Where are the lines drawn on what is rational and what isn't?

[cosmosdan]

@Voyager

First, your standard religious person not only believes in something which can be falsified but believes in something which has been falsified. Second, the atheist belief can easily be falsified - a god just has to show up. I know many atheists say they wouldn’t believe even then, but we’d have to have this experience to know for sure. Those who believe in a deist type of god or god as the universe are the ones believing in something unfalsifiable.

I’m not sure what the standard is. My guess is a lot of believers would be willing to acknowledge that they believe , but can’t really know, and most haven’t really thought about the details of doctrine. I agree that plenty of believers readily believe things that have been shown to be false. I question how many have had any reason to really examine the evidence.

But when that thing becomes controversial, or doubt is cast on it, it is time to move from uncritical acceptance to analysis. Until I was about 16 I believed in God for exactly the reasons you give, but then I got new information and was able to change my mind. For most people there is no excuse to ignore the evidence against a god - lack of evidence in some cases, evidence in the unreliability of the Bible for another. I wouldn’t bother to walk someone feeble minded through arguments against god, but no one around here matches that description.

I agree there is some obligation to look at the evidence. People who claim to worship and seek the truth shouldn’t dismiss it in favor of tradition so easily. I’m speaking more in general terms.

What trust do atheists have again?

Atheists, like all people, accept certain things as true, or probably true, based on trust. -

I for one, and most regulars here, are here to test our lack of belief. I’ve been testing mine for 40 years now. In that time I’ve seen pitifully few good arguments for God.

This thread has nothing to do with arguments for God. Personally, since no evidence exists , I’d say believers should be aware of that and hold their beliefs without ever trying to convince others. It’s one thing to say “here are the reasons I believe” or 'here are the reasons I don’t" quite another to declare something as fact that you simply can’t know.

If all the irrational god belief - and the desire to act as if the gods they believe in were proven - were replaced by god belief that only goes as far as the evidence takes us, we’d have a much better country.

I totally agree. Somewhere along the way I realized the pursuit of truth and understanding had a lot to do with being true to yourself , where you are now, having the desire to keep growing, and the wisdom and humility to see the limits of what you know, vs what you believe. Choose a path that works for you, but understand that everyone else has that same choice. A path for themselves.
Atheist , believer or agnostic, don’t assume your path is the right one for everybody. but I digress.

I understand non believers push back against the long dominance of religion and it’s undeserved protected status. I think challenging beliefs and some conflict is necessary and help moves us forward. That said I still don’t agree with the generality, all religious beliefs are irrational.
Put the facts we have forward and argue specific points. We have a ton of information about the Bible that needs to be repeated often until it becomes widely accepted as factual rather than some alternate theory.

[cosmosdan]

@Der_Trihs

Say what? That doesn’t make any sense at all. Atheists are the same as everyone else because they do the opposite of everyone else?

They don’t do the opposite.

Faith is not trust. Faith is the holding of a baseless belief. If there’s a good reason to believe something, then that isn’t faith.

I find this incredibly amusing coming from someone who will argue tooth and nail that their opinion is indeed hard fact.

[x-ray_vision]

@cosmosdan

Atheists, like all people, accept certain things as true, or probably true, based on trust.

When there’s evidence for it. That’s rational. Religious belief has a type of faith not synonymous with “trust.” This type:

1. strong or unshakeable belief in something, esp without proof or evidence
   FAITH Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com

That’s irrational.

[Der_Trihs]

@cosmosdan

They don’t do the opposite.

Yes, they do. Trying to pretend they do the same thing doesn’t make it so.

@cosmosdan

I find this incredibly amusing coming from someone who will argue tooth and nail that their opinion is indeed hard fact.

No; you just find bashing me easier than actually countering my point.

[cosmosdan]

@Der_Trihs

No; you just find bashing me easier than actually countering my point.

I was bashing you? That wasn’t an accurate discription at all?

It seems to me that some athiests don’t want to recognize the emotional nature of thier own belief system. When people try repeatedly to explain to you the flaws in your assertions of fact, and you still insit it’s fact, how exactly is that vastly different from believers?

