Reason or Faith? (moved)

ScottA · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
And if, upon examination, the evidence presented is not sufficient to warrant the high level of confidence one has in that belief, the appropriate word for that would be...

You are not listening, not even being reasonable. Soyeong listed real human experiences where the evidence was SELF-evident to such a degree as to change a life. Do you not know that reason does not rescue a person when all hope is lost? At that point, reason has failed...and millions have experience what happens beyond reason. Reason is a wimp. Faith lives on...and all who have follow faith beyond the death of reason, do not believe, but know why: Because there is power in faith, given by a higher power than human reasoning, by God.

JGG · Aug 1, 2015

anonymous person said:
When did Devon witness these instances of you walking on water? When did the lifeguards witness this? What are their names? When did the woman see you do it? What is her name? I am interested in getting to the bottom of the matter and would like to gather as much information as possible the same way I have investigated the gospel accounts. I have more questions when these are answered.

I don't know. It was last summer some time...Funny, you're not at all interested in the facts surrounding the birth I witnessed.

The point you were trying to make was that if I do not believe you can walk on water, then why do I believe Jesus did.

To which I will answer as I have before...

You are not Jesus. You are a person on an internet forum who will say that they have walked on water to see how I will respond, not because you are attempting to report something that has actually taken place, which is what the gospel writers were doing.

No. It has to do with why the Titanic sinking, Abe Lincoln's death, and the birth of my mother are easier to understand and believe than the virgin birth, the parting of the Red Sea, and the resurrection. It has nothing to do with what you believe, but what I believe. And you're about to explain to yourself why miracles are tougher to for me to believe than the more mundane events...

One claim is a claim to have done something which the natural order of things has no power to produce i.e. a miracle. The other is not.

JGG · Aug 1, 2015

aiki said:
Shall I repost the quotation? It seemed pretty clear to me...

No. Here's the part that causes questions:

"It can only be accounted for in terms of an agent and his volitions, a personal explanation..."

How does an agent and his volitions account for the emergence of the universe? To put it another way, science cannot account for the emergence of the universe because it does not tell us how it emerged from nothingness. Does the agent and his volitions?

All of your questions are quite beside my point, which was that there are some things that can be discerned about a designer from the nature of his design. Are you flatly denying this is possible? Or are you just throwing out some red herrings?

No. If we compare our car to someone else's car then we can start to deduce whether our car's creator is more creative than the other car's creator. If the other car is just a box and the two front wheels then we may conclude that our designer is more practical and rational.

But we don't have another car to compare ours to.

The adjectives you use - creative, rational, practical - are true of any creator of anything in some capacity or another, by definition. We have defined these characteristics into the designer just by claiming it exists. But without another "car" to compare ours to, we cannot tell how creative, rational, and practical it is. Our "car" could be a box on two front wheels for all we know.

And your point is?

Again, I'm not really getting your point. How does what you're saying here relate to the point I was making with my analogy?

My point is, whenever someone says you must believe to see, that should be a red flag for everyone. It's just too easy to see something you want to be there, even if it's not.

ScottA · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
I cannot a discern a single point here. I'm sorry, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

There are greater things in life than reason: Faith, hope, love, which more define life than any other human traits, abilities, or accomplishments.

anonymous person · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
You seem to be equivocating on the term "faith." I'm talking about faith in the religious sense.

Would you like to do a word study on the word faith as it is used in the Old and new Testaments? I would love to if you would like.

anonymous person · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
No. The Old and New Testaments don't dictate our use of words.

None of us wrote the Old and New Testaments so I do not see how our use of the word is even relevant.

To determine what the authors of said testaments intended to signify in their use of the word, we need to rightly understand how they used it.

This is critical to correct exegetical study.

anonymous person · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
But we aren't doing an exegetical study. In fact, it's not even clear why you brought it up.

You used the phrase "faith in the religious sense".

You said that right?

PapaZoom · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
And if one doesn't do that, if one continues to believe just as strongly anyway, the appropriate word for that is...

