Koyaanisqatsi

If I may...?

Evangelion, it seems as if you are trying to eat your cake and have it too.

You are claiming that it is somehow rational to randomly employ two disparate and mutually exclusive constructs ("faith" and "evidentiary support") whenever it personally suits you. What one doesn't support, the other will whenever you want it to be that way. You justify this irrational application by saying it's rational "according to my 'world view.'"

Forgive me, but that is the height of irrational behavior; almost, one might say, the very definition of an irrational application of mutual exclusivety and wish fulfillment, in direct contradiction to the entire concept of "rational" thought.

For something to be considered rational, it must at least follow a coherent and demonstrable logic to someone who does not think as you do, don't you agree? Yet you offer no such qualification.

For you to counter with, "it's rational to me," while cute in trying to make a point, is also fallacious, for the point you're trying to make is ultimately a form of solipsism; where no objective states exist. What you're saying when you addend the "to me" sophistry is that everything is subjective; so your world view is therefore equivalent to any world view.

While trivially true on purely semantic grounds, it is not tangibly true; i.e., it does not obtain in reality. There is a demonstrable objectivety to at least your physical existence, for example. The fact that you are right now reading words that you did not write demonstrates that sufficiently enough for you not to employ "faith" (as opposed to "evidentiary support") in this regard, yes?

So, to say, in essence, "who cares about the facts, it's what I want to believe and I'm perfectly rational according to my world view to take this position" does not actually mean that you have effectively established anything worthwhile outside your own imagination.

Yes, you have every right to take this position, of course, but it necessarily negates your salient existence in these fora (i.e., just about anything you post in an engaging manner), since you're axiomatically stating, "I don't care what you have to say, it's rational to me."

If that's the case, by all means, have at it, but your usefullness to any interractive discussions here is instantly rendered irrelevant. It's your world view; your personal belief. Thanks for informing us, but beyond mere declaration, what other purpose then do you serve by posting here or even engaging any of us, if all is just subjective?

That's not a slight, that's a legitimate question, given the manner in which you choose to irrationally dismiss legitimate arguments against your position by relying upon the "it makes sense to me" solipsist response.

If it all just makes sense to you, then why post here? To proselytize your beliefs? You don't strike me as that kind of theist, yet every time you employ this "out," it ends up the same.

It comes down to:
See what I mean? By dismissing contradictory evidence and/or arguments with, "Oh, those don't apply to me according to my world view" is by no means a rational (i.e., logically compelling) response. It also axiomatically ceases all further cogent discussion.

So....ok, great. Have a good life.

Unless you can justify how (i.e., in a logically compelling manner) your "it makes sense to me and therefore I don't need to address any of your arguments" approach is rational outside your world view, it remains utterly inaccessible to anyone else and therefore, ultimately, pointless (beyond merely "this is what Evangelion believes").

In short, if you can't explain how it is rational, then, by definition, it ain't rational and not just to me, but to all of us,including you, whether your accept it or even understand it that way or not.

Evangelion

Your entire argument is nothing more than a straw man.

There is a difference between a faith which covers the gaps beween various pieces of evidence, and a faith which does not even require any evidence at all. The former is what I call "blind faith"; the latter is what I call "rational faith."

Learn the difference.

Koyaanisqatsi

I'd love to. Please teach me the difference. Nothing in your posts so far has come anywhere close.

I suggest you present a concrete example of when you employ an evidentiary support and when that fails, you then employ a faith support, and then explain to us how that is rational (i.e., logically compelling).

Just kindly avoid saying, "well, it's rational according to my world view," since that is not a logically compelling argument...to us.

Evangelion

So, another atheist who didn't study logic at uni? Surprising that so many of them end up here.

Let's begin with a very simple analogy:

• A man claims to believe that there is a cow living in his garage. When asked to present proof, he says that there is none. Yet he believes.
  
• Another man claims to believe that there is a cow living in his garage. When asked to present proof, he points to (a) mooing sounds in the dead of night which appear to be coming from his garage, (b) the sound of hooves accompanying these mooing sounds, (c) the strong odour of cow manure, and (d) an occasional thump as the alleged cow walks into the lawnmower that he keeps in the garage.

Neither man is capable of opening his garage, so it is impossible to prove or disprove their claims conclusively. Yet there is a very great difference between the belief of the first man and the belief of the second man.

Can you tell me what that difference might be?

Koyaanisqatsi

Actually, I studied Logic and Language at Boston University (and got an A+), though twenty years and countless run ins with theists who so desperately pervert it has, admittedly, dulled my blade.

