Philosophy Discussion Forums

Belindi wrote: ↑January 8th, 2018, 3:17 pm Spectrum wrote:

If Spinoza's God is 'Nature' then it must be conditioned by the empirical-rational.
But no one has produced any empirical evidence to justify the Spinozan's God exists.

If it is related to 'nature' it cannot qualify as 'than whom nothing is greater ' as nature is always subjected to infinite regression.

No and No.

Spinoza's version of God is empirical insofar as it chimes with modern science. Spinoza himself set out to prove by deductive logic that nature is God and God is nature.

For followers of Spinoza, i.e. scientific pantheists, God and nature are the same.

IF the conclusion from any deductive syllogism or logic is empirical, then it must be subjected to empirical-rational proof to justified it is true.

That is the rule for all empirical claim.

Otherwise it may an empirical-possible speculated theory.
E.g. E=MC2 was an empirical-possible speculated theory and only recognized as scientifically true knowledge when its was confirmed by empirical evidences.

But my assertion is God is only a transcendental idea which is a transcendental illusion and thus is an impossibility to be an empirical truth.
In this case, the idea of God cannot even be considered to be an empirical-possible speculated theory

Btw, just in case,
do you have a syllogism for Spinoza's argument?

In the off-chance anyone is interested, there's a book, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief, that deals with the very topic of this thread.

Eduk wrote: ↑January 8th, 2018, 11:29 am

Uummm... I don't (by definition), it's SUPERnatural after all, that's why belief in it requires faith (because there is no proof).

I don't get it. I asked before, but can you give me some examples?
If there is no proof then how do you know the thing you are believing in the your head and the thing are the same thing?
For example if I said something is behind mars. You then found something behind mars. Would I be right?

Let me put it a different way.

Let's say we stipulate of all possible things, some are able to be detected and measured by human perception (and by technologies of human manufacture) and some are not. The things in the first group comprise (by definition) everything that we interact with every day.

What label would you use for the second group of things?

Spectrum wrote:

But my assertion is God is only a transcendental idea which is a transcendental illusion and thus is an impossibility to be an empirical truth.
In this case, the idea of God cannot even be considered to be an empirical-possible speculated theory

Btw, just in case,
do you have a syllogism for Spinoza's argument?

But not all gods transcend this relative and transient world which we experience. Some gods , for instance God and I think also Allah, are both transcendent and immanent. I understand although I may be mistaken that some progressive theologians believe that God is entirely immanent.

The pantheist's God is immanent not transcendent and that is a corollary of "Deus sive Natura".

I don't see how there could be a "syllogism for Spinoza's argument" as Spinoza's is a grand theory in which all the subsections dovetail neatly together.

Spectrum wrote: ↑January 8th, 2018, 11:05 pm Me: Your use of words like 'reasonings' and 'intellect' disguise this because they have an informal meaning. We would want to say scientists as people are 'reasonable' and 'use their intellects'.

I am wondering what wrong with your views above when you think scientists do not use the faculty of reason and intellect to do science.

This is why it becomes tedious to engage with you. You don't bother to read what other people write.

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.[1] It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.[2] Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.

Reasoning is from the faculty of reason within the cortex which is very general, as defined above, i.e. including art. The faculty of reason also cover primal reason, i.e. the Pure Reason of Kant's Critique's of Pure Reason.
Intellect is a subset of the faculty of reason which is more analytical and objective.

So when you use the word 'reason' it doesn't necessarily imply 'logical', but embraces just about every human activity. That makes it pretty much meaningless.

It is justified true-beliefs.
First we have 'beliefs' from personal conviction X which the person would claim to be true bit not to the collective.
For the collective or any group to accept that personal conviction X is true, it has to be justified to be a true belief.
To be justified true belief, it has to be justified within a specific Framework and System, e.g. Science, legal, economics.

If anyone claim Not-X is JTB, then one has to prove it within his or an agreed Framework and System.

And is everyone free to invent their own system? If 'yes', then something becomes a justified true belief just because we believe it. If 'no', then that means some 'Framework and Systems' are valid and others are not, so we are still lacking a criteria.

I did not get to the above details as I don't think it was necessary.
It can start from anywhere, a dream, a knock on the head, a hunch, imagination, then we have a abduction process to see patterns, then an opinion and to a hypothesis and one confidence level of the truth develops gradually.
Since it is on a personal level, there is nothing to stop someone to jump to the truth and 100% personal conviction of certainty.

