diana

Greetings, Scotsmanmatt.

Within what boundary? The middle ground?

I've read that second sentence about five times, and it still looks to me like you're saying "The middle ground...is one who argues rationally for those things in their religion which fall in the middle ground." This understanding, as you see, brings me no closer to determining what you mean by "the middle ground."

Please expand. Thanks.

I don't believe I made the last comment, although I know many atheists who do. While it fairly summarizes my meaning, I find it unnecessarily insulting.

Thanks for your definition.

And whence do you get this "confident trust"?

Welcome to II!

d

Scotsmanmatt

Hello Diana.

Quote:

Within what boundary? The middle ground? I've read that second sentence about five times, and it still looks to me like you're saying "The middle ground...is one who argues rationally for those things in their religion which fall in the middle ground." This understanding, as you see, brings me no closer to determining what you mean by "the middle ground." Please expand. Thanks.

M.Bell
Within the boundary of those things that can be rationally determined.

Quote:

I don't believe I made the last comment, although I know many atheists who do. While it fairly summarizes my meaning, I find it unnecessarily insulting. Thanks for your definition.

M.Bell
I was giving common definitions of 'faith' by atheists that I have encountered without intending to attribute all of them to you. I also find the last definition unecessarily insulting but no more than any of the other two intending the last as its meaning.

Quote:

And whence do you get this "confident trust"?

M.Bell
That would depend on the issue. Sometimes based on experience, sometime on evidence, sometimes on observation, sometimes on logical arguments, sometimes based on no evidence but previous expectation of veracity based on the track record of other evidenced matters and sometimes a combination of one or more of the others or them all.

Quote:

Welcome to II! d

Thanks.
M.Bell

diana

Scotsmanmatt,

I've read through your posts a couple of times, and must confess that I cannot piece together your meaning. I asked what is the middle ground between faith and reason that you speak of. Please explain what you mean in complete sentences.

Better yet, draw me a diagram. I'm big on pictures.

Here. I'll give you the basic idea:

FAITH-----(middle ground?)------EVIDENCE AND REASON.

All you have to do is fill in the blank. Thanks in advance.

When I define faith as "belief in a thing in the absence of supporting evidence," I mean no disparagement by it. It seems to me that many people do believe things, unaware that there is no actual reason to believe them. I think most assume there is reason enough, and never have enough interest to investigate the matter thoroughly.

I do not see this as synonymous with "belief in something you know ain't so." I wonder why you yourself, as a believer, automatically make this connection...??

Concerning the issue of "confident trust," you listed several reasons you'd feel this trust. I'll address them now.

Confident trust based upon experience can be misguided. For example, it may be my experience that discussing matters of theology with believers is a waste of my time, but it's always possible that one of them will say, "I never thought about that. You have a point."

Confident trust based on evidence is fairly good, but one must be open to reevaluating one's stance in the light of new and contradictory evidence, and one must be careful to ensure the conclusions one draws from said evidence necessarily follows. For example, "there must be an intelligent designer (ID)" does not necessarily follow from "just looky at the trees!" (Conversely, what does follow from "just looky at the trees!" is that they do, demonstrably, exist. Further, "There must be an ID" necessitates your having a basis for comparison in order to determine conclusively what qualifies as "design" and what does not.)

Confident trust "based on no evidence but previous expectation of veracity based on the track record of other evidenced matters" presupposes you can point out the earlier "evidenced matters" to your detractors, thus proving the basis for your confident trust. Careful you don't stumble here into the den of Antiquity (see "Appeal to").

Confident trust based upon a combination can be misleading or not. I, for one, am more confident about any given conclusion when I have evidence that can be verified, my conclusions can be reproduced and predicted accurately in a laboratory setting, and there exists always a way to falsify my conclusions.

You note I'm big on falsification. I'm quite sensitive to it because this is often a problem I have personally, and it makes me closed-minded to alternate ideas. For example, I recently realized that I posit that, when I ask a person who purports to be an expert a question in that person's area of expertise and the question is pointedly ignored, I tend to assume they're trying to ignore it. When I continue to ask the question and the person either continues to ignore it or get angry with me for not dropping it, I assume I'm onto something they are trying like the devil to conceal, or in some way have rooted out a contradiction they'd rather continue to deny. However, I've never found a way through which this little "hypothesis" of mine can be falsified. Until I do, this does not qualify as a "theory" at all, nor is any evidence whatsoever conclusive. My "theory" is thereby relegated to the status of opinion.

Concerning the issue of "confident trust," I think you'll find that the "faith" that we speak of when it pertains to matters we can investigate and prove should the spirit move us is quite different from the "faith" we have when we investigate matters, find no way to prove them, but believe, nonetheless.

Please choose which one you're talking about, then we can continue.

d

Scotsmanmatt

M.Bell
Ok..let's backtrack and see if we can trace where the breakdown in communication or understanding lies.

