The unknowable mind of your god?

triften
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The unknowable mind of your god?

This question is for theists who believe that the mind of god is unknowable and we can't fathom his motives, etc., etc.:

If god's mind/motives are so unfathomable, how can you presume to have any idea about what god wants you or other people to do? They seem mutually exclusive. Either, you know what god wants of you OR god's mind is unknowable.

-Triften


Archeopteryx
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Quote: Hey you. Great

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Hey you. Great post. You are definitely causing me to stretch my brain here.

It's a good thing brains can't feel pain. That sounds excruciating. 

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Firstly i googled snarfel (i'm that kind of guy) to find out what one is. This http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=snarfel site gave me two definitions. If its the second one it might be considered kind but also highly dangerous and i wonder if it is entirely possible! LMAO.

LMAO, I'm going to have to start googling all the nonsense words I make up from now on. I learned something new and awesome today! Thanks for that!

I've never heard of the "snarfel" being used to describe the first definition. I've always heard those described as a "rasberry" or, for the more rare name, a "zurburt". (unsure of the spelling on that).

I don't think the latter snarfel is possible. You'd either knee the blower in the face or else you'd have to be able to run while maintaining a 69 configuration, which sounds dangerous and difficult! But perhaps that is the solution. Only very strong men with petite lovers can successfully execute the snarfel.

Or maybe he leans forward onto the handrails so that he is running on his tip toes at an angle... but then the blower would have to assume some kind of crabwalk stance so that she didn't slide down the conveyor and bowl him over... or worse... take a bite out of .... er... crime.

I hope someone else is casually stumbling onto this chunk of text.

I don't know what it is about the snarfel! I just can't stop thinking about it!

Any-hwayz.

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You are quite correct. I do not know what god is except in the broadest possible terms.

By which, it seems to me, you could only mean two possible things:

1)I only know his secondary, qualifying characteristics.

2) I have an understanding of what god is through knowing what god is not. (which would be false, btw)

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By definition god is beyond our understanding.

So is Gzkenileaptik!

(I hesitate to repeat the Snarfel incident).

(That is not to suggest that I have ever successfully snarfeled).

 

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So i guess (for me)a beleif in god is to beleive in something we don't know.

I believe there are things we/I don't know. That doesn't make me a god believer. That just makes me honest. 

I don't believe there are things we CANNOT know, though, because it could be true that we are able to understand everything, we just haven't had (or may not ever have) enough time to do it.

Furthermore, to suggest that there are things we can't know is to suggest that human reasoning is either flawed or limited.

To suggest that it is flawed is a self-contradiction, since you couldn't have arrived at that conclusion without using the reasoning you are suggesting is flawed.

To suggest that it is limited is problematic because, in order to know how it was limited, you would first have to know what is beyond that limit. If you know what is beyond that limit, then understanding is not limited. To put it analogically, you don't know that the length of this string of typed characters is limited by the dot at the end of it unless you are able to arrive at the dot and then look beyond it.

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I beleive in particle accelerators but i have no idea what they are or what they do or anything about them!

But others do.

 

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Perhaps a better analogy (and analogies always fall short)

I'm glad you said that instead of me. Usually I end up saying that to the theist.

Although with you I can tell you are using analogies to assist understanding. I usually only end up saying that to theists who offer analogies as their entire point.

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is light. I can't see light.

Yes you can. Light is how you are able to see. Without light, you wouldn't see anything!

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I don't really understand how it works. I CAN se objects from which light is reflected and observe the effects of light. This leads me to adopt a very simplistic, probably incorrect psychological model of what light is based on its observable effects.

To be fair, we probably don't see anything as it actually is. We are able to see objects because light reflects off of them. Our brains are able to use geometry, frequency, wavelength, and all sorts of variables to piece together an image in our minds. It is probably not what is actually in front of us, though. It is simply a model of what is in front of us.

Have ever seen one of those toys that consist of hundreds of nails hanging down through a plank of wood, and then you raise your hand up beneath it and watch the nails form the contours of your hand, or whatever else you choose to put under there?

