philechat

Nietzsche implies that there is no knowledge without pre-supposition, and therefore there is no reason to cling on one pre-supposition in the pursuit of knowledge. I think whether God exists or not should only be a question of fact without bringing in all the surrounding baggages around them. A fact by no means must change one's life outlook all around--facts are simply...unavoidable and (without interpretation) quite mundane.

philechat

pure reason? Reason is a lingusitic construct dealing with the relations between things, not a truth in itself. That is, reason is relative to the experiential situation of a person...and pure reason (except in symbol-plays such as mathematics and in human-designed systems) proves nothing except that it is internally consistent.

There is no "pure reason" in existential claims. Existential claims are intersubjective rather than objective...one cannot say a thing (with a given definition) "exist" until the thing is perceived to fit the definition by mutual agreement.

"Supported by reason and evidence"? Which deity? Perhaps the BC&A and E&C forum are more fit to discuss evidence for and against particular deities. As for faith, it is a matter of degrees rather than in opposition to reason. I would use "belief" rather than "faith" due to the overly personal nature of the word faith--a biased term, in short, which can easily be abused and equivocated.

The_Ist

Sorry, I was not clear and you misunderstood what I said. When I said "pure reason and evidence," I meant "purely by reason and evidence," or just "reason and evidence." I was not trying to place reason on some transcendental pedestal.

To properly answer the question to which I was responding, I needed to speak from a theist's point of view. Most theists obviously think such reason and evidence exist. You and others may disagree, but the argument for/against God's existence is outside the scope of the main issue being considered.

I agree. What I was trying to point out in my first post was the necessary coexistence of reason and faith in a theistic worldview.

philechat

I think the problem is that any gods could be "shown" to exist if we are using creation or the apparent order in the universe as evidence. We cannot just choose a god to exist...to prove your specific god (say the xian god) exist you must have evidence specific to your god, namely that what was described in the Bible is true (thus the BC&A forum would work better). A generic god is a meaningless concept to prove Christianity, and you must show that not just any god, but the god of your religion is the one supported by evidence.
And for an atheist, faith is a term that is already biased in the opening. When we are using biased language the argument can easily be manipulated (the fallacy of equivocation) to the favors of one side. And as my last post suggested, if you are arguing about belief then please do not use the word faith, since it is too personal a term, and means something fundamentally different from generic beliefs in given concepts.

(edited to add: Did I just wrote post #666)

The_Ist

Did I ever say anything about creation and/or order of the universe showing God’s existence? Did I put forward any arguments in favor of God’s existence? The question I was answering, regarding a theist and his utilization of evidence and/or faith, required the assumption for the sake of the issue of a theist’s point of view. Therefore, these issues which deal with arguments for/against God’s existence are outside the scope of this discussion, and, as I said before, should probably be hashed out on another thread.

The “faith” required in accordance with Christianity is nothing more than belief. I don’t see how you can say that faith is fundamentally different than belief – the primary definition of faith, according to dictionary.com, is “confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.” If you want to use the word faith in a different sense, then go ahead and translate the word “faith” in my previous post as “belief.” However, I do not think the definition of “faith” and its supposed necessary difference from belief is a cut-and-dry issue.

philechat

Then it is set. If you want to posit evidence for or against Christianity then I guess it would not be the argument in this thread (given the nature of the evidences). I do not know whether there could be evidences "for Christianity specifically" without invoking Bible verses however, unless you can actually posit one that can argue about God's specificity as well as existence that is relevent to this forum.

Here I beg to differ. "Belief" in a concept is something you do not commit your existential self to, i.e. you assume a concept to be true with insufficient evidence for the moment which changes in light of new evidences. These beliefs do not define your existential self and do not become absolute truths (they are true for ourselves for the moment). On the other hand, the Christian "faith" involves existential (personal) commitment and assumption that the truths of Christianity to be absolute to the exclusion of other truths. Therefore faith involves a more personal commitment than generic belief in a given concept.