1. You asserted that the phrase 'rational theist is an oxymoron'.
2. The only justification you put forward in support of that assertions was, 'That's why faith is so indispensable'.
3. I consider this sets up a false dichotomy of the theists position, i.e. it is either based on faith or reason.
4. The basis of my consideration is that there is a middle ground between the following two positions:

a) The theists position is based on faith and hence not rational.
b) The theists position is based on reason and hence not faith based.

That middle ground position is:

c) The theists positions is based on a combination of faith and reason/evidence.

Given c) I don't know that it would be entirely correct to define the phrase rational theist as an oxymoron any more than it would be entirely correct to define the phrase as describing a totally reason based view.

M.Bell
I'm not positing some other thing apart from faith, reason/evidence but a combination of the two, hence it would look like;

FAITH-----FAITH/EVIDENCE/REASON----EVIDENCE/REASON

M.Bell
I find this hard to square with your earlier statement on the 'belief in something you know ain't so'. To that you said, 'I don't believe I made the last comment, although I know many atheists who do. While it fairly summarizes my meaning, I find it unnecessarily insulting'. If that phrase, 'fairly summarises' what you mean by the other two phrases then that is indeed disparaging whether you intend it to be or not.

I agree that people do believe many things mistakenly thinking there are good reasons to do so but which investigation would reveal as being bereft of those good reasons. Hopefully you recognise that is something not restricted to theists.

M.Bell
See my above remarks on your comments. If you intended something different by those remarks from what I took then I apologise.

<snip agreed material>

M.Bell
Well, not all things can be proven and that they can't doesn't mean that ought to be rejected. There can be strong grounds to accept matters that falls short of proof but with that proviso I'd say that generally speaking we shouldn't believe things without having good reason to do so.



M.Bell
I'd prefer the former for everything I believe but in the absence of such I'm happy to exercise faith in those things I believe there are strong grounds for accepting, even if that should fall short of those things being proven.

Thanks
M.Bell

diana

ScottsmanMatt,

Very good. The middle ground is the faith/reason/evidence combination. And when you say "faith," you mean, of course, the "confident trust" thing we mostly agree on, from the looks of it. Fair enough. I accept that sort of "faith"--although I insist that the faith of Christians does not fall into this category.

Now it falls to you, if you wish to defend your position as a "rational theist," to demonstrate that it is this position you occupy, as a Christian, and not the far left FAITH extreme (I should have put it far right, eh?).

To define faith as "believing in something you know ain't so" is simply the shorthand cynical view, as we have a hard time remembering, sometimes, that some people out there just buy into things on authority and because they do not research the facts for themselves. Also, some have difficulty imagining how anyone actually could believe in something with no evidence--just the same as most Christians I encounter don't believe that true atheism is possible. Fair?

I admit I'm as guilty as the next person in falling into this, although when I think about it, it isn't any more fair that Christians presuming to tell me I really believe but am running from God/in denial/whatever.

Yes, I catch myself believing things without good reason. But when I do, instead of defending my belief, I've learned to suspend it and look for supporting reasons/evidence to believe it. Should I fail to find them, I either discard the notion altogether or relegate it to the realm of opinion.

Of course, I now want to know what, in your opinion, qualifies as "good reason." I'd also like a couple of examples of things that can't be proven but ought not be rejected. What constitutes "strong grounds," outside of reason/evidence?

Hm. OK. Again...I need a working definition of "strong grounds," please. Either you have supporting evidence and reason or you don't.

I'm still not seeing how you can get both reason and faith simultaneously, but that's probably because of my extreme definition of "faith" vice your "confident trust" explanation. However, you have admitted that many people believe things that they lack evidence for (and when faced with this fact, continue to believe it nonetheless).

I submit to you that we're talking about two different conditions here and it's confusing to call them both faith. How about we call your intermediate condition "confident trust," and the "lack of evidence, period" condition "faith." Does that work for you?

d

Silent Acorns

Would I be correct to conclude from this that without the inclusion of "faith", reason/evidence alone would be insufficient to support theism?

If the answer is yes, then theism requires non-rational belief and is therfore irrational. Remember, even if a belief system is based on 1000 rational arguments and only one unsupported assumption it is still irrational.

If the answer is no, then reason/evidence is enough and there is no need for faith.

Jobar

C13, this thread appears to have left Nietzsche behind. I have no objection at all to your moving on to Aquinas, but you should start a new thread for that. You can link to the existing thread for continuity if you want. That way people who are interested in the work of Aquinas will know he's being discussed without having to read a seemingly unrelated thread.

7thangel

Your conclusion doesn't make sense to me. There are things that I believed before but I do not believe them now. I guess that is the reason why atheists go back to theism, and theists go to atheism. Can you explain about this?

Jobar

OK, I have split off the discussion of Aquinas to its own thread. If any of the posts here are hard to follow, try reading the 'Christopher13' thread also. J.

The_Ist

I think the answer is no. Theism can be supported by pure reason and evidence, IMO.

However, this does not mean that at least some faith is not necessary. Theism is unprovable; therefore, though it can be supported by reason and evidence, the possibility that it could be wrong leaves a theist no choice but putting some faith in the claims of whatever belief system he accepts.