Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Fanman]

You don't seem to understand what I'm saying. But I don't think I can make it any clearer.

I believe you have made yourself "clear". I wonder why you say this? Is it your thought that if I understood you, I would agree with you?

No, I do not think that you would necessarily agree with me. But that you would see my point. That in reality, God can either exist or not exist. Maybe - is not a state of existence outside of our minds.

[Gee]

I think the three piles system is not helpful. Dawkins 7-point scale for religious belief is more practical. For instance, if 1 represents total belief and 7 represents total atheism, then Dawkins places himself as a "6" when it comes to belief in God. In the Accepted, Maybe and Rejected piles, he would be listed as putting religions in the rejected pile, with no degrees of certainty or uncertainty.

I take your points, and in general, I agree with them. But this discussion is about logic, where sliding scales can be less useful/informative.

It is pointless for me to answer your first question unless you give me specifics. Suggest examples and I will give my views.

This is the Sculptor1 approach to 'debate'. First you 'answer' a question with questions of your own. Then, if that doesn't work, you claim the question is too vague — or some similar term — to answer without clarification. And so on. This gets us nowhere, and I can't be bothered trying to push you into answering what was asked.

This isn't even about God, except by coincidence. It's about whether any idea/subject/proposition can be rejected without sufficient reason (where "sufficient reason" is reason enough to justify — logically — reaching a particular conclusion).

What does one hope to achieve by having an "approach"? When I say I want examples to work with, I want examples to work with. Please just answer the question so we can get back on track.

We've driven the God bus far enough down the road to irritate Gee, so maybe move on from that to avoid earning his ire again. What other examples do you have of ideas that are unfairly casually rejected?

Sy;
I apologize for losing my temper with you. Most threads like this end up devolving into a science v religion kind of debate, which is as pointless now as it has been for the last thousand years. If people want to debate the various religions or "Gods", then that can be done in the religion forum, but if they want to pit the god concept against logic, they would first have to know what the god concept actually is -- otherwise they are arguing apples against window curtains. Nonsense.

I have no problem putting the god concept in the Accepted pile. Is it because of my belief? No. It is because of my understanding of what the god concept actually is. I am a holistic thinker, so when studying the god concept, I looked at all of the god ideas and used their commonalities to interpret the god concept. The easiest way to describe the god concept is to call it emotion, probably the easiest way to understand it is to think of it like we would think of "home".

What is a "home"? Well, that could be a house, or apartment, or condo, or duplex, or a flat, or a tent, teepee, hut, castle, igloo, or a large variety of places to live. So does that mean that anyplace where you live is home? A hotel or boarding house? A prison? A hospital? Maybe not. Home is where the heart is, so does that mean it is in the chest cavity? What if you are not human? To a bird, a home is often a nest or a hole in a tree, to a rabbit or snake it is a hole in the ground, to a beaver it is a dam. The concept of home is subjective and very difficult to prove -- much like the god concept.

Most all species will fight to protect their "home". Having a home will nurture us and help us heal -- but losing our home can damage or even destroy us like when floods, wars, fires, etc., forcibly remove us from our homes. So what would it take to put emotion, "God", and "home" in the Acceptable pile? How would one justify their reasoning? What evidence could be produced? Are these things just casually accepted?

Gee

[Pattern-chaser]

I had hoped to avoid this particular distraction, but if you insist...

No, I do not think that you would necessarily agree with me. But that you would see my point. That in reality, God can either exist or not exist. Maybe - is not a state of existence outside of our minds.

Your words, "that in reality, God can either exist or not exist", are true, as far as they go, but useless. It is useless because we have no means to determine whether God does exist (or not). Your words seem to stem from the 'Gods-eye-view' so common among binary thinkers. If we were omniscient, we would know whether God exists or not. But we are not omniscient, so we have no means to resolve the issue of God's existence.

If we had conclusive evidence, we could answer the question of God's existence. But such evidence as there is — i.e. little or none — is not anywhere close to conclusive. ["Conclusive" — having (logically) sufficient reason to justify reaching a conclusion.]

