If I may, the problem is what your question presupposes.
If you decide that your faith ‘doesn’t need scientific evidence to be certain’, then the only real quibble is to do with the semantics of ‘certain’. My opinion is that in order for something to be ‘certain’ (or what I’d more accurately term in this case ‘worthy of a high degree of belief’) it must stand up to attempts at falsification. God cannot be disproven, and religion cannot be adequately tested in order that it might be conceivably falsified by any objective means, and so therein lies your problem.
Strictly speaking, any talk of certainty is very dubious, even when concerning what are considered to be common-sense notions of reality. More so when concerning Gods/religions only ‘experienced’ in the hearts of their believers.
Well, even putting aside all alternative explanations, Christianity itself[sup][/sup] is riddled with any number of internal contradictions, harmful practices, counterproductive behaviour… it’s pretty easy to reject out of hand.
[sup][/sup] Any religion, really.
If mystics haven’t set out to teach concrete things, then what’s your point? It would be like complaining that your local symphony orchestra hasn’t built any nuclear reactors.
Yes, I’m such a terrible person for thinking that, for example, women are equal to men and not just taking it on faith that as a man I’m superior to them.
They have. They were all wrong, and these days usually try to pretend that they never did. Some still do though, and are still always wrong.
To be fair, there have been and still are many members in almost all religions who hold that their belief systems do purport to teach concrete things as well as mystical ones: things like how long ago the world was created and what happens to one’s consciousness after death and who was king during this or that great catastrophe and so on. And pretty much all such “concrete” claims do fail to measure up against corresponding scientific/evidence-based theories when it comes to providing reliable factual information.
I happen to agree with you that specific falsifiable cosmological/physical/biological/historical claims are not really central to the meaning and significance that most believers find in their religions. However, it does have to be admitted that most religions do make such claims in addition to their purely faith-based non-falsifiable teachings, and that such claims are almost always wrong, at least to a large extent. (As are most of the similar claims in most non-religious ancient sources, to be fair.)
Nobody said you were a terrible person. But when you try to pretend that it’s not a complicated and problematic issue for people to determine which beliefs are “worthwhile” without having recourse to religious faith, you’re not being a very rational person.
When you try to pretend that religious faith is such a recourse, that’s an example of a claim not based on rationality. Faith (religious or otherwise) is simply a baseless and meaningless assertion.
Except that proof is necessary whether you have faith or not, and those who disbelieve in religion are never shown any proof at all; far less “sufficient” proof.
The point isn’t that religions are wrong per se (although in many instances they are demonstrably so), it is that they rely on blind faith in intangible and unfalsifiable concepts which cannot be proven to be wrong, much as they cannot be proven to be correct.
The problem I see with this is that it is then arbitrary what one chooses to believe. If a person is capable of believing in, for example, angels and demons, what precludes a belief in unicorns or trolls? If you require so little tangible evidence in order to believe something, you may as well decide the universe is simply however it seems to be to you at the present time on a whim.
To be fair, the argument that reality is merely how you perceive it to be, is opening a whole different can of philosophical worms.
The question isn’t whether faith exists - it is whether faith is justified. For your love example, it is not that “I love Sue” but for religion it is whether Sue actually exists. If someone says they love Marge Simpson, you’d think the truer the love the screwier the person.
And you certainly can disprove certain versions of God. The tri-omni God is logically inconsistent. If your God did supposedly create the earth in six days, then your admission that creationism can be disproven also disproves that God. Versions of God who never have any contact with us can’t be disproved.
And almost all versions of God can prove themselves if they wished to. Lack of evidence of these Gods is not an indication that they cannot provide evidence for themselves, just that they don’t choose to, which is consistent with them not even existing.
And while the analogy doesn’t hold, it is not all that hard to determine if someone is in love - we do it all the time. There is a lot more solid evidence for love than there is for any god.
You seem to have misunderstood. I never claimed that religious faith is a “recourse” that makes it less problematic or less complex to determine which beliefs are “worthwhile”.
I’m simply pointing out that even for non-religious people, determining which beliefs are “worthwhile” or have “real justification” is not a simple or straightforward matter.