[Der_Trihs]

@cosmosdan

I was bashing you? That wasn’t an accurate discription at all?

It seems to me that some athiests don’t want to recognize the emotional nature of thier own belief system. When people try repeatedly to explain to you the flaws in your assertions of fact, and you still insit it’s fact, how exactly is that vastly different from believers?

Atheism isn’t a belief system, and atheism & religion are completely different. I insist it’s a fact, because that’s what all the evidence and logic points to. Which is the opposite of believers, since all evidence and logic points to them being wrong. This thread only underlines that, with the defenders of religion literally pushed to the point where they are denying the validity of rationality.

[cosmosdan]

@Voyager

But if any religion were really in contact with god they would not change their belief system. This is an excellent argument that no human religion is true.

Or an argument that all religions only understand a very small portion of what they are seeking.

[Lobohan]

@Kimstu

I certainly don’t personally believe in vampires, any more than I believe in God. And I certainly am well aware that no empirical evidence exists for the existence of vampires or of God. And I’m also aware that scientific models of physical reality do not just passively fail to support, but actively contradict, claims typically made for the physical capabilities of vampires or of God.

But if somebody asked me whether I could indisputably prove that there don’t exist any vampires whose unexplained supernatural powers allow them to circumvent the constraints of empirical laws and rational thought and thus escape detection by science, I would say no, I can’t. Because I’m not dishonest and I’m not stupid.

I don’t think you’re dishonest or stupid, I think you’re mistaken. I can’t indisputably prove that a God doesn’t exist. But I can do so for a God that is omnipotent and omnibenevolent. At least I can form a rational argument for such.

As far as I can tell, that first sentence makes no sense. What do you mean?

Setting up the argument that: God (in this case, the *omnimax *one) is in contradiction to logic and reasoning. But He is beyond understanding, so the fact that he is a contradiction is okay.

Something that is logically impossible isn’t worth consideration. At least that’s what my rational mind says.

Which is exactly what I’ve been saying all along.

This thread is about rationality. I can rationally say that no God that is logically impossible can exist. If God is beyond logic then you can’t rationally argue for Him.

No, claiming that the rules of logic don’t apply to a particular claim is by definition not a logical fallacy. Fallacies are failures to apply the rules of logic consistently in a situation where they are presumed to be valid. Asserting that the rules of logic are not valid for a particular subject disqualifies the subject from logical analysis altogether, but it is not a fallacy per se.

Asserting that something that is logically impossible, is possible because logic doesn’t apply in this case, is a perfect example of special pleading.

It is not debate at all. Rather, it is an arbitrary denial of the possibility of debate, based on an irrational assumption.

Yeah, and the irrational assumption is that a logically impossible God (the omnimax one) is possible, because he gets a Get Out of Logic Free™ card.

However, IT IS BY DEFINITION NOT SUBJECT TO RATIONAL DISPROOF.

You are asserting a logical contradiction is possible because only the thing you’re talking about doesn’t have to be logical. That’s not rational thinking. That’s magical thinking.

That’s what I’ve been saying.

A God. Not the omnimax God that Christians like to pretend exists. Zeus is very unlikely, but at least shape change and super-sperm aren’t inherently illogical. Just against the laws of physics.

Nope, that’s not an adequate demonstration. Because your human conceptions of “omnipotence” and “omnibenevolence” and their necessary consequences can never be adequately shown to be equivalent to those of an omnipotent supernatural being.

Which is another way to dress up, "Everything else is bound by rational thought, but the omnimax one gets a pass, because he’s omnimax!

This is the same thing as saying, “Vampires are impossible, but Vampires can do the impossible, therefore, Vampires!”

Obviously an omnipotent God could think and do much more than I could. But that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. I’m bigger than an ant and can lift a staggering amount more than one, but that doesn’t mean the ant can’t lift the leaf it’s holding on to. An easy logic problem is solvable by a human mind. A better mind doesn’t mean that the easy problems are suddenly not true.

