Why do some people find it hard to believe in God? Part 2

[notfluffyatall]

I don't think we've quite finished yet

Snorbs, good to see you again! Can you see how your evidence might be my semantic dance? If you're not interested in Christian belief, that's one thing (and let's face it, we only really apply our minds to things we are interested in) - but to say that Christian belief is a 'semantic dance' seems to be a neat way of writing it off without actually dealing with the content of it. Like me saying that science is all 'boffinry' or other such reductive nonsense.

As to the Westboro lot, yes of course they'd say I'm going to hell. So what makes me think 'my particular sect' has 'got it right'? Well, first thing is we haven't got everything right. I'm not very sectarian, I'm afraid! Other Christians can teach us a lot in many ways, and my ultimate hope is that all Christians will be united. As much as poss, I try to focus on what we hold in common, not what we disagee on. I suppose, tbh, for me, my faith in God is such that 'getting it right' is less important than living faithfully within the Christian tradition, as I understand it, which is a thing that is evolving all the time.

Him, your post...try the logic of this...another thought experiment using baked goods! You say that if God is able suspends the laws of physics, we cannot know anything - right? Well, imagine a baker who bakes sponge cakes using a tried and trusted recipe. They taste great (so it works), the recipe is shared among friends (so it is replicable), declared by all to be yummy (so peer-reviewed) and leads to various other recipes which sometimes don't work (so allows for falsifiability). So far, so empirically sound now is that baker able to make, say, meringues? Of course. Meringues don't taste like sponge cake and if tested against the hypotheses of what makes a good sopnge cake, fail every time.

So....does the making of meringues mean that everything we know about the sponge cakes is untrue? no, of course not. The baker is free to make sponge cakes or meringues, and making one doesn't mean that the other is less valid. So God (in the J-Ctrad) is free to work within the 'recipe' of the laws of physics, or to do something else. If God does something else, that doesn't invalidate the laws of physics. THis thought experiment doe pre-suppose a 'baker', obviously, (i.e. God), but it shows that your question can be answered from within J-C belief. Which you might see as semantic dance (or you could chooes to think about...)

Oh, also just to add - the most sectarian sects are normally those whose belief sysem means that their salvation depends on 'getting it right.'

Hello everyone - just found this thread.
I haven't read it all but reading HH's recent contributions I think we could perhaps rename the thread 'Why do some people need to believe in god?'. To me the answer to that one, is that we have an evolved predisposition to be religious. That is why there are so many, very similar but subtly different religions in the world.
Anyway to answer your last post HH, the principle of Occam's razor tells us that we should take the simplest solution when presented with material evidence. But this simple, but perhaps depressing conclusion, would not accomodate your spiritual beliefs (which we have evolved to hold), so (to me at least) you do engage in what others have called a semantic dance where both your logical and spiritual parts can coexist.

And to answer your rather strange baker anology. If the baker was making merangues elsewhere then we would know nothing about it and could never know nothing about it. It is Russell's chocolate teapot argument again, not a reason to believe in a God.

I should have said - could never know anything about it

The thing is, ElBurro, someone else could apply Occam's Razor, look out at beautiful countryside / the vastness of the ocean / a newborn baby / the complexity of the tiniest microscopic particle, be filled with awe and wonder, and do what you suggest, reach for the simplest answer and conclude that the order and beauty in the universe suggest that it has been created.

So to them, evolution might seem like the pointless, copunter-intuitive semantic dance. So I'm not sure that this argument can be used validly here as it pre-supposes that the 'simplest answer when presented with material evidence' will be the same for everyone.

I know it is so attractive to say that scientific materialism is more rational / logical than faith in God, but I don't see how it can be so.

Analogies are good if they help us to think .