It's kind of like that. The nails show you a hand, but it's not THE hand. Your brain shows you what is there, but it's just a model. Everything you know is a model. The only other option is to BE the real deal.

Also, just because it's a model doesn't mean it is incorrect. I think you are confusing "incorrect" with "not the real thing".

A photograph is only a model of an image, and it forms that image with light, just like your eye, but that doesn't mean the photograph is showing a lie. It just means it's not the real thing.

 

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Now i know that light CAN be understood by very clever people with beards, glasses and level 2000 bards in AD&D where as god cannot. However my point is that i will never understand light in that way. But i still beleive in it in my ignorant and simplistic way. This does not provide evidence that anyone else should beleive in god, it merely explains how i can beleive in something i don't understand and cannot really define.

You may not ever understand light in that way, but because someone else does, we know that you COULD.

No one understands god in any other way except through feelings, intuitions, or faith in spite of lack of evidence. As far as we know, these are the only ways he can be "understood". I use the quotes very purposefully.

It would make more sense to me if you were saying that you simply believe in the unknown.

To make an analogy, to me it sounds the same as a person standing in the middle of a perfectly dark room and saying, "I know there is a floor in here because I am standing on it. I know that I am in here because I am me. I don't really know what else is surrounding me right now, but I am committing myself to the position that there simply must be a bidet somewhere around here. Don't ask me why."

 Of course the difference is that such a person COULD find out if there was a bidet, especially because he knows WHAT a bidet is. Such a luxury is not available with this "god" thing.

But we've already established that analogies are tricky. =)

 

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Re your experiance of profundity you did a fantanstic job of verbalising what you feel.

Thanks. =)

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Perhaps you understand those feelings better than I, i would simply slap a "GOD" sticker on the whole package and leave it there. This is a heuristic, a mental shortcut based on an incomplete model which renders the process inaccessible to correction or scrutiny. Dashed bad form in science but quite normal in everyday life. It is possible that your feeling is also a heuristic allbeit of a much more sophisticated and intellictual ilk. The way we usually identify a heuristic is the direction of the thought process. If you start at the end (with the feeling) and work backward (to explain it), the chances are good you are rationalising something you do not fully understand.

The only way we are able to understand anything is by working backward. Understanding is not inherent. =)

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I like my heuristic because it is accessable, reproducable and for the most part, pleasing. You prefer yours, i suspect, because a natural sense of curiousity leads you to wish to "unpack" such feelings and find explanations for them which you can understand.

The thing is that I am able to understand what I feel and why because I contemplate and reflect on it. I don't call it "god" and stop right there as I used to. The answer doesn't always come right away, but it's amazing how much you can figure out about yourself through intense scrutiny of your own feelings and actions.

I remember a time when I used to have fantasies about suicide. Mind you, I wasn't CONTEMPLATING suicide. I was not suicidal. I would simply find myself daydreaming about the idea of suicide or about my own death. I would wonder what people would say or think upon discovering my death. Who would come to my funeral? Who would be the last to find out and who would be the first?

One night it occurred to me that this was probably an unusual thing for someone to be doing. I knew I wasn't suicidal, so I wasn't especially concerned, but I wanted to figure it out. I asked myself honest questions, and I gave myself honest answers, and if I noticed myself not wanting to explore a particular topic, I saw that as a reason to turn around and explore it deliberately.

I couldn't begin to remember exactly what I conversed with myself, but I do remember the conclusion. I discovered that I felt left behind by old friends who I saw as being ahead of me in life (starting families now and the like). I felt out of contact with certain people. I felt like a memory. The casual thoughts of death, I realized, were simply an expression of my desire for everyone to remember me again, all at once.

It took me at least 15 minutes to sort this out, but I finally did. Nothing is more chilling than coming face-to-face with your unconscious self. Some people do this by free-association writing, if you've ever heard of it, but I find that doesn't work as well for me.

At any rate, I stopped having those daydreams, and I felt better, because I knew what was going on, and I knew exactly what I could do about it. 

I would rather do this kind of contemplating than contemplating what an elusive god figure would have me do.