You might just as well be saying "we are either brains-in-vats, or we're not". Equally true, in theory, and equally useless, in reality; in practice; for humans lacking 'Gods-eye-view'.

[Pattern-chaser]

So what would it take to put emotion, "God", and "home" in the Acceptable pile? How would one justify their reasoning? What evidence could be produced? Are these things just casually accepted?

We are at liberty to believe anything we choose to. And there are many reasons other than those that conform to logic and reason, some of which you have described. But I placed this topic in the Scientific section to emphasise that I am taking an exclusively logical view on this matter.

Like most thinkers, I utilise logic and reason sometimes, and at others, I use different tools. All the tools are valid, and often produce different, useful, and interesting perspectives. I use and value them all. But here, I was/am focussing on a particular abuse of logic, whereby some things are rejected for trivial reasons, or no reason at all, when much more justification is required to accept them.

[Sy Borg]

I think the three piles system is not helpful. Dawkins 7-point scale for religious belief is more practical. For instance, if 1 represents total belief and 7 represents total atheism, then Dawkins places himself as a "6" when it comes to belief in God. In the Accepted, Maybe and Rejected piles, he would be listed as putting religions in the rejected pile, with no degrees of certainty or uncertainty.

I take your points, and in general, I agree with them. But this discussion is about logic, where sliding scales can be less useful/informative.

It is pointless for me to answer your first question unless you give me specifics. Suggest examples and I will give my views.

😧 This is the Sculptor1 approach to 'debate'. 😥 First you 'answer' a question with questions of your own. Then, if that doesn't work, you claim the question is too vague — or some similar term — to answer without clarification. And so on. This gets us nowhere, and I can't be bothered trying to push you into answering what was asked.

This isn't even about God, except by coincidence. It's about whether any idea/subject/proposition can be rejected without sufficient reason (where "sufficient reason" is reason enough to justify — logically — reaching a particular conclusion).

What does one hope to achieve by having an "approach"? When I say I want examples to work with, I want examples to work with. Please just answer the question so we can get back on track.

We've driven the God bus far enough down the road to irritate Gee, so maybe move on from that to avoid earning his ire again. What other examples do you have of ideas that are unfairly casually rejected?

Sy;
I apologize for losing my temper with you. Most threads like this end up devolving into a science v religion kind of debate, which is as pointless now as it has been for the last thousand years. If people want to debate the various religions or "Gods", then that can be done in the religion forum, but if they want to pit the god concept against logic, they would first have to know what the god concept actually is -- otherwise they are arguing apples against window curtains. Nonsense.

I have no problem putting the god concept in the Accepted pile. Is it because of my belief? No. It is because of my understanding of what the god concept actually is. I am a holistic thinker, so when studying the god concept, I looked at all of the god ideas and used their commonalities to interpret the god concept. The easiest way to describe the god concept is to call it emotion, probably the easiest way to understand it is to think of it like we would think of "home".

What is a "home"? Well, that could be a house, or apartment, or condo, or duplex, or a flat, or a tent, teepee, hut, castle, igloo, or a large variety of places to live. So does that mean that anyplace where you live is home? A hotel or boarding house? A prison? A hospital? Maybe not. Home is where the heart is, so does that mean it is in the chest cavity? What if you are not human? To a bird, a home is often a nest or a hole in a tree, to a rabbit or snake it is a hole in the ground, to a beaver it is a dam. The concept of home is subjective and very difficult to prove -- much like the god concept.

Most all species will fight to protect their "home". Having a home will nurture us and help us heal -- but losing our home can damage or even destroy us like when floods, wars, fires, etc., forcibly remove us from our homes. So what would it take to put emotion, "God", and "home" in the Acceptable pile? How would one justify their reasoning? What evidence could be produced? Are these things just casually accepted?

Gee

No drama. If I had a dollar for every time someone was annoyed with me ...

Alas, I still haven't been able to extract another example aside from the flat Earth, which is too much of a slam dunk. I doubt there are many scientific issues that are genuinely up for debate that are not better addressed by physicists, cosmologists and mathematicians.

The one way to put God and Home in the Accepted Pile is to see them them as purely subjective concepts.

