Of course that's an arbitrary assignment of value, by which I mean it's no more objectively true or reasonable than any other, unless we accept the premise, which we aren't rationally compelled to. I think a lot of our difference is boiling down to that.
I agree it's possible to fashion the rule for no better or other reason, but if I am an honest and rational creature I may violate the terms of that compact when it benefits me and when I am reasonably certain that I could derive the benefit at no cost to me (no one saw the old man in the wheel chair swipe Uncle Billy's bank deposit).
That's the problem with a value system that isn't predicated in the belief in a moral absolute that exists independent of our momentary will and choice. Value becomes an extension of utility and we are/should be free to abandon it at will without violating the underlying principle of self interest...actually furthering it, at least potentially. That's an inherently less stable foundation.
Or, to betray your trust, as a Christian, I have to break faith with myself and with the God of my understanding, violating the foundational guiding principle of my being. As an atheist I may betray you while keeping faith with my guiding principle, which is, rationally, self interest.
Whether I do or not is less important than the justification and how that must necessarily color my opinion of the others acting in a compact who are similarly situated.
Which it can't be, which was part of the point of my inquiry into proof.
But it not only is that, it is demonstrably the more stable platform, supra.
To the contrary, not only do we lose a better model, but if adherents are correct and a number of studies that go to how people self describe, from atheist to the faithful, we lose a great deal of satisfaction, along with the emotional and even biologically answered needs relating to purpose and continuance that are thwarted by any but a theistic response to being.
Two problems with that. First, who determines the falsity and by what standard? Secondly, who determines the optimal plan and its end and by what measure?
Same questions in general with the added objection: how reality appears to whom? To most of mankind throughout recorded history reality includes the belief in and effort to reconcile with God.
Except that no moral principle is objectively, demonstrably more than an arbitrary assignment of value. Equality an especially absurd notion absent the absolute and with no reflection in nature. Or if you mean it as an expression of self interest then the same instability attaches that I noted above.
Sorry, but if you follow it along it's really not terribly complicated. You simply can't stop once you start...like a paragraph from The Bear, by Faulkner.
Sort of. I'm suggesting that if you were a rationalist atheist and one day found yourself confronted with a subjective experience that didn't appear to be reasonably dismissed (no biological abnormalities or psychological fulcrum to turn a comfortable conclusion on its ear) and rather than being a singular sort continued on to impact and alter you and your perception of life and others, was to every serious examination a present good working to your increased happiness and the betterment of you and your fellows, and that all of this was brought about through the same faculties by which you understand anything, any reason or even sensory experience, then perhaps the simplest answer is that you have, in fact, met God and that God is real.
I can't agree. Rather, if a man tells me that for years he lived in communion with a being he now no longer believes exists then any opinion he has on reality is suspect. If you can misapprehend, not in an instance but over prolonged time and activity, the existence of and relation to a being then your experience of anything is something to wonder at. To reduce, were you in denial then or now?
I believe the apostate is mostly a creature who has invested his faith in his own sense and not in God. I'm not suggesting that he lacked love for the idea of God or lacked a desire for God, but that he set his cap on his own estimation of God and not on the reality of Him. A man who does that will feel fit to judge that understanding and find fault, where the man who invests in God will look for fault within his understanding.
There isn't a parallel in the adherent. We believe him because his narrative is an extension of the first narrative, a recounting of experience that doesn't negate. We discover a fellow as we round a corner. There's no reason to suspect our reason prior. But if we met a fellow then later claimed him to be nothing more or less than our imagination...
Then they aren't waiting at all. Else, whatever is required.
What rationalist wouldn't have the desire for ultimate purpose, for absolute value, justice and eternality?
Or, were they reflections of an absolute truth, echoes of that very thing.
The exclusivity of religion doesn't necessitate the invalidity of their common recognition. Why would reasons differ much? People who recall an accident they were a part of with significant differences were nevertheless describing a real incident in which they played a very real part.
Sure. I'm only noting that there isn't a necessary value in the notice. It was initially and widely raised by people seeking to discredit the religious notion, by making it nothing more or less than a reflection of localized socialization. It doesn't appear to hold out that way...else, we're back to a cultural lens to understand an underlying truth. Or, an echo of that truth that the Christian would argue is found in the cross and a rather unique approach to man's nature.
Only if you want to attempt to approximate an equal standing between, say, the Christian one and an atheistic model. Because what you have absent that is no less miraculous and lacking in mechanistic understanding than any foundational approach that begins with God. Worse for the atheist, God is rationally inferred by way of those points I made prior (causality, etc.)
That's miracle talk.
By which I mean you're resting on the unkown as though it exists to support the point of indecision. O, maybe we know what there is to know on the point. We can only assume ignorance. If you're referring to particle/wave experiments and the impact of the observer upon quantum events, that seems to favor the theist, implying a degree of subservience on the part of what we term reality to the mind holding it, instead of purely reflecting it.
It can't. That's why the argument relating to contingent and necessary beings is compelling.
It is when there's a reasonable inference on one side and only an assumed ignorance on the other to sustain the possibility of a contrary rational claim.
At present there is strong reason to suspect the notion of time as an arrow, forgetting constancy. But that might be better gone into in a separate thread for the physics junkies. :think:
Nothing. He is a logically necessary being, required or we run into the infinite regress which is irrational buck passing at the root.
I think the why of reason/design is found in the inability of rocks to create. Creation must be an act of will, which requires intelligence. This one is another long and likely separate thread.
There's no such thing as a lack of belief, even if and especially if you believe it.
No. Any number of things we recognize and value aren't founded in the empirical. We can reason our way to recognizing the possibility of God, the utility of faith even, but ultimately I think it is the expression of a subjective experience or the invitation, the leap of faith that is at its heart reasonable, even if that's not how some apply it.
There's no want of evidence. The history of man bears witness. But what of it? It will still come down to the individual and his willingness/desire.
God is the label we place on what is beyond our ken except as it is expressed in relation to and through us. Or use Anselm's "...that than which nothing greater can be conceived" as it serves generally.
It can't frame the answer. It's useless. Were meteors to appear and spell out the name of God in every land we would no no more about that claim than we did the moment before. God is ultimately only knowable within His relation to the individual. I have more on this but it will have to wait.
Apologies if some of this was rushed and perfunctory. I have to read and answer off the cuff, being the bond servant of a two year old.
I'm enjoying the discourse a great deal though and appreciate the effort and quality of thought you're putting into your responses.
Last edited:
