Philosophy Discussion Forums

Belief replaces the impossibility of proof for those prone to wishful thinking regarding god or anything else impervious to ratification.

Proof replaces the impossibility of believe for those unwilling to accept subjective responsibility for their actions.

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.

Weasel? Please don't accuse me of intellectual dishonesty, I thought we were having a polite conversation?
Let me try to make myself clearer.
1. Thus far there is zero direct or indirect evidence to believe in a specific God with specific attributes.
2. As soon as you attribute God with characteristics you step outside of all human expertise. For example I can say God created the universe. But what do I know about creation of a universe? Can I judge that? Do I have the expertise? I personally am agnostic to a question such as 'was the universe created'. As in I have no information one way or the other. My own personal suspicion is that the word created when applied to the universe makes no sense. But that is just my proportional belief based on the logical impossibility of existence but the apparent fact that we exist regardless.
3. If God sat down next to me then I would not be able to tell, as in there is no test I could perform that would prove it. Proving God is logically impossible for a human. If a God like being (relative to me) did his best to convince me he was God then I fail to see how I could resist (although I would be very proud of myself if I did). All I would say is that philosophically there is no absolute certainty of anything, so hopefully I would retain that much philosophy in the face of a God like being.

The holy book of the Religion of Peace is immutable and cannot be changed.

No book is immutable, as the history of the bible/koran demonstrates.

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.

So you intend to rid the world of Theism through education? In my opinion that is a not totally unreasonable goal. However how would you educate someone to the point where they voluntarily dropped religion but didn't at the same time drop other unreasonable beliefs?
As I said before what is the difference between a religious belief that the infidels are evil and must be destroyed and a political belief that the Jews are evil and must be destroyed? Can you think of a way of removing one of those beliefs through education but not the other one?

Spectrum wrote:

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.

But 'immanent ' refers to human reason among all the other furniture of this relative world. 'Immanent' means this world in its entireity, including our empirical reasonings. Your notion of what the immanence of God means is that the god is one item among all the other immanent items.The immanence of God means that God is diffused among everything else without any loss of power, rather like a homeopathic remedy is supposed to be.

The transcendent aspect of God is eternal that's to say not relative, temporal,or transient.

The Deists endorsed a version of God that was transcendent but not immanent. The rationale which suited the age of reason was so that science was unencumbered by theistic ethics and myths.

Pantheists credit God with immanence but not transcendence. Spinoza was a pantheist who believed that God and nature are the same. Nature in the ontological sense includes us and all our doings.

To answer the title question: I believe in the immanent God 1. because I respect science and trust it to reveal good predictions and 2 . because the immanence of God suits my trust that liberal left wing politics are righteous for all areas of human experience including personal relationships, the public administration of justice, and international diplomacy.

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.

I have made some comments in an earlier post that one need to consider counter views to the above and not just take it hook, line and sinker.

Here is another interesting counter to the above which is related to the OP;
https://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Gods-Pr ... 1633880745

The Illusion of God's Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing
John C. Wathey

Here is one comment from Amazon:

This is the most engaging and thought-provoking book on religious belief I’ve read in a long time – maybe ever. The author eschews the usual New Atheist rants, and instead cuts to the heart of religion’s appeal: the strong emotional pull of belief and its promise to fill what has been called “the God-shaped vacuum in our hearts and minds.” As the author notes in his preface, the New Atheists have “largely ignored the real reason that most believers believe: their personal experience of the presence of God.”
This book examines that subjective religious experience, offering a cogent description of its likely biological and psychological underpinnings.

Ably sorting through a wide array of evidence from neuroscience to Sunday sermons, the author builds a strong case for belief as an outgrowth of human biology and social organization. He also explains a familiar (yet baffling) aspect of religion: Why is God often perceived as judgmental and wrathful, while also being described as infinitely loving? As the author makes clear, these two views of God spring from different aspects of human experience (what he calls respectively the “social” and “neonatal” roots).

The book treats religious belief with respect (even affection), while at the same time fully recognizing its dangers. The author’s description of an encounter with a survivor of the Jim Jones “Peoples Temple” cult offers a particularly chilling warning about how easily religious charlatans can prey on the emotions of vulnerable believers.

Atheists and believers alike will find this book fascinating and enlightening. But I think it’s especially valuable for nonbelievers (like me). Atheists can scoff all we want about “imaginary friends,” but until we understand the deep emotional basis of belief, we’ll mostly be talking to a wall of denial.

Whilst I agree to the points raised by the author, I believe those reasons are merely proximate causes and not the ultimate cause in relation to the deep emotional basis of belief.

