Kuyper

Partly correct. The question now is, what must those properties be? As you present the case, properties x,y and z can only include those which have sufficient evidence.
However, that is not the common usage of the term “rational”, about which more below.

Quote:

Philsoft: Why do you need evidence for a definition? If you wish to have the common usage changed, then you need to argue for a more inclusive definition... The evidence is that this is what people mean when they say "rational belief."

I respectfully disagree. You are confusing two different usages of the term “rational”. If we examine the dictionary definition of the term we find the following:

rational
adjective
showing clear thought or reason
She was too upset to be rational.
We need to decide what would be the most rational course of action.
There must be a perfectly rational explanation for what happened.
(from Cambridge International Dictionary of English)

1 a : having reason or understanding b : relating to, based on, or agreeable to reason : REASONABLE <a rational explanation> <rational behavior>
2 : involving only multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction and only a finite number of times
3 : relating to, consisting of, or being one or more rational numbers <a rational root of an equation>
(From the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary)

rational
/"r n( )l/ adjective 1 of or based on reason. 2 sensible. 3 endowed with reason. 4 rejecting what is unreasonable. 5 Mathematics expressible as ratio of whole numbers. rationality /-"n l-/ noun. rationally adverb.
•2balanced, clear-headed, considered, judicious, logical, lucid, normal, reasonable, reasoned, sane, sensible, sound, thoughtful, wise. 3enlightened, intelligent, logical, reasoning, thinking.
(From the Oxford Paperback Dictionary)

Note that there is nothing in any of the above definitions that requires evidence for something to be rational. The requirement (that is the properties x,y and z to which you allude above) is only that it be reasonable, based on reason or sensible. Thus rational belief is only belief that is based on that which is reasonable. (Note that I’m not just referring to religious belief here, but to ANY belief which one holds. It is this usage by which most people understand the term “rational belief” and not as you originally stated: “rational belief = belief supported by evidence.”

You seem to want to define the term such that the only properties that qualify to make something rational is if those properties have evidence. That is a philosophical position (as opposed to a definitional one) in the general neighborhood of classical foundationalism (or sometimes referred to as evidentialism). That philosophical position is highly suspect and being self-refuting is only one of its difficulties.

That is why I posed the question in the first place. It is simply not axiomatic that "rational belief = belief supported by evidence". There is no commonly accepted definitions to which one can appeal to support that notion either. If anything, appeal to a definition works against it, as I outlined above.

K

Biff the unclean

Christians always seem to remember prior engagements when this question comes up. No rush, take your time. I'll be here.

That's because the folks over at DC Comics are honest business people who don't lie to their customers

Okay lets check some facts. Hmmm, light created before the sun by saying magic words. Magic pile of dust that turns into a fully grown man by being blown on. Spare rib turns into naked girl. A talking snake. People living 900+ years. Well speaking without bias, this is obviously a fairy tale

That is the last thing you would want to do.

You just told me that you reach a point where knowledge stopped, where you couldn't research any deeper. Then you say that you are going deeper by guessing. That is blind faith. (A talking snake for Pete's sake)

And that is exactly what you got.
With a 'subspecies' an animal can mate and produce an offspring. If the subspecies are close enough, like dogs and wolves, the offspring themselves will be fertile. If they are not, like horses and burros, the offspring will not be fertile (mules).
However animals of different species cannot produce young together. Those animals I named are different species who cannot produce young from mating with a member of the parent species, who were observed having originally come from the parent species.
In the case of the Oahu Rock Wallabies the members of the parent species that the attempted mating occurred with were descendents of the original herd that the Oahu ones came from.

I already had the answer. Christian's faith requires them to turn a blind eye to anything that even seems to contradict it.

Then it allows for evolution, period. Macro-evolution is nothing more than an accumulation of micro-evolution.

"According to their kind" is a phrase that appears in the Bible not in any zoology texts. It is a meaningless phrase.

What, no magic word from an invisible superman in the sky? No supernatural breath blowing on Adam the dust bunny?

This is the part that always gives Atheists a big laugh. It's no wonder we can't take Theists seriously. When it says days the first time it doesn't really mean days but when it uses the same word for Noah then it means days. Of course there are other Theists who will swear up and down that a day is 24 hours and not a billion years or whatever number you pick out of your hat.

Biff the unclean

Yes you did, and that would be, rational /"r n( )l/ adjective 1 of or based on reason.

Faith which is not based on evidence is not based on reason (rea/son v. 1 explanation 2 cause) but rather on supposition (a guess, something assumed) and is therefore irrational.

Demigawd

Christians always seem to remember prior engagements when this question comes up. No rush, take your time. I'll be here.

