Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K,
No. Neither of these are live, forced or momentous. Likewise leprechauns and invisible pink unicorns aren't live, forced or momentous.

Moreover, I have no knowledge that suggests I should investigate the above claims further.

In stark contrast, God's existence is live, forced and momentous. In addition, even if I (for some bizzare reason) didn't personally feel God's existence was live, forced or momentous I certainly have knowledge that suggests I should investigate the matter further (ie Biblical documentation being the most supported ancient text in the world, 90% of people in world believe in a god, my personal experience, etc).







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Jamie_L

I'm not sure I even know what live, forced, or momentous means. It sounds like something that wouldn't appear to be true until you actually believed in something. It also sounds like something someone might use to make a "No True Scottsman" type claim.

So here's where the atheist stands. The atheist doesn't feel God's existence is live, force or momentous (if the atheist understands what that means to begin with), but, the atheist investigates. Upon investigation, the atheist concludes that this belief isn't likely to be true. So, again, the original dilemma of "I don't want to miss this" or "I don't want to be taken by this" doesn't come into play.

Jamie

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Jamie_L,
The original post gives definitions of these.


This statement indicates that your are most likely not familiar with the terms at hand.

God's existence is momentous in that much is to be gained (eternity in Heaven with God) and much is to be lost (eternity in Hell) if it is true. Most would acknowledge this.

God's existence is forced in that if it is true...a decision about this must be made within ones lifetime. Most would acknowledge this.

God's existence is live in that it is possible to believe that God exists. Most would aknowledge this. This is not to say that you actually believe God exists: agnostics and even most athiests are at least open to the possibility of God's existence...they just need more evidence.


My comment about 'what if I was crazy and didn't find God's existence forced, live or momentous' was about a hypothetical psychopath who, for example, had no personal preference if they went to heaven or hell. In this case, God's existence would not be momentous to them.



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Jamie_L

SOMMS,

Okay. Shame on me for not going back and reading the OP again. Thanks for the refresher.

However, my criticisms still stand. Momentous and forced are concepts that, though defined with "if this is true", still carry little to no weight if you don't believe ahead of time. If one doesn't come to the conclusion that God is real, then the Momentous and Forced aspects are really non-issues. One could create an infinite number of myths that are Momentous and forced and live, but I'm sure they wouldn't carry weight with any of us. Because we don't believe them.

This arguement really just seems to be a complex version of Pascal's Wager. In that it is saying "belief is in your best interest." But beliefs are rarely formed in that way. Beliefs are formed by making conclusions about what is likely to be true.

Would any Christian really be considered Christian if they said "I come to church because I don't want to miss out on this if it is true"? Would that person be described as "believing"?

Jamie

K

SOMMS:

Now we're getting somewhere. God is not live or forced, and no more momentous than astrology or channeling the dead, to me and many other atheists. Therefore, it sounds like it is perfectly acceptable for me to hold God to the same evidentiary standards that you reserve for other supernatural claims. I just appy them a little more consistently than you do. I apply them to all supernatural claims while you give special treatment to some.

luvluv

Vorkosigan:

Well, isn't the same true of evidentialism? Isn't the bar of evidentiary truth subjective? Is sufficient proof for one person identical to sufficient proof for another? I don't think evidentialism always leads to values that are positive for society as a whole. I think the notion that each and every human being is of everlasting importance is a notion that is positive for society, but an evidentialist could never hold such a view.

I agree that James' view does not prevent a person from holding an anti-social viewpoint but as I don't think evidentialism does either, I don't consider that a big negative.

Only if he gets so much pleasure out of killing tens of thousands that it was worth it to do so, even if it turns out that Hussein is not evil. (Even I don't think Bush is that bad)

Again, I don't think the beliefs are what James was interested in validating at all. I think the whole essay was more or less an attack on evidentialism. Further, I get the impression that he just used the existence of God because it was the most explicit example.