Stupidity?

fat wee robin · Aug 1, 2015

Well would reason have told you that one can talk to people at the other end of the earth by invisible means ?
If you had been told two thousand years ago that you could do that, would you have thought the person who said that was not reasonable ,as it was not possible ?
God's plans unfold over time ,and because the gifts He offers are so wonderful ,beyond dreams ,He only offers them to people, who in reading about Him, who in observing the amazing and ordered world He created , wish to know Him enough to lay aside their fears and doubts and enter into a genuine open hearted search for Him .There are many levels of given knowledge, given by God ,and until you drop the barriers ,and the attitude that God must prove Himself to you ,then you are stuck at the lower level of 'carnal materialistic knowledge .

All scientists who made 'break throughs ' in science which have endured, were at least deists, and had the 'insight' (given by the Creator). Supernatural knowledge is
not strange to believers who have been given the 'gift of the Holy Spirit',only to those on the 'outside' .

Ps. I believe that some people were here before ,if not all,which makes me one of a growing number.

ScottA · Aug 1, 2015

fat wee robin said:
Well would reason have told you that one can talk to people at the other end of the earth by invisible means ?
If you had been told two thousand years ago that you could do that, would you have thought the person who said that was not reasonable ,as it was not possible ? God's plans unfold over time ,and because the gifts He offers are so wonderful ,beyond dreams ,He only offers them to people, who in reading about Him, who in observing the amazing and ordered world He created , wish to know Him enough to lay aside their fears and doubts and enter into a genuine open hearted search for Him .There are many levels of given knowledge, given by God ,and until you drop the barriers ,and the attitude that God must prove Himself to you ,then you are stuck at the lower level of 'carnal materialistic knowledge .
All scientists who made 'break throughs ' in science which have endured, were at least deists, and had the 'insight' (given by the Creator). Supernatural knowledge is
not strange to believers who have been given the 'gift of the Holy Spirit',only to those on the 'outside' .

Ps. I believe that some people were here before ,if not all,which makes me one of a growing number.

Very well put! It's like there is a horizon-line obscuring the whole truth, and those who do not go...don't know. For those soooo attuned to knowledge, you would think we couldn't keep them back. It resemble someone who is a little bit rich...and their head swells up. Sad.

ScottA · Aug 1, 2015

anonymous person said:
You used the phrase "faith in the religious sense".

You said that right?

LOL!

aiki · Aug 1, 2015

JGG said:
No. Here's the part that causes questions:

"It can only be accounted for in terms of an agent and his volitions, a personal explanation..."

How does an agent and his volitions account for the emergence of the universe? To put it another way, science cannot account for the emergence of the universe because it does not tell us how it emerged from nothingness. Does the agent and his volitions?

Well, if the universe could not have been brought into being from physical causes (because there was no physical stuff in existence before the universe came into being), then what could have brought the universe into being? A little deductive reasoning brings the following description of the cause of the universe to light:

1.) Immaterial (since there was no material stuff before the universe began).
2.) Non-contingent. If the thing that brought the universe into being is itself caused, then we end up having to explain the explanation of the universe (and could possibly end up in an endless line of explanations of explanations, which is impossible). The best explanation of the cause of the universe would be, therefore, necessarily existent, not requiring any explanation for its existence.
3.) Personal. There are really only two things that fit the description of immaterial and non-contingent: abstract objects (like numbers) or an unembodied mind or consciousness. But abstract objects are causally-effete. They cannot cause anything. That leaves us with an unembodied mind as the causal agent of the universe, which is necessarily personal.

This is just the most superficial explanation I could give. There are copious sub-arguments that underpin each point that I don't have the time to get into. For a much deeper look into these things check out: www.reasonablefaith.org

JGG said:
No. If we compare our car to someone else's car then we can start to deduce whether our car's creator is more creative than the other car's creator. If the other car is just a box and the two front wheels then we may conclude that our designer is more practical and rational.

But we don't have another car to compare ours to.

The adjectives you use - creative, rational, practical - are true of any creator of anything in some capacity or another, by definition. We have defined these characteristics into the designer just by claiming it exists. But without another "car" to compare ours to, we cannot tell how creative, rational, and practical it is. Our "car" could be a box on two front wheels for all we know.

But my analogy was not intended to address any of this stuff. Stretch the analogy if you like, but you have rather ignored my point in doing so.