Granted, I'm an especially introverted kind of person, so what I do doesn't reflect on all atheists. If any of them are reading this, I'm sure there are a few making this face o_O

Knowing myself is one of the most important things on earth to me. How can you say you know anything if you don't know yourself first?

(And if any trollish theists are reading, I don't mean self-worship or self-obsession, kthx).

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From a religious point of view i would say that it is erronious to separate these feelings from "god" just because they have natural explanations as well as superficially supernatural appearences. I think these feelings represent that part of us which is somehow greater or different from our standard batch of evolutionary drives and biological necessities.

I don't see us reaching any more common ground on this particular point, so we may just have to disagree.

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Re the free will thing, i think we will have to agree to differ there. I still think that giving us free will but no need to use it would be like giving us roller skates in zero gravity. Yes we've got them but whats the point in having them if you don't get to or need to use them.

I've heard your argument and you've heard mind. No common ground here either I guess. Agree to disagree.

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I don't. Well, i do, but only in a circular way. Thats the model i apply to something i don't understand because being human i cannot comprehend the infinite. In the christian model, god defines what benevolence or "rightness" is. As i say its circular logic but its the best i can do. Sorry.

You've apologized to me, but maybe you should apologize to you as well.

I hope that didn't sound like a put-down. For perspective, that's coming from Mr. Self-reflection.

 

Be snarfeled. (Just don't knock out any of her teeth.) 

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


a seeker
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hey duder. After failing

hey duder.

After failing horribly with quotes i'm going back to colours. If anyone objects please write your feelings on A4 high grade paper, roll it it and poke it. Wink

 

I believe there are things we/I don't know. That doesn't make me a god believer. That just makes me honest. 

I don't believe there are things we CANNOT know, though, because it could be true that we are able to understand everything, we just haven't had (or may not ever have) enough time to do it.

 Thats fair. I suppose this shows a difference in world view. You are dividing things into three catagories. Things you understand, things you don't understand but think you could and thinks which are not possible to understand.

I guess i'm blurring the line between 2 and 3 in both directions. There are a lot of things people claim to understand... but on study you find they don't know any more than you, they just don't know it with longer words. I also don't really have a problem with beleiving something i know i will never understand in broad strokes.

The thing is that I am able to understand what I feel and why because I contemplate and reflect on it. I don't call it "god" and stop right there as I used to. The answer doesn't always come right away, but it's amazing how much you can figure out about yourself through intense scrutiny of your own feelings and actions.

I like that. I like that you can do it. Its the antithesis of the emotional cowardice many people (including a whole buncha christians) display.

I guess i'm guilty of that to a degree. I do tend to test my beleifs more than some, Thats why i'm here, but at the end of the day i do take a good deal of comfort and releif in my superficial and simplistic model of life in areas of emotional contentment, morality, and instructions for living. I guess whilst i don't mind introspection in a controlled way there are times when i want an easy answer, instantly. And so far all of those easy answers have been right.

I think this is something we all do to a degree. Some hide behind god. Some hide behind anger, or ego, or the world view of your choice. Very few people have the courage to be entirely honest with themselves all the time. That would take a very special and brave person indeed. And possibly insane.

I distrust "zealots" and "fundamentalists" of all types for this reason. When people stop questioning themselves altogether its never a good thing. THAT is what starts wars!

My favourite quote which i fire off to all sorts of people in all sorts of contexts. Oliver Cromwell "I beg you, in the bowels of christ consider it at least POSSIBLE that you may be mistaken"

 

I don't. Well, i do, but only in a circular way. Thats the model i apply to something i don't understand because being human i cannot comprehend the infinite. In the christian model, god defines what benevolence or "rightness" is. As i say its circular logic but its the best i can do. Sorry.

You've apologized to me, but maybe you should apologize to you as well.

I hope that didn't sound like a put-down. For perspective, that's coming from Mr. Self-reflection.

Hmmm, interesting. Why, i wonder, should i apologize to myself. For accepting a piece of circular logic?

Possibly. it could be argued to show a lack of mental ambition. However i return to the fact that from inside the logic loop, it works.