I think he was trying to say that it is ridiculous to anchor your belief to evidence if you know ahead of time that you may not have access to sufficient evidence to answer the question. If you benefit greatly from a belief that you can't quite prove, then it is okay to risk believing it. I really agree with him. Personally, I think the notion of slaving what I may believe to whatever science may have gotten around to proving at this point is ludicrous. Science is in motion, we will have more evidence tommorow than we do today. A thousand years ago a man's faith in God might have been undermined by the notion of an eternal universe. He might have thus lost a faith that was very important to him. And yet here a thousand years later we find that the universe had a begining, much like the Bible said.

Why should I let the progress of science determine my destiny or the choices I can make in my personal life? If something means a great deal to me, and science has quite gotten around to proving it yet, why should I wait on science to believe it? How did it come to be that science rules over men's souls and determines what their hearts may believe? Why do I have to ask their permission?

Well, again, I don't think that James' was concerned with justifying beliefs. He was merely justifying having those beliefs even if the evidence does not make them mandatory. Sure, James' formula can justify some crazy beliefs assuming the person who holds them is crazy enough for these beliefs to be live options. But is such a person likely to be any less dangerous no matter what his epistemic method is? A person for whom a demon in the pentagon is a live option for belief is not likely to be able to properly evaluate evidence. It being that the threshold of evidence is itself a subjective phenomenon, evidentialism is no sure means of eliminating crazy beliefs. Young earth creationists believe they have evidence that the earth is 6,000 years old.

Part of James' point was that people can be dishonest and subjective even in their evaluation of evidence, which was further proof that evidentialism is a bad tree to tie your epistemic dog to.

I don't see how that can be avoided even for the evidentialist. If someone made a strong evidentialist case that blacks were members of an inferior race, would you believe it? Values do play a part in what everyone believes. That's what James meant when he said that the whole man is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. I think he is merely being honest about the fact that our emotions and values do play a part in what we believe, and he is encouraging us to feel that we do nothing wrong in letting them inform our beliefs. It is actually more intellectually honest to say that I believe this not only because of the evidence but because I want to believe it. It would be true whether it was made explicit or not, so I think James was saying why not just invite our emotions to the party so we can really make an honest assesment of why we actually believe what we do.

Well, what you are missing maybe is that for most things there won't be any difference between what the evidentialist believes and what the person who operates on precursive faith believes. The man who operates on precursive faith will believe everything that science has proved. He will simply have in addition to those beliefs others that science, at present, cannot prove.

He can believe the world is round and that evolution has occured and that the sun is at the center of the universe. He may also believe in God.

I'm not following you. What do you think Clifford meant when he said it was "wrong" to believe without sufficient evidence?

What moral courage? If you really don't believe God exists, it takes no courage to be an atheist. Now if you secretly believed that God did exist, and yet you still choose to be an atheist and go to hell, that would be courage.

The very thought keeps me up at night.

Theli:

What are the odds, again? How did you calculate the odds?

Gary Welsh:

Then it is not live for you, and James' formula won't work with you, anyway. He didn't put the live, forced, and momentous criteria in there for window dressing. Precursive faith is a justification of the decision to believe for those who are able and desirous of making that decision. If you aren't able, then it doesn't apply to you in terms of that specific belief. But if you were a physicist, and you thought that some alternative to string theory was the key to the unification of physics, and you didn't have any compellling evidence that your particular theory could work, but you were willing to risk your life's work on the chance that it would, then you might find James' formula handy.

I agree with SOMMS on this point, in that we actually do use James' formula, or something like it, everyday. We only object to it when it can be used to support a proposition that we don't like.

I think he designed precursive faith simply as an attack on evidentialism, which he considered to be faulty. He did not propose this notion as a defense of any sort of faith for any sort of religion. It is a general formula for believing anything for which one does not have compelling evidence.

It could be used for believing that there is an external world, that our memories are accurate, or that authority is sometimes reliable. All of these things are essentially impossible to provide evidence for without assuming them to be true in advance. James says the fact that you gain much from believing that there is an external world, that your memory is reliable, and that authority is sometimes reliable justifies your decision to believe in them. (He never actually said that in the essay, but that's what his position implies)

Question though, Gary, what do you feel about someone who actually feels that a belief in God is live, forced, and momentous, and who actually expresses towards the proposition of God the attitude "I must not be taken by this, if it is false"? Say this person considers the evidence to be inconclusive. Should this person believe in God or not?

