Atheism and rationality

[ZackMartin]

Hi

My name is Zack. I am a theist - I believe in a deity of some shape, form or description - but I am not what this site would consider to be a Christian. I'm new to this particular site, but I have spent much time before arguing about God's existence, etc., on the Internet and elsewhere.

I find very many atheists, agnostics, etc., subscribe to the belief that religious belief is not rational. At the weakest, they hold that it is not rational for them personally to believe in God, given the evidence and arguments available to them. At the strongest, they hold that it is not rational for anyone else to believe in God either.

But, how do we know what is and isn't rational? I think we can all come up with belief-situations where everyone would agree on the rationality or irrationality of the belief. Yet, despite the wide areas of agreement, I think there are also areas without this universal agreement, and when two people disagree about what is rational, there is no clear way forward in resolving these disagreements.

I think rationality has many parallels or analogies with ethics/morality. We see in both cases the same phenomena of significant areas of universal agreement yet also areas of vast disagreement. Everyone agrees that helping an old person to cross the road is a good deed, and that if instead one was to push them under an oncoming bus that would be an evil deed (just to be clear, let's assume they are completely innocent, killing them won't save any lives or have any other positive benefits, etc.) But, while there is a lot of universal moral agreement, on cases like these (agreement so obvious most people don't see it), there are also the obvious moral disagreements (abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, divorce, prostitution, pornography, masturbation, war, capital punishment, euthanasia, etc.) When we hit these areas of disagreement, it can be very hard, or impossible to prove one side right and the other wrong. But the same can be true of rationality - if you and I adopt different standards of evidence, how can we prove one right and the other wrong?

Many atheists/agnostics deny that there is any objective reality to ethics. And yet, given the analogies between rationality and ethics, if ethics is purely subjective, why isn't rationality purely subjective also? Alternatively, if rationality can be objective, why can't ethics be objective also?

Personally, my primary reason for believing in a deity is faith. There are a lot of arguments against faith, but I believe they can be answered. The main argument I see in favour of faith (admittedly more of a suggestive argument than a conclusive one), is that the many analogies between rationality and ethics, suggests that they are part of one coherent whole. If that is true, then it can be rational to believe something if one feels it would be ethically superior for one to do so, and there is no evidence against it, and there is no likelihood that any such evidence will emerge in the future. That is what I understand as faith.

I should note my faith is not in the Bible, in the particular doctrines of Christianity or any other religion. My faith is simply in root principles like "The good always wins in the end". I think the most straightforward way for these root principles to be true is if God, an afterlife, etc., exists. People talk about all the evils people have done in the name of faith, but that was faith in specific scriptures or doctrines or prophets or so on, not faith in root principles like the one I just espoused. I'm not aware of any evil done due to this kind of more abstract faith, and if there ever was, I would say it was a consequence of faulty reasoning based on those principles, rather than an inescapable consequence of those principles themselves.

Regards
Zack

[shunyadragon]

Hi

My name is Zack. I am a theist - I believe in a deity of some shape, form or description - but I am not what this site would consider to be a Christian. I'm new to this particular site, but I have spent much time before arguing about God's existence, etc., on the Internet and elsewhere.

I find very many atheists, agnostics, etc., subscribe to the belief that religious belief is not rational. At the weakest, they hold that it is not rational for them personally to believe in God, given the evidence and arguments available to them. At the strongest, they hold that it is not rational for anyone else to believe in God either.

But, how do we know what is and isn't rational? I think we can all come up with belief-situations where everyone would agree on the rationality or irrationality of the belief. Yet, despite the wide areas of agreement, I think there are also areas without this universal agreement, and when two people disagree about what is rational, there is no clear way forward in resolving these disagreements.

I think rationality has many parallels or analogies with ethics/morality. We see in both cases the same phenomena of significant areas of universal agreement yet also areas of vast disagreement. Everyone agrees that helping an old person to cross the road is a good deed, and that if instead one was to push them under an oncoming bus that would be an evil deed (just to be clear, let's assume they are completely innocent, killing them won't save any lives or have any other positive benefits, etc.) But, while there is a lot of universal moral agreement, on cases like these (agreement so obvious most people don't see it), there are also the obvious moral disagreements (abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, divorce, prostitution, pornography, masturbation, war, capital punishment, euthanasia, etc.) When we hit these areas of disagreement, it can be very hard, or impossible to prove one side right and the other wrong. But the same can be true of rationality - if you and I adopt different standards of evidence, how can we prove one right and the other wrong?