[Fanman]

Pattern-chaser,

Your words, "that in reality, God can either exist or not exist", are true, as far as they go, but useless. It is useless because we have no means to determine whether God does exist (or not).

Exactly, that’s why (as you’ve propounded) conceptually, his existence is logically a maybe. That presents us with the choice (or mandate, as you say) - to believe or not believe. We can reject the existence of God on the basis that maybe - is not enough grounds to believe. Or we can accept it based on the scriptures and texts. Reason or critical thinking, I think, would support the former - whilst faith would support the latter.

[Gee]

So what would it take to put emotion, "God", and "home" in the Acceptable pile? How would one justify their reasoning? What evidence could be produced? Are these things just casually accepted?

We are at liberty to believe anything we choose to. And there are many reasons other than those that conform to logic and reason, some of which you have described. But I placed this topic in the Scientific section to emphasise that I am taking an exclusively logical view on this matter.

Do you see the sentence above that I underlined? In that one sentence, you chose to state that belief was relevant to my post about the god concept. Even though I clearly stated that it was not belief or faith, but was study and understanding that caused me to reach those conclusions. You did not answer my questions, you corrupted the source and purpose of my conclusions, and you casually dismissed my response. There is no valid reasoning in your response, so there is no logic.

Like most thinkers, I utilise logic and reason sometimes, and at others, I use different tools. All the tools are valid, and often produce different, useful, and interesting perspectives. I use and value them all. But here, I was/am focussing on a particular abuse of logic, whereby some things are rejected for trivial reasons, or no reason at all, when much more justification is required to accept them.

That is what you just did, rejecting for "trivial reasons, or no reason at all". Then you went on to ignore my questions about how to "justify" my reasoning. It appears that the "other tool" you used is dismissal.

Gee

[Gee]

Sy;
I apologize for losing my temper with you. Most threads like this end up devolving into a science v religion kind of debate, which is as pointless now as it has been for the last thousand years. If people want to debate the various religions or "Gods", then that can be done in the religion forum, but if they want to pit the god concept against logic, they would first have to know what the god concept actually is -- otherwise they are arguing apples against window curtains. Nonsense.

I have no problem putting the god concept in the Accepted pile. Is it because of my belief? No. It is because of my understanding of what the god concept actually is. I am a holistic thinker, so when studying the god concept, I looked at all of the god ideas and used their commonalities to interpret the god concept. The easiest way to describe the god concept is to call it emotion, probably the easiest way to understand it is to think of it like we would think of "home".

What is a "home"? Well, that could be a house, or apartment, or condo, or duplex, or a flat, or a tent, teepee, hut, castle, igloo, or a large variety of places to live. So does that mean that anyplace where you live is home? A hotel or boarding house? A prison? A hospital? Maybe not. Home is where the heart is, so does that mean it is in the chest cavity? What if you are not human? To a bird, a home is often a nest or a hole in a tree, to a rabbit or snake it is a hole in the ground, to a beaver it is a dam. The concept of home is subjective and very difficult to prove -- much like the god concept.

Most all species will fight to protect their "home". Having a home will nurture us and help us heal -- but losing our home can damage or even destroy us like when floods, wars, fires, etc., forcibly remove us from our homes. So what would it take to put emotion, "God", and "home" in the Acceptable pile? How would one justify their reasoning? What evidence could be produced? Are these things just casually accepted?

Gee

No drama. If I had a dollar for every time someone was annoyed with me . . .

You can get money for that??? I must have thousands, maybe millions, piled up somewhere! lol

Alas, I still haven't been able to extract another example aside from the flat Earth, which is too much of a slam dunk. I doubt there are many scientific issues that are genuinely up for debate that are not better addressed by physicists, cosmologists and mathematicians.

The one way to put God and Home in the Accepted Pile is to see them them as purely subjective concepts.

True. But PC sees logic as objective, which is the real reason why he put this thread in the science forum.

Gee

[Gee]

Pattern-chaser,

Your words, "that in reality, God can either exist or not exist", are true, as far as they go, but useless. It is useless because we have no means to determine whether God does exist (or not).