So here's a new direction for the thread. Lets assume, for a minute, that you guys are right and there is no God. To be clear, i don't beleive that, but for the sake of this debate lets say i do.

There is no doubt that there are people walking around who function "better" living with the god "model" than without it. Who are happier, nicer, better and able to work better in society. I'm one. I know many others.

That being the case is it ethical to tell these people, who might well be less functional without these beleifs that they should eshew them because they are not true. If you don't need them, bully for you. More power to you. But who are you to say those beleifs must be eradicated?

I don't mean any one person BTW, especially not you dinobird, i just mean the view itself as advertised on the homepage of this site.

Be... Able to digest the next really spicy food you eat with no dispepsia afterwards. (running out of nice words)

Be snarfeled. (Just don't knock out any of her teeth.) 

Oh and BTW, i'm married with a kid and another one on the way quite soon. The chance of my heavily pregnant wife managing to balance on a treadmill for snarfel are nil. And if was anyone else having my teeth knocked out would be the very least of my worries, being forced to eat my own genitals would be more likely. So i'll have to pass on thatWink


Archeopteryx
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I don't mind the colors as

I don't mind the colors as much as some. 

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Thats fair. I suppose this shows a difference in world view. You are dividing things into three catagories. Things you understand, things you don't understand but think you could and thinks which are not possible to understand.

I am definitely dividing the world into 1 and 2, but I cannot definitely destinguish between 2 and 3 because I would have no way of knowing if there were something I definitely could not understand. As far as I can tell, the only possible position is agnosticism regarding #3.

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I guess i'm blurring the line between 2 and 3 in both directions. There are a lot of things people claim to understand... but on study you find they don't know any more than you, they just don't know it with longer words.

Bullshitters. Colleges are excellent for teaching how to bullshit your way through things.

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I like that. I like that you can do it. Its the antithesis of the emotional cowardice many people (including a whole buncha christians) display.

I don't know if I would go as far as to call it cowardice, because that has a pejorative ring to it. I think people generally just want to be happy, and they are afraid to find out that they're not as happy as they thought they were or were trying to be.

But as the atheists around here are constantly trying to point out to the theists: you can't answer a question or solve a problem by setting it aside.

It's sort of like when a loved one dies. Life is much better much quicker if you face it and deal with it rather than trying to keep it out of your head. That goes for anything, I'd say.

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I guess i'm guilty of that to a degree. I do tend to test my beleifs more than some, Thats why i'm here,

You're doing better than most theists we see. At least in this thread. Eye-wink

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but at the end of the day i do take a good deal of comfort and releif in my superficial and simplistic model of life in areas of emotional contentment, morality, and instructions for living. I guess whilst i don't mind introspection in a controlled way there are times when i want an easy answer, instantly. And so far all of those easy answers have been right.

A book beneath the broken leg of the coffee table "fixes" the coffee table. For many people that's fine. It works, the coffee table is level, and they are happy. No problems.

I'd rather have a more genuine solution. 

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I think this is something we all do to a degree. Some hide behind god. Some hide behind anger, or ego, or the world view of your choice. Very few people have the courage to be entirely honest with themselves all the time. That would take a very special and brave person indeed. And possibly insane.

I question my sanity daily.

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I distrust "zealots" and "fundamentalists" of all types for this reason. When people stop questioning themselves altogether its never a good thing. THAT is what starts wars!

I am convinced that there will always be questions to ask.

 

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My favourite quote which i fire off to all sorts of people in all sorts of contexts. Oliver Cromwell "I beg you, in the bowels of christ consider it at least POSSIBLE that you may be mistaken"

"Would you at least admit the possibility that you are Robert Porter?"

"I'll admit the possibility that I am Robert Porter if you will admit the possibility that I am from the planet K-PAX."

Sorry. I'm one of those compulsive movie quoters.

Good quote though.

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Hmmm, interesting. Why, i wonder, should i apologize to myself. For accepting a piece of circular logic?

That's what I was going for.

I was suggesting that this is a sort of "book beneath the table leg". Of course I realize that it probably looks more like that to me than to you.

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Possibly. it could be argued to show a lack of mental ambition. However i return to the fact that from inside the logic loop, it works.