Weasel! haha!! "How to willfully take offensive," by Eduk

I guess most people have seen the Shawshank redemption? I like the movie, but it isn't very realistic. Andy goes through a huge amount of trauma but it is all water of a ducks back to him and he emerges psychologically unscarred. Now I guess that isn't impossible, it's just not likely or plausible. Midnight Express (which less people have seen) is for me a much more realistic portrail of trauma and its effects.
Now this is purely anecdotal on my part, I would be interested to know other people's opinions or indeed if it has been studied. But I think your average ten year old is like Andy. In that they can go through quite a bit of trauma and still be happy, loving, caring kids. But a few years later the effects will show (I can only speculate what happens if the trauma stops at ten). Now of course this isn't every single ten year old and again the level of trauma must have an effect. I'm just saying this is a general effect, has anyone else seen this?
To my mind belief and faith must come before reason. As when you are very young you have very very few justified beliefs but you still have to function, you still have to do the best you can with the hand dealt you. I think you grow up with a faith in adults that they are doing their best by you and I think you need to. Children have to be more biddable than adults because they lack the experience and judgement to gauge all situations. Now of course that's not automatically negative, as in I tell my child not to touch the fire as it will burn and they have faith in me, that is a good thing. But of course being human there are two sides. As in I can say you can't go outside because the air is poison and the child must trust.
Then, for me, comes what I call sweet grapes. Which is the opposite of sour grapes in that you eat some sour grapes which you have worked for and instead of spitting them out and declaring them sour you say (and even believe) they are sweet. For a child this is important. For example it is important to brush your teeth but what five year old could really say why?

Weasel! haha!! "How to willfully take offensive," by Eduk

Weasel means

words or statements that are intentionally ambiguous or misleading.

The key word is intentionally. If I was weaseling out then that is a deliberate action on my part to mislead or be ambiguous, that is intellectual dishonesty.

Now that is just the normative definition of the word. Hence why I put a question mark after my statement because I am open to the idea that the word was not used normatively.

Eduk wrote: ↑January 10th, 2018, 5:35 am

The holy book of the Religion of Peace is immutable and cannot be changed.

No book is immutable, as the history of the bible/koran demonstrates.

That is one problem because you are not thoroughly familiar with the Quran. I am very familiar - after spending almost 3 years researching on it full time. I believe have given the related verses to the above somewhere.
The Quran literally claim to be perfect, complete and immutable.
No one can change God's words.

Although the NT do not claim to the perfect words of God, but whatever is God's message is immutable and no believers has any divine duty to change God's intended message.

The fact is the majority of Muslims and likely all Muslims accept the words of God in the Quran is immutable. If they change it, they will incur God's wrath and sent to Hell.

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.

So you intend to rid the world of Theism through education? In my opinion that is a not totally unreasonable goal.
However how would you educate someone to the point where they voluntarily dropped religion but didn't at the same time drop other unreasonable beliefs?

As I said before what is the difference between a religious belief that the infidels are evil and must be destroyed and a political belief that the Jews are evil and must be destroyed? Can you think of a way of removing one of those beliefs through education but not the other one?

Note this;
Assuming if you show the above picture to a native in the middle of Papua New Guinea who has no exposure to this image and pointed to him the lines, he will reply he see two 'bent' lines.



If you insist the lines [since you are aware of the fact] are actually straight lines, the native will NEVER agree with you since what he sees are two 'bent' lines. He probably think internally you are crazy.

However the fact can easily be proven to the native by removing/erasing the other black converging lines.
At first the native would be taken by surprise, but after he himself draw two straight lines and then the coverging lines, then seeing the 'bent' effect.
After doing that 10 times repeatedly and getting the same effects, he is likely to understand the fact that his original belief based on his 'real' observation was wrong.
In this sense, the native is educated and he will definitely change his old beliefs to the new belief as fact and knowledge the two lines are in fact straight regardless of what he is seeing.

The above analogy can be applied to theists and their so claimed 'real' God.
The idea of God is an illusion and an impossibility, but theists belief their God are empirically real to the extent for some, is a real God who will listens and answers their prayers.
If the idea of God which is an illusion is the same as the empirical illusion above, it would be easy to educate the theists to change their mind to the fact.
The problem is the God as an illusion is not a sensual and empirical illusion but rather a very subtle transcendental illusion of reason which is not easy to explain and hindered by very strong primal psychological forces for theists to understand the fact it is an illusion.

It is not easy to explain and convince most theists of the fact the idea of God is illusory and impossible. This is why I never expect any theists to agree with me at present.

So for the future we have to come up with effective strategies for theists to understand and test for themselves for their own experiences to convince them of the fact, the basis of God is psychological and that God is real [within empirical rational reality] is illusory and impossible.