So their '100% personal conviction of certainty' is what makes their hypothesis 'the truth'?

Me: Is your notion of morality purely a report of your 'personal beliefs [conviction]'? So, when you say 'Eating people is wrong' that should be understood as 'Personally, I don't like eating people' i.e. it isn't asserting that others should share your feelings. e.g. So, I do not feel the same way as the terrorists, but I cannot say they are wrong in an objective sense.

Or, are there 'absolute moral laws', which are (presumably) applicable to everyone? e.g. Terrorists are evil: fact.

You say you present 'reasonings' but I still cannot make out what you think, let alone how you got there. I do not think I am alone in this.

Reasonings meant I have presented various arguments and explanations to justify my points.

As for Morality, I don't rely on casuistry cases, my personal conviction is based on the model of a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics [Kantian]. I have explained the details of such a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics [Kantian] many times in the Philosophy of Morality and Ethics section.

Note "system" meant it is self-correcting towards continuous improvement with its input, out and control feedback.

I do not think you have explained it, I do not think you have really worked it out, which is why you cannot respond to a very straightforward question.

Let's say we stipulate of all possible things, some are able to be detected and measured by human perception (and by technologies of human manufacture) and some are not. The things in the first group comprise (by definition) everything that we interact with every day.

What label would you use for the second group of things?

Well I wouldn't assign any label to the second group of things because the second group of things comprises an extremely wide range of possibilities. For example relatively, famously, had no way to be proven when Einstein came up with the idea. So it could be said that relativity was unmeasurable by humans. However relativity was consistent with all known empirical evidence (which no other theory was) had a mechanism and made predictions. So even though humans couldn't directly test for relativity they still had enough empirical data in order to lead to its supposition. For example at no point did Eddington (I think Eddington proved relativity first) need to have faith in Einstein. He used his reason to proportion the evidence, and then I assume he ran the experiment and hoped it would work. I mean in a sense you could call that faith, but that would depend how you defined faith.

Ever hear of the Gettier problem?

No I hadn't. Thank you for the link. I think the criticism that justification is proportional gets around the problem but I would go further.
In the first example the belief that someone with ten stones in their pocket will get the job should be a belief that Jones, with ten stones in his pocket, will get the job. This neatly illustrates the point I was trying to get, Smith doesn't believe in a generic person with ten stones getting the job he believes in his friend Jones, who has ten stones, will get the job.

I believe the composition of ALL unreasonable beliefs that is contributing to the existing and potential problem in the world are as follows;
1. Theistic based [incl politics] = 40%
2. Politics [secular only] = 30%
3. Economic = 10%
4. Social = 10%
5. Others = 10%
Agree? otherwise?

From the above when we remove theism [grounded on illusion and impossibility] we will remove a very significant % of the problem of evil and violence. Then what is left to resolve will be;
1. Theistic based [incl politics] = 0%
2. Politics [secular only] = 50%
3. Economic = 20%
4. Social = 20%
5. Others = 10%

No I don't agree. But let us imagine your above numbers were accurate.
First off how do you propose to remove theism?
Secondly if you did remove theism then instead of people going to church, praying, etc they would do something else. They could join a political party for example. So now you have to demonstrate that they wouldn't join an unreasonable political party or do any other unreasonable actions.
You see the thing is. Humans are human and do human like things. Most people, most of the time, will do what most other people (of their group) are doing in order to survive. When I was growing up I got to eat three meals a day. I had warm clean clothing. I had a warm house to live in. No one shot at me, or bombed me or murdered my family members. I went to a school between the ages of 5 and 22. If I was a Muslim then I would be like the vast majority of Muslims who are more than happy to live in this world and cooperate and don't consider murdering infidels. Likewise I can imagine if my life was very different and I had had many more struggles to simply continue existing and I had had to make many personal sacrifices, again to simply continue my existence, and I was an atheist then I would likely consider murder as a means to an end. I don't think you can compare a Christian living in America with a Muslim living in Afghanistan and conclude anything about their religions.

Eduk wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 7:28 am

Let's say we stipulate of all possible things, some are able to be detected and measured by human perception (and by technologies of human manufacture) and some are not. The things in the first group comprise (by definition) everything that we interact with every day.

What label would you use for the second group of things?