Look, I don’t like the fact that children get cancer any more than you do, and I don’t believe in God any more than you do, and I don’t think that the assumption of God’s existence is any more rational than you do.

I just don’t have such an aching hard-on for winning debates with theists that I’m willing to try to evade the basic fact that they are technically within their rights to call off the fight whenever they please, on the grounds that the subject is intrinsically disqualified from rational argument.

I am okay with a theist who admits that their God is a logical impossibility, but they choose to believe anyway. But He’s still rationally impossible. As I say, if God is so super-magic that He can be a logical contradiction, then I guess He could exist. But that’s not a rational belief.

If a theist believes that God is beyond rational understanding, then since it’s impossible for me to prove that he isn’t, that’s when we agree to disagree and just walk away.

And the theist’s belief, in that case, is irrational.

[cosmosdan]

@Voyager

This is called the “best of all possible worlds” argument. By definition, if we have an omnibenevolent god then our world is the best there can be, for reasons we cannot fathom.

Okay. The quesion is, if this far less than perfect world with all it’s suffering, is indeed a creation of some Omnimax being, then why? What’s the purpose of creation and this particular vision of creation? Why does it fit together in this particular way? We don’t know. We aren’t likley to know. But IMO logic tells me that since I can’t have the perspective of such an Omnimax being , I can’t really declare that certain suffereing is needless.

But this is an excellent example of special pleading, in that any baby who dies of disease or in a natural disaster would have the made the world worse if she survived. And there is nothing to back this up except by assertion.

No such assertion is made or implied. The only way it is is if we make other assumptions about the nature and methods of such an Omnimax being and creation.

Now, every disaster in the past, before we were born, is good to us viewed selfishly. I wouldn’t be here if WW II hadn’t happened, since my parents would have no doubt had a baby long before me, and the circumstances around my conception would not have happened. But it would be the height of arrogance to claim that the world with me would have been better than the world in which millions would not have died. Multiply a billion-fold, and you have your argument.

I wouldn’t be here if the shell that landed a few feet from my father in WWII had exploded rather than just thrown dirt in his face. I can wonder about fate , and some ultimate plan but the only certainty is “I don’t know”

I’m only addressing a point of logic that I believe is very flawed. You can’t judge the suffering in the world from a human perspective to declare an Omnimax God os logically impossible because of perspective. Such a being means that a perspective could exist in which all events fit together for a benevolent purpose. The fact that you can’t imagine one or don’t believe in one doesn’t make it logically impossible.
It’s not special pleading. It’s simple logic IMO. If such an Omnimax being exists, then could an all encompassing , universal perspective exist in which all events contribute to a benevolent purpose? Or, could the purpose of creation be benevolent? It could be. There may be no God and no purpose , but claiming an Omnimax God is logically impossible is inaccurate.

[cosmosdan]

@Lobohan

Setting up the argument that: God (in this case, the *omnimax *one) is in contradiction to logic and reasoning. But He is beyond understanding, so the fact that he is a contradiction is okay.

This thread is about rationality. I can rationally say that no God that is logically impossible can exist. If God is beyond logic then you can’t rationally argue for Him.

The logic you refer to is IMO flawed, because of the reasons I spelled out in my response to Voyager.
It isn’t that an Onimax God is beyond logic. It’s that if the starting point is
“If an Omnimax being exists”, by simple logic creates a perspective we can’t know.
If we entertain the possibility of an Omnimax being just for the sake of a discussion of logic, then we have also imagined a universal all event encompassing perspective in which the ultimate purpose of creation and all events could be benevolant. The fact that we from a human perspective can’t explain it is irrelvant and judging it from a human perspective to claim certain suffereing is needless is not in keeping with logic.

[Kobal2]

@cosmosdan

I wouldn’t be here if the shell that landed a few feet from my father in WWII had exploded rather than just thrown dirt in his face. I can wonder about fate , and some ultimate plan but the only certainty is “I don’t know”

Or you could not try and find patterns in random occurrences.