Since I've been reading the II forum, I've seen somewhere around seven Christians do this. And they're the long-winded, "I'm right and you're wrong...(mutters) and going to Hell" ones too.

Christians and other godbotherers: Put up or shut up already!

Kuyper

Perhaps you could explicate how reason = evidence? That isn't at all clear from what you jotted here. It also isn't clear why one need accept your statement that "Faith which is not based on evidence is not based on reason". Perhaps you could elaborate a bit on that as well.

K

Biff the unclean

Faith, the belief that something exists, which is not based on evidence would be based on what then? The only thing you are left with is assumption. You don't know something exists but you assume it does. But to think that something exists based only on assumption (usually stated on these boards as "I believe because I believe") credits your desires as being the creators of reality. Something exists because you want it to exist. In anyone past the age of 2 such ideas are considered irrational. Devoid of reason, because you have no reason (no evidence) to reach this conclusion.

Faith is far from the positive attribute the church presents it as. It will not move mountains. It is credulity and sets you up as a victim of the unscrupulous. That's why when you've been shamed into parting with your hard earned cash, getting nothing in return for it, it's called a "Faith Offering."

Philosoft

How? I'm only talking about a subset of rational things - rational beliefs.

You seem to be taking an unnecessarily narrow definition of "evidence." Nowhere is it written that it must be physical evidence.

What are the options? Maybe you should decide what you mean by "reason"? Can a reasonable believe have no evidence for its truth?
*shrug*
Try as I might, I can't come up with a belief that I hold without evidence. Do you have any examples?

K

Kuyper:

Do you consider the belief in the Hindu gods rational? How about belief in the Greco-Roman gods? How about belief in astrology, ghosts, psychics, and vampires? These are all beliefs that are faith based. They are NO DIFFERENT from belief in the Christian gods and, I would say, completely irrational.

Can you explain to me why it is rational for a person to believe that bunch of gods is sitting around at the top of Mount Olympus controlling the world?

capnkirk

Arrogancy is right(ly named, that is).

I have read and reread the dialog between Arrogancy and Biff, Garbles18, Shadownaught, and the others, and for the life of me Arrogancy is talking in circles.


So what if imaginary people in a fairy tale book don't have "blind faith" because they saw the miracles for themselves! Contemporary xtians have to START with an article of BLIND FAITH by believing that the bible is anything more than a book of useful(?) fables. There is no way around this initial article; ergo, all claims on behalf of the players in the story are IRRELEVANT, PERIOD!


As for the proposition that the age of miracles ended when god decided that he had sufficiently convinced the people living at that time of his power, what made them so special that he revealed himself to them and left it for the next hundred generations to rely on hearsay? Sounds purely apologist to me. The real reason that miracles have declined so precipitously is the rise of science and its effect of moving more and more "miraculous" events from the "unexplainable" column to the "explainable". To put it more succinctly, people just aren't as gullible as they used to be.

Arrogancy

Irrelevant to what you originally said. You constantly say one thing, are rebutted on the logic of what is said, and then use the rebuttal as a platform to say something completely different.

No, you are speaking with bias because you assume it to not be the truth.

And saying "light before the sun" is showing a complete lack of knowledge of translation and what is said, especially since in the scripture you're referring to, two different Hebrew words translated light, "ohr" and "maohr" are used, meaning two different things.

I thought the atheists here "knew the Bible?"

I would say the reverse.

The "talking snake" continues in the style the literary topical format used in Genesis 2. And is explained in detail exactly what was inferred later in the Bible. You DID realize this, correct?

I thought you would catch my inference as it was broken down to "easy" terminology for viewers , but I was referring specifically to the genus line in taxonomy. If you have a specific example referring to that, as what you're using goes into the species line, quote it, as it will be new information that I have never personally run across.

But it didn't contradict it.

Macro-evolution assumes that the genetic material itself changes, micro assumes new combinations of genes occur over generations. It's not an "accumilation," especially considering that the mutations needed in macroevolution would ruin the function if done gradually, and do not occur fast enough to subvert this.


The Biblical kind seems to match the line mentioned aboved.


Nope. Didn't take a cause. The dust just apparently turned into a man because it decided to. "Hi, I want to turn living now - poof!"

Do you laugh because you have no answer to why the Paul in the NT mentions that the seventh day of rest is still going on thousands of years later, nulling and voiding that criticism? Or that both formats of day are clearly used in the Bible on seperate occasions, and when speaking of God's perception, it is the "length of time" format that is most often used? I've heard that laugh before - it's "Hah, hah, I can't hear you and I won't listen!"