An experiment

Originally posted by CalJust
Hi LJ,

You have formulated your question very clearly, and I will give it the attention that it deserves.

I have some difficulty in differentiating between what is "rational" and what is "pragmatic" when it comes to belief. Let me try to explain:

If I walk in the dark and hit my head against a wall, I say that I hit my head against a wall and it hu ...[text shortened]... Only in this way would we come closer together and (heaven forbid!) maybe learn from each other.

By rational justification for believing that P, I mean to refer to epistemic justification or to evidential considerations in virtue of which one has good reason to think that P is in fact true. In contrast, pragmatic justification would presumably refer to prudential or normative considerations in virtue of which one has good reason to think that holding, or taking steps conducive toward holding, belief in P is beneficial or useful or desirable in some way. There is a clear distinction between these, since conditions for the former type of justification have necessary connection with truth-indication for P, whereas conditions for the latter type do not. That is not to say, however, that the two are mutually exclusive or cannot overlap, etc. So, I cannot really determine just from the information you provided in your example if your wall-hitting claim is rational or pragmatic or whatever. If you are operating on good reasons to think this claim is true, then I would say you are being rational in the current context. If you are operating on good reasons to think that making this claim is useful or prudent or etc, then I would say you are being pragmatic in the current context (and also perhaps rational in another sense, if doing so happens to fit in appropriately with some program well-suited to achieving project ends you have).

I tend to doubt your claim that "NOBODY would hold a belief that they themselves would declare to be irrational", since I think we could construct plausible counterexamples. However, I would generally agree that when one holds some particular belief, he or she would typically feel justified in holding that belief upon introspection. However, there are different sorts of justification onto which one could latch, which was part of the point of my question. At any rate, I infer from this response of yours that you think your belief is justified, which is fair enough. I am still not sure, though, in what sense you think it is justified or what you think are those conditions that confer the justificatory status.

Regarding your last point – that of opting to extend grace, understanding and acceptance instead of argument in the face of contrariety of viewpoint – I think there is something noble and worthy in this prescription. It is a good prescription insofar as it promotes tolerance, open-mindedness, and the like. However, there is contrariety of opinion and viewpoint on virtually all matters and in virtually all areas of discourse, and we often take it to be the case that such things are to be vetted through objective examination of the facts. I have no idea why it should be any different for theological discourse, at least regarding God-conceptions that are cognitively meaningful and for God-talk that is propositional in nature. For example, as long as the statement "God exists' is cognitively meaningful and asserts an actual proposition (which would depend on how 'God' is defined), then there is a fact of the matter regarding whether or not this proposition is true. Why would contrariety on this be a barrier to an objective assessment of the facts of the matter, any more so than any other area of discourse? This is where the practices of justification (the actual give and take of reasons to and from differing parties in a debate that establish justification for this or that view) is important.

You have made it clear that you think this could come down to articles of subjectivity, such as experiential or revelatory data, etc; and these may not be the sorts of things you can offer as objective evidence towards others who do not already share your view. (I do not share this view of yours, since I think the question of whether or not your particular God exists can be vetted through rational arguments that are presentable to all parties, even if not all parties will be responsive towards them. ) Even in that case, though, it still seems very reasonable for another to ask of you to provide some plausible model of justification, some considerations in virtue of which it is reasonable to think your belief is justified on the basis of the types of experiences you claim. Do you agree with this?

I guess my follow-up question would be: if you were tasked with doing this (that is, with providing some plausible model of justification as mentioned above), what sorts of considerations would you provide?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
If anything qualifies as lacking in contribution, it is your lame attempts of scholarly-sounding so-called arguments.
They are offered as problems and they remain as such, at your animated insistence, only when one turns a blind eye to all of the information available.
Your tortured telling of it requires God to cease being God... in order for you to rightfully claim that God isn't God.

If it was not so sad, it would be downright hilarious.