The book works, too. =)

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So here's a new direction for the thread. Lets assume, for a minute, that you guys are right and there is no God.

Careful. We do not assert that there definitely is no god. We assert that IF there is a god, then we know nothing about it to date.

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To be clear, i don't beleive that, but for the sake of this debate lets say i do.

I'll assume you mean what I just said. =)

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There is no doubt that there are people walking around who function "better" living with the god "model" than without it. Who are happier, nicer, better and able to work better in society. I'm one. I know many others.

My own father would probably qualify.

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That being the case is it ethical to tell these people, who might well be less functional without these beleifs that they should eshew them because they are not true. If you don't need them, bully for you. More power to you. But who are you to say those beleifs must be eradicated?

Some atheists argue over this question, actually. On this forum, we tend to argue the existence of god with whatever theist shows up, because the theist sees that we are atheists and that he is a theist, and so that's naturally the most common challenge to us. The line of questioning takes different paths, of course, but mostly that's what many of the threads boil down to. "Is it true?"

Your question here is more of a conduct/practice question. For most of the atheists around here, it wouldn't matter the least if someone wanted to believe in god. The reason we attack god belief in this way is simply for political reasons. Christianity in America thinks it can do anything. It can make children pray in school, it can post its 10 commandments wherever it wants, it can mention god and his works in television media, etc.  But atheists are made out to be devil-worshippers (speaking generally here) and would NEVER be able to whore out their ideas the way that christians do. We'd be accused of trying to indoctrinate (they'd probably say "corrupt&quotEye-wink, while when they do it, it's just perfectly fine and dandy.

This country was founded on secularism. Not just freedom OF religion, but freedom FROM religion. That is the knife we're stabbing with, so to speak.

You can believe that your grandfather was an oak tree for all I care, but if you are exposing people to that belief while insulating them from all opposing views, that's just horseshit.

My dad can believe whatever he wants. I believe whatever I want. I'd like to argue with him about it, and I'm sure he'd like to argue with me about it, but we don't. As long as I don't step on his toes and he doesn't step on mine, who cares?

Some atheists would object to this and say that I need to say something, because we can't just stand by and ignore theists or the problem won't go away. I think that's true.

So I tend to see myself as attacking theism in the public sphere but not in the sphere of my own personal relationships. If all atheists had that view, then my dad would still have to defend himself (and me myself) without either of us having to violate our relationship.

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I don't mean any one person BTW, especially not you dinobird, i just mean the view itself as advertised on the homepage of this site.

I'll let the core members explain the details of their goals. I don't want to project my own feelings onto them or say something of their position that isn't true.

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Be... Able to digest the next really spicy food you eat with no dispepsia afterwards. (running out of nice words)

Love spicy food!

Be jubilant.  *uses the Jedi hand wave on you*

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


Tilberian
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a seeker wrote: Hey

a seeker wrote:

Hey tilberian. Sorry i did'nt get to your reply sooner, i'm trying to find time for three really interesting conversations at once.

Ah. So God does not want us to believe, but rather to fall into error and burn in eternal hellfire. Nice guy.

I kinda covered this in my last reply. And i should reiterate that i can only speak for what i think, i don't claim to understand God, (if i could, he would'nt be god). I don't think he wants us to go to hell (which, btw is not something i've read much of in the bible, mainly a "scare the proles into line" invention of the church i suspect). But i think he wants us to have a choice.

But we don't need to know the mind of God to know this, we need only to make logical inferences from the claims made about him. If he wants us to have a choice, then it has to be because he wants many of us to go to hell. He doesn't have to give us a choice and he has perfect knowledge of what the outcome will be of all our choices. Remember, if God is omnipotent, nothing can be other than as he wants it to be. So the world and everything that happens in it must be just as he wants it.  

 Now, maybe what you are saying is that God wants us to have the illusion of choice. In other words, he wants us to think that we can do whatever we want even though he knows the outcome. However the point of that escapes me.

a seeker wrote:

It's not as hard as you think, given that my three explanations for the voices in the head come from mundane, well-understood, frequently observed phenomena and your explanation requires the addition of an ill-defined supernatural being with powers and characteristics that violate every other thing we know about the universe.