For this analogy to work well, the baker shuold be a home baker who normally bakes sponge cakes for his family, who enjoy them very much. Every once in a blue moon, he makes meringues instead. So yes, they'd know about the meringues, but not understand how they are made (because the family are all out at school / work while he's busy baking). So that's a theoretical model to suggest how miracles don't undermine the laws of physics, seen from a Christian viewpoint of a creative God who is free to do what he wants. Is the chocolate teapot a semantic dance?

So what you are saying is that because, for instance, some people do not believe in evolution then a religious understanding of the world is as valid as a scientific one. I do agree that to the individual either one may be more valid than the other.
But we are not talking about subjective experience here. We are talking about the truth about the world and our place in it. In establishing the truth about the material world (what we can know), science wins hands down.

I also think that you misunderstand Occams razor. It is used when there are two valid theories that describe the same thing - like your baker analogy vs. the laws of physics being consistent throughout time and space. It does not mean that everything can be described simply.

what I meant is that Occam's Razor stands re. obsrvation of the material world, which could lead equally to belief in God or non-belief.

This thread isn't conesting anything to do with science per se, it's ontesting scientific materialism / empiricism. I am saying that science on the whole answers 'how' questions whereas religion answers 'why' questions. Scientific materialism assumes that because science can't answer 'why' questions (qus of purpose), therefore those questions are invalid - so 'there is no 'why'. I'm saying that just because scientific materualism says this, it doesn't make it true - it means that the wrong set of parameters is being used. As anyone who's done a degree in more or less anything knows, the quality if your answers depends on the appropriateness of the question. I know you're not going to wade through all 1300-odd posts , but that's the gist of it.

Miracles would undermine the laws of physics because (as has been explained by others) and by your own admission a miracle would involve breaking the laws of physics.

"Scientific materialism assumes that because science can't answer 'why' questions (qus of purpose), therefore those questions are invalid - so 'there is no 'why'. I'm saying that just because scientific materualism says this, it doesn't make it true - it means that the wrong set of parameters is being used."

But from which knowledge base do you work out the 'why' answers?

Other than a completely subjective one which is certainly valid for you, but you can't expect anyone else to be convinced just because you believe it?

Break yes, undermine maybe, invalidate no.

...and now I must get on with my writing! I'll be back later. (Am thinking about chaning my nn to 'SemanticDancer'

We must make our own meaning in life - that is the 'Why' that the scientific materialist view gives us. Understanding this is, IMO, liberating. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that unless you want / need it to be.

Occam's razor actually states that one should not multiply entities needlessly. Eg, you can look at a diamond and think "That's a diamond. It appeared from out of nowhere" then that explains nothing. If you say "That's a diamond. It was formed in a volcano" then that explains its origin. To look at that diamond and say "That's a diamond, it was formed in volcano that God created" then that's adding an extra entity that is not needed.

All that being said, coincidentally I've just come across a Sam Harris quote that I think is very appropriate here:
Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. What if someone says "Well, that's not how I choose to think about water"? All we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn't share those values, the conversation is over. If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?

Like the quote Snorbs and yes, very appropriate.
What riles me, is the sort of halfway house that we get with modern theists. The rational part of them understands and accepts the scientific materialist view - the evidence for its validity is all around them. But they do not have the gumption to carry this through into the spiritual domain. To them, this area is somehow exempt from all of the constraints of the material world, although they can never really explain why that should be.

Mmmmm....baked goods

But the thing is your meringue also tastes great (it works), the recipe is possible to be shared (so it is replicable), we can all agree it tastes good (peer-reviewed) and leads to various other recipes which sometimes don't work (falsifiability)....just like the sponge cake

There isn't a 'different way of knowing' about meringues and about sponge cakes - they are the same kind of thing. The existence of meringues doesn't make you doubt everything you thought you knew about sponge cakes and vice-versa.

Now if the baker made invisible, undetectable, unrepeatable meringues you might be onto something - but i'd be finding another baker.

Is it a case of the emperor's new meringue?

religion answers 'why' questions

unfortunately, not with consistent or convincing answers. And some of the 'why' questions don't arise if you don't postulate god in the first place (Why does god allow suffering?).

