davros4269

mnkbdky,

With regard to this funky statement, you had me stumped at first, but the more I think about, the less I like it. Doesn't it seem that life itself is based on evidence? What I mean to say is that you wouldn't reach down and pick something up if you didn't think it was there. If you grabbed for it and it wasn't, you'd question your sanity; if you grabbed it you'd have proof to back up your evidence that it was there because you saw it. Let me try it this way, I take that seeming-gramatical contratiction as the basline of baselines, as the default value. Maybe how you think of omnxxxx in relation to god, except that you don't have "outward evidence". For example, I also belief, without proof, if you like, that I exist - right, I have myself, but how do I "know" outside of myself? this whole forum could just one more test invented just for me and me alone to see how I react.

I take these as my default values. I've asked you this before, since you accept evolution, was there philosophy before humans? Do animal brains, which I consider earlier versions of our brain, more or less, have a philosophy? Do animals believe without proof? Would a sane animal jump off a cliff to a floating log that wasn't really there? Certainly the entire universe wasn't stale until we came along to question existence? Of course, I'm assuming again that I exist and that universe exists...

Try it like this: does what we think change reality? If so, then what shaped reality when non-human animals were around? What about aliens?

Read back 34 posts or so - didn't I say at the get-go that I didn't want to get so deep into lala-land that we can't prove to each other that we exist? It's fruitless, and, while interesting becaue it makes me think, it doesn't add to the debate.

As for your grandma, you qualified what I said that I meant that EVERYWHERE, in ALL circumstances and so forth. While gramatically that may be what I said, I felt that I was talking to neither a computer nor a lawyer

Of course you would take your granny for her word, and I mine. This does not change the fact that she _could_ be lying to you. Besides, you do have evidence that she is telling the truth, sortof, as character. I've never really caught my grandma in a lie, so we've built up a certain trust. However, the only way to tell for sure would be verify the evidence we have scientifically. This is perfect comparison with religious faith. It's like faith in your granny. You grant her the trust, but she _could_ let you down at any time. This is why religious faith is nonsense - without proof you could be let down.

I don't agree at all: I do not think experience is evidence. If you read my post to Bill Sneeden you will see why.

Of cousre you accept it as evidence, regardless of how you want to word it, the idea is the same. It would certainly be irrational to believe something that not even you accept. Your personal evidence is your experience. It just doesn't apply to anyone else. Call it the reason, if you want, but the _idea_ is the same. Again, definition woes. Perhaps you should create a virtual word like bloopless, which is the difference between two ideas and is an exact idea, like the _symbol_ for PI.

I do think we both agree with the satement. I've read the post to Bill, and he made some really good points in return.

Ok:
This does not seem to work. Both being right would be a contradiction and contradictions cannot be true. Therefore, both cannot be right. However, does a belief have to be true in order to be rational? Or does a belief have to be true in order to be considered knowledge?

If both are right, then, yes, like I said, and to which you agreed, there is a contradiction. Before we go any further, we have this contradiction. We aren't considering rationalness or not - it's a contradiction. There could be an infinite number of defeaters for your innate-sense. Each rational? Who knows - like you, I don't like contradictions and this allows for many.

Well: Therefore, a contrary belief is not a defeater for rationality.

Although I think your belief is irrational, I haven't really tried to prove this, just that your belief itself is silly. You said since there are no defeaters, therefore it's valid. Well, there do seem to be defeaters. If other beliefs directly challenge yours, yet exist for the same reasons as yours do, they can't all be right (putting aside the rationalness of the belief holders for a moment). I'm not sure how you can avoid this point.

The most you can say is that your belief may well be a contradiction - you don't know for sure, because there is no outside evidence for yourself or any of the innate-to-others challangers. With outside evidence perhaps you could attack it like reincarnation. Your internal belief has strength and weakness this way.

In order for me to accept this - Any belief that is justified and grounded is rational.
My belief is God is justified and grounded
Therefore, my belief in God is rational

- I would first have to accept that it is justified. It can't be justified without reason/evidence. You require evidence to believe in something, as I do, contradiction or not. Yes yes, I do understand your definition of evidence, but you aren't sticking to it, so neither am I. The underlying idea is the same.

As for the 5 senses _stuff_, anyone that believes in that which is bloopless has a silly belief with no evidence Further, you may replace 'god' with 'gods' or 'dragons'.

Finally: Well, it seems to me that my belief processes are still functioning properly. It is my trust in my perceptual abilities that allows me to say I am experiencing the true God. I still know the difference between what is real and what is fantasy. I know the difference b/t dreams and reality. I know the difference between fact and fiction. I know how to distinguish logical truth from logical falsity. My reasoning abilities are still intact. If my belief processes can be shown to be faulty, then, I can be my own defeater. Though, I guarantee I will pass.