Fair enough. Thats obviously a judgement made on the basis of what we know and what we don't. Occams razor points to the atheist position.

I'm not too worried about the concept of violating what we know about the universe because for me science is only good for what we DO know and CAN prove. It has little to say about what we do not (yet) know. The concept of god in the sense i am talking about does not violate the natural laws, it is by definition outside of those natural laws. Imagine fish in a fishtank who had studied their fishtank carefully und understand many true things about the water, the glass, the filter etc. Imagine further they had a vague hypothesis about there being something outside the tank. Now imagine a fish coming up with a bizarre and ill defined notion about super beings who walk around outside the tank and who take you to the great white toilet bowl when your time is done.

Such beings would be outside of the understanding of the fish. How do they "walk" when they float? Why do the fish in the loo not just swim up and out? Such being would violate all the fish knew and understood and the fish would probably do a very poor job of understanding them.

Yes. And what the fish should confine themselves to in their knowledge claims is that for which they have evidence. All their speculations about what the big creatures are and their motives and plans for the fish should be labelled and treated as just that: speculation. Fiction. Fantasy. Conjecture. Any fish claiming to know something about the big creatures should be asked to present his evidence or admit that he just made it up. Also, the fish should not become impatient with the fish who are patiently collecting real data about the big creatures and demand that they answer all the questions in one day. They should not point to holes in the data-collector fishes' knowledge and claim that they somehow undermine the validity of the information that has been collected.

a seeker wrote:
I'm sorry, but I must correct you. I haven't arrived at my conclusion by comparing which conclusion will make me happy and choosing the one that will. That is what theists do. I have arrived at my conclusion using rational means, namely, logic, my understanding and knowledge of how the world works and Occam's Razor.

I would be uncomfortable about generalising why "theists" beleive what they do. Its a big group and i can't speak for any bar one.

Yes, I should have said "some theists."

a seeker wrote:

I will hold my hands up to my choice being heavily influenced by what has made me happy and what "works" in my life. I freely admit to looking more enthusiastically for the information which would support the hypothesis i like.

There are exceptions. Areas where the theist viewpoint directly contradicts what i think i know (eg light not originating from the sun etc) or areas where my beleifs would cause me to function less well as a clinician / researcher (eg creation vs evolution). In these i cannot acheive the mental gymnastics to beleive something i know not to be true or where my beleifs would unfairly impinge on others (patients).

I guess that is a difference in how you and I think, then. I simply cannot be satisfied with the idea that my position on factual matters has been warped by bias. I have little doubt that it has been in many cases, but, where someone can point it out to me, I consider it a point of pride to carefully consider their argument and subject it to the most rigorous, unemotional analysis I can muster. I just can't see any other way to develop an accurate picture of the world and to generate correct knowledge.

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown


RationalSchema
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a seeker wrote:   Yeah we

a seeker wrote:

 

Yeah we all develop beleifs on everything, its part of being human. I'm just saying that the ones in the bible have worked out better for me than the ones i came up with (or rather failed to) myself; on a n=1 trial and error basis.

 

I'll leave my core beleifs to one side if thats ok. Couple a reasons, one is that we judge ourselves by what we beleive and others on what we do. On the basis of what i beleive i'd come across pious and decent. On the basis of who i actually am i'd come across as much more faliable. Piety is, i think, one of the seven deadly sins which christians commit. Piety makes my fists itch. I'd hate to come over that way. The other is that where possible i'd prefer to discuss generalities and issues rather than people. I know i cannot avoid doing that because i only claim subjective experiance rather than objective truth but still....

I think that most beliefs are subjective, which is why we have objective science. Science helps us get rid of our own subjectivity. It is not perfect, but the process as a whole overtime becomes very objective. Sounds to me that you used science on yourself to come up with your belief system and they just happend to correspond to the bible. I believe in a lot of things that correspond to the bible, but I don't give the bible credit.  

 

"Those who think they know don't know. Those that know they don't know, know."