Gee, these words would be stinging for me, if I happened to still care about your opinions regarding such arguments. But you have consistently demonstrated a lack of ability to objectively assess the merits of such arguments, or even to understand what exactly they assert in the first place. In fact, most of my energies in our exchanges went to simply trying to defend the arguments against your gross, often persistently flagrant, misrepresentations of them. Here, you have provided yet another example of this. Earth to FreakyKBH: those arguments do not purport to claim or show that "God isn't God". (For your edification, all arguments worth studying do not have blatantly self-contradictory conclusions of the form "X isn't X". ) Now, if you were just too dense to get it, then that would be one thing. But the evidence shows that you are in fact disingenuous on these issues. And that is something I will no longer suffer. So, I’m done with you. Since you think my arguments are so confused, I'm sure you won't be too sad if I never bother to respond to another post of yours.

Now, if you don't mind, I am trying to have a conversation with CalJust, who seems quite genuine here.

Originally posted by lemondrop
why has God never healed an amputee?
just one would turn an atheist like me into a holy roller

I'm not at all sure that he hasn't.

There was a book written some years ago by Mel Tari, called "Like a mighty wind" (refering to the verse in Acts) in which numerous incredible miracles were documented. Blind people, lame, maybe there was an amputee among them.

Originally posted by CalJust
I'm not at all sure that he hasn't.

There was a book written some years ago by Mel Tari, called "Like a mighty wind" (refering to the verse in Acts) in which numerous incredible miracles were documented. Blind people, lame, maybe there was an amputee among them.

The following are just comments on the matter, not questions you have to answer.

I think the point he is making is that almost invariably, prayers answered by God cannot be conclusively be shown to be acts of God. In other words, they could be coincidences. The only reason for attributing God to them is that they appear to be statistically unlikely. This tends to make the interpretation subjective in that we may have different views as to what is, or is not, likely. This seems to suggest that either God doesn't exist and people are just misinterpreting coincidences, or God does not wish to be too obvious - the 'no proof allowed' arguments made by some.
I find it interesting that Christians often come to the same conclusion with regards to some 'faith healers'. So for example if there is a preacher who goes around healing people, and almost everyone he heals is suffering from having lost their sense of smell, and the preacher prays for them and they are healed, many Christians do not believe this healing is genuine. They tend to be more convinced if someone who has been wheelchair bound starts walking. But I think you will find that the vast majority of Christians, when sick, go to the doctor.

Originally posted by LemonJello

By rational justification for believing that P, I mean to refer to epistemic justification or to evidential considerations ... etc

You have me at a disadvantage here, LJ. You are clearly more versed in Logic and/or Philosophy than I am. I cannot begin to try to counter your argument.

However, there is contrariety of opinion and viewpoint on virtually all matters and in virtually all areas of discourse, and we often take it to be the case that such things are to be vetted through objective examination of the facts.

In a discussion such as this one often tends to focus on one major point, whilst there are clearly many exceptions and variations. When i say we should be compassionate, etc, then that is my default position. But of course, there are situations where I will NEVER back down, e.g. anything endangering my family. I tend to follow the principle of "Chose your battles!" Pick battles that are worthwhile, and those that are winnable. This determines largely when and why i will let an argument go.

I have no idea why it should be any different for theological discourse, at least regarding God-conceptions that are cognitively meaningful and for God-talk that is propositional in nature. For example, as long as the statement "God exists' is cognitively meaningful and asserts an actual proposition (which would depend on how 'God' is defined), then there is a fact of the matter regarding whether or not this proposition is true. Why would contrariety on this be a barrier to an objective assessment of the facts of the matter, any more so than any other area of discourse? This is where the practices of justification (the actual give and take of reasons to and from differing parties in a debate that establish justification for this or that view) is important.

My point here would be that IF it were possible to by "objective assessments of the facts" etc, prove one's view of god (and you rightly add "however god is defined" ) then surely somebody would have done so, (because there must be others out there with your logical capability), not only to unite the Christians of all kinds of persuasions, but also to define which of the major religions actually have the "Correct" god.

The fact that this has not happened can then be used as proof that such rational argument is not possible, and hence such god does not exist, neither for the Buddhists nor for the Christians (just to name two). However, an alternative explanation would be that ALL these groups have their own internal logical construct, and that this is backed by pragmatic and experiential evidence, hence the absolute conviction on their part that they are right.

I do not share this view of yours, since I think the question of whether or not your particular God exists can be vetted through rational arguments that are presentable to all parties, even if not all parties will be responsive towards them. ) Even in that case, though, it still seems very reasonable for another to ask of you to provide some plausible model of justification, some considerations in virtue of which it is reasonable to think your belief is justified on the basis of the types of experiences you claim. Do you agree with this?

Well, actually, no, I don't agree with this, for reasons stated above. Another example - I could talk to somebody that i have never met, and tell them my story, and their response would be: "Wow, that's incredible! Exactly the same thing happened to me!" And we would share some secret akin-ness and even joy. But when I tell exactly the same story to somebody else, the response could be (like yours and twhitehead) "Can you rationally justify and verify this?" And the answer may well be : Sorry, no, i can't.

Of course, it would be nice if everything could be black and white and cut and dried. And some people, such as CS Lewis whom twhitehead discredits but many others acclaim, have tried such rational explanations. But what CSL does NOT address, is the reason for the various expressions of god in the many other traditions. I suppose one could rightly claim that if a universal overall god DID exist, everybody would believe the same! But then a whole lot of other arguments would come into play, such as how we humans perceive ANYTHING, never mind the Divine. We will (for example) describe the same sunset differently.

I guess my follow-up question would be: if you were tasked with doing this (that is, with providing some plausible model of justification as mentioned above), what sorts of considerations would you provide?

I think after all is said and done, I would probably come down again on to experiential evidence. For example, my son who was raised a Christian and had himself many experiences, is now a practicing buddhist. When We talk about Buddhist beliefs and doctrine, I can see that there is validity in many of their teachings, which can be practically demonstrated (I'm sure you know about monks being able to go without food for long periods, control their heartbeats, etc). So why do I not become a Buddhist? Perhaps it is because my own conviction is still too strong, I have not EXPERIENCED the justification to switch, and probably will never do so. But to engage him in logical argument as to why he is wrong and I am right will never succeed, even if i were to attempt it.

Not sure if I have answered your question, after all. Bottom. Line - rational argument is good and proper and has its place, e.g. on deciding on a law concerning speed limits. But Spirituality is such a deeply personal, and hence EXPERIENTIAL thing, that logic gets more in the way than it helps.

Now THERE is a statement that you can latch on to! 😀

Originally posted by CalJust
Not sure if I have answered your question, after all. Bottom. Line - rational argument is good and proper and has its place, e.g. on deciding on a law concerning speed limits. But Spirituality is such a deeply personal, and hence EXPERIENTIAL thing, that logic gets more in the way than it helps.

So would you say there is something inherent to spiritual beliefs that makes this so, or is it simply the case that at present your only arguments for your beliefs are experiential?
The latter makes perfect sense to me, the former, does not. This is not an attack on your beliefs, but a comment on my own failure to grasp why my understanding of the physical world is based on science and rational thinking, but my understanding of another part of reality - God/the supernatural - would not be.

I, for example, often find social interactions to be just so complicated that I cannot rationally work out the best action to take in any given situation, so I follow my intuition - and cannot always give rational argument as to why I chose to do something. But when rational argument is available, I take it seriously.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The following are just comments on the matter, not questions you have to answer.

I think the point he is making is that almost invariably, prayers answered by God cannot be conclusively be shown to be acts of God. In other words, they could be coincidences. The only reason for attributing God to them is that they appear to be statistically unlik ...[text shortened]... ng. But I think you will find that the vast majority of Christians, when sick, go to the doctor.

Jesus indicated that we should not tempt God and that prayers should be in the will of God. So why should Christians bother God for healings when it may be in God's will for us to use the doctors He has provided?

I don't believe the JWs should tempt God by refusing blood transfusions that could save their lives, just because of a verse in the Holy Bible that most people see no relationship to blood transfusions, especially when we know there was no such thing in those days.

Some people believe that we should never go to the doctor for healings, because that would mean that we just don't have faith in God. I don't believe that was the idea Jesus was trying to get across to the people by healing many of them.

Originally posted by twhitehead
The following are just comments on the matter, not questions you have to answer.

I think the point he is making is that almost invariably, prayers answered by God cannot be conclusively be shown to be acts of God. In other words, they could be coincidences. The only reason for attributing God to them is that they appear to be statistically unlik ...[text shortened]... ng. But I think you will find that the vast majority of Christians, when sick, go to the doctor.

I cannot disagree with anything that you said in this post.