Also, in dictionary.com, there are additional definitions for "faith" which you have not addressed from the above:

2.Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
3.Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
4.often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
5.The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
A set of principles or beliefs.

Here we see that faith is a much more personal term than belief (in a given concept), since it involves alligence, loyalty, and trust, all of which define a personal relationship to the concept of God.

The_Ist

Agreed.

I am not going to quibble on the belief vs. faith issue. I do concede, however, that Christianity does involve one committing his "existential self," as you put it, to the Christian God. My main point was simply that such faith is not mutually exclusive with reason and evidence. If one thinks there is a preponderance of evidence in favor of Christianity, then it would seem that the most logical course of action is to adopt this faith. The one (reason/evidence) would lead to the other (faith).

philechat

Actually, if God is shown to exist by evidence, then God becomes a fact like other facts. There is no imperative for us to therefore commit ourselves to a new fact except to acknowledge that it exists as a fact. One is therefore not obligated (the is-ought fallacy) to commit one's existential self to this new fact, and any commitment could be made only through faith and not through reason/evidence.

This is one of the reasons Kierkegaard balked at the believers who constantly try to prove the existence of God through logic. God's factual existence speaks nothing existentially to a person, and there is no such thing as a rational faith. We commit our existential self only to those we are emotionally attached to...and if God is shown through logic and evidence then God is of no particular significance to us until we attribute his existence to be significant.

The_Ist

I am not suggesting that God's existence can be proven, and thus completely factually based. I am only arguing that reason and evidence can (supposedly) be offered in favor of his existence, as opposed to his non-existence, while not making the issue a fact either way. The faith involves committing one's existential self to God, due to the fact that there is reason and evidence in favor of his existence.

Why is it not possible for rationality to lead to the emotional attachment to God, and from there to the commitment of one's existential self to him? What is inherently illogical about this course of action? Maybe I'm just missing your overarching point, but I still don't see how a rational faith is impossible.

philechat

Yes, but the problem is that existence does not entitle existential commitment. Such a view must commit the "is-ought" fallacy--that one is required to act a certain way because a given fact "exists".

Let's say we have a very obvious fact--gravity. Gravity exists and we can only perform actions a certain way because of its existence. There is no willing in our obedience to gravity--we taken it as a factual existence without feeling ourselves obligated to submit or rebel against it. It is a fact that is central to our existence, and we take its action for granted.

If God exists, could he not be similar to gravity in a way? Wouldn't we therefore take his existence for granted without needing to will his actions upon us? If such a being knows all and forgets none, wouldn't we already submit to him without willing to do so, the way we submit to gravity because we cannot do otherwise?

Yes, I do not think God's existence necessarily leads to us having a moral obligation to submit to him. The problem here is what I have mentioned above--the is-ought fallacy. Here is a very obvious example below:

Take a moral assumption that most of us will agree on: "It is wrong to torture young children." Note this is not a rational statement but a statement of value--one involving our existential commitment, not our faculties of reason. Say now I asked the person why torturing young children is wrong, and he replied, "It is wrong because the children suffer when we torture them." Note again it is not a rational statement, for while it is rational to say "If we torture little children, the children will suffer" (a statement of fact), it does not follow that it must be wrong to torture little children. The statement "it is wrong to torture children because the children will suffer if we do so" is a non sequitur. We made many assumptions between these two statements that is related not to fact, but to value, thus it is not a rational statement.

It is therefore true that atheists have faith in some areas, such as the ethical statements above. Atheists only lack faith in the concept of God--namely, atheists have no religious faith because they do not base their existential self on the existence or non-existence of God. They do not say "I must perform certain acts because God does not exist". On the other hand, those who commit their existential self to God base their lives on this statement, "We must obey God's will because God exists". This statement commits the same fallacy as the above example "we must not torture children because they suffer if we do so"--irrational and illogical, yes, but not necessarily wrong.