K

SOMMS:

That depends on what you mean by justified. Do they have the right to believe it? Absolutely, they have a right to believe anything. Do they have the remotest likelihood of X being true? Not with only those three criteria.

No, I mean rational according to the definition.

No, but it is rational for you to avoid critically examining the evidence for reasons like you enjoy being a Christian or that you fear ostracization from the Christian community. It is not rational to believe simply because the belief is live, forced and momentous.

David Berkowitz found it live, forced and momentous that a 2000 year old talking dog was commanding him to kill people. I doubt you would call it rational for him to believe that. If so, we can throw the dictionary out the window.

That's an entirely different matter. James never stipulated evidence. My point has been all along that evidence is what is needed to make a belief rational.

That's exactly what I'm claiming. That is unless you're talking about pantheism - and I highly doubt that you are.

But, as I said above, this has nothing to do with James' argument. It should be discussed in another thread.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K,
Hold up. The definition of rational is 'having reason or understanding'. There are reasons why I believe God exists...thus my belief in God is rational.



K, yes it is. If ones strategy for finding truth falls into the if this is true I must not miss it category AND one considers X live, forced and momentous...then one has reason to put faith in X. This is rational.

What would be irrational is if some person had belief in X when that person didn't find X live, forced and momentous. For me (and you) that would be 'invisible pink unicorn' because 'invisible pink unicorn' is not live to either of us.









K, there are basically two things I'd like to talk with you about.
1-The fact that you don't think my belief in God is rational and
2-The fact that you see no difference in evidence for God and evidence for 'invisible pink unicorn'.

Since you mentioned 2 might be another thread, it probably be a good idea to finish 1 first.


I think I clarified why a live, forced and momentous belief is rational, could you clarify why you don't find my belief in God rational?


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K

SOMMS:

You're using two different meanings of the word 'reason'. I could believe that I am the Messiah for a reason - say because I can count backwards from 10. There is a REASON that I believe, but ther is no REASON and understanding underlying my belief.

I've noticed that you've ignored my references to other momentous, forced, and live beliefs.

Was it rational for Berkowitz to believe that a 2000 year old dog was commanding him to kill?

Was it rational for Hitler to believe that he had been fated to establish a master race and wipe out 'inferior' races?

Both of these beliefs meet all three criteria that you claim are sufficient to make them rational. If you honestly believe that these beliefs were rational, then we're just working with a completely different dictionary.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K,
Not really. The definition of reason I am using (see websters) is
c : a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense
The 'reason' you give above doesn't fit the definition.


This wasn't intentional. I thought your questions were purely hypothetical. Here is why...

Is it rational for crazy, schizophrenic, homecidal madmen to believe what they do? I don't know.

Are they crazy simply because of what they believe? (master dogs and races) Or have they consciously considered their psychoses and determined them to be live, forced and momentous? <shrug> Probably not...as this would entail rational behavior, but I honestly don't know.


However, your question seems a bit non-sequiter. The key focus of James' essay is precursive faith...not the fringe psychoses of homicidal madmen in your above questions. It seems to me that trying to rationalize the mind of a madman is futile. I don't know why you would want to.



I am hoping you will get around to fielding the questions I had asked you.



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

luvluv

K:

I really wish you'd read the original essay, because in some ways I think you are missing the overall point. There is, I suppose, a fourth criteria James fleshes out in the essay, which is that the belief in question is not one which can be adequately addressed by an assesment of the evidence.

James formula is not a fool-proof system for the formation of accurate, true beliefs. But guess what? Neither is evidentialism. An evidentialist can shift the weight of evidence according to his own subjective desires and can thus justify as many insane beliefs as can a subscriber to James philosophy. There isn't an epistimelogical system which can eliminate forever the prospect or whacky beliefs. And, as I said before, a person for whom the belief that "my true destiny is to solve the Jewish problem while establishing the Fatherland" is a live option is not a person likely to be any less dangerous or any more restrained by one epistemic process or the other. How well could such a person assess evidence, were he an evidentialist? An evidentialist Hitler is not likely to have been a more compassionate person than a Hitler who operates on precursive faith.

Your argument against James' formula boils down to "there are a lot of crazy people in the world who will abuse it" ...but is there a philosophy for which this cannot be said? This is no more or less true of evidentialism, logical positivism, etc.

For the UMPTEENTH time, precursive faith does not justify the belief, but the decision to risk belief despite the lack of compulsory evidence. James makes the very conservative assumption that there are realities which exist which we do not yet understand completely. There may be things which are true which we will have no way of proving to be true for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. If one of those things for which there is no conclusive proof has great meaning to you, it is irrational to live your life without believing it simply because the evidence is inconclusive.

His point was that it was irrational to withhold belief on matters of incredible importance for which no conclusive evidence was likely forthcoming within the span of your lifetime. It is insane to wait for evidence on the question of God when so much is at stake (Now, in this lifetime) for most of the people who ponder the question. If you want your life to have meaning, and believe that the evidence for and against meaning is inconclusive, it is insane to sit around on the fence for 70+ years waiting for the universe to offer you proof that existence is meaningful.

Yes, this process can be applied to whacky beliefs as well as more conservative and necessary ones. But what James is justifying is not the particular belief but the rationality of ocassionally risking belief beyond the evidence when the stakes are remarkably high.

