Rationalising The Irrational - Hardcore Theists Apply Within

I've heard some crazy comments over the years but the oxymoron has got to be the craziest you might as well say unfaith faith or unbelief belief which is what unbelief faith is.Edited by bluescat48, : typo as usual

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969

Here you are kind of missing the point of my question.I already know that you consider your personal experiences and the physical evidence available to support you view rather than mine. That goes without saying.The question I am asking relates to the balance of external evidence (as you obviously do not like my use of the term 'empirical' in this context) as opposed to internal "evidence".Do you require that fossils, archaology etc. (all forms of external objective physical evidence that can be experienced by all) support your view in order to maintain your belief in God?Or would your inner, subjective and uniquely personal experience of God's existence be enough to maintain your beliefs even IF all of the physical evidence were to contradict the biblical record?That is the question.NOTE: In this discussion it is not my intention to examine specific interpretations of evidences. I am not trying to trick you into suggesting that your particular interpretation of specific evidence is wrong. I am merely trying to establish whether or not 'external'/physical evidence is critical or supplementary to maintaining your belief in God. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever ascribing the bible with historical accuracy regarding events which can be genuinely and objectively corroborated by archaeological, geological or other physical evidence.That means where the conclusions derived from the physical evidence and the conclusions derived from the biblical record are independently in agreement the two should be considered to corroborate each other.However it does not mean interpreting archaeological evidence in ways that can be deemed consistent with the bible only if biblical knowledge is applied to the evidence in the first place.That would be the subjective interpretation of evidence and much much much less convincing as a result.Edited by Straggler, : Spelling etc.

I should have specified the terminology. I'm talking macro evolution rather than the abrupt differences of groups/species of animals, such as fish/amphibian etc. which are observed It would take millions more of micro evolution fossil specimens all the way up from fin to leg and other physiological steps, etc to convince me of macro-evolution of the species. Imo, the fossil record clearly favors sudden creation of the species.Don't ask me here to elaborate as that would lead off topic. These are either debatable or strawmen examples. The 1944 example is totally strawman as it is not a Biblical prophecy. It is a nut case example of someone's ignorance of the Biblical prophecies. That's all debatable and not for this thread. Please read and shift into comprehend mode before responding, Anglagard. Note the emboldened statement. This is another strawman of yours which has no relationship to my personal experiences bolstering my own faith in the Bible. 1. Another strawman. That we disagree is not tantamount to hate on my part towards you as a person.2. Your "emphatic NO" is a blind unsupported assertion. If you think sources which I've cited for the Exodus are evil and disobedient to God, feel free to bring up the threads support your charge in another thread.Btw, Your own attitude and manner of responding strikes me more of hatred than anything I've posted. Perhaps it would be good and edifying for you to examine your own attitude before judging other members of the board.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

It only "does not really matter any more anyway" if you do not hold certain values as a priority.I hold the value "try my best not to cause harm to others" as a priority.
I hold that value as a higher priority than any and all of my other "internal feelings, confirmations, and beliefs." But, you see, my priority of trying not to harm others prevents me from considering the possibility that God exists without any evidence.If there is no evidence... and I consider the possibility of God, and this "God" reaches me, and all the "oodles of evidence and confirmation" that this "God" pours into my starving soul ends up causing me to harm others unintentionally... then I was not very responsible.There is more at stake then just me and mine. I need to consider how my actions affect those around me. Those I love, and those who are simply innocent. I cannot take actions (like considering the possibility that God exists) without considering the results of my actions on those around me.If there is evidence of the results of those actions... I can then make a judgement on whether or not such results will be beneficial, harmful, or benign. If the result is actually harmful, then I certainly don't want to do the action.With no evidence, I cannot make any reasonable judgement at all. If I cannot make a reasonable judgement that the action is not going to result in harm to others, I find it very irresponsible to go and do that action.With no evidence, I'm afraid that I hold the priority of "trying not to harm others" above my own personal curiosity.Attempts to goad me with "C'mon... I assure you it's going to be good..." isn't enough for me to risk the wellbeing of those I care about, or even those who are innocent.But, you are right, if you do not hold certain values as high-priorities, then it certainly "doesn't matter anyway."

