Much as I love Martin Gardner, him saying it doesn’t make it rational. Perhaps someone feels in control by wearing the same color shirt everyday or not stepping on cracks. We do all sorts of stuff to make us feel better, but we don’t have to call them rational. Now, if we were proposing banning irrational behavior it would be another matter. Let people be free to think and do irrational things that don’t hurt anyone else. No need to be ashamed. Just don’t pretend it is rational.
Half the sex industry depends on people having irrational urges which make them feel good, after all.
Thank you for the ad hominem attack, when my ideas are unassailable, you’re left with only attacking my person. I almost hate to ask this, but what are the SI units for faith, hope, joy and pity? They don’t list them at their website.
“What if C-A-T spelled ‘dog’?”
Please point out to me the ad hominems in my post? In fact, please point them out to the moderators so that they might dutifully chastise me.
There are no SI units for faith, hope or joy, but then there are no SI units for petulance or stupidity either.
But these things are manifest, they present themselves to our view on an everyday basis. They can be said to be empirically observed.
You Could stand to do a little research on your rebutal.
You also don’t understand how evolution works. Traits do not evolve for a reason, they just evolve. The traits that have a positive effect on successful mating have a stronger tendency to get passed on…But so do traits with no negative effect on successful mating. We also evolved a little trait called Loss Aversion over 35 million years ago that leads us to make all sorts of irrational decisions. It’s still with us today because it doesn’t keep the general population from getting laid. Never mind that there is no specific ability or gene related to belief in gods.
Maybe we’re using the word differently, but if the benefits exceed the costs, and the decision is made voluntarily…that’s rational.
Sure, our sexual instincts are not rational; they’re hard-wired in our mammalian brains. But paying a certain amount of money to gratify those instincts in a pleasurable way is rational.
Take the arts: I’ll agree that there can’t really be any rational definition of “beauty” in a painting. That’s too subjective. (There have been efforts at a science of aesthetics, but it tends to flounder.) But for a family, or a city, to budget a certain amount of money on art is quite rational. It’s a valid investment in personal or group pleasure. It makes everyone a bit happier, reduces crime rates, attracts investment and tourism…but even without these concrete benefits, it makes people feel good, and (to a moderate degree) pursuit of pleasure is rational.
And…if someone feels better about the world by wearing his lucky shirt, then, for him, the act is rational. It’s even better if he understands that it isn’t real, but only the indulgence of a personal ritual. The cost is trivial, the benefit is non-zero: why not go for it?
(I think I may be talking about the affect and behavior of an action, while you are talking about the informational content of the action. I certainly agree with you that wearing the lucky shirt is irrational as far as actually changing the outcome of the day’s events. But I hold that it is – slightly – rational, in that it improves the man’s perception of his world.)
Is subjectivity a valid criterion for rationality?
Thanks for the clarification. If you think me turning three times widdershins before I get into my car to avoid accidents (and it has worked so far) so be it. It isn’t rational by my definition.
It has to be four times, of course!
Well, see? Empirical evidence!
And…a classical case of a debate resolved by identifying differing definitions.
There’s Glory for you! 
So you contend that nothing is empirical unless there is an SI unit for it? Interesting.
Let’s not get too airy fairy. We should stick with empirical concepts. There is no SI unit for dog. Or cat.
From your link: “the basic idea of the argument is: ‘If many believe so, it is so.’” I have no idea why you would post this particular link, I stated the first part of that argument, that many believe, however I never said the second part. Make no claim as to the truth of any belief.
It’s completely rational to believe there is a Unified Field Theory, and indeed many do so. There is no empirical evidence that leads to it’s deduction, it must be inferred through reasoning. So strong is the rationality of believing the theory, it would be irrational, or without reasoning, to say it does not exist. But that doesn’t make the theory a fact, which you seem to require for it to be rational.
The empirical evidence is that the genes that allows humans to believe in things they don’t understand is … clearly … a trait that dominates the gene pool. Please state your deductive logic that this has nothing to do with successful breeding. Remember, no reasoning, no inference, just observations and logic.