Many atheists/agnostics deny that there is any objective reality to ethics. And yet, given the analogies between rationality and ethics, if ethics is purely subjective, why isn't rationality purely subjective also? Alternatively, if rationality can be objective, why can't ethics be objective also?

Personally, my primary reason for believing in a deity is faith. There are a lot of arguments against faith, but I believe they can be answered. The main argument I see in favour of faith (admittedly more of a suggestive argument than a conclusive one), is that the many analogies between rationality and ethics, suggests that they are part of one coherent whole. If that is true, then it can be rational to believe something if one feels it would be ethically superior for one to do so, and there is no evidence against it, and there is no likelihood that any such evidence will emerge in the future. That is what I understand as faith.

I should note my faith is not in the Bible, in the particular doctrines of Christianity or any other religion. My faith is simply in root principles like "The good always wins in the end". I think the most straightforward way for these root principles to be true is if God, an afterlife, etc., exists. People talk about all the evils people have done in the name of faith, but that was faith in specific scriptures or doctrines or prophets or so on, not faith in root principles like the one I just espoused. I'm not aware of any evil done due to this kind of more abstract faith, and if there ever was, I would say it was a consequence of faulty reasoning based on those principles, rather than an inescapable consequence of those principles themselves.

Regards
Zack

Welcome to Tweb!!!

I am a Baha'i theist. I believe that morality, logic and rationality is in deed 'subjective' in nature with objective attributes, but most important relevant necessary, and functional in the reality of human society. These attributes of humanity are inherently natural with human nature regardless of whether God(s) exist or not,

Good cannot be described in specific objective terms.

[Juice]

Hi Zack

I’m going to trim this down to what I feel are the salient questions.

But, how do we know what is and isn't rational?
…

Many atheists/agnostics deny that there is any objective reality to ethics. And yet, given the analogies between rationality and ethics, if ethics is purely subjective, why isn't rationality purely subjective also? Alternatively, if rationality can be objective, why can't ethics be objective also?

I'm not seeing the connection between ethics and rationality in your reasoning. Logic is our best known mechanism for determining that which is rational. If something is logical, i.e. it conforms to the principles of logic, it can be said to be rational. Logic is not subjective because it is based upon the rules of inference, which are mathematically derived and entirely objective. We cannot say the same thing for ethics. The conclusion to an argument is logically inescapable if the argument conforms to the rules of inference and the premises are true. This is where logic becomes invaluable as a tie breaker so to speak. An argument is either valid or invalid. A premise is either true or false. Whether someone says they agree or not or are convinced or not is irrelevant to these two points.

Personally, my primary reason for believing in a deity is faith. There are a lot of arguments against faith, but I believe they can be answered. The main argument I see in favour of faith (admittedly more of a suggestive argument than a conclusive one), is that the many analogies between rationality and ethics, suggests that they are part of one coherent whole. If that is true, then it can be rational to believe something if one feels it would be ethically superior for one to do so, and there is no evidence against it, and there is no likelihood that any such evidence will emerge in the future. That is what I understand as faith.

Speaking from the Christian perspective the Biblical concept of faith is to place your trust in someone/something because there is reason to do so.

Cheers.

[zorathruster]

Sounds nebulous. The existence of a God lies in the definition you place on the term. The "totality of existence" is one that might be used, however, you can not then attribute qualities "unobserved" to such a definition. Unobserved qualities are opinion not actual quality. Many if not most theistic definitions are self contradictory. For example: God is supposedly at every place and at every time as presented by one theist. Another points to Biblical texts which say he at times was not observing a particular event. This means that under that definition a God was not at every place at every time. This contradiction means that both definitions, as stated cannot exist in the same entity. In the world of philosophy the easiest way to disprove any argument is to show it is self contradiction.