Hold up. Lemme see if I have this right....are you saying that unless you know for sure that any action or belief that you take in life is not going to harm others, you don't take the action or spread the belief?

the majority of the time we cannot know the effects of our actions overall. At any rate, we may help some people and hurt others. My problem with your approach is that you are putting too much faith in your own ability to not only uphold but to direct and control rationality.

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Inaction is an action. How do you know that not taking a stand or directing a belief/action may itself harm others?

No, Phat. I'm saying exactly what I said:

quote:

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With no evidence, I cannot make any reasonable judgement at all. If I cannot make a reasonable judgement that the action is not going to result in harm to others, I find it very irresponsible to go and do that action.

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What you're talking about is something else entirely: The majority of the time we are dealing with reality, and we certainly do have verifiable evidence enough to make reasonable judgements. With the existence of God, we have no evidence. There cannot possible be "evidence enough" in a situation where we have "no evidence." My approach is simply to require something beyond that which we cannot tell is different from imagination before taking risks which could potentially endanger me or my loved ones.Are we able to tell the difference between evidence we have on God and things from our imagination? -No, we are not.Does allowing a being (here, "the most powerful being in the universe") to influence some of (all of?) my decisions have a signficant potential to cause actions which harm me or my loved ones? -Yes, it most certainly does.Such a thing requires very good evidence that the being is:1. Real
2. BenevolentOtherwise, I'm not being very responsible. No one ever said I'm taking inaction on everything.I only said I'm taking inaction on those actions for which there is no evidence (and therefore could be potentially dangerous), and they have a high-possibility for affecting my loved ones.It's a simple risk analysis of the scenario, and believing in God with no evidence to do so is extremely high risk to me and my loved ones.

Yeah well, it was actually more of a parody of John's position, which is the weirdest one of them all. He says there is empirical evidence, but you have to believe god is real before you can see it. When we then summarize his position to say that belief comes first, he says it doesn't. It's a bit weird to me, so I thought I'd have some fun.For me, yes evidence is required before I believe anything. Though I did made some mistakes by thinking "Hmm, that sounds plausible, that must be true" only to later find out I was utterly wrong. Ah well, you live and learn.

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I hunt for the truth

Well I wrote the OP and proposed the topic and I say yes it is. This sentance makes little sense. But this thread is about analysing the faith of Christians in order to determine whether 'external'/physical evidence or internal/subjective "evidence" provides the basis for such beliefs. Your interpretation of this has lead you to claim that the empirical evidence inevitably and obviously leads to the conclusion that God exists.ANDThat we can only see that this evidence leads to the conclusion that God exists if we view the evidence through the lense of complete faith in God's existence. If by "simple and difficult" you actually mean "contradictory and circular" - Then Yes.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Let me explain it to you in terms a 5th grader can understand."Belief faith" means that one believes in Creator God, has entered into a relationship with Him, and has allowed Him to be Lord of our lives."Unbelief faith" means that one does not believe in Creator God, has no desire to enter into a relationship with Him, and especially does not want Him to be Lord of their life.

Hi John, Looks like you ended up explaining it as a 5th grader would explain it, rather than so a 5th grader could understand it. That you just murdered the english language.

belief, professedly without proof (i.e. above an acceptable standard of evidence).

You see, John, once you say you have faith you already establish you have a belief. There is no such thing as "belief faith", even a 5th grader would know that. Looks like you are not smarter than a 5th grader. That you ressurected the english language, only to murder it again.Do you just choose any set of words and combine it to represent things that only you can understand...?As per the above definition - (unless you plan on challenging the accepted definition) - if you have faith you have a "belief", you can't have faith in "unbelief", it contradicts* itself.

opposite of; deny directly and categorically.

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"I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Straggler writes:Ok, the answer(to questions 1-5, of post 1 of the OP) is, yes it does, its a combination of both, so what is your point? Every belief is composed of some subjective "evidence" regardless of what that belief may be, including, theism, atheism, religions, the TOE, and every religious belief system. Again, what is the specific point you are trying to make by asking the above questions?Ive read all of the previous posts in this connection and fail to see why a lack of evidence in some areas constitutes a lack of evidence in a foundational or structural capacity, to not, instill a viable belief, given the fact that a belief is either supportable or it is not, atleast from its inception.Do you have a specific point? Because the following paragraph by yourself, involves itself in misconception and misrepresentation of what is actually believed. Your write: Since this is in no way, the way in which Buzz, ICANT, John,Jaywill, Iano or myself proceed, why ask such a question in the first place. It assumes something that is not correct in the first place.Maybe you could clear up this misconception on your part.D BertotEdited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.Edited by Bertot, : No reason given.

I have known the lifestyles and behaviors of a lot of people over the years, both within my belief system (the church) and outside of it. I have observed how belief affects an individuals world view and how it carries over into their behavior on a daily basis. What I have observed is that whether an individual is a theist or an atheist in and of itself does not make them less rational overall or pose any inherent danger to their friends and family. Of course there are extremists in either category, and at the extreme fringe edges of any ideology are people who have undesirable and even dangerous behavioral patterns. On the average, however, I fail to see why you have this idea that belief is an irresponsible position or why it endangers your family in any appreciable way.Now on a national level, I can see how a fundamentalist end times mindset that a substantial portion of the population believed in could endanger the future of our country, much as fundamentalist Islamic beliefs endanger the survival of countries such as Iran.On an individual level, in regards to a strong inner faith in God, I see no danger from such thinking, at least not any more danger than I would suggest that a parent who encouraged their children to become atheists could pose.

I think that the internal/subjective evidence wins hands down. While some Christians, myself included, have had some serious emotional experiences that we could be tempted to label as external evidence, we (at least I) feel no need to go out on a limb publicly when I have no evidence that I can present apart from my experience.Over at Dreamcatcher, jar and I had a lively discussion on this thread. The idea was suggested that many, if not most Christians lie to themselves either consciously or subconsciously since they know deep down that their beliefs are irrational yet refuse to question or doubt their beliefs. I personally am unafraid to question my beliefs but consider it traitorous to doubt my beliefs all for the sake of finding a rational truth apart from God as the final answer. Jar maintains that I am dishonest with myself by doing so, but my response is that I have chosen to take a stand in believing in irrationality rather than taking an agnostic stand for the sake of rationality.The reason that I have decided to believe this way is because I feel that it is important for me to have a relationship and a commitment to God. My critics would assert that it is more important to be honest with myself, but I find no dishonesty in believing in an unsupportable and irrational conclusion. Why? Because in my mind, the conclusion is irrational and unsupportable in others eyes but not in my own.Some would say that I indeed am subconsciously lying to myself. The jury is still out, however. I don't feel crazy!

Are you willing to differentiate between external objective evidence and internal subjective "evidence"?Do you actually acknowledge that there are inherent differences between these two forms of evidence?If so what would you say that the differences are? Is one form of evidence more objective or reliable than the other? Why don't you try actually answering the questions in the OP? The answer "yes both" fails to answer most of the questions posed. Well actually ICANT and Iano (as well as most other theistic contributors to this thread) have stated that internal evidence alone is enough and that external evidence is relatively unimportant to maintaining their beliefs.John is just confused and talking in circular contradictions interspersed with scriptural quotations as usual.Buz seems to put much more emphasis on external physical evidence than the other theists but the point of the question put to him was to ascertain the extent of this emphasis more explicitly. Is external evidence crucial to maintaining his beliefs or merely supplementary to internal evidence?Your position has yet to be ascertained as I am not even clear whether you are capable of differentiating between the two forms of evidence under consideration in terms of their inherent nature. Hence my questions to you at the beginning of this post. At this stage I want to know if individual theists think that external physical evidence is crucial to maintaining belief in God or merely supplementary to the internal and subjective "evidence" that they have for God's existence.Anything else will follow from that............. Edited by Straggler, : Spelling etc.

For the most rational theists this seems to be the case.Bizzarrely it seems to be the less rational theists who insist that their faith has the most rational foundation.I am sure that there is potential riddle in there somewhere........