This has me completely confused, my loss aversion style was started in 1602 with the formation of the Dutch East India Company. Please tell me your empirical evidence that humans evolved this trait 35 million years ago. Please explain why a diversified investment portfolio is irrational, since this strategy is very well reasoned out, and is strictly used to avert loss.
You seem to be saying that even rational choices are completely and always irrational.
You end by saying that because belief is one specific thing is irrational, then all belief in anything is irrational. I would say it would be a sad and lonely life for one to not believe anything.
No, I’m saying nothing is empirical that requires inference. We observe a woman kneeling before a gravestone in tears. What empirical evidence do we have that she cries because of grief? How do we know she’s not crying tears of joy that the dirty bastard is dead? If you ask her, she’s going to lie. If you believe her, then are you being irrational?
How do you observe pity, without any reasoning or rationalizing?
Is NASA acting irrationally in their search for extraterrestrial life?
If you’d read the link you’d know that our Loss Aversion leads to irrational behaviour:
[QUOTE=From The Link]
Note that whether a transaction is framed as a loss or as a gain is very important to this calculation: would you rather get a $5 discount, or avoid a $5 surcharge? The same change in price framed differently has a significant effect on consumer behavior. Though traditional economists consider this “endowment effect” and all other effects of loss aversion to be completely irrational, that is why it is so important to the fields of marketing and behavioral finance. The effect of loss aversion in a marketing setting was demonstrated in a study of consumer reaction to price changes to insurance policies.[2] The study found price increases had twice the effect on customer switching, compared to price decreases.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know why Critical1 proposed “35 million years” (modern man is considered to have evolved only 500 000 years ago), but 35 million years may not be unreasonable – from the same link you’ll see that other mammals have been shown to exhibit this same irrational loss aversion:
When did modern humans branch from modern capuchin monkeys?
All the emotional states you have listed (one would have done) exist as mental states, which correspond to some particular set of neurons firing. That neurons fire has been observed, and that their firing correspond to subjectively experiences has also been observed.
It might well be currently impossible to point to the set of neurons that correspond to pity, but it is at least theoretically possible – in any case, this is a million miles away from the necessarily unobservable thing, A.
They certainly would be if they believed that its existence was necessarily not observable.
The Endowment Effect has been observed in chimps. That’s published. I think I see it in my dog. That’s anecdotal, though I’m bugging my daughter to someday do research on this. But she stubbornly insists on doing only the stuff she has funding for.
from the sentence before the one you quoted " argumentum ad populum (Latin for “appeal to the people”) is a fallacious argument"
Its a fallacy, as in not true or founded on sound logic.
You said quite clearly that we evolved this trait for a reason…go ahead and read your own post.
Loss Aversion is not what you think it is.
To be fair to myself I was unaware of the last part of that quote, Delay aversion that is. We split from the Capuchin monkey ancestor about 35 million years ago.
I said that belief is things that have zero evidence for them is irrational because it forces you to accept the possibility that every bullshit claim ever made is or at least could be true.
To what ad hominem do you refer? An observation that one has failed to understand a point is pretty standard around here, providing the person so identified the opportunity that he or she has understood the point.
These comments don’t address my position, that it’s reasonable, therefore rational, to ascribe a deity to the linkage of QM and GR, until such linkage is discovered. Instead they attack me and my understanding of basic science. I can choose to counterattack or just ignore them. Either way I can walk away knowing they admit my position is sound, but the latter saves the moderators’ time.
In the post to which I was responding you said:
We cannot empirically observe religion, but it’s everywhere and seemingly at all times in human existence*
What could you mean by “seemingly”, if not “empirically”?
But obviously you do not mean that! This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that what you call empirical and what I call empirical are two different things. One of us is wrong. It isn’t me. Get over yourself.
Your position on evolution is not reasonable or sound, it is flat out wrong. This is not an attack, I laid out the reasons you were wrong in my post. Instead of reading what I posted and realizing your mistake you claimed you said something different and now you are claiming personal attacks. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant of something, but supposedly this board is about fighting ignorance, this includes our own.