I do however still remember what an ad hominen is. Curious that one so pious in regard to logic as your last comment intones would miss this.



No, let's not. Let's take a specific example from your "rational faith;" from your actual beliefs and what evidence they are based upon and then deconstruct in a detailed, logically compelling manner how it is "rational" to employ your standard. How's that?

Direct evidence of a cow existing in his garage?



Just by fallaciously tossing in "he believes a cow exists in his barn" does not equate with faith in a god and you should know that.

So let's now dispense with flawed, simplistic analogies and actually present an example from your beliefs that we can critically assess, yes?

Evangelion

You say that you studied logic at university, yet you see no difference between a faith which is predicated upon the basis of evidence, and a faith which does not require any evidence at all?

Fascinating. How very different the education system must be in your country.

Gee, I smell sour grapes already.

In a nutshell:

• Teleological argument.
  
• Historicity of Scripture.
  
• Interpretation of prophetic literature.

Now, regardless of whether or not you believe these to constitute sufficient evidence for anything, it is impossible to deny that my belief is indeed predicated upon the interpretation of evidence. Thus we see that it is not blind faith; it is a rational faith. It is a conclusion (admittedly unprovable in the absolute, hence "faith" instead of "proof") which has been arrived at on the basis of certain evidence.

If that's not rational, why isn't it rational?

Nope. Read my analogy again. We have not been presented with any direct evidence of a cow existing in his garage. We have only been presented with two different stories from two different men. To date, we only have hearsay. That's the whole point.

The second man claims that there is a cow existing in his garage and he claims to possess evidence to support his claim.

But we have yet to determine whether or not this evidence exists, and if we can provide a plausible alternative explanation for the sounds and the odour which has led him to arrive at his conclusion, we have even less reason to believe him than before.

So we see that:

• If the evidence exists in the form that he claims, then his belief is indeed rational.
  
• Even if the evidence does exist, we can debunk his belief by testing the strength of the evidence. We may, after all, discover that the evidence has been fabricated by two pranksters with a tape recorder and a sack of manure. This would certainly disprove the belief that the cow was literally there in the garage. It would not, however, disprove the claim that the man's belief was actually rational in the first place.

* Edited to correct spelling.

Evangelion

Edited your post, I see.

Never mind. It doesn't contribute anything to your argument.

Straw man.

Please, don't try and claim that you studied logic again.

You have yet to present any evidence that my analogy is flawed.

Remember, the purpose of the analogy is to prove that there is a difference between a faith that is predicated upon evidence, and a faith that exists in the total absence of evidence.

If you deny the difference between these two (or alternatively, deny that it is possible to have a faith that is predicated upon certain evidence at all) then I see no point in taking this discussion any further.

Koyaanisqatsi

Having fun stuffing your straw men? I asked you to demonstrate what is rational about your repeated responses of "it's rational to my world view" and things like this:

As well as this:

There is a common theme to what you are presenting over and over again; that you believe supernatural events are possible and that the bible is a reliable document, because of the names and dates and places and so on.

What you haven't done (the "rational" part) is explain how one thing has anything to do with the other? Stephen King's books are therefore "reliable" because they have names and dates and places and so on? And because you believe supernatural events are possible, you therefore have a "rational faith" in ghosts and goblins and ghouls due to the "reliability" of the dates and names and places in Stephen King's books?

One does not necessarily follow from the other, which is why I was asking you to deconstruct for us a specific example from your faith and explain to us how it is "rational" (i.e., logically compelling) to equate "names and places and dates" in a work of mythological fiction with, "I argue for the necessity of the resurrection on the basis of soteriology."

When pressed to explain the disparity, you childishly respond with something like, "it follows for me in my world view, because I believe it's possible," but that's not the question being asked of you.

Notice your previous response to the question of reliability:

And...? Five thousand years from now, we will also have Aesop's Fables and Grimm's Fairy Tales and the complete works of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, etc., etc., showing that we have these works in a form that is sufficiently close to the original.

So? How does this "argue for the necessity of the resurrection on the basis of soteriology" in any like fashion? Emphasis, obviously, mine.

And how childish these boorish ad hominens are.

How adorable for you to dismiss a legitimate request with such pointlessness.

You presented a flawed analogy about a possible cow in a garage; an analogy that likewise would not explain your argueing "for the necessity of the resurrection on the basis of soteriology" in kind.

The cow in the barn analogy only goes to which claim has more evidence supporting it.