Originally posted by twhitehead
So would you say there is something inherent to spiritual beliefs that makes this so, or is it simply the case that at present your only arguments for your beliefs are experiential?
The latter makes perfect sense to me, the former, does not. This is not an attack on your beliefs, but a comment on my own failure to grasp why my understanding of the physic ...[text shortened]... as to why I chose to do something. But when rational argument is available, I take it seriously.

Again, I basically agree with your viewpoint here, especially your last paragraph. Common sense is always a good option!

As you know, I totally support the scientific approach, and agree with the patriarchs of science, such as Isaac Newton, that God actually wants us to discover the way she made the world to work.

However, when it comes to the Supernatural, it is, well, Super-Natural, and one will find that the laws of science AS WE HAVE DISCOVERED THEM SO FAR, do not always provide the right tools.

So yes, I would postulate that there IS something different between examining spiritual beliefs as compared to regular scientific investigations. When one gets into Psychology, and some other Human Sciences, the gap or boundary becomes more fuzzy. Whilst we all agree (at least I hope so) that Psychology is a science, we also know that conclusions from Psychological studies are always expressed in per centages, i.e. the likelihood of some result, which is a lot different from the "regular" science which i know and love which says that either A equals B, or A does NOT equal B.

Originally posted by CalJust
As you know, I totally support the scientific approach, and agree with the patriarchs of science, such as Isaac Newton, that God actually wants us to discover the way she made the world to work.

Just from the position of curiosity, why do you refer to God as she?

Originally posted by RJHinds
Jesus indicated that we should not tempt God and that prayers should be in the will of God. So why should Christians bother God for healings when it may be in God's will for us to use the doctors He has provided?

I don't believe the JWs should tempt God by refusing blood transfusions that could save their lives, just because of a verse in the Holy Bible ...[text shortened]... believe that was the idea Jesus was trying to get across to the people by healing many of them.

Singular verses. The Christian churches are littered with singular verses. Like the one for the "rapture" or "once saved always saved" or "one day is like a thousand years" shall I go on? I'm sure you are familiar with the last as you are always arguing with it. So what is the difference who uses the "singular verse"?

Personally I don't prescribe to singular verses to rule my life, because usually when people use a singular verse out of scripture, it is taken out of context.

I am not a J. W., but I don't agree with the government dictating to the family what they should do either. By the way, what do you think the role of a government is anyways?

Originally posted by yoctobyte
Just from the position of curiosity, why do you refer to God as [b]she?[/b]

Because who said it was a he?

Is god gender-defined and gender-limited?

Admittedly, I have borrowed this from Scott-Peck.

(On a lighter note: have you heard about the guy who just had a near-death experience, and was asked by his friends: So what is God like? He replied: You may not like what I tell you!

"Go ahead, please tell us, we can take it!"

"Well, for one thing, She's Black!"

😀

Originally posted by CalJust
Because who said it was a he?

Is god gender-defined and gender-limited?

Admittedly, I have borrowed this from Scott-Peck.

(On a lighter note: have you heard about the guy who just had a near-death experience, and was asked by his friends: So what is God like? He replied: You may not like what I tell you!

"Go ahead, please tell us, we can take it!"

"Well, for one thing, She's Black!"

😀

Jesus, when He said,
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:


“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Paul and others said it too in other passages.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Jesus, when He said,
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:


“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,

10 your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Paul and others said it too in other passages.
Kelly

KellyJay, preach me a little sermon on the meaning of the following verse if time permits.

Mark 11:24 - Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

If you could have Bibles published with whatever verbiage you think Mark 11:24 ought to have in order to not be misleading, how would you write it?

Originally posted by CalJust
This is an experiment, and like all good experiments the outcome is not clear - it could be interesting, but it could also fall flat on its proverbial face...

With very few exceptions, most threads in this Forum discuss subjects that have been discussed ad nauseum umpteen times before - like creation, evolution, eternal damnation, etc. In none of these um ...[text shortened]... r deal of practical experience on this third rock from the sun.

Here goes - any takers?

CJ

What passage or passages in the Holy Bible do you think give man a glimpse of the farthest out point in the future ?

In other words in a proposed line of future events which prophetic vision, explanation, or description extends out the farthest revealing something about the situation of eternity future ?