Well I wouldn't assign any label to the second group of things because the second group of things comprises an extremely wide range of possibilities. For example relatively, famously, had no way to be proven when Einstein came up with the idea. So it could be said that relativity was unmeasurable by humans. However relativity was consistent with all known empirical evidence (which no other theory was) had a mechanism and made predictions. So even though humans couldn't directly test for relativity they still had enough empirical data in order to lead to its supposition. For example at no point did Eddington (I think Eddington proved relativity first) need to have faith in Einstein. He used his reason to proportion the evidence, and then I assume he ran the experiment and hoped it would work. I mean in a sense you could call that faith, but that would depend how you defined faith.

I don't disagree with your commentary. If you use your style of describing a historical event, projected forwards, one can address your query. Let's say that next year, aliens land and confirm that they landed in ancient Egypt and helped construct the pyramids using their (still) superhuman intellect and technology, and they have the videos to prove it. Then they go on to explain that many of the Egyptian deities were in fact themselves.

Were the ancient Egyptians correct in describing the aliens as gods, that is as possessing superhuman power and knowledge (which likely was indistinguishable from omnipotence and omniscience from their perspective)?

Ah well this is now touching the gettier problem. As in you can argue that anything which is wrong cannot be justifiably believed. And so we have to talk about proportional justification.
For example if the Christian God appeared before me how would I know/prove it was the Christian God. Should I take any God like (to me) beings word for it? Would I be justified in doing so?
I would say if ancient Egyptians mistook aliens for God's then the level of justifiability to their wrong belief would depend in large part on the aliens. I mean if they pretended to be gods and demanded to be treated this then is little fault I would lay at the feet of the Egyptians.

Even if you are not a christian. For Rene Descartes and Aristotle, God was the unmoved mover. That means he moved everything but wasn't moved at all. There is no need to restrict this to a certain religion the principles of aristotle , should have been the same.

Most religions don't claim to share their unmoved mover.

Londoner wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 6:34 am

Spectrum wrote: ↑January 8th, 2018, 11:05 pm Me: Your use of words like 'reasonings' and 'intellect' disguise this because they have an informal meaning. We would want to say scientists as people are 'reasonable' and 'use their intellects'.

I am wondering what wrong with your views above when you think scientists do not use the faculty of reason and intellect to do science.

This is why it becomes tedious to engage with you. You don't bother to read what other people write.

Not sure of your point. I believe I have read your points correctly. Else?

Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things, establishing and verifying facts, applying logic, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.[1] It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and art and is normally considered to be a distinguishing ability possessed by humans.[2] Reason, or an aspect of it, is sometimes referred to as rationality.

Reasoning is from the faculty of reason within the cortex which is very general, as defined above, i.e. including art. The faculty of reason also cover primal reason, i.e. the Pure Reason of Kant's Critique's of Pure Reason.
Intellect is a subset of the faculty of reason which is more analytical and objective.

So when you use the word 'reason' it doesn't necessarily imply 'logical', but embraces just about every human activity. That makes it pretty much meaningless.

It is only meaningless due to your narrow perspective.
Note the reason faculty and reasoning does not embrace every human activity. Example, being emotional [limbic], intuitive, hunch, opinions, off the cuff, instinctual, etc. do not engage the faculty of reason within the activities of the frontal cortex.



Note in the above structure of the brain the part [added later within evolution] in green involves reasoning, logic, intellect, and the likes. The yellow and red do not involves reasoning at all.

It is justified true-beliefs.
First we have 'beliefs' from personal conviction X which the person would claim to be true bit not to the collective.
For the collective or any group to accept that personal conviction X is true, it has to be justified to be a true belief.
To be justified true belief, it has to be justified within a specific Framework and System, e.g. Science, legal, economics.

If anyone claim Not-X is JTB, then one has to prove it within his or an agreed Framework and System.

And is everyone free to invent their own system? If 'yes', then something becomes a justified true belief just because we believe it. If 'no', then that means some 'Framework and Systems' are valid and others are not, so we are still lacking a criteria.

Anyone is free to invent their own personal Framework and System which is a personal conviction and subjective.
To establish objectivity, one has to garner consensus from other people.
It is not so much as to whether the Framework and System is valid or not, but rather whether the resultant conclusions are credible, i.e. merely opinion, beliefs or justified true beliefs [Knowledge].
The best way to assess the credibility of objectivity of the conclusions [empirical based] from a Framework and System is to compare them to the Gold Standard, i.e. the Scientific Framework and System.
For example, empirical truths from the legal, economics, and others are reasonable objective not as credible and objective as the Scientific F&S.