Artillery shells are semi-complex mechanical contraptions. They all have a chance to be faulty, and due to the state of German manufacturing and falling standards towards the end of the war it wasn’t even particularly unlikely.

The only thing that makes that shell any special is that your father, naturally, fell way outside of statistics and expectations from his own point of view. From the point of view of the blokes who fired that shell, well, it’s just one dud shell among the hundred they fired this morning. From the point of view of the blokes who manufactured it, it’s one dud shell among the hundred thousand they shipped that month. It only has “meaning” for your father, because it’s the shell that didn’t kill him.

It’s just A Thing That Happened. Trying to glimpse an intelligence or meaning behind things that statistically happen is bound to lead to madness.

I’m only addressing a point of logic that I believe is very flawed. You can’t judge the suffering in the world from a human perspective to declare an Omnimax God os logically impossible because of perspective. Such a being means that a perspective could exist in which all events fit together for a benevolent purpose. The fact that you can’t imagine one or don’t believe in one doesn’t make it logically impossible.

sigh an omniscient being necessarily knows what your subjective pain feels like, and that his set course of action will lead you to suffer. An omnibenevolent AND omnipotent being would not let you feel pain, even for a benevolent purpose - because being omnipotent means they can also make that benevolent purpose happen without your pain.

That’s the trouble with tacking “omni-” to everything.

[Czarcasm]

If God is “beyond logic” and “beyond reason”, then he is by definition illogical and unreasonable. This does not mean the contradiction is dismissed-this means the contradiction is confirmed. All that you are doing is taking two very heavy strikes against the existence of God and creating new definitions of well-known terms and pretending that they now support your position.

[cosmosdan]

@Czarcasm

If God is “beyond logic” and “beyond reason”, then he is by definition illogical and unreasonable. This does not mean the contradiction is dismissed-this means the contradiction is confirmed. All that you are doing is taking two very heavy strikes against the existence of God and creating new definitions of well-known terms and pretending that they now support your position.

I’m not claiming God is beyond logic and reason. I’d assume that if such a being existed it would be the author of logic and reason and completely logical and reasonable.

My point is that for certain logical and reasonable conclusions to be made you need certain information.
Before people had some idea of what light speed was they could not logically calculate the distance to the sun.
By starting with "If an Omnimax God exists , we automatically create a perspective of the universe , creation and purpose that is necessary knowledge to truly judge if any suffering is "needless’ or part of the plan. We do not have that perspective , that knowledge so we can’t logically rule out such a being.

[cosmosdan]

@Kobal2

Or you could not try and find patterns in random occurrences.

Artillery shells are semi-complex mechanical contraptions. They all have a chance to be faulty, and due to the state of German manufacturing and falling standards towards the end of the war it wasn’t even particularly unlikely.

The only thing that makes that shell any special is that your father, naturally, fell way outside of statistics and expectations from his own point of view. From the point of view of the blokes who fired that shell, well, it’s just one dud shell among the hundred they fired this morning. From the point of view of the blokes who manufactured it, it’s one dud shell among the hundred thousand they shipped that month. It only has “meaning” for your father, because it’s the shell that didn’t kill him.

It’s just A Thing That Happened. Trying to glimpse an intelligence or meaning behind things that statistically happen is bound to lead to madness.

Please note that I did not make any claim that there was some fateful hand in what happened. No need to go on about it as if I did.

sigh an omniscient being necessarily knows what your subjective pain feels like, and that his set course of action will lead you to suffer. An omnibenevolent AND omnipotent being would not let you feel pain, even for a benevolent purpose - because being omnipotent means they can also make that benevolent purpose happen without your pain.

That’s the trouble with tacking “omni-” to everything.

unless the experience itself was the benevolent purpose.

[Der_Trihs]

@cosmosdan

unless the experience itself was the benevolent purpose.

A claim which pretty much makes calling it “benevolence” pointless. If “benevolence” is indistinguishable from sadism, then the term has no useful meaning.

As has been said repeatedly; an omnipotent by definition can accomplish anything it desires without causing suffering. What you are trying to do is claim that causing suffering for the sake of suffering is benevolent. Causing it - again, by definition - not for any “higher cause” because an omnipotent can accomplish any such cause without suffering, but only for its own sake. That is cruelty, not benevolence.

[Kobal2]

@cosmosdan

Please note that I did not make any claim that there was some fateful hand in what happened. No need to go on about it as if I did.

Well you did talk about fate and ultimate plans -i.e., meaning & patterns. “Meaningless happenstance” was conspicuously absent, considering it’d be the null hypothesis…

unless the experience itself was the benevolent purpose.

Redefining “benevolent” now ? You’re not done with “rational” yet, pace yourself :).

Sorry, as Der Trihs broke it down like a Jenga tower, there’s no such thing as “inflicting pain benevolently” to an omnimax being, only to dentists and dominatrixes. And I’m still not sold on the benevolence of dentists.

[QUOTE=cosmodan]
By starting with "If an Omnimax God exists , we automatically create a perspective of the universe , creation and purpose that is necessary knowledge to truly judge if any suffering is "needless’ or part of the plan. We do not have that perspective , that knowledge so we can’t logically rule out such a being.
[/QUOTE]

It is necessary needless to an omnipotent being, who could achieve any purpose whatsoever without involving suffering - including the experience of suffering (hey, you like paradoxes beyond logic, here’s one free gratis :)). It is antithetical to an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being. Unless that being is not omniscient and could conceivably not be aware of the suffering - but the omnimax god has to be by definition.

[Voyager]

@cosmosdan

Or an argument that all religions only understand a very small portion of what they are seeking.

Which would indicate that whatever god they were in contact with did a piss poor job of handing out rules and explaining things. I think we can hold a god to a higher standard. Jeez, if I wrote papers that bad they’d all get rejected.

[Voyager]

@cosmosdan

I’m not sure what the standard is. My guess is a lot of believers would be willing to acknowledge that they believe , but can’t really know, and most haven’t really thought about the details of doctrine. I agree that plenty of believers readily believe things that have been shown to be false. I question how many have had any reason to really examine the evidence.

In our society, examining the evidence can get you into a lot of trouble - and a few hundred years ago, even more. Even the Catholic Church, which is usually good about these things, steps in to shut down dangerous lines of inquiry by its members.
You’d think that something as important as what a god wants of us would inspire a lot of examination by everyone, We can see by the posts of our fanatically religious visitors that it doesn’t, since these posts are full of factual inaccuracies and illogic.

Atheists, like all people, accept certain things as true, or probably true, based on trust. -

Trust but verify, actually. All our trust is provisional. We trust what is written in journals to some extent, more if it seems to have been demonstrated, but I know of cases where something (minor) everyone knew got thrown out when there was contradictory evidence. People who ask for trust tend to be conmen.

[Voyager]

@cosmosdan

The logic you refer to is IMO flawed, because of the reasons I spelled out in my response to Voyager.
It isn’t that an Onimax God is beyond logic. It’s that if the starting point is
“If an Omnimax being exists”, by simple logic creates a perspective we can’t know.
If we entertain the possibility of an Omnimax being just for the sake of a discussion of logic, then we have also imagined a universal all event encompassing perspective in which the ultimate purpose of creation and all events could be benevolant. The fact that we from a human perspective can’t explain it is irrelvant and judging it from a human perspective to claim certain suffereing is needless is not in keeping with logic.

The contradiction does not come from what God does, but what he can do. An omnipotent god can do anything not logically contradictory, so creating stones too heavy to lift is not a problem. An omnibenevolent god can do only what is best for the world. That means he cannot do what would be not best for the world, and is thus not omnipotent. Let’'s not worry about what he chooses to do, only what he is able to do.
Now, if you define a god as being that which is the optimal mix of potency and benevolence, it still doesn’t work since we can define a being, not omnibenevolent, which is more potent than God.
This all involves logic, of course. If your god lives in a square circle, there is not much to talk about.