I don't buy this. You may not know how your inante sense came to you. Your reasoning abilities might be 100% dead on - no need of a disorder, lets say, of any type. You still cannot every really know, without outside evidence, if your innate-sense of god is a chemical issue or god itself. And, if you look skeptically at outside evidence, you would have to conclude that, given the lack of other evidence, your experience could be the result of brain chemistry. You must conclude that this _may_ be another defeater - this brings the defeaters to infinity (+1).

Of course, the outside evidence fails because it includes the soul idea, the Bible and so forth. We have the issue of gods vs god as well.

So, the grand summary would be, for your belief itself,

1. There is no outside evidence to back it up.
2. We can't determine the validity of the internal evidence (not even _you_ can be certain)
3. There may be an infinite number of direct challenges, each as equally valid, or invalid, based on the first 2 points.

I'd say that equals, "a whole lotta 'nothin", but that's just me and I may not exist - although I assume that I do.

Tootles,

Davros

davros4269

haverbob,

I'm really sorry that I don't understand most of what you mean. I think the part I quoted is the key, correct me if I'm wrong.

Back in Psyc 101, we were told that most folks who get help, say, if they think they are ugly, or shy, etc., are told to bring the real closer to the ideal, instead of the ideal closer to the real.

In otherwords, a heavy set shy poor woman with massive birthmarks on her face that wants to become the next Brittany Spears will be told, nicely, to adjust her goals and be happy with wjat she has

Like I said before, it's the whole, "be happy with shoveling shit" concept, and I'm not sure that I like that. Sure, if you adjust your idea of reality you can be happier.

I'd just first like to understand reality itself as much as I can.

It's a bit like what NASA considered doing for long duration space flights with long-lived astronauts - change them to be _ok_ with being alive that long bottled up in a rocket. (as a qualifier, this NASA research wasn't a program that existed to achieve real results, but merely to think about the long term future of human spaceflight, alongside wacky propulsion systems that won't be around for at least 100 years - it was just a paper-concept, but the idea is sound).

Did you ever read the, "Restaraunt at the End of the Universe?" You are like that cow that was engineered to be happy about being butchered, even to the point of walking up to the customer and asking the customer which parts they want.

Tootles,

Davros

Bill Snedden

Okay, what's the difference between "a reason to believe something" and "evidence supporting a belief"?

I must confess it seems to me a distinction without difference...

I don't think your substitution is valid. A belief about something is not equivalent to the reasons for believing it.

However, let's paraphrase Clifford and see if that clarifies the matter.

"It is wrong, always, everywhere, and for everyone to believe anything without sufficient reason."

It's still possible therefore to believe something, and have a reason for believing it, but for that reason to be insufficient to meet Clifford's evaluation of a "rightly-held" belief.

I think that all that Clifford is saying is that it's wrong not to subject the reasons one has for believing something to a thorough evaluation before believing it, not that it's not possible to believe something on insufficient reason.

It if interesting that you jump to the conclusion that my "affirmation", as you call it, is driven by the historical references in the Bible. However, you are mistaken. It was not. It was driven merely by the reference to a "supreme being", which seemed to me to smack unmistakably of mythology.

Do you have evidence that Hercules was not a real person, or more properly, based on a real person? I assure you, there are real people in Greek and Roman mythology as well (read Ovid). That real people might appear in otherwise mythological tales is in no way a defeater for the mythological status of those tales. Myths can grow up around real people as well as be based on wholly imaginary characters (see Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett in American history, for example).

I've not agreed to that. If the conception of "god" that's advanced is incoherent or contradictory, it doesn't require omniscience to know that it doesn't exist.

There are no square circles.

Are you suggesting that your subjective experience is of greater value than mine? Doesn't that contradict your definition of evidence?

Not at all. Perhaps it's Krishna or Allah. Perhaps Ra or Zeus. Perhaps there is no "god" as such, but a universal consciousness of which we're all part. Etc., etc., etc....

And even if it is from myself, it's still cannot be of any lesser quality than your own, subjective experience. To claim otherwise is to leave the realm of the subjective and enter the realm of the empirical.

Oops! Uh, oh, here we are in the realm of the empirical. In order to support this assertion, I'm afraid you'll have to offer some "evidence" (not subjective, this time) for the existence of this "god". Otherwise, well, your claim fails. There's simply no reason to believe, without such, that your subjective experience is of any greater or lesser value than my own...

Here we certainly agree.

I would concur. Interestingly enough, I think that's exactly what Clifford is saying.

You seem to dismiss too easily any possibility that it could be a dream and still represent the truth. Perhaps I'm psychic!

What would you say if I rejected your "god experience" using the same line of reasoning? Perhaps your belief making processes are similarly malfunctioning?

And we're back to the realm of the empirical again! Can't I just have my dreams?



Regards,

Bill Snedden