Are any of these live options for you? If not, what would be the harm in applying James' formula to them? It seems to me that being a believer in precursive faith would not make you, K, anymore susceptible to believing these things than you would be as an evidentialist.

Family Man:

That's pretty far off, I think. What options are live are not based on personal preference. I would prefer to believe that all sexual activity is meant to be totally meaningless recreation. But this is not a live option for me. I would like to believe that I will never have to pay income tax. Again, not a live option. If you are to be believed, a lot of atheists on this board claim that they would much prefer it if there was an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God who watched over them. They simply cannot believe that this is actually the case, however.

So to say that the criteria of what is live breaks down into a simple statement of preference is frankly to misunderstand the concept greatly. A live option is simply one that a person finds intellectually compelling but not intellectually compulsive. It is something that one believes is possibly or even perhaps likely to be true, but which one cannot prove.

What is live for different individuals is arbitrary, quite often based on experience and temperment. But it is not reducible to preference.

(For one thing, the reverse could very easily be stated: "I do not like this idea, therefore it is not live." Would that describe your decision to become an atheist?)

Not even remotely. Remember James is not trying to justify any particular belief, but the decision to risk belief in incredibly important ideas when conclusive proof is likely not going to be forthcoming within the lifetime of the believer. He isn't saying Christianity is true because a lot of people believe it. He isn't even saying Christianity is a live option because a lot of people believe it. He offers no criteria for what makes an option live.

Care to elaborate on this a bit? What do you mean by "better"? Better at what?

K

SOMMS:

By this definition, you need more than a reason to believe for that belief to be rational. Sufficient ground of explanation means having the power to explain - not just being 'live' to an individual.

I'm only using the three criteria that you claim are sufficient to determine whether a belief is rational. Madmen or not, their beliefs were rational using your (James') formula.


And from your previous quote:

Because I'm not at all convinced by the momentous, forced, and live argument as I've demonstrated by showing examples of irrational beliefs that meet those three criteria.

So, it comes down to a matter of the evidence. I certainly haven't seen any evidence that would convince me that the Christian God exists. The closest I've seen to actual evidence is a list of gaps in our knowledge where a god (and certainly not the Christian God) could exist. It's the same kind of evidence I've seen presented for every supernatural belief - from astrology to pyramid power.

luvluv

K:

K, perhaps I did not make this clear but I believe that James feels that precursive faith is applicable only to beliefs for which the evidence pro and con is inconclusive. If something is demonstrably false, or demonstrably true, it would not meet the criteria. James is saying it is okay to believe something that you think is probably true even if you cannot prove it is true.

Every strong atheist on this board is exercising precursive faith.

For crimminy's sake! It is not the belief that precursive faith justifies it is the decision to risk belief! James is not saying that all live, forced, and momentous beliefs are TRUE! Only that if an option meets all of these criteria for a particular person it is rational for that particular person to risk believing in them!

K

luvluv:

My point was that James' formula calls many beliefs rational that are clearly irrational. Now while Hitler may have used a twisted look at the evidence to bolster his beliefs, others can look at the evidence and conclude that he was being irrational. That can't be done with James' three criteria. Using them, it is only important that Hitler found his belief momentous, forced, and live in order for it to be rational for him to believe it.

That was not my argument against the fomula. My argument was that it labels clearly irrational beliefs as rational. If this isn't the case, how do we determine which momentous, forced, and live beliefs are rational and which aren't? This is something that's fairly straightforward using evidence as the standard. If a belief is supported by the evidence, it is rational otherwise it isn't.

This statement says that Hitler was acting rationally when he decided to exterminate the Jews - in fact, not doing so would have been irrational.

Also, saying that the evidence is inconclusive implies that there is some decent evidence - a fourth criterion that wasn't listed.

No, they aren't live to me (mainly because they aren't supported by evidence), but that doesn't mean I'm going to call the science-fiction-made-religion of Scientology or prehistoric dolphin channeling rational beliefs.

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K,
I see. Let my clarify. My precursive faith was rational because I found God live, forced and momentous. However, the reason I believe in God is because of the evidence I've seen. This evidence is my reason.


It's also difficult to talk about as their is no telling what was running through their heads that made them this way.

Maybe Berkowitz made up the dog part. Maybe he didn't consider any of it live...and just did what the voices in his head told him to do. Maybe he just wanted to kill people and needed an out.

Hitler's murder of the Jews seems to be more an issue of prejudice and propaganda than it does an issue of precursive faith. I mean...what was the issue that he had precursive faith about?

And this is my point...we have just forfeit our (up to this point) meaningful conversation. We are now stuck in the muddle of debating unverifiable speculations about homicidal maniacs.


Let's try to keep this discussion within the realms of reality.




Well I guess I disagree K. You've presented a murderous psychotic we can only speculate about and the Holocaust which isn't really an issure of precursive faith. Can you reformulate your question/argument using 'normal' people and not pyschotic killers? This is not sarcastic.



Ok...that's fine. I have no problem with that.


But the question wasn't about you. I was asking you why you think my belief in God is irrational.



Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

K

luvluv:

That works for me. Evidence first and foremost followed by a gut feel when a decision is needed.

That is why I didn't list FALSE beliefs. I listed IRRATIONAL beliefs derived using James' formula.