What 'why' questions are answered by religion? Which of these questions arise mainly because of human egocentricity ('Why are we here' is a question quite adequately answered by 'How are we here' if you don't have an overinflated sense of mankind's importance, I'd suggest).

ElBurro, my view is that scientific knowledge is a Good Thing, and that there is a bigger truth by which God may known.

Snorbs, your quote made me laugh! I'm writing something today on the symbolic value of water in ancient Greek purity rituals....presumably Sam Harris' etes would glaze over...'it's just water, okay?' No-one in their right mind would disagree that water is what it is chemically. But is that all there is to be said about water....?

Bobbin, I base my faith on the Christian tradition. ElBurro's comment that we must make our own meaning in life is equally subjective / speculative as that, and Grimma's belief that 'there is no beyond' is equally subjective / speculative ....can we, as humans, honestly not be subjective? I know I'm not going to hear you agree with me on this, but for me it comes down to whom to trust. Grimma trusts the empirical philosophical tradition, I trust the Christian tradition. So we are all equally trusting here. Without trust, knowledge is impossible - life is impossible!

The kind of questions that religion answers are:

Is there a God?
Is this God knowable? If so, how?
What does it mean to be human?
Do we have a destiny / purpose to our lives?

How can the suffering of the world be redeemed?

I know that non-religious thought-traditions have their answers too (e.g. scientific materialism gives materialist answers), but religion gives distinctively non-physical, or more-than-physical answers...

I guess this matters a lot to me because I honestly, truly, deep down believe that I am more than the sum of my chemical make-up (I believe this of all people, not jut myself!) - the nearest scientific model I can think of is 'emergence theory'...

Lots of others too...Ive got a head full of ancient Greek water rituals at the mo, so am going to get back to my writing...

"....can we, as humans, honestly not be subjective?"

Well - we all (on this thread at least) have 'trust' if you like, that the laws of physics exist. Where individuals part company is having 'trust' in supernatural beings which defy the laws of physics and are not part of what can reasonably be agreed upon as the material world.

It is those who trust in supernatural beings who are taking the 'extra leap' into the world of subjective conjecture as to what might be out there in on top of what we already know. Those who don't 'leap' can't be said to be indulging in subjective conjecture in a comparable way.

Is there a God?
Is this God knowable? If so, how?

• these are questions that only arise if you postulate God

What does it mean to be human?
This can be answered without religion, certainly without theistic religion. Not just at some biological level but as thinking, ethical beings.

Do we have a destiny / purpose to our lives?
'destiny' might need more definition to discuss, but 'purpose' - that can be answered non-religiously

How can the suffering of the world be redeemed?
WTF does that even mean? (I find the Buddhist thoughts suffering rather more interesting.)

What do you mean by 'sum of my chemical make-up'? - that's one of those overly reductionist terms IMO. If I dropped dead I'd have (for a moment) the same chemical makeup. Certainly more than that. If I could be replicated and each copy live for a year, each would be a different person at the end. If I'd had that replication 30-odd years ago, wonder if there would now be a still-believing version due to different experiences?!

BR - I think that we have been here before on a different thread.
Rational thought in the scientific materialist tradition involves discounting things for which there is no evidence until evidence for them exists. HH seems to say that believing in things for which there is evidence and believing in things that there is no evidence for are logically equivalent. The argument being that they are both subjective truths. The problem with this thesis is that the evidence is external and testable by anyone (objective). That is the hole in what you are saying.

I really don't see it like that, Bobbin. What I would say is this: you don't have the option not to trust in a philosophical framework of some sort or other. You can't live in a vacuum. You might think you've got good reasons for trusting in the belief system you do, but you can't opt out of belief systems altogether. Trusting in a physicalist / materialist / empiricist philosophical framework is as much an act of trust as trusting in a God, because neither can be proven definitively.