Rationality and science are great, certainly, but making exaggerated boasts for their super-empowering enlightening qualities just makes the boaster look foolish.
Rationality and science cannot prove everything, because of the fallibility of human observational and analytical capabilities. However, they are nonetheless the only tools with which we can at least make informed statements and assertions based on the best possible model of reality we have available to us at the time. Science, as I’m sure you know, is all about falsifiability and best possible models.
There is no other form of ‘enlightenment’ than rational, critical, empirical, logical thinking. Spirituality makes for nice aphorisms and assertions about morality and so on, but it doesn’t tell us anything objective about the world around us beyond people’s opinions overdressed in religious/spiritual garbs.
Sure, but remember that when we’re talking about the supernatural, we no longer have a shared intuitive rational-materialist definition of what “exists” means. I don’t think most religious believers would argue that their god exists in the same way that a human being named Sue exists, or that the planet Mars exists.
Sure, but that’s not necessarily a disqualification for a supernatural being who by definition transcends human concepts of logic.
Sure, but that’s not necessarily a disqualification for a supernatural being who by definition transcends human concepts of evidence.
You’re arguing against the idea of a supernatural being from rationalist-materialist principles, and naturally, from the viewpoint of rationalist materialism your argument is very strong.
It’s just not necessarily relevant to a purported supernatural being who by definition is outside rational material reality.
No, I don’t understand how a purported supernatural being could “exist” outside rational material reality in some way that doesn’t really square with my natural human rational intuition of what “exists” means, either.
But my incapacity to understand or conceive it is not sufficient to prove that it can’t be true.
Yup, if “informed statements and assertions” evaluated by rationalist-materialist standards of reason and evidence are what we’re after, I absolutely agree that rationality and science are the only way to get them.
My one caveat is that there is no way to prove that such “informed statements and assertions” are the only possible form of truth.
[QUOTE=Fatalis]
There is no other form of ‘enlightenment’ than rational, critical, empirical, logical thinking.
[/QUOTE]
There is certainly no other form of “enlightenment” or “knowledge” that stands up to rational, critical, empirical, logical scrutiny.
But that doesn’t prove that there cannot exist some form of “enlightenment” or “knowledge” outside of rationality, empiricism and logic that is nonetheless true.
I don’t happen to believe in any such non-rational form of valid “enlightenment” or “knowledge”, nor does the concept make any intuitive or logical sense to me. But that’s not the same thing as proving that it can’t exist.
Except that I’m claiming no such thing; just that they work, however imperfectly. While religion simply fails to do so; it’s indistinguishable from just making things up, because that’s exactly what it is. You can bash science all day; that will make religion no better, no less baseless and intellectually sterile.
Yet another example of the destructive nature of religion. It drives people to deny all logic, all reality and to metaphorically curl up in a ball in retreat form the world chanting “there is a God, there is a God!”
Nor does the “god” you postulate resemble anything that almost anyone believes in; it’s a straw-God that people bring up in arguments like this one because there’s nothing to be said about it. It just exists so religious apologists can shout down critics, saying “you can’t apply that to God; you can’t know that, you can’t think that!” Then as soon as the skeptics leave, suddenly God and what God wants are all provable and understandable and knowable again.
Nonsense. You are both claiming something that literally makes no sense (something that is in fact a denial of sense), but you are wrong about it being “by definition”. That’s just a rhetorical trick of a god, designed as I just said for arguments like this. A god is not “by definition” outside “rational material reality”.
You are denying the validity of thought, of knowledge, of everything; of course you don’t understand. Such a “god” is logically incoherent and can not be thought of or spoken of in any meaningful fashion. Nor does it resemble any god that people actually worship outside of an HP Lovecraft story.
We are on the same page then, that’s qualified your point to me.
Personally, I don’t believe in any form of certainty at all, I think that given our fallibility all we can do is assert belief in things which seem logically consistent within the conceptual framework of our experience of existence. While I respect the need for the scientific, empirical method, I think any kind of literal ‘certainty’ is impossible, just varying degrees of belief or ‘faith’, which should rationally be ranked by necessity and consistency.
[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Sure, but that’s not necessarily a disqualification for a supernatural being who by definition transcends human concepts of evidence.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve got to say though, that’s just a resort to special pleading. If God exists in such a state that he is inconsistent with our conceptual understanding of the world, it’s pointless to discuss since no one can demonstrably say anything regarding this God, besides repeating opinions out of holy scriptures.
Yes. Although the ‘scientific’ bit isn’t always required. We know certain propositions work because when repeated they work again. The proposition that evidence provides ‘true’ propositions is backed up the evidence of it working time and time again to help us understand things. We’re at the point now where it’s pretty much self evidently true. Taken for granted as it were.
On the flip side I can think of countless instances where having ‘faith’ in something has not provided ‘true’ results. The evidence that evidence works is quite vast.
:dubious: Pointing out that it’s not possible to definitively disprove that there might exist some aspect of reality that is somehow outside science and can’t be detected or investigated by science is hardly the same thing as “bashing” science.
The fact that you apparently can’t stand to contemplate even the mild and unremarkable acknowledgement that science and rationality can’t be conclusively proved to be unquestionably epistemically all-powerful does not speak well for your boasted rationality. Rather, it’s an indication of frantically fanatical “scienceism”.
This is simply silly sputtering. I’m not suggesting that anybody “deny all logic”. I think logic is super keen and is a terrific epistemic tool that we should always use, along with those other terrific epistemic tools of empiricism and rationality, whenever we want to investigate material reality or expand our shared human knowledge base.
I’m just not dogmatic enough to insist that logic MUST be the only possible way to understand ALL reality, when I’m aware that I can’t prove that to be true.
So what?
[quote=Der Trihs]
It just exists so religious apologists can shout down critics, saying “you can’t apply that to God; you can’t know that, you can’t think that!” Then as soon as the skeptics leave, suddenly God and what God wants are all provable and understandable and knowable again.
[quote]
The fact that many religious apologists may argue dishonestly is not an excuse for my categorically assertng the truth of something I can’t prove.
Not according to our rational-materialist concepts of coherence and meaning, certainly. But I don’t see why that should freak out anybody but a fanatical scienceist puritan. *“Oh no! She made a statement about a putative non-disprovable form of truth somehow transcending science and rationality that is not logically coherent or meaningful in the framework of science and rationality! BURN THE WITCH! BURN THE WITCH!!!” Golly sakes, dude. :rolleyes:
It’s pointless to discuss it in the context of any rational analysis consistent with our conceptual understanding of the world, that’s for sure. I don’t see how any such supernatural being could be knowable in any conceivable way that would make sense from the standpoint of logical thought.
Which is basically exactly what I said to the OP back in my first post in this thread.
[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
Nonsense. There’s the fact that the universe is filled with the same matter and physical laws that produced us. There’s also the fact that the universe is extremely large. It would be quite surprising if there nowhere was life other than here; claiming that we are it is mostly an example of humanocentrism. If there’s life out there, it makes it harder for us to convince ourselves we are the center of the universe.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, so you have some sort of hard evidence then, yes? Well, trot it out. What’s that…oh, you don’t have any because there ISN’T ANY. Well then, until there is it’s just a hypothesis that is ‘nearly certain to be true’…but, in fact, won’t be proved until we DO find that evidence. So, anyone who says they know that there is life out there is making a faith based claim at this point.
It’s not well supported until there is actual physical evidence…just a likely probability based on our current understanding of what it would take for life to spontaneously begin and what we think it would take to sustain it outside of our planet. I happen to believe that there IS life out there in the Universe, and I actually expect for us to find it in our own solar system if we can ever get off our collective asses and really push to look for it, but until then it’s simply a hypothesis that is as yet unproven. Yeah, I agree with you…it IS more than merely ‘faith’, and I probably overstated things there, but my point was about belief…people, like myself, who believe there is life outside of this planet BELIEVE it, without hard evidence, but based on solid science IMHO…and, because it is science we won’t know for sure until we have that hard evidence.