[nightbringer]

Hi Zack! Your view points sound very interesting. I hope you enjoy your time here.

[Kane]

Hello, Zack! Welcome to Tweb. I'm looking forward to reading your responses to the people who have commented so far. I think I have some initial differences with your position, but I would enjoy seeing how you work things out more.

Cheers!
C31

[Soyeong]

Hello and welcome to TWeb.

But, how do we know what is and isn't rational? I think we can all come up with belief-situations where everyone would agree on the rationality or irrationality of the belief. Yet, despite the wide areas of agreement, I think there are also areas without this universal agreement, and when two people disagree about what is rational, there is no clear way forward in resolving these disagreements.

I think the term "irrational" is used far more often than is actually warranted. Being rational says nothing about whether the reasons you have for believing something is true are good or poor, simply that you used reason to get there.

I think rationality has many parallels or analogies with ethics/morality. We see in both cases the same phenomena of significant areas of universal agreement yet also areas of vast disagreement. Everyone agrees that helping an old person to cross the road is a good deed, and that if instead one was to push them under an oncoming bus that would be an evil deed (just to be clear, let's assume they are completely innocent, killing them won't save any lives or have any other positive benefits, etc.) But, while there is a lot of universal moral agreement, on cases like these (agreement so obvious most people don't see it), there are also the obvious moral disagreements (abortion, homosexuality, pre-marital sex, divorce, prostitution, pornography, masturbation, war, capital punishment, euthanasia, etc.) When we hit these areas of disagreement, it can be very hard, or impossible to prove one side right and the other wrong. But the same can be true of rationality - if you and I adopt different standards of evidence, how can we prove one right and the other wrong?

Rationality has nothing to do with agreement or who is right or wrong. It's possible for a majority of people to be wrong about something, yet be perfectly rational because they used reason to come to a wrong conclusion. For example, it's perfectly rational to conclude that a man running with a purse has stolen it, but because we don't have all of the facts, it's possible to be wrong (they could be bringing medication to someone).

Personally, my primary reason for believing in a deity is faith. There are a lot of arguments against faith, but I believe they can be answered. The main argument I see in favour of faith (admittedly more of a suggestive argument than a conclusive one), is that the many analogies between rationality and ethics, suggests that they are part of one coherent whole. If that is true, then it can be rational to believe something if one feels it would be ethically superior for one to do so, and there is no evidence against it, and there is no likelihood that any such evidence will emerge in the future. That is what I understand as faith.

To quote Edward Feser, "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it."

I should note my faith is not in the Bible, in the particular doctrines of Christianity or any other religion.

According to the Bible, you're not supposed to have faith in any of those things; you're supposed to have faith in God. We have faith/trust in God because God has shown that He is faithful/trustworthy.

My faith is simply in root principles like "The good always wins in the end". I think the most straightforward way for these root principles to be true is if God, an afterlife, etc., exists. People talk about all the evils people have done in the name of faith, but that was faith in specific scriptures or doctrines or prophets or so on, not faith in root principles like the one I just espoused. I'm not aware of any evil done due to this kind of more abstract faith, and if there ever was, I would say it was a consequence of faulty reasoning based on those principles, rather than an inescapable consequence of those principles themselves.

How do you know that the good always wins in the end? And the end of what? Compared with the end of time, your observed sample size is negligible, so what reasons do you have to trust that good will win in the end? That is, unless there is a being that you trust, namely God, to use use their ability to cause good to win in the end.

And again, their faith is not placed in specific scriptures or doctrines or prophets, but in God. The fault of evil done in God's name is not with any of those things in the first place, but with man's inability to follow them.

[Soyeong]

Sounds nebulous. The existence of a God lies in the definition you place on the term. The "totality of existence" is one that might be used, however, you can not then attribute qualities "unobserved" to such a definition. Unobserved qualities are opinion not actual quality. Many if not most theistic definitions are self contradictory. For example: God is supposedly at every place and at every time as presented by one theist. Another points to Biblical texts which say he at times was not observing a particular event. This means that under that definition a God was not at every place at every time. This contradiction means that both definitions, as stated cannot exist in the same entity. In the world of philosophy the easiest way to disprove any argument is to show it is self contradiction.