The claim of resurrection (and other like supernatural events) in the bible, however, has no evidence supporting it. This is where you conveniently replace your evidentiary standard with what you are calling your "rational faith;" a misnomer springing from equivocation of disparate contextual meanings of both "rational" and "faith."

You don't have a "rational faith" that Jesus was resurrected, you have merely faith that he was resurrected; i.e., you believe it happened. Pointing erroneously to the fact that the bible has names and places and dates that correspond to an historical accuracy and/or that the bible's content--the stories told--have not, in your opinion, been significantly altered does not equate with evidence to support the "necessity of the resurrection on the basis of soteriology!"

You state as much in that one quote; that the basis for your belief in a supernatural event depicted in the christian mythology is (a) you believe things like that can happen, and (b) you need to believe things like that can happen in order to attain salvation.

What has either of those things got to do with whether or not ancient authors based their mythology on otherwise real people, places and dates anymore than the plays of William Shakespeare? Because you believe in ghosts and there is a ghost in Hamlet and Hamlet is a reliable document in its preserved form over the centuries, therefore Hamlet provides you with reliable enough evidence to affirm your beliefs?



Does the term non sequitur mean anything to you, oh pious logic god?

Speaking of reading comprehension skills, I asked you for a specific example from your beliefs and what evidence it is based upon, as well as a detailed deconstruction of how it is "rational" to employ your standard.

Did you even go to a university?

Let's open the nutshell, then, shall we?

The teleological argument only argues for an "intelligent" design to the universe and by fallacious extension, a designer. So, this does not argue for the necessity of the resurrection.

The "Historicity of Scripture" is likewise irrelevant to whether or not the resurrection actually occured anymore than Hamlet seeing his dead father's ghost supports that the real King of Denmark actually rose from his grave.

The "interpretation of prophetic literature" tells us nothing of substance one way or another, beside the fact that there is no prophetic literature that supports the Jesus mythology; only fragments taken out of context and erroneoulsy forced to fit with the Jesus mythology, as has been exhaustively demonstrated elsewhere in these fora countless times.

Regardless, it still does not support a factual resurrection, even if everything in the OT stated Jesus by name and predicted with unerring accuracy every single thing he would do, say, practice or preach, anymore than comparing the latest slew of vampire novels to Bram Stoker's novel would affirm any of the supernatural claims regarding the characters in that mythology.

So, again I will ask you, what is rational about any of these assumptions you are making regarding this mythology?

Not in the slightest. I have yet to see any relevant evidence you are basing your belief upon. Indeed, and again, you agree with me when you stated that your beliefs are based on a necessary resurrection for you to receive salvation from a character in a collection of Judeo-Christian cult mythology; a mythology you can only say is "reliable" in that it contains names and places and dates (just like any Stephen King novel) and hasn't been too grievously altered (in your opinion; contrary to many) over the centuries.

You're not "interpreting" evidence at all; you are declaring a need to believe, therefore you believe.

Then what is rational about believing a work of cult mythology is "reliable," because some of the characters are based on real people, places and dates?

What is rational about believing that supernatural events can occur, when there is no compelling evidence to support it?

What is rational about dismissing legitimate counter arguments with such things as "it's rational to my world view," a "world view" that has no evidentiary support?

It is "blind faith," in that you simply believe that the bible is relating necessarily true events, in order to affirm your belief; your need to believe in salvation.

Because your "evidence" does not support your conclusions.

The only "evidence" you have provided is that the bible is "reliable" because it contains characters with real names and the stories are set in real places (for the most part) and these stories have remained more or less as they were originally written, just as a five thousand year old copy of The Vampire Lestat would.

I really wouldn't accuse anybody of not reading what you write, by the way.

From your analogy (emphasis mine):

All of which could be easily verified by any outside observer wishing to test the man's claims. The smell of the cow manure alone is direct evidence of a cow. Presumably the man is making this claim to begin with, because he does not have any animals (let alone cows) in his garage, yes? Hence he believes a cow is living in his garage, due to the sounds a cow makes and the "strong odor of cow manure," which, alone, is therefore direct evidence of a cow, yes?

It's his garage, not his barn, so an outside observer would easily be able to corroborate the sounds of a cow mooing and hooves shuffling and confirm the "strong odor" of cow manure eminating from a structure that contains no other animals.

Direct evidence that a cow is, indeed, most likely, inside his garage.

No, "we" don't. We have the easily verifiable sounds of mooing and hooves shuffling and the smell of cow manure eminating from an otherwise animal free structure and that's the whole point. The direct, tangible evidence (the independently verifiable sounds and smells a cow makes in an animal-free environment) corresponds to the claim.