Exactly, that’s why (as you’ve propounded) conceptually, his existence is logically a maybe. That presents us with the choice (or mandate, as you say) - to believe or not believe. We can reject the existence of God on the basis that maybe - is not enough grounds to believe. Or we can accept it based on the scriptures and texts. Reason or critical thinking, I think, would support the former - whilst faith would support the latter.

No Fanman, reason and critical thinking supports the latter. People are always saying that there is no evidence for the god concept, I think you even stated it in an earlier post in this thread, but it is not true. There is a ton of evidence worldwide going back millennia in the forms of temples, churches, altars, statues, symbols, totems, etc., and a lot of written evidence from literally EVERY culture or nation that has existed since writing has existed. I brought this idea up in a science forum, you know where they love to hate religion, and although they tried, they could not find any culture that could disprove the universality of the god concept. We are not talking about coincidence here.

Denying this concept would be like saying that gravity is just coincidence -- just because it is everywhere does not make it real. Maybe not, but being causal makes it real, and the god concept is causal. The only difference between these two ideas is that we finally learned something about gravity, but have not yet learned about the god concept. One day we will learn, but in the meantime, we will interpret it in various ways through various religions.

Gee

[Pattern-chaser]

Your words, "that in reality, God can either exist or not exist", are true, as far as they go, but useless. It is useless because we have no means to determine whether God does exist (or not).

Exactly, that’s why (as you’ve propounded) conceptually, his existence is logically a maybe. That presents us with the choice (or mandate, as you say) - to believe or not believe...

...or not to do either. There are (at least) three choices available to us, not two. But this is partly down to misunderstanding our use of words too. That's why I have been sticking to the 3 piles, Maybe, Accepted and Rejected. Our choices are to Accept, and consequently, believe; to Reject, and consequently not believe; or to retain a Maybe, where we neither believe nor disbelieve.

We can reject the existence of God on the basis that maybe - is not enough grounds to believe.

To place God on the Rejected pile would be the result of concluding (with sufficient reason) that God does not exist. Nothing less than this can logically justify Rejecting God. So you are exactly correct to say that "maybe" is not enough grounds to believe. You simply fail to realise that, having (correctly) found that acceptance is not justified, we have two choices remaining, not one. This is not a binary issue. We can accept or reject God, or we can retain God's position on the Maybe pile. Only the latter can be logically justified, in the absence of evidence.

Or we can accept it based on the scriptures and texts. Reason or critical thinking, I think, would support the former - whilst faith would support the latter.

Agreed. But this topic very clearly and explicitly places this discussion in the realm of logic and reason. *I* believe, I have faith, but I have no logical justification for my belief, because there is none. Faith is quite acceptable to billions of humans, but it is explicitly not permitted here, in this topic.

Only logic and reason are under consideration here. Yes, this is a very restrictive focus, but that was always my intention. I wrote the OP to examine a very specific abuse of logic, whereby stuff is Rejected without sufficient reason.

[Pattern-chaser]

So what would it take to put emotion, "God", and "home" in the Acceptable pile? How would one justify their reasoning? What evidence could be produced? Are these things just casually accepted?

We are at liberty to believe anything we choose to. And there are many reasons other than those that conform to logic and reason, some of which you have described. But I placed this topic in the Scientific section to emphasise that I am taking an exclusively logical view on this matter.

Do you see the sentence above that I underlined? In that one sentence, you chose to state that belief was relevant to my post about the god concept. Even though I clearly stated that it was not belief or faith, but was study and understanding that caused me to reach those conclusions. You did not answer my questions, you corrupted the source and purpose of my conclusions, and you casually dismissed my response. There is no valid reasoning in your response, so there is no logic.

Like most thinkers, I utilise logic and reason sometimes, and at others, I use different tools. All the tools are valid, and often produce different, useful, and interesting perspectives. I use and value them all. But here, I was/am focussing on a particular abuse of logic, whereby some things are rejected for trivial reasons, or no reason at all, when much more justification is required to accept them.

