Does Theism necessarily involve faith?: Philosophy Forums

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Does Theism necessarily involve faith?

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Does Theism necessarily involve faith?

Mako
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Posted 11/07/09 - 08:07 AM:	#41
oldandrew wrote: Yes, but nobody has demonstrated that all religious beliefs are wrong or wholly unwarranted. If they had they wouldn't be resorting to word games to dismiss religion in the first place. If you're making a personal accusation here, accusing 180 of resorting to word games, I do believe it's unwarranted. Could you please explain what you mean and offer some examples? Perhaps you could also elaborate your own position more fully. Vague accusations as such don't further the discussion. Re the issue at hand however, as pertaining to 'transcendent' gods, if one accepts that the adjective 'transcendent' refers to 'being beyond physical laws' and hence beyond knowledge and experience, then the JCI and Hindu gods for example (assuming one accepts that they fall within the category of the transcendent) are presumably outside or beyond the bounds of physical law. All events, all that we experience (oberve, measure, gather evidence for) are thus by definition and necessarily immanent to law-bound physical reality. Logically then, any inferences which refer to things/beings' (indeed any predicates) which are beyond the laws of nature are incoherent and logically impossible. As for non-immanent gods (i.e. gods within the bounds of physical laws), again, as mentioned in a previous post, , such theologies so far founder on lack of evidence, though they are logically possible. Edited by Mako on 11/07/09 - 08:56 AM
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180 Proof
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Posted 11/07/09 - 08:51 AM:	#42
oldandnew wrote: Yes, but nobody has demonstrated that all religious beliefs are wrong or wholly unwarranted. Who's claiming anything about "ALL religious beliefs"? Not I. Most religious beliefs simply don't merit any intellectual attention whatsoever. I'm only concerned with the biggies: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism & other (fetishistic) vestiges of idolatry (e.g. cults of personality, fascism, autocracy, totalitarianism, etc) as well as, of course, "the god of the philosophers".
The question isn't "Which explanations do I believe?" but rather "Which explanations do I least disbelieve?" Absence of evidence THAT MUST BE THERE (i.e. implied by any claim, concept, or (its) predicates, that affects changes in/to the world) entails evidence of absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

oldandrew
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Posted 11/07/09 - 09:47 AM:	#43
To Mega Therion wrote: Well, you're always welcome to show what three definitions I'm using... I'd have to guess, but I would assume that the useage means "religious belief" the second means "pre-existing trust (in general)" and the third means "personal adherence to God". However, I'm really not sure. To Mega Therion wrote: And it's Paragraph 159, the context being Paragraphs 153-162. Also see 153: 'faith is a supernatural virtue infused by God'. Which leaves me a bit baffled as to where you get the suggestion that "faith" in this context ("personal adherence to God") is the same as that in the context of "holding something on faith". To Mega Therion wrote: EDIT: I should make it clear that I do not count any sort of 'divine revelation' as evidence (of anything but the fact that the person in question needs a good night's sleep), since it's not repeatable; hell, as I gather it's not even strictly describable. Plus, no Catholic I know (and I live in Croatia, probably the third or fourth most Catholic place in the world) has ever had such a thing. I think it only confuses matters when people cannot bring themselves to say "that evidence is not convincing" and have to say "I won't count that as evidence". It suggests a deliberate refusal to weigh the balance of evidence, and a demand that all evidence is presented for consideration one point at a time so each can be rejected in isolation.

oldandrew
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Posted 11/07/09 - 09:57 AM:	#44
Mako wrote: If you're making a personal accusation here, accusing 180 of resorting to word games, I do believe it's unwarranted. I'm referring to the argument at hand i.e. saying religion is based on faith and then defining faith to mean something that is without reason. If somebody actually had a solid argument that religion is without reason then they wouldn't bother trying to establish the same thing by equiviocating over the word "faith". Re the issue at hand however, as pertaining to 'transcendent' gods, if one accepts that the adjective 'transcendent' refers to 'being beyond physical laws' and hence beyond knowledge and experience, then the JCI and Hindu gods for example (assuming one accepts that they fall within the category of the transcendent) are presumably outside or beyond the bounds of physical law. All events, all that we experience (oberve, measure, gather evidence for) Redefining "experience" is no better than redefining "faith" as an argument.

oldandrew
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Posted 11/07/09 - 10:06 AM:	#45
180 Proof wrote: Who's claiming anything about "ALL religious beliefs"? Not I.Most religious beliefs simply don't merit any intellectual attention whatsoever. So just to clarify, you are saying that the religious beliefs you pay no attention to are ones you wouldn't class as "wrong or wholly unwarranted"? I'm only concerned with the biggies: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism & other (fetishistic) vestiges of idolatry (e.g. cults of personality, fascism, autocracy, totalitarianism, etc) as well as, of course, "the god of the philosophers". One moment you seem to think you could demonstrate that [at least some] religious beliefs are wrong or wholly unwarranted, the next you resort to arguing by insults. Not terribly impressive is it?

