it. This is where the Cartesian principle kicks in. You cannot prove you are nothing but a figment in the imagination of a mind. When you start to think of things in that way, the lines of so called faith get blurred.
Basically, we all operate, almost fully on faith. We believe the sun with rise (bare with me on the rhetoric, I know how the sun and earth move) tomorrow, but we cannot prove it. We believe our car will start, or that it will be there tomorrow, but we cannot prove it. We think we can put on clothes and not be naked tomorrow, but we cannot prove it, etc. etc. etc.
Pseudo-religion is good. There are some mandatory beliefs, and Catholics need not apply, but many Christian sect share those beliefs, so they don’t have to belong to the same church per se.
Where are we in the discussion? I missed a couple days and it looks like I missed a lot.
One thing is for sure, if you start a religion thread, it’s going to get pounded like raw hamburger, it’s almost guaranteed!
I am just curious if we had any highlights that are worth reading. I don’t want to go through a 100 plus posts… I tried ,but damn…
Hey @Aragorn you’ve been around for a while, like me. Have you seen that the “New Atheist” trend has seemed to have died off? Or at least subdued greatly?
When I am talking about “New Atheist” I mean the shrill, insulting, nasty, mean, Dawkin’s style arrogance and hatred for anything religious. It seemed to be hot around the 2010 mark, but it seems at least this part of life has mellowed a bit.
I have read a lot of atheists kind of breaking away from the aggressive mentality and just being more live and let live. I think it’s mellowed, I am just curious if somebody else who has seen it in the past, sees it mellowing a bit too.
You could, but you would be wrong (in general).
The generic Blue Lodge mason is just a club. It requires a belief in a Deity (most typically, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob), and only for the purposes of taking an oath. A number of pagans (e.g., Hindu) fit the bill, as have pagan Nativist Religons (i.e., various Plains Nations/Apache/Comanches).
Now, there are some sub-groups within the Masons that do require religion. Most notably, the York Rite requires one to be a Christian of any denomination (or at least to defend the "Universal aka “Catholic” Church – not necessarily the Roman CC, but any Christian denomination.) I guess technically, it could be open the Jewish people and Muslims, but it would be a little weird to do so.
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Civil discourse is great! But a little light ribbing is okay with me… These discussions are sometimes necessarily blunt, but it shouldn’t be confused with hostility. I realize some cannot tell the difference, though.