Could it be that God is everywhere by default, but that He also has the ability to limit Himself? Na...

[ZackMartin]

I'm not seeing the connection between ethics and rationality in your reasoning. Logic is our best known mechanism for determining that which is rational. If something is logical, i.e. it conforms to the principles of logic, it can be said to be rational. Logic is not subjective because it is based upon the rules of inference, which are mathematically derived and entirely objective.

- By "logic", I take it you mean logic as studied in mathematics? One problem with that, is that mathematicians have numerous different logical systems they study, many of which disagree fundamentally. Many people will point to the laws of thought, principles like "everything is either true or false, there is no in-between" (the law of the excluded middle) or "nothing can be both true and false at the same time" (the law of non-contradiction), and say these laws are the foundation of logic. But mathematicians study logical systems that deny these laws - intuitionistic/constructivist logic denies the law of the excluded middle, and paraconsistent logic denies the law of non-contradiction. If you ask a mathematical logician which logical system is the right one, I think most would agree with the following: Mathematics studies different possible logical systems and what you can and can't prove in each, but the question of which system is "the right one", in the sense of being the best model of correct human reasoning, is not a mathematical question - it is one for the philosophers. So, this is part of why I think that logic has much more of a subjective flavour than many people think it does. If two people disagree about whether the law of the excluded middle is true, that is about as unsolvable as two people disagreeing on whether abortion is moral or not.

The conclusion to an argument is logically inescapable if the argument conforms to the rules of inference and the premises are true.

- That assumes that everyone agrees on what the correct rules of inference are, but I'm not sure they all do. For example, a classical mathematician says a proof of existence by contradiction is a valid form of inference, while a constructivist mathematician rejects that as invalid reasoning. And if they don't agree, it seems near impossible to resolve that dispute - just like disputes in ethics.

Speaking from the Christian perspective the Biblical concept of faith is to place your trust in someone/something because there is reason to do so.

- I think we can validly distinguish "faith that" from "faith in", and I guess my own interest is more in the "faith that", while I agree the traditional Christian focus is on "faith in". For me, I feel that "faith in God" has to be preceded by "faith that God", because in order to have faith in someone I first need confidence they exist, and "I have faith in someone that they exist" seems to me to be a bit circular. If my "faith that" is a "faith in" anything, I'd say it is a faith in reality as a whole, a faith in the sum total of all that is - I have faith in reality as a whole that it is fundamentally good, that good always triumphs over evil in the end, that every evil is somehow necessary to the greater good (even if it's often unclear to me right now how). God follows for me as a corollary of that faith, since it seems to me that the most coherent worldview in which that faith is true is one which has a deity.

My reason for having "faith that" good always triumphs in the end, etc., is because personally I feel morally obliged to believe that - this is what I understand as the "virtue of faith"

Regards, Zack

[ZackMartin]

I think the term "irrational" is used far more often than is actually warranted. Being rational says nothing about whether the reasons you have for believing something is true are good or poor, simply that you used reason to get there. Rationality has nothing to do with agreement or who is right or wrong.

- Broadly speaking I agree with you. Rationality/irrationality is not the same as truth/falsehood; sometimes it is rational to believe falsehoods, and irrational to believe truths. It is about whether our beliefs are justified by the evidence and other reasons available to us.

According to the Bible, you're not supposed to have faith in any of those things; you're supposed to have faith in God. We have faith/trust in God because God has shown that He is faithful/trustworthy.

- I should clarify, when I talk about "faith", I'm not specifically talking about a Biblical idea of "faith". Certainly my ideas have been influenced by the Bible, and more broadly by the history of Christian thought on this issue - I'd point specifically to the Christian philosopher Robert M. Adams as an influence on me - but my ideas are my own, not the Bible's, not Adams', and so there will be similarities with and differences with the Biblical idea.

How do you know that the good always wins in the end?

- "Good always wins in the end" is something that I believe by faith, and I would say that it is by faith that I know it to be true. The classical definition of "knowledge" is "justified true belief" (putting aside Gettier problems). So to believe that I know something, I must believe that I believe it, believe that it is true, and believe that I am justified in believing it. The first two elements are trivial; the third, I believe my belief is justified, in particular justified by faith. On that basis, I believe that I know that "Good always wins in the end", and I believe that my belief that I so know is rationally justified.