JGG said:
My point is, whenever someone says you must believe to see, that should be a red flag for everyone. It's just too easy to see something you want to be there, even if it's not.

Well, you might be shocked, then, to know that the field of science cannot even begin unless "believing before you see" occurs. There are a set of things that must be taken entirely on faith - brute givens, they are sometimes called - in order for science to begin. Scientists must assume that the universe is rational in such a way as to be understood by our minds; they must assume that our minds correctly perceive reality and that our senses accurately convey reality to us; they must assume uniformity of nature to justify induction (ie. science must assume that one can legitimately infer from the past to the future and from examined cases to unexamined ones of the same kind); they must assume that the laws of logic are true, that numbers exist, that language has meaning, and so on. Does science (and scientists), then, necessarily become guilty of massive confirmation bias? Scientists must believe these things are true in order for science to be seen to be true.

Selah.

Soyeong · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
Which basically concedes my point: someone can be excessively confident in the truth of a claim even though their reasons do not warrant that extreme level of confidence.

Take the case where there are 12 jurors at a trail. They all see the same evidence, but arrive at different confidence levels about the guilt of the defendant. Who gets to decide which jurors are not at the appropriate confidence level according to the evidence? Each juror thinks that they are justified at being at their confidence level, so the point is that whether we think that they are too confident or not as confident as they should be is a matter of personal opinion. If I think atheists are excessively confident in their belief that God doesn't exist, does that mean that their belief is based on faith? It's a misnomer any way you look at it.

JGG · Aug 1, 2015

aiki said:
Well, if the universe could not have been brought into being from physical causes (because there was no physical stuff in existence before the universe came into being), then what could have brought the universe into being? A little deductive reasoning brings the following description of the cause of the universe to light:

1.) Immaterial (since there was no material stuff before the universe began).
2.) Non-contingent. If the thing that brought the universe into being is itself caused, then we end up having to explain the explanation of the universe (and could possibly end up in an endless line of explanations of explanations, which is impossible). The best explanation of the cause of the universe would be, therefore, necessarily existent, not requiring any explanation for its existence.
3.) Personal. There are really only two things that fit the description of immaterial and non-contingent: abstract objects (like numbers) or an unembodied mind or consciousness. But abstract objects are causally-effete. They cannot cause anything. That leaves us with an unembodied mind as the causal agent of the universe, which is necessarily personal.

This is just the most superficial explanation I could give. There are copious sub-arguments that underpin each point that I don't have the time to get into. For a much deeper look into these things check out: www.reasonablefaith.org

But my problem here is that we are appealing to ignorance...God of the gaps. We don't know where the universe came from, it must be God. We've done that a lot over the centuries, and it doesn't work out well.

I have nothing against the idea that there is a personal God, but the argument for it is that we can't imagine anything else. That's not evidence for a creator God, and we could end up in that God of gaps position again.

But my analogy was not intended to address any of this stuff. Stretch the analogy if you like, but you have rather ignored my point in doing so.

Then I'm sorry, I missed the point of the analogy.

Well, you might be shocked, then, to know that the field of science cannot even begin unless "believing before you see" occurs. There are a set of things that must be taken entirely on faith - brute givens, they are sometimes called - in order for science to begin. Scientists must assume that the universe is rational in such a way as to be understood by our minds; they must assume that our minds correctly perceive reality and that our senses accurately convey reality to us; they must assume uniformity of nature to justify induction (ie. science must assume that one can legitimately infer from the past to the future and from examined cases to unexamined ones of the same kind); they must assume that the laws of logic are true, that numbers exist, that language has meaning, and so on. Does science (and scientists), then, necessarily become guilty of massive confirmation bias? Scientists must believe these things are true in order for science to be seen to be true.

I can't deny that. But I also don't forget it, or discount that there are many other possible explanations for reality. Even beyond what I can imagine.

Soyeong · Aug 1, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
Define "faith."