Once they have done the tests and experience directly themselves to understand the transcendental illusion and when there is an effective alternative replacement, then they will naturally take to the alternative which can resolve that inherent unavoidable existential crisis. I believe most theists will only give up theism when there is a fool proof replacement because the inherent existential crisis is unavoidable.

After testing and for a Muslim who understands God is illusory and is impossible, then he will understand and realize there is no real God who sent a prophet with an immutable book that command Muslims to kill infidels as a divine duty. Thus whatever is God's book that is purely human made for their own psychological reasons. In this case, no Muslim [as human] can find any real justifications to kill infidels in God's name since God do not exists at all.

As for other unreasonable beliefs one need to take them case by case to understand the root causes.
For example, a male person may have a unreasonable beliefs of theism, but cultural brought up to believe the female is by default inferior to the male or any other unrelated unreasonable beliefs, e.g. having various phobia beliefs by nature or nurture.

Or in the case of antisemitism, the basic psychological is racism which is different from theism and exploited by some religions like Islam or Christianity. Psychologically and re neuroscience, we will have to modulate the neurons that are active in invoking tribalism which is fundamental to racism.

So contexts of which unreasonable belief is an important considerations.

It is possible to educate theists to the truth or fact, i.e. the idea of God is fundamentally psychological and there is no 'real' God.

I think that belief in God occurs for many different reasons. As such I don't think that there's a single proximate or root cause as Spectrum stipulates. If we were to take a large sample of people and ask them why they believe in God, I think we would find a plethora of different reasons for why they believe as they do. So given that would be the most likely scenario, I think it may be presumptuous to conclude that there is one single proximate cause for religious belief. I understand that there is depth to the human psyche and that there may be underlying causes for religious belief that are subconscious, but I don't think its possible to isolate a single cause, given the complex nature of the human psyche. I just don't think that our current knowledge allows us to reach that conclusion. If someone claims that they believe in God, because they believe that the Biblical account of Jesus is true, in the case of a study, what grounds are there to claim that is not the proximate cause of their belief? What I mean is, should we dismiss what someone claims is the reason for their belief in favour of what we think is the cause of their belief? Would that be reasonable or justifiable?

With regards to the question of whether belief in God is reasonable, my position is, I'm not sure. I don't think that its reasonable to believe in something without evidence, something that we cannot prove exists, but people who believe in God have faith in something that is claimed to exist. So there's a difference in believing in something like a pink unicorn, as it is not claimed that pink unicorns exist, there's no framework or consensus supporting the existence of pink unicorns and no accounts of people encountering them. The same cannot be said of God or religion, as there are many accounts of people having religious experiences or encountering God. Whilst those accounts (or the religious frameworks) don't constitute proof that God exists, I find it difficult to dismiss every single religious claim or experience as nonsense, because some of them may have some validity - not necessarily that God exists, but that there may be more to reality than can be measured empirically, although I don't know what that "more" may be. That said, I don't think that there's anything which validates belief in God, but the belief may be held for reasons which are anecdotally justifiable.

The Quran literally claim to be perfect, complete and immutable.
No one can change God's words.

I'm sorry you can't have it both ways.
If the Quran is immutable and the word of God then we should all be Muslims.
If not then it's a book like all other books and open to revision and reinterpretation like all other books. The thing is you can read the Quran and then form any interpretation you like. As proof of this I present the Bible (also the claimed immutable word of God) and the vast differences of opinion across Christianity (both historically and currently). The Muslim faith is the same, they too have vast differences of opinion on interpretation.

As for other unreasonable beliefs one need to take them case by case to understand the root causes.

A case by case approach to educating against unreasonable beliefs seems like a losing battle me. You could never hope to keep up with the new unreasonable beliefs. I would say it was better to take a general approach with specific cases for illumination.

For example you have an unreasonable belief that anyone who is a theist is a theist for one reason and that you could some how prove a foolproof way to assuage that one reason and then everyone would stop being a theist. You seem to be ignoring that the main reason the average person goes to Church is because most everyone else (they identify with) goes to Church and that there are thousands of other reasons people go to church (existential crises merely being one reason).

I mean if you pointed to a random person in a church and asked me why they are in church and what they believe I wouldn't have a clue (and it seems ridiculous to claim that you do). I wouldn't even be more than 50% sure they even believed in God in the first place and weren't just there because they liked it.

Spectrum wrote: ↑January 10th, 2018, 6:37 am
The fact is the majority of Muslims and likely all Muslims accept the words of God in the Quran is immutable. If they change it, they will incur God's wrath and sent to Hell.

It doesn't follow they all agree its meaning or application.