This is why your analogy is flawed and does not correlate to your "rational faith" standard, since you do not have similar, direct, tangible, independently verifiable sounds and smells of a dead man resurrecting from the grave and then ascending into the sky because he's a god.

The only tangible evidence you can point to is that a collection of two to five thousand year old ancient mythology relied on real people and places and dates for its tales of morality and supernatural creatures.

Exactly like a Stephen King novel to our future progeny. Are those future archeologists then supposed to proclaim that machines from the past could become alive and evil because blood was spilled on them and the only way to survive was to submit to the will of the machines until they are defeated by their own lack of power? Would that be an example of a "rational faith" in Machinerology?



Whoa, whoa, whoa, Chatty Cathy, clip your string. That was not a condition of your analogy. The only condition was that we couldn't open the garage door. We ask for proof and he points to the sounds and the smells. Can we not hear the mooing? Can we not smell the cow manure?

What other animal moos like a cow? What other animal produces the distinct and, as you put it, "strong" odor of cow manure? I don't know if you've ever been on a farm, but there is, indeed, a distinct smell to cow manure and anyone who has ever had any experience with cows and horses, for a possible alternative, can smell the difference immediately.

Are we just idiots, then? Incabable of going up to the garage and listening for the mooing and smelling the strong odor? See, that's what applying a rational approach to investigating a claim means; an independent verification of the facts in evidence.

If you want to change the conditions of your analogy so that we are not actually present to investigate independently any of the alleged evidence, then fine, but you had stated that it was "impossible" to verify either man's claims conclusively because they can't open their garage doors.

If we are present on the grounds, however, then it is not impossible to verify the second man's claims, at least, because the evidence he points to could be heard and smelled by us.

So, fine, let's assume you meant to place the condition into your analogy that we aren't present to independently verify any of the evidence.

Well, now we're back at being present to independently verify his evidence.

I tell you what, it's your flawed analogy; I'll let you state the proper conditions.

So, again, we are present and can now, presumably, do what the other men couldn't do, which is to actually open the garage and find out what may or may not have happened "conclusively."

Sterling analogy to your "rational belief" in a necessary resurrection of a two thousand year old dead man based on your need to believe in salvation from a god.

I think you've won the most in one response award.

Once again and for auld lang syne, this is in no way analogous to your "rational faith" standard regarding any as yet unnamed specifics of your beliefs, since for it to be analogous, you would presumably represent the second man and your evidence would be....that a collection of ancient mythology was based on real people, places and dates and was more or less preserved in its original form throughout the ages.

By this reasoning, you'd best put on a necklace of garlic and keep a wooden stake by your bed, since the sun has set....

Koyaanisqatsi

Yes, I did. Do you have a problem with that? Are you attempting to imply that I waited for your response to post and then went back into my post in order to rewrite my argument accordingly?

In case you hadn't noticed, this is not a "real time" debate. I often post a response and then immediately review it for spelling (due to my dyslexia) and proper formatting and clarity of points.

Shall I preface everything I post with "Wait! Don't respond yet if you happen to be right now sitting somewhere just dying to get to my points, because I haven't completed them yet?"

I didn't reallize you were so hawkishly awaiting my every word to post. I'll keep it in mind in the future.

Un hunh. Well, thank you for once again making irrelevant, unsubstantiated claims.

Blow it out your assumptions.

For one so piously logical, you should know the difference between believing that a cow exists in your garage, based on the sounds of mooing and smell of cow manure, etc., and believing that a mystical, supernatural being killed himself two thousand years ago as a necessary sacrifice to himself in order to grant you salvation from himself, based on a collection of ancient cult mythology.

Please don't claim you have a "rational" faith again.

Provided. Sorry, I assumed that one so logically inclined as yourself would have seen the flaws and had no need for anyone else to point them out.

Which is exactly why it is a flawed, simplistic analogy that does not correspond with any of the conditions of your alleged "rational faith."

Your faith is not predicated upon evidence, as has been abundantly shown. You believe because you want to believe in salvation and not because you have any compelling evidence of an actual resurrected god.



Boy you just can't get enough of calling that kettle black, can you.

I agree on one point, of course. If you continue to stuff these straw men, you're right, there is no point in taking this "discussion" any further.

Now, please engage in even more character assasination ad hominen attempts in order to continue evading the salient issues. There simply is nothing more enjoyable than watching a pious man hang himself on his own ropes.