Faith/Faithfulness

“These terms refer to the value of reliability. The value is ascribed to persons as well as to objects and qualities. Relative to persons, faith is reliability in interpersonal relations: it thus takes on the value of enduring personal loyalty, of personal faithfulness. The nouns ‘faith’, ‘belief’, ‘fidelity’, ‘faithfulness,’ as well as the verbs ‘to have faith’ and ‘to believe,’ refers to the social glue that binds one person to another. This bond is the social, externally manifested, emotionally rooted behavior of loyalty, commitment, and solidarity. As a social bond, it works with the value of (personal and group) attachment (translated ‘love’) and the value of (personal and group) allegiance or trust (translated ‘hope.’) p. 72 Pilch and Malina Handbook of Biblical Social Values.

aiki · Aug 2, 2015

Archaeopteryx: As I told you once already in this thread, you are posting in this thread in violation of the forum rules. Please desist. If you want to discuss the Christian faith with us, do so in your own thread. If you don't cease posting in this thread, I will report you to the moderators.

Soyeong · Aug 2, 2015

Archaeopteryx said:
Strongly disagrees on the basis of what? I made clear from the outset that not only was the evidence against the defendant strong enough to warrant a judgment of guilt, but that juror 11 maintained the defendant's innocence despite the evidence.

Again, when two people disagree about how evidence should be interpreted, it's not because either one is ignoring evidence, but because they interpret it differently. If Juror 11 maintains that the defendant is innocent, then it is only because that is what the evidence mostly strongly indicates to him to be true. If they had no reason to strongly believe that the defendant was innocent, then they wouldn't have held that belief in the first place.

You are trying artificially impose your opinion that the evidence warranted a judgement of guilt. By not allowing juror 11 to disagree that a judgement of guilt is warranted, then you are a creating a contradictory situation where he simultaneously believes and does not believe that the judgement is warranted. It is impossible for Juror 11 to simultaneously believe that a judgement of guilt is warranted and that the defendant is innocent.

In outlining the hypothetical, I never suggested that any of the evidence was ambiguous, permitting multiple interpretations. You are changing the hypothetical to give juror 11 an advantage that, in my hypothetical, he does not have. In other words, we are talking past each other. You are talking about a completely different scenario, wherein the evidence is ambiguous enough for juror 11 to be able to reasonably withhold assent. That's not the hypothetical I posed. In the hypothetical I posed, juror 11 continues to maintain the defendant's innocence, regardless of the evidence presented. The defendant could even admit guilt and juror 11 would still maintain that he is innocent.

All evidence is inherently open to interpretation, which is subjective. Whether or not you consider evidence to be ambiguous is your subjective opinion which others are free to disagree with. If you insist that it is only possible for juror 11 to interpret the evidence in the same way that you do, then it would be contradictory to say that he also holds the opposite interpretation. I'm not trying to change the hypothetical, I'm just assuming that it's possible for it to happen in reality. I'm not particularly interested in nonsensical hypotheticals.

Disagreed on the basis of what?

On the basis of their interpretation of evidence of course.

We aren't redefining words at all. You don't appear to understand what someone means when they say that they are an "atheist." You also appear to be harboring the common misconception that atheism and agnosticism are somehow mutually exclusive categories; they're not.

If you look at classical atheists, they defined it as the belief that God does not exist, it's only recently that new atheists have tried to redefine it in order to avoid the burden of proof. Redefining it as a lack of belief leads to contradictory absurdities and I'm not sure how to make it clearer to you that the negation of a position is the equal and opposite position, not a lack of the position. As much as you might like it to, -1 does not equal 0, so the idea that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive is complete and utter rubbish.

Archaeopteryx · Aug 2, 2015

Soyeong said:
Again, when two people disagree about how evidence should be interpreted, it's not because either one is ignoring evidence, but because they interpret it differently. If Juror 11 maintains that the defendant is innocent, then it is only because that is what the evidence mostly strongly indicates to him to be true. If they had no reason to strongly believe that the defendant was innocent, then they wouldn't have held that belief in the first place.

Again, we already established that this last point isn't necessarily true. He could have a bad reason for believing that the defendant is innocent. For example, he may really wish for the defendant to be innocent, and on the basis of this alone, he concludes that the defendant must be innocent. That isn't a good reason. In fact, he has concluded that the defendant is innocent wholly apart from the evidence!

