What If Your Beliefs Were Wrong?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

What if this all-powerful creator who promised to roast you in heaven, asked you to commit an act you wholeheartedly believed to be profoundly immoral?

How would you deal with this? Say, he appeared, showed you his power, showed you proof that he created everything including you, and then asked you to kill ten children with a baseball bat? Or else you’d burn in hell forever.

I think I’d buckle and obey. Sounds horrible, but I believe that many people in that situation would take that way out rather than suffer an eternity of torment.

Which says something about the power of our pain receptors more than anything else.

62

[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
What if this all-powerful creator who promised to roast you in heaven, asked you to commit an act you wholeheartedly believed to be profoundly immoral?

How would you deal with this? Say, he appeared, showed you his power, showed you proof that he created everything including you, and then asked you to kill ten children with a baseball bat? Or else you’d burn in hell forever.

I think I’d buckle and obey. Sounds horrible, but I believe that many people in that situation would take that way out rather than suffer an eternity of torment.

Which says something about the power of our pain receptors more than anything else.[/quote]

I like to think that my morals would win out, but the only way to know would be to go through the test and see what happens. It’s much easier to proclaim a belief in love, and a lot harder to actually practice it.

It would definitely be a struggle for me, but only because of my selfishness. What I find sad is that some of the believers in this forum would apparently kill the children without a second thought, since doing the will of God is always Good, according to their world view. That’s why I find the belief in a supernatural being to be so potentially dangerous and damning.

63

[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
What if this all-powerful creator who promised to roast you in heaven, asked you to commit an act you wholeheartedly believed to be profoundly immoral?

How would you deal with this? Say, he appeared, showed you his power, showed you proof that he created everything including you, and then asked you to kill ten children with a baseball bat? Or else you’d burn in hell forever.

I think I’d buckle and obey. Sounds horrible, but I believe that many people in that situation would take that way out rather than suffer an eternity of torment.

Which says something about the power of our pain receptors more than anything else.[/quote]
If morals come from God and man was originally created in the image of God then even after sin has taken place and corrupted the image of God in man, whatever image of God still remaining in man today will find reprehensible whatever is immoral.

However I also have to acknowledge that God being the author of life and if in his justice(or even whim) decides to take away the life he gave, this in no way conflicts with his righteousness.

64

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
I love a good discussion on epistemology, unfortunately, this is not one of them.
A belief vs. knowledge in the simplest definition of conflict is that belief is something you cannot prove conclusively, knowledge is that which you know to be true absolutely.
Therefore a belief isn’t something obtained with a complete lack of evidence, but cannot be proven absolutely. Knowledge is something that is indisputably true.

What you come to realize if you think about it, is that what you really ‘know’ is actually very little.[/quote]

Agreed, but I am not arguing the difference between belief and knowledge. I am arguing that “belief” is poor use of the underpinning cognitive tool.

[/quote]
I don’t understand you swoleupinya, are you saying you hold no proposition or premise to be true? Regardless of whether it is justifiably true or not, or even that truth itself exists (as stated by your first post in this thread). Of course I am talking about belief epistemically.

65

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
I love a good discussion on epistemology, unfortunately, this is not one of them.
A belief vs. knowledge in the simplest definition of conflict is that belief is something you cannot prove conclusively, knowledge is that which you know to be true absolutely.
Therefore a belief isn’t something obtained with a complete lack of evidence, but cannot be proven absolutely. Knowledge is something that is indisputably true.

What you come to realize if you think about it, is that what you really ‘know’ is actually very little.[/quote]

Agreed, but I am not arguing the difference between belief and knowledge. I am arguing that “belief” is poor use of the underpinning cognitive tool.

[/quote]
I don’t understand you swoleupinya, are you saying you hold no proposition or premise to be true? Regardless of whether it is justifiably true or not, or even that truth itself exists (as stated by your first post in this thread). Of course I am talking about belief epistemically.[/quote]

I’m not certain that I considered it at that level but… yes. I think there is the possibility of anything being wrong.

Though it is also possible for anything to be right.

I suppose there is some philosophy associated with this. I’m not well read in philosophy. But, this is how I operate. I relate with the world around me as if it exists, and we all go about our temporal way with goals, lives, impacts, etc… but at (I suppose) a philosophical level I take nothing for granted.

66

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]Magicpunch wrote:
What if this all-powerful creator who promised to roast you in heaven, asked you to commit an act you wholeheartedly believed to be profoundly immoral?

How would you deal with this? Say, he appeared, showed you his power, showed you proof that he created everything including you, and then asked you to kill ten children with a baseball bat? Or else you’d burn in hell forever.

I think I’d buckle and obey. Sounds horrible, but I believe that many people in that situation would take that way out rather than suffer an eternity of torment.

Which says something about the power of our pain receptors more than anything else.[/quote]

I like to think that my morals would win out, but the only way to know would be to go through the test and see what happens. It’s much easier to proclaim a belief in love, and a lot harder to actually practice it.

It would definitely be a struggle for me, but only because of my selfishness. What I find sad is that some of the believers in this forum would apparently kill the children without a second thought, since doing the will of God is always Good, according to their world view. That’s why I find the belief in a supernatural being to be so potentially dangerous and damning. [/quote]

I think so too.

I couldn’t love such a god, though knowing myself and how badly I deal with pain, I would probably take the route of self preservation. It would make me sick to do so, but I’d do it.

The fact that humans can do terrible things in the name of their nation, or their political leader or an ideal, especially when threatened with blackmail, corporal/capital punishment etc. is evidence enough for me to know that if a ‘god’ were to command men to do a heinous act, they would do it.

Most wouldn’t do it gladly. Horrible even so.

67

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:
<<< I relate with the world around me as if it exists, >>>[/quote]Excellent. A positively splendid idea.

68

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:

[quote]swoleupinya wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:
I love a good discussion on epistemology, unfortunately, this is not one of them.
A belief vs. knowledge in the simplest definition of conflict is that belief is something you cannot prove conclusively, knowledge is that which you know to be true absolutely.
Therefore a belief isn’t something obtained with a complete lack of evidence, but cannot be proven absolutely. Knowledge is something that is indisputably true.

What you come to realize if you think about it, is that what you really ‘know’ is actually very little.[/quote]

Agreed, but I am not arguing the difference between belief and knowledge. I am arguing that “belief” is poor use of the underpinning cognitive tool.

[/quote]
I don’t understand you swoleupinya, are you saying you hold no proposition or premise to be true? Regardless of whether it is justifiably true or not, or even that truth itself exists (as stated by your first post in this thread). Of course I am talking about belief epistemically.[/quote]

I’m not certain that I considered it at that level but… yes. I think there is the possibility of anything being wrong.

Though it is also possible for anything to be right.

I suppose there is some philosophy associated with this. I’m not well read in philosophy. But, this is how I operate. I relate with the world around me as if it exists, and we all go about our temporal way with goals, lives, impacts, etc… but at (I suppose) a philosophical level I take nothing for granted.
[/quote]

I think you are talking about sollipsism, which, again I think, Schopenhauer called an impenetrable fortress held by a madman.

It is true though that you know at most that you exist and little else.

Or at least that is the only sensible starting point if you want to think about anything at all.

Everything else is a leap of faith.