jorndoe
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Posted 11/07/09 - 11:19 AM:	#46
oldandrew (#45) wrote: So just to clarify, you are saying that the religious beliefs you pay no attention to are ones you wouldn't class as "wrong or wholly unwarranted"? Odd.. I read the above completely differently.. My interpretation was more along the lines of.. Certain assertions within some religions are entirely dubious. Example: an omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, a-temporal, immaterial, conscious, (self)aware, personal, all-creator God, that, by the way, also defines unconditional/absolute rules that everyone should adhere to, so their souls post-mortem can go to Heaven (bliss) and avoid Hell (suffering). The amount of reasonable objections are significant, in fact, you'll have a hard time justifying such bare assertions without a good deal of modifications (hypocrisy?). The arguments from locality, e.g. (parallel thread) post #444 and post #494. Inconsistencies, e.g. over here, and here; there are a good deal more of these. Failures in proposed existence proofs, e.g. Craig's kalam/cosmological argument, and the various ontological arguments. The Devil's Dictionary (Ambrose Bierce, ©1911, released 1993-04-15): RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable. "What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims. "Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it." "Then why do you not become an atheist?" "Impossible! I should be ashamed of atheism." "In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."
People are to themselves what they think; people are to others what they do. ∞ ∑ 1/i² = π²/6 i=1

oldandrew
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Posted 11/07/09 - 12:47 PM:	#47
jorndoe wrote: Odd.. I read the above completely differently.. My interpretation was more along the lines of.. Certain assertions within some religions are entirely dubious. [snip] You appear to be posting your own rant, not interpreting the remark in question. The exchange was: 180 Proof wrote: oldandnew [sic]wrote: Yes, but nobody has demonstrated that all religious beliefs are wrong or wholly unwarranted. Who's claiming anything about "ALL religious beliefs"? Not I. Most religious beliefs simply don't merit any intellectual attention whatsoever. The implication of this is that there are religious beliefs that are not "wrong or wholly unwarranted", but that these beliefs don't merit any intellectual attention. This is such an odd thing to claim I asked 180 Proof to clarify whether he truly meant this. How you turned his one sentence into your own little diatribe against a strawman version of religion is beyond me.

To Mega Therion
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Posted 11/07/09 - 02:37 PM:	#48
oldandrew wrote: I'd have to guess, but I would assume that the useage means "religious belief" the second means "pre-existing trust (in general)" and the third means "personal adherence to God". However, I'm really not sure. Well, I'm pretty sure that the only way in which I use it is 'a belief held without sufficient evidence'. I don't see how trust or adherence has anything to do with what I'm trying to say; as I've said an n (where n is large) amount of times, one can believe that a god exists (i.e., have faith that he does, since there is of course not a scrap of evidence for such a thing), but not give a damn about him (common in polytheistic societies), nor trust him (Loki, anyone?). oldandrew wrote: Which leaves me a bit baffled as to where you get the suggestion that "faith" in this context ("personal adherence to God") is the same as that in the context of "holding something on faith". This is the way in which the word is obviouslly used in the entire chapter. Just look at the first two paragraphs; paraphrasing, faith is assenting to a belief because its truth is guaranteed by revelation. This is not equivalent to my use of the word only if you think revelation constitutes evidence. oldandrew wrote: I think it only confuses matters when people cannot bring themselves to say "that evidence is not convincing" and have to say "I won't count that as evidence". It suggests a deliberate refusal to weigh the balance of evidence, and a demand that all evidence is presented for consideration one point at a time so each can be rejected in isolation. No, I actually meant that a revelation, whether personal or historical, isn't admissable as evidence, as it is unrepeatable, impossible to corroborate by multiple, reasonably objective witnesses and so on. 'Evidence' for God would be something like Paley's design argument in the time before Darwin, though even then it wasn't convincing. EDIT: In any case, we've hijacked the thread. From what I've seen, for the last page or so nobody has bothered to answer Wosret's question, which this topic was about. Edited by To Mega Therion on 11/07/09 - 02:58 PM

Wosret
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Posted 11/07/09 - 03:05 PM:	#49
I think that my point was made, and by and large not contested. I did not think it would be, I just wanted to have this clarified.
"If you've got any last words, say 'em now." - Nadie. "I am Horo the Wise." - Horo the Wise.

jorndoe
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Posted 11/07/09 - 07:57 PM:	#50
Having a bad day, oldandrew? oldandrew (#47) wrote: You appear to be posting your own rant, not interpreting the remark in question. If you will re-inspect post #36, you will see a comment on (unreasonable) "belief", whereas your answer, post #38, refers to "all religious beliefs". And that (among a couple additional comments), was how my interpretation differed from yours, it would seem. Subsequently I supplied reasons why certain "beliefs" can be abandoned as unreasonable, which you swiftly dismissed as a "little diatribe against a strawman version of religion". I suppose what you call a strawman is just that, if you can demonstrate that none of the reasons I supplied refer to any actual religious assertions (which I hereby ask you to do). oldandrew (#33) wrote: but in religion "faith" usually just means "belief" and in Christianity it means "trust in God". Instead of entertaining bare and implicit assertions (this is a philosophy forum after all), perhaps you can identify what your understanding of "trust" is (for example, like "trusting" your neighbour to look after your house while on vacation), and what your definition of "God" is (apparently not the definition I listed as an example)? But, well, anyway, instead of feeding your frustrations, I'll quit hijacking the thread along with To Mega Therion (post #48).
People are to themselves what they think; people are to others what they do. ∞ ∑ 1/i² = π²/6 i=1

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