You are trying artificially impose your opinion that the evidence warranted a judgement of guilt. By not allowing juror 11 to disagree that a judgement of guilt is warranted, then you are a creating a contradictory situation where he simultaneously believes and does not believe that the judgement is warranted. It is impossible for Juror 11 to simultaneously believe that a judgement of guilt is warranted and that the defendant is innocent.

This makes no sense whatsoever.

All evidence is inherently open to interpretation, which is subjective.

No, it's not. That's the point. It's objective.

Whether or not you consider evidence to be ambiguous is your subjective opinion which others are free to disagree with. If you insist that it is only possible for juror 11 to interpret the evidence in the same way that you do, then it would be contradictory to say that he also holds the opposite interpretation. I'm not trying to change the hypothetical, I'm just assuming that it's possible for it to happen in reality. I'm not particularly interested in nonsensical hypotheticals.

But you are changing the hypothetical. You are introducing ambiguity when I clearly indicated from the outset that the evidence supporting the defendant's guilt was unequivocal. You are modifying this so as allow juror 11 to reasonably withhold assent. That was NOT part of the original hypothetical.

On the basis of their interpretation of evidence of course.

But the evidence does not support their conclusion! Suppose that the defendant admits guilt. How is juror 11 going to interpret that as supporting the defendant's innocence?

If you look at classical atheists, they defined it as the belief that God does not exist, it's only recently that new atheists have tried to redefine it in order to avoid the burden of proof. Redefining it as a lack of belief leads to contradictory absurdities and I'm not sure how to make it clearer to you that the negation of a position is the equal and opposite position, not a lack of the position. As much as you might like it to, -1 does not equal 0, so the idea that atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive is complete and utter rubbish.

You seem to have difficulty grasping what should be a very simple point. I'm an atheist. I'm not convinced of the existence of a god. I'm also an agnostic in that I don't claim to know that there is no god. Atheism is not the assertion of a belief in god's non-existence, but the absence of a belief in his existence. Some atheists are gnostic in that they also claim to know god does not exist. Many theists are gnostic, quite possibly the majority.

fat wee robin · Aug 2, 2015

aiki said:
Well, if the universe could not have been brought into being from physical causes (because there was no physical stuff in existence before the universe came into being), then what could have brought the universe into being? A little deductive reasoning brings the following description of the cause of the universe to light:

1.) Immaterial (since there was no material stuff before the universe began).
2.) Non-contingent. If the thing that brought the universe into being is itself caused, then we end up having to explain the explanation of the universe (and could possibly end up in an endless line of explanations of explanations, which is impossible). The best explanation of the cause of the universe would be, therefore, necessarily existent, not requiring any explanation for its existence.
3.) Personal. There are really only two things that fit the description of immaterial and non-contingent: abstract objects (like numbers) or an unembodied mind or consciousness. But abstract objects are causally-effete. They cannot cause anything. That leaves us with an unembodied mind as the causal agent of the universe, which is necessarily personal.

This is just the most superficial explanation I could give. There are copious sub-arguments that underpin each point that I don't have the time to get into. For a much deeper look into these things check out: www.reasonablefaith.org

But my analogy was not intended to address any of this stuff. Stretch the analogy if you like, but you have rather ignored my point in doing so.

Well, you might be shocked, then, to know that the field of science cannot even begin unless "believing before you see" occurs. There are a set of things that must be taken entirely on faith - brute givens, they are sometimes called - in order for science to begin. Scientists must assume that the universe is rational in such a way as to be understood by our minds; they must assume that our minds correctly perceive reality and that our senses accurately convey reality to us; they must assume uniformity of nature to justify induction (ie. science must assume that one can legitimately infer from the past to the future and from examined cases to unexamined ones of the same kind); they must assume that the laws of logic are true, that numbers exist, that language has meaning, and so on. Does science (and scientists), then, necessarily become guilty of massive confirmation bias? Scientists must believe these things are true in order for science to be seen to be true.

Selah.

Thankyou Selah ,very clear .

fat wee robin · Aug 2, 2015

ScottA said:
Very well put! It's like there is a horizon-line obscuring the whole truth, and those who do not go...don't know. For those soooo attuned to knowledge, you would think we couldn't keep them back. It resemble someone who is a little bit rich...and their head swells up. Sad.

Merci beaucoup .

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