I think that belief in God occurs for many different reasons. As such I don't think that there's a single proximate or root cause as Spectrum stipulates. If we were to take a large sample of people and ask them why they believe in God, I think we would find a plethora of different reasons for why they believe as they do. So given that would be the most likely scenario, I think it may be presumptuous to conclude that there is one single proximate cause for religious belief. I understand that there is depth to the human psyche and that there may be underlying causes for religious belief that are subconscious, but I don't think its possible to isolate a single cause, given the complex nature of the human psyche. I just don't think that our current knowledge allows us to reach that conclusion. If someone claims that they believe in God, because they believe that the Biblical account of Jesus is true, in the case of a study, what grounds are there to claim that is not the proximate cause of their belief? What I mean is, should we dismiss what someone claims is the reason for their belief in favour of what we think is the cause of their belief? Would that be reasonable or justifiable?

I agree with the first part of what you said (and I made the same point myself) but I think your 2nd part contradicts itself.
If there is no way to tell both if there is a single proximate cause and no way to tell what that cause might be (if there was one) then you should not simply take someone's word for it. There is no way to tell if their claim is their true belief or a lie or bias or a muddy combination of all three. I mean I'm not saying you instantly accuse everyone you meet of delusional unconscious lying but you have to allow that to be a possibility (as is the possibility that they are telling the truth). In your specific example you need to have faith that the Bible is true before you can use that as a reason to believe in Christian God. Simply reading the Bible would provide no reason to believe it.

as there are many accounts of people having religious experiences or encountering God. Whilst those accounts (or the religious frameworks) don't constitute proof that God exists, I find it difficult to dismiss every single religious claim or experience as nonsense,

Why do you have that difficulty? Can you think of nothing that you do believe is unreasonable that has a wealth of anecdotal evidence? I can quite easily, homeopathy, water divining, anti-vaccine, etc, etc, etc.

Belindi wrote: ↑January 10th, 2018, 5:43 am Spectrum wrote:

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.

But 'immanent ' refers to human reason among all the other furniture of this relative world. 'Immanent' means this world in its entirety, including our empirical reasonings. Your notion of what the immanence of God means is that the god is one item among all the other immanent items.The immanence of God means that God is diffused among everything else without any loss of power, rather like a homeopathic remedy is supposed to be.

I did not mean your immanent is god is one item among all the other.
When I mentioned 'entangled' with the empirical it is something like 'diffused.'

This is like the Hindu pantheist who view God as analogous to the common 'energy' which pervades everything.
When there is more to energy, then they claim it is whatever the 'substance' that pervades everything, e.g. the God-particle.


"without any loss of power"
In this case you are assigning 'agency' to God and thus God must be an agent.
And since you mentioned this 'agent' is related to 'nature', these are supposedly empirical elements.
Since these are empirical elements then God in this empirical sense must be justified by empirical means.

Pantheists credit God with immanence but not transcendence. Spinoza was a pantheist who believed that God and nature are the same. Nature in the ontological sense includes us and all our doings.

This is like the point; all humans and the individual is also a bundle of energy within the wholeness of all existing energy.
Wonder how you would justify how this bundle of 'substance' use its power to create the Universe.

To answer the title question: I believe in the immanent God 1. because I respect science and trust it to reveal good predictions and 2 . because the immanence of God suits my trust that liberal left wing politics are righteous for all areas of human experience including personal relationships, the public administration of justice, and international diplomacy.

There is no need to link respecting Science to believing in the immanent God.

I have no issue with your personal quest to believe in an immanent God for various other personal reasons, note Dark Matter's
The Trace of God: A Rational Warrant for Belief
Joseph Hinman
https://www.amazon.com/Trace-God-Ration ... op?ie=UTF8

and a counter from:

The Illusion of God's Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing
John C. Wathey
https://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Gods-Pr ... 1633880745

From the above, for philosophical sake [since we are in a philosophical forum] it is more rational to understand the fundamental ultimate root cause of how the idea of a God arose is due to psychological and in the above case including biological reasons.

Can you accept the following?
"You are compelled to believe in a God due to psychological reasons driven by an inherent unavoidable existential crisis and angst and there is no effective solution other than believing in an immanent God regardless of whether it empirical real or not."

As evident, theism-in-general* provide the nursery bed for its malignant elements to sprout and fruiting the full range of theistic based evil and violence.
* this is in the broadest sense, thus not referring to individual theists, the majority are good people like yourself.

Londoner wrote: ↑January 10th, 2018, 7:23 am

Spectrum wrote: ↑January 10th, 2018, 6:37 am
The fact is the majority of Muslims and likely all Muslims accept the words of God in the Quran is immutable. If they change it, they will incur God's wrath and sent to Hell.

It doesn't follow they all agree its meaning or application.

To save Spectrum's, and everyone else's, time, I should say that the next step is that Spectrum will insist he know's God's will as expressed in the Koran better than any Muslim, so that Muslims who do not conform to his stereotype are not true Muslims.