I did not get to the above details as I don't think it was necessary.
It can start from anywhere, a dream, a knock on the head, a hunch, imagination, then we have a abduction process to see patterns, then an opinion and to a hypothesis and one confidence level of the truth develops gradually.
Since it is on a personal level, there is nothing to stop someone to jump to the truth and 100% personal conviction of certainty.

So their '100% personal conviction of certainty' is what makes their hypothesis 'the truth'?

No. 100% personal conviction of certainty is merely a 100% personal subjective truth but not a collective objective truth as knowledge.
To be collective objective truth as knowledge one has to compare its processes and resultant conclusions to the Gold Standard, i.e. the Scientific Framework and System.

Me: Is your notion of morality purely a report of your 'personal beliefs [conviction]'? So, when you say 'Eating people is wrong' that should be understood as 'Personally, I don't like eating people' i.e. it isn't asserting that others should share your feelings. e.g. So, I do not feel the same way as the terrorists, but I cannot say they are wrong in an objective sense.

Or, are there 'absolute moral laws', which are (presumably) applicable to everyone? e.g. Terrorists are evil: fact.

You say you present 'reasonings' but I still cannot make out what you think, let alone how you got there. I do not think I am alone in this.

Reasonings meant I have presented various arguments and explanations to justify my points.

As for Morality, I don't rely on casuistry cases, my personal conviction is based on the model of a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics [Kantian]. I have explained the details of such a Framework and System of Morality and Ethics [Kantian] many times in the Philosophy of Morality and Ethics section.

Note "system" meant it is self-correcting towards continuous improvement with its input, out and control feedback.

I do not think you have explained it, I do not think you have really worked it out, which is why you cannot respond to a very straightforward question.

This is very objective. We can review my previous posts in this forum to confirm whether I have explained it or not. In this instance I do not want to waste time repeating them again as it is quite tedious to explain the whole Framework and System, but as I had stated it is similar to the Kantian Framework and System of Morality and Ethics [if you have understood it properly].

Note you can question and doubt my points all you can but you will never catch me slipping and being sloppy on any of my points [if any, its rare due to oversight and omission, not because of ignorance]. I still have tons of reserves to cover for any question you can raise.

Belindi wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 6:08 am Spectrum wrote:

But my assertion is God is only a transcendental idea which is a transcendental illusion and thus is an impossibility to be an empirical truth.
In this case, the idea of God cannot even be considered to be an empirical-possible speculated theory

Btw, just in case,
do you have a syllogism for Spinoza's argument?

But not all gods transcend this relative and transient world which we experience. Some gods , for instance God and I think also Allah, are both transcendent and immanent. I understand although I may be mistaken that some progressive theologians believe that God is entirely immanent.

The pantheist's God is immanent not transcendent and that is a corollary of "Deus sive Natura".

I don't see how there could be a "syllogism for Spinoza's argument" as Spinoza's is a grand theory in which all the subsections dovetail neatly together.

I believe most theists include pantheism believe God is immanent.
The Abrahamic God is transcendent and immanent to the extent of being able to listens and answering prayers and SOME pantheists may even believe that.
The panentheist and most deists do not believe God is immanent.

My argument is God via thoughts and reason is possible but it is impossible for a God to be immanent to entangle with the empirical [known and possible].
I have given various explanations and justification why an immanent and empirical-linked God is an impossibility within an empirical-rational reality.
Basically once one claim their God has empirical linkage, then such a God is subject to empirical proof and the most objective is Science as countered in Dawkins' God Delusion.
I have given other reasons besides Dawkins'.

Eduk wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 7:28 am

I believe the composition of ALL unreasonable beliefs that is contributing to the existing and potential problem in the world are as follows;
1. Theistic based [incl politics] = 40%
2. Politics [secular only] = 30%
3. Economic = 10%
4. Social = 10%
5. Others = 10%
Agree? otherwise?

From the above when we remove theism [grounded on illusion and impossibility] we will remove a very significant % of the problem of evil and violence. Then what is left to resolve will be;
1. Theistic based [incl politics] = 0%
2. Politics [secular only] = 50%
3. Economic = 20%
4. Social = 20%
5. Others = 10%

No I don't agree. But let us imagine your above numbers were accurate.
First off how do you propose to remove theism?