That is what you just did, rejecting for "trivial reasons, or no reason at all". Then you went on to ignore my questions about how to "justify" my reasoning. It appears that the "other tool" you used is dismissal.

Ah. My dismissal is based solely on my OP, and my placing this topic into the Scientific section, to emphasise that this topic is here to consider a very specific abuse (IMO) of logic, whereby stuff is rejected without sufficient logical reason. Your words have relevance, meaning, and use, but not here in a topic specifically focussed and dedicated solely to logic and reason.

I embrace and acknowledge that there is much more to ... everything than logic and reason. I only asked, way back in the OP, if this discussion could consider a very narrow point. Your worthwhile and useful thoughts belong elsewhere. I'm sorry if I gave any other impression than that.

[Pattern-chaser]

But PC sees logic as objective, which is the real reason why he put this thread in the science forum.

I see logic as logic, as itself, as what-it-is. It is a tool. Its value depends on the problem(s) we apply it to. To apply "subjective", "objective", or any other label, is not really very useful, is it?

I placed this topic in the Science forum in the vain hope of discussing a matter of logic; something concerned only with logic.

[Pattern-chaser]

Pattern-chaser,

Your words, "that in reality, God can either exist or not exist", are true, as far as they go, but useless. It is useless because we have no means to determine whether God does exist (or not).

Exactly, that’s why (as you’ve propounded) conceptually, his existence is logically a maybe. That presents us with the choice (or mandate, as you say) - to believe or not believe. We can reject the existence of God on the basis that maybe - is not enough grounds to believe. Or we can accept it based on the scriptures and texts. Reason or critical thinking, I think, would support the former - whilst faith would support the latter.

No Fanman, reason and critical thinking supports the latter. People are always saying that there is no evidence for the god concept, I think you even stated it in an earlier post in this thread, but it is not true. There is a ton of evidence worldwide going back millennia in the forms of temples, churches, altars, statues, symbols, totems, etc., and a lot of written evidence from literally EVERY culture or nation that has existed since writing has existed. I brought this idea up in a science forum, you know where they love to hate religion, and although they tried, they could not find any culture that could disprove the universality of the god concept. We are not talking about coincidence here.

Denying this concept would be like saying that gravity is just coincidence -- just because it is everywhere does not make it real. Maybe not, but being causal makes it real, and the god concept is causal. The only difference between these two ideas is that we finally learned something about gravity, but have not yet learned about the god concept. One day we will learn, but in the meantime, we will interpret it in various ways through various religions.

Gee

Isn't there a Very Big difference between discussing "the God concept" and its prevalence, and discussing "God's existence"? The two have "God" in common, but not much else. Especially as, in this discussion, God's existence is an example, and not the topic of conversation. The topic is about an alleged (by me) abuse of logic.

[Pattern-chaser]

OK. I am not Scott, and this isn't my forum. I have no authority here, nor should I have. I have asked many times if we could discuss the matter that made me write the OP, but you* choose not to. If you* wish to discuss faith and religion here, you* have every right. I concede the issue and the topic.


* — "you", plural. Not any one person.

[Fanman]

Gee,

No Fanman, reason and critical thinking supports the latter. People are always saying that there is no evidence for the god concept, I think you even stated it in an earlier post in this thread, but it is not true. There is a ton of evidence worldwide going back millennia in the forms of temples, churches, altars, statues, symbols, totems, etc., and a lot of written evidence from literally EVERY culture or nation that has existed since writing has existed. I brought this idea up in a science forum, you know where they love to hate religion, and although they tried, they could not find any culture that could disprove the universality of the god concept. We are not talking about coincidence here.

Subjectively, through personal testimonies and experiences, there is evidence for God’s existence. When someone’s life corresponds with scriptures or texts, that can be seen by some as evidence for God. But that introduces the problem of biases and how the scriptures - are interpreted. Objectively, there isn’t anything we can point to as confirming his existence. Yes, there are churches, statues, symbols, etc., but they are culturally diverse, which creates the problem of which God (or gods) are the real ones. The Bible makes a positive claim for God’s existence, but is what it purports to be the truth reflected anywhere, giving us valid reasons to claim that he exists objectively?