[bertatberts]

"Good always wins in the end" is something that I believe by faith, and I would say that it is by faith that I know it to be true. The classical definition of "knowledge" is "justified true belief" (putting aside Gettier problems). So to believe that I know something, I must believe that I believe it, believe that it is true, and believe that I am justified in believing it. The first two elements are trivial; the third, I believe my belief is justified, in particular justified by faith. On that basis, I believe that I know that "Good always wins in the end", and I believe that my belief that I so know is rationally justified.

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry! But how do you justify faith/belief. Faith is belief that is not based on proof. Belief is confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof. So how do you justify faith, to be knowledge. Knowledge is an acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition.

Faith/belief and Knowledge are mutually exclusive.

[ZackMartin]

Sorry! But how do you justify faith/belief.

I believe faith is justified by ethics - I believe that believing certain things is ethically superior. I understand "faith" - the "virtue of faith" - as believing in accordance with a felt ethical obligation to believe in a certain way.

Faith is belief that is not based on proof.

That's not a statement I would agree with, but it depends on what you exactly mean by "proof" - I think "proof" is a rather vague term.

Belief is confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof.

- I give a different definition of belief: "Belief is a tendency to (i) assert the truth of a proposition in private thought, (ii) assert the truth of that proposition in communications with others, and (iii) act as if that proposition were true". Per my definition, whether one believes on the basis of a "rigorous proof" or not is not relevant to the question of whether one believes. I'd also agree with the definition here: http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/b2.htm#bel

So how do you justify faith, to be knowledge. Knowledge is an acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition.

Faith/belief and Knowledge are mutually exclusive.

I guess I adopt different definitions from you. As I mentioned, I follow the philosophical definition of knowledge as "justified true belief", which dates back to Plato. There's nothing in that definition which excludes faith, as I understand it.

I see you are pulling your definitions from a dictionary. The problem with that, of course, is different dictionaries will give different definitions. I think I've given mine - what do you think of them? I'd suggest a good dictionary to use is http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/k9.htm#know

[bertatberts]

ZackMartin:

A philosophical belief, must be a belief and not an opinion, it can't be a viewpoint either, it must be based on the information available, it must also be able to attain a level of seriousness, cohesion, importance and cogency, and be worthy of respect.

Two examples of philosophical belief are atheism and humanism, faith does not even enter the equation.

I prefer this one philosophical dictionary http://www.philosophy-dictionary.org...tionary/BELIEF

"Belief, is a form of judging something to be true, intermediate between mere opinion and certain knowledge. To believe something in this sense is to judge that it is true by virtue of "a ground that is objectively insufficient but subjectively sufficient" in mere opinion neither are sufficient, in knowledge both conditions are met.

So could you tell me how faith/belief meets both?
Thus it cannot be justified true, no matter how you play it.

[Juice]

Hi Zack.

By "logic", I take it you mean logic as studied in mathematics? One problem with that, is that mathematicians have numerous different logical systems they study, many of which disagree fundamentally. Many people will point to the laws of thought, principles like "everything is either true or false, there is no in-between" (the law of the excluded middle) or "nothing can be both true and false at the same time" (the law of non-contradiction), and say these laws are the foundation of logic. But mathematicians study logical systems that deny these laws - intuitionistic/constructivist logic denies the law of the excluded middle, and paraconsistent logic denies the law of non-contradiction. If you ask a mathematical logician which logical system is the right one, I think most would agree with the following: Mathematics studies different possible logical systems and what you can and can't prove in each, but the question of which system is "the right one", in the sense of being the best model of correct human reasoning, is not a mathematical question - it is one for the philosophers. So, this is part of why I think that logic has much more of a subjective flavour than many people think it does. If two people disagree about whether the law of the excluded middle is true, that is about as unsolvable as two people disagreeing on whether abortion is moral or not.

While Paraconsistent Logic does challenge the orthodox view of explosion it does not necessarily deny the law of non-contradiction. In fact, “many paraconsistent logics validate the Law of Non-Contradiciton.” My understanding of Paraconsistent logic is that it attempts to address inconsistent information in a meaningful way. But I certainly concede Logic is a field which is still developing, no question there.

But you seem to be making the mistake of thinking that because there are new systems emerging that deal with inconsistent data and challenge orthodoxy that this means logic is subjective and disputes over which system is superior is as unsolvable as disputes over the morality of abortion. This is simply misguided.

Further, there is some irony here because you have employed logic yourself in your OP to demonstrate the validity of your beliefs. Which tells me you must believe your beliefs can be objectively shown to be rational via logic.

You attempted modens ponens, albeit in a somewhat garbled fashion, when you wrote:

“And yet, given the analogies between rationality and ethics, if ethics is purely subjective, why isn't rationality purely subjective also? Alternatively, if rationality can be objective, why can't ethics be objective also?”

The highlighted part could be reworded as:

If ethics is purely subjective, then rationality is purely subjective also

Which by the way appears to be a non-sequitur.

You also employed logic when you argued via modens ponens here:

”If [many analogies between rationality and ethics, suggests that they are part of one coherent whole] is true, then it can be rational to believe something if one feels it would be ethically superior for one to do so, and there is no evidence against it, and there is no likelihood that any such evidence will emerge in the future.”

So, the irony of course is that if logic is subjective as you assert you have no way of demonstrating objectively that your arguments are rational.

But you are missing the salient point which is, logically speaking, rationality/irrationality is objectively demonstrable. Ethics are not.

- That assumes that everyone agrees on what the correct rules of inference are, but I'm not sure they all do.

But you seem to like employing modus ponens, a rule of inference to show your belief is rational. From this I infer you agree that it is a correct rule. Or do I infer incorrectly?

- I think we can validly distinguish "faith that" from "faith in", and I guess my own interest is more in the "faith that", while I agree the traditional Christian focus is on "faith in". For me, I feel that "faith in God" has to be preceded by "faith that God", because in order to have faith in someone I first need confidence they exist, and "I have faith in someone that they exist" seems to me to be a bit circular. If my "faith that" is a "faith in" anything, I'd say it is a faith in reality as a whole, a faith in the sum total of all that is - I have faith in reality as a whole that it is fundamentally good, that good always triumphs over evil in the end, that every evil is somehow necessary to the greater good (even if it's often unclear to me right now how). God follows for me as a corollary of that faith, since it seems to me that the most coherent worldview in which that faith is true is one which has a deity.

I don’t disagree with your bolded statement though how you arrived there seems to be a bit foggy.

Don’t think of me as necessarily disagreeing with you on every point. The main point we agree on is the existence of a deity. At this stage I’m concerned with the mechanism for how you arrive at what is and isn’t rational. How do you do this if not via logic? Let’s start there and see if we can agree on that.

[ZackMartin]

A philosophical belief, must be a belief and not an opinion

Well, its clear to me now, that you and I do use the term "belief" differently. To you, it seems, whether something counts as a "belief" depends on what reasons/evidence/arguments one has for it - going by the Kant dictionary you linked to, if one has strong justification it's "knowledge", weaker justification it's "belief", little justification it's "opinion". But to me, all three are belief, since all are belief that some proposition is true, and the question of what justifications one has for a belief is separate. If you believe something, it so happens that it is true, and it so happens that you have good reasons for believing it, then it is knowledge; but knowledge is a form of belief.

Since you've found a philosophical dictionary which supports your definition, and I've found one that supports mine, I might suggest that both definitions, while contrary, are valid.

But in any case, to stick with your definitions for the moment:

it can't be a viewpoint either, it must be based on the information available, it must also be able to attain a level of seriousness, cohesion, importance and cogency, and be worthy of respect. Two examples of philosophical belief are atheism and humanism, faith does not even enter the equation.... So could you tell me how faith/belief meets both? Thus it cannot be justified true, no matter how you play it.

Are you saying that faith is believing something despite a lack of information which justifies it? On the contrary, I would say that faith is a form of information, a source of information. But I guess we'd need to agree on what "information" means to go further on that.