Note I am not proposing we remove theism now, that is because it impossible due the current psychological states of theists who are the majority [90%] of humanity.

In view of the critical potential threat of theism [even that is from a critical SOME not all] I am very optimistic humanity can remove theism in the future [when? >50 >75, >100 or >later] based in the following;

• 1. A significant number of humans from the Eastern Spiritualities, e.g. Buddhism, Taoism, Jainism and others had already noted the limitation of theism and shifted 180 degrees into non-theism and they have been successful at it without any negative potential on their core doctrines.
  One significant point is a fully benign Buddhism-proper at present is too 'advance' for the majority.
  
  2. But fortunately there is a current trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge and technology in many advance fields, e.g. neuroscience -Human Connectome Project, Genomic Project, etc.
  
  3. I believe this trend of the exponential expansion of knowledge will be able [in future years] to abstract the principles and mechanics of non-theism within the benign Buddhism and others and turn them into generic objective practices to replace the partially malignant theism to deal the inherent unavoidable existential crisis.

The strategy is to help theists [which I am doing at present] to understand the full psychological, neurological, and are the basis and problems of why they are theists.
When theists understand the true psychological basis and problems of theism and are able to test the alternative solutions without risks voluntarily and achieve the desired results, rationally they will spontaneously give up theism totally and that will eliminate any possible threats of theistic evils and violence by any evil prone theist.

Secondly if you did remove theism then instead of people going to church, praying, etc they would do something else. They could join a political party for example. So now you have to demonstrate that they wouldn't join an unreasonable political party or do any other unreasonable actions.

You see the thing is. Humans are human and do human like things. Most people, most of the time, will do what most other people (of their group) are doing in order to survive. When I was growing up I got to eat three meals a day. I had warm clean clothing. I had a warm house to live in. No one shot at me, or bombed me or murdered my family members. I went to a school between the ages of 5 and 22.

This typically human.
Smoking [cigarettes] is responsible to a large numbers of lung cancer.
If humanity can find effective alternatives to smoking tobacco but not the root cause, SOME hardcore ex-smokers, driven by lack of impulse control will smoke something else which could be more dangerous or eat themselves to death.

To be effective, we have to be realistic and holistic, i.e. we have to take note of all consequences of our strategies.
When we are able to address the problem of theistic evils on a wholesome basis in future, humanity by then would also be able to deal with causes of other non-theistic evils and violence.
When we focus on theistic related evils we are applying the Pareto rule to tackle the critical cause for efficiency sake. In this case we are dealing with one main variable theism and the potential to get rid of 40% of evils and violence within humanity.
As for secular based evils, they are spread over many other variable and we have to apply Pareto Rule to find what is most critical and focus more on the critical causes besides others.

Besides I am not ignoring other types of evils and violence. All evils must be addressed but the focus on theism here is because this is the specific section to deal with theistic related evils and violence.

If I was a Muslim then I would be like the vast majority of Muslims who are more than happy to live in this world and cooperate and don't consider murdering infidels. Likewise I can imagine if my life was very different and I had had many more struggles to simply continue existing and I had had to make many personal sacrifices, again to simply continue my existence, and I was an atheist then I would likely consider murder as a means to an end. I don't think you can compare a Christian living in America with a Muslim living in Afghanistan and conclude anything about their religions.

You are only referring to yourself and some others and you missed the bigger picture. I am not relying on terrorism only in Afghanistan or all over the world rather I am referring to the full range of evil acts by believers [unfortunate victims] of the religion.

I have already argued with evidences all over and concluded that the "Religion of Peace" is inherently evil, i.e. with evil laden verses from an evil prone God [illusory and do not exists]. Note my hypothesis again,

• 1. ALL humans has the potential to commit evils
  2. Apprx 20% [conservative] are born with an active evil tendency.
  3. The "Religion of Peace" has tons of evil laden elements in its holy book from God.
  4. Those in 2 are compelled [subliminally] as trigger by evil elements in 3 to commit evil as a divine duty.

Note also,

• The 20% of evil prone humans exists naturally by birth [unfortunately and not their choice and fault].
  The holy book of the Religion of Peace is immutable and cannot be changed.
  There is no central authority and God [impossible to exists as real] cannot appear to decide who is right or wrong.
  Therefore as long as the "Religion of Peace" exists, there will always be evils acts from the pool of evil prone believers and that is 300 millions!!

I can't see how you can dispute the above? Can you?

Eduk wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 3:31 pm Ah well this is now touching the gettier problem. As in you can argue that anything which is wrong cannot be justifiably believed. And so we have to talk about proportional justification.
For example if the Christian God appeared before me how would I know/prove it was the Christian God. Should I take any God like (to me) beings word for it? Would I be justified in doing so?
I would say if ancient Egyptians mistook aliens for God's then the level of justifiability to their wrong belief would depend in large part on the aliens. I mean if they pretended to be gods and demanded to be treated this then is little fault I would lay at the feet of the Egyptians.

Three paragraphs to try to weasel out of admitting that: yes, it is reasonable to use objective data that supports the existence of gods, should one be presented with some. You have trouble with the evidence issue (which, of course is understandable since it is controversial), I have trouble with the haphazard or casual use of the term: god. Since it is a word invented by humans a very, very long time ago, I am not convinced that it only means the classic, modern, monotheistic god of western religion.

Dark Matter wrote: ↑January 9th, 2018, 3:04 am In the off-chance anyone is interested, there's a book, The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief, that deals with the very topic of this thread.

In reading anything one must also read a 'balance' of views, from the 'for' and 'against'.
I noted the basis of Joseph Hinman's thesis.
One critical factor he missed out is the psychological basis within the believers and other relevant perspectives.

Here's are some 'against' comments in Amazon;
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-revi ... hisHelpful

• 
  Comment 1:
  A whole book on subjective experiences as evidentiary for a "god"? Are you kidding me?
  
  Comment 2:
  There are true mystical experiences of the true God. Yet, wherever there is truth there also are falsehoods, counterfeits, deceptions and plain old human error. Hinman rejects objective truth in favor of the pragmatist's standard "does it work." He writes "Working equals truth in the epistemic field of our assumptions" and "if it works, we can assume it's true." (Loc. 5295.) If a drug induced hallucination creates a perceived mystical experience and "works" as a coping mechanism in the person's life, Hinman treats that as a valid mystical experience and rational warrant for believing one has encountered God. I see that as a fundamental error in Hinman's approach and not a mere quibble.
  
  Comment 3:
  To answer Dan, the whole point of the book is that true mystical experience is special, and it's long term positive effects are not, or at least not shown to be, repeated by those of similar, but artificially-induced experiences., with the actuality of the mystical experience measured by a formal device called the M-scale. So, the majority of book is actually claiming to put forward concrete evidence refuting exactly the assumption you made in your reply here. There are ways to quibble with that, undoubtedly, but I don't think you succeeded in doing that here.
  
  Comment 4:
  >>It is reasonable to believe that the person lurking outside of your neighbor's window at night is dangerous, even though there may be an innocent explanation for their presence. Who would think you were being irrational if you called the police to investigate the matter?<<<
  
  
  Let’s tweak this illustration a bit to make it directly applicable to Hinman’s theory of rational warrant. Imagine four different observers, each of whom believes that he has mystically experienced God. The first perceives an objective reality that is God; the second perceives an objective reality, but that reality is not God; the third is insane, is experiencing a psychotic episode, and is not experiencing objective reality; the fourth is sane but just took a dose of psilocybin and is hallucinating that he is experiencing an objective reality that is God. The perceived experience produces in each of the four persons a sense of awe and wonder and motivates each of them to perform good deeds for their neighbors.
  
  According to Hinman’s theory, each of the above observers has “rational warrant” to believe that he has experienced an objective reality that is God. Yet, Hinman’s theory does not, and cannot, distinguish between reality and unreality, or between rationality and irrationality.
  What does it mean to say there is “rational” warrant for a belief that is formed by a mind that is completely disassociated from reality and rationality?
  
  

Comment: "He concludes that these experiences don't prove God exists, but provide "rational warrant" for belief.
I agree with the above at least for the present, but it is basically very SELFISH act and very psychological. As a concerned citizen of humanity, it is noted from the Big Picture, from the current trend the overall cons are outweighing the pros of theism towards the future.

What is critical is theists and the rest of humanity must dig deeper to understand the ultimate basis of theism is psychological. Because the cons [evil baggage] are outweighing the pros of theism, it should be resolved critically from the psychological basis as done by many Eastern spiritualities of old and new [not evil baggage].