You can't. But some people can. And that is the point.

If I can, why should I not believe simply because you can't?

luvluv

K:

I would argue that the question of whether or not there is a God is necessarily forced and momentous for everyone. It is not live to you, but the question is forced. In withholding belief in a God you essentially miss a chance for a relationship with God if it turns out that God exists. By forced, James simply meant that remaining neutral to a propostion entailed the same consequences as choosing not to believe in it. Forced questions are questions for which one can't simply withhold belief indefinitely without consequences.

Likewise, the belief in the existence of God is a momentous proposition for everyone after a manner of speaking. There is something very tangible to be gained in believing in God if one found God to be a live option.

I think the question of God is simply not a live option for some atheists. But the fact that God is not a live option is the result of some form of evidentialism which is not at all a completely accurate means of acquiring true beliefs.

Jamie_L:

A forced belief is a forced belief. I don't think there is any subjectivity involved in the concept. A forced belief is simply one where withholding positive belief entails the same consequences as holding a negative belief. A question where simply waiting to decide is indistinguishable from deciding in the negative, so far as consequences are concerned.

Momentous is subjective, but it is not necessary to believe a question before one can see that it is momentous. The question of whether or not a fertilized embryo is a child is a momentous question. It entails enormous consequences however you decide the question. Whether or not someone can communicate telepathically with dolphins is not momentous for most of us.

Think so? Try it.

Try coming up with totally ludicrous notions that are actually live options for belief.

Sure you read all of that OP?

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that if you feel that a belief is in your best interest, you are justified in believing it without compulsive evidence if you want to.

He is not saying belief is in your best interest, he is saying there is no good reason for asking a man who can believe in God, who wants to believe in God, and who believes the evidence for God is inconclusive to withhold his belief until some scientist 30 years from now finds out that the GUT does not explain the big bang or the anthropic coincidences.

Again, the option really has to be live for the person. He has to be capable of actually believing it.

James wasn't selling one perspective over the other. He wasn't saying that it was better to have the attitude I must not miss this, if it is true than to have the attitude I must not be taken by this if it is false. He was simply saying that different people have different perspectives, and that there is no good reason why a person who has one perspective should submit their beliefs to the opposite perspective. If my perspective leads me to be willing to act and risk being incorrect, then why should I be cautious and withhold belief? If I am cautious and would like to withhold my belief, why should I risk belieiving and being wrong? James was simply saying it was okay and even rational justifiable to not subscirbe to evidentialism.

Vorkosigan

Why should I let the progress of science determine my destiny or the choices I can make in my personal life? If something means a great deal to me, and science has quite gotten around to proving it yet, why should I wait on science to believe it? How did it come to be that science rules over men's souls and determines what their hearts may believe? Why do I have to ask their permission?

You don't, luv. But if you are going to make claims about the nature of reality, you need the evidential and methodological support for them. And outside of science there are no reliable methods for doing that.

Vorkosigan

K

luvluv:

What consequences? There are no consequences for me not believing in God. Just like there are no consequences for me not believing in Zeus. You are the one who believes that there'll be consequences for me not believing in God. There is no forced aspect without an apriori belief in God.

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K,
Hold up there buddy. I know luvluv talked about this but I thought I'd second the motion.

I think what you mean to say is that, for you, God's existence is not live in that it is not possible for you to believe in God. In the same way it is not possible for you to believe in leprechauns or invisible pink unicorns.

However, the situation would still be momentous because if God does exist then you probably have a preference as to whether you got to heaven or hell for eternity. In contrast, if invisible pink unicorns exist...it doesn't really matter...it doesn't really affect you in any way.

Moreover, this situation is forced in that if God exists then you have to make a decision about it in this lifetime. Again, in contrast, if invisible pink unicorns exist...you don't really have to make a decision about it.


Again...this is not saying:A-you believe in God, B-it is possible for you to believe in God or C-you should believe in God...we are just framing the situation in the terms of James' essay.

Given the above terms wouldn't you agree?



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas