The Will To Believe

[Justified Saint]

Reading up on some James for a seminar I'm taking next semester -- I got a chuckle out of this:

"When I look at the religious question as it really puts itself to concrete men, and when I think of all the possibilities which both practically and theoretically it invovles, then this command that we shall put a stopper on our heart, instincts, and courage, and [i]wait[/i] -- acting of course meanwhile more or less as if religion were [i]not[/i] true -- till doomsday, or till such time as our intellect and senses working together may have raked in evidence enough, -- this command, I say, seems to me the queerest idol ever manufactured in the philosophic cave."

James goes on to argue, persuasively, that agnostics are essentially governed by the fear of commiting error -- sounds just like fundamentalists. I would have never thought it would be so easy to get fundamentalists and agnostics together in the same boat!

Edited November 4, 2006 by Justified Saint

[Justified Saint]

No James fans around here? Is everyone satisfied with the relationship between fundamentalists and agnostics?

I figured our resident anti-Catholic trolls would at least have something to say, but looks like they are on sabbatical (again).

[Goetian]

Well, as my religion goes, I find it immensely appalling to send people to Hell for refusing to believe in something with no rational basis.

However, I do believe in God, but it's a guess. Just that, a guess, a belief, and as good as anyone else's.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Goetian' post='1112616' date='Nov 6 2006, 11:25 AM']
Well, as my religion goes, I find it immensely appalling to send people to Hell for refusing to believe in something with no rational basis.

However, I do believe in God, but it's a guess. Just that, a guess, a belief, and as good as anyone else's.
[/quote]
why is belief in God not rational - it makes perfect sense to me.
Only someone up there with a sense of humor could have designed a platypus.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1112620' date='Nov 6 2006, 10:28 AM']
Only someone up there with a sense of humor could have designed a platypus.
[/quote]

I was thinking that exact thing this morning... we're studying monotremes and marsupials...

[Groo the Wanderer]

[quote name='Goetian' post='1112616' date='Nov 6 2006, 10:25 AM']
Well, as my religion goes, I find it immensely appalling to send people to Hell for refusing to believe in something with no rational basis.

However, I do believe in God, but it's a guess. Just that, a guess, a belief, and as good as anyone else's.
[/quote]


Point of error in yer post: God does not send anyone to Hell. The person sends themself to Hell by the choices they make in life, up to the point of death. God simply ratifies the decision made by that person when they receive their particular judgement.

Salvation and paradise are already bought and paid for for all of us by Christ Jesus and freely given to us as a gift. It is up to us individually to accept it or not....

[Goetian]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' post='1112661' date='Nov 6 2006, 11:59 AM']
Point of error in yer post: God does not send anyone to Hell.
[/quote]

You know what I meant. I fail to see how refusing to believe in God in the lack of evidence for His existence constitutes a will to go to Hell. It simply doesn't.

Cmom says God belief in God makes sense. Sure it does, I happen to believe in God because I think it makes sense too. It's internally consistent. But so are Islam, atheism, agnosticism, Buddhism -- pretty much any religion you can name. There is no concrete evidence for God's existence, no matter how you slice it. God made us rational, logical beings whose knowledge, ultimately, comes entirely from sense data. If He wanted us to believe in Him, He should give us some sense data verifying His existence.

[Justified Saint]

[quote name='Goetian' post='1112616' date='Nov 6 2006, 09:25 AM']
Well, as my religion goes, I find it immensely appalling to send people to Hell for refusing to believe in something with no rational basis.

However, I do believe in God, but it's a guess. Just that, a guess, a belief, and as good as anyone else's.
[/quote]

Lol, I had to read over that a couple of times. I thought you said you "find it immensely [i]appealing[/i]"

I appreciate your point, but you may have mispoken to say "with no rational basis". Rationality and sensory information are not the same thing.

[Goetian]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1113158' date='Nov 6 2006, 07:45 PM']
Lol, I had to read over that a couple of times. I thought you said you "find it immensely [i]appealing[/i]"

I appreciate your point, but you may have mispoken to say "with no rational basis". Rationality and sensory information are not the same thing.
[/quote]

You can only rationalize sense data you've previously collected. It all goes back to Descartes' question of whether or not someone deprived of all five senses from birth would have a thought. I say no, as his only means of gathering raw data would be gone.

Unless there's some sense data that implies the existence of God, one can't rationalize His existence.

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Goetian' post='1113264' date='Nov 6 2006, 09:51 PM']
You can only rationalize sense data you've previously collected. It all goes back to Descartes' question of whether or not someone deprived of all five senses from birth would have a thought. I say no, as his only means of gathering raw data would be gone.

Unless there's some sense data that implies the existence of God, one can't rationalize His existence.
[/quote]


I would, along with Aquinas, assert that [i]all[/i] sense data implies the existence of God. All sense data is of beings that are contingent, but contingency is not a self-satisfying explanation. Reason itself demands that we seek satisfying explanation, and so by the sheer fact of contingent being, we are compelled rationally to assert necessary being as the ontological basis for the contingency we find. Necessary being, when analyzed in its own right, proves itself to be God.

[Justified Saint]

[quote name='Goetian' post='1113264' date='Nov 6 2006, 07:51 PM']
You can only rationalize sense data you've previously collected. It all goes back to Descartes' question of whether or not someone deprived of all five senses from birth would have a thought. I say no, as his only means of gathering raw data would be gone.

Unless there's some sense data that implies the existence of God, one can't rationalize His existence.
[/quote]

Animals are merely sensory and instinctual -- humans are not. Why? Because we excercise reason and rationality. Rationality is what grounds are ability to sense and experience and to make meaning of them (i.e. memory, narrative etc.)

[Goetian]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1114180' date='Nov 7 2006, 05:46 PM']
Animals are merely sensory and instinctual -- humans are not. Why? Because we excercise reason and rationality. Rationality is what grounds are ability to sense and experience and to make meaning of them (i.e. memory, narrative etc.)
[/quote]

That's exactly what I'm saying. You have to have some initial sense data, though, to have anything to rationalize.

How this relates to God is, I must have some sense data of God to rationally conclude His existence.

Jeff, you lost me at the "satisfactory explanation" part. A satisfactory explanation of what?

[Guest JeffCR07]

A contingent being is defined as any being such that, in order to give a satisfactory account of its existence, you must appeal to something outside of itself.

A necessary being is any being such that, in order to give a satisfactory account of its existence, you need not appeal to anything outside of itself.

Perhaps an example will help clear it up: If I want to give a satisfactory account of why you existence (an account of your existence that leaves nothing essential out), I will have to appeal to your parents, the food you eat, etc. But all of these things are outside of you, and so you are a contingent being.


With this clarification, I'd really appreciate a response to my previous post.

[Justified Saint]

A valid meditation for a believer, but you would have to presuppose the existence of God for any of those categorical distinctions to hold water.

I suspect people don't go around thinking "I am hungry, therefore I am a contingent being. There must be something out there that isn't hungry, we will call that necessary being." Sure people can think like that, but only after they believe in God.

[SJP]

JS said:

"A valid meditation for a believer, but you would have to presuppose the existence of God for any of those categorical distinctions to hold water."

I'm not sure that you would have to presuppose the existence of God for Jeff's point to be valid.

As Jeff stated:
"Reason itself demands that we seek satisfying explanation, and so by the sheer fact of contingent being, we are compelled rationally to assert necessary being as the ontological basis for the contingency we find. Necessary being, when analyzed in its own right, proves itself to be God."

One can look at the universe without any assumptions about God and conclude that it is composed of contingent beings, beings that do not explain themselves. Every contingent being says "don't look to me for the final answer." Thus only an un-caused cause can be the final explanation, a necessary being --- God. I don't see how that reasoning would presuppose God.

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote name='Justified Saint' post='1115965' date='Nov 9 2006, 11:41 AM']
A valid meditation for a believer, but you would have to presuppose the existence of God for any of those categorical distinctions to hold water.

I suspect people don't go around thinking "I am hungry, therefore I am a contingent being. There must be something out there that isn't hungry, we will call that necessary being." Sure people can think like that, but only after they believe in God.
[/quote]

I disagree wholeheartedly.

One need not believe in God in order to make sense of the concepts of contingent or necessary being. Even the atheist can understand the meaning of the terms. Moreover, the atheist will readily admit that contingent beings exist. The point upon which the atheist disagrees is whether or not a necessary being exists. The purpose of the cosmological argument is to show that if one asserts the existence of contingent being, this assertion necessarily presupposes that a necessary being exists.

Now, if you think (as you seem to assert) that the cosmological argument begs the question, then the burden of proof lies with you. Rather than simply asserting that one must believe in God in order to make this a "valid meditation," perhaps you would like to point out where you think the fallacy in the actual argument lies?

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[SJP]

Where did Goetian go?

[Aloysius]

left because we were too stringent about stuff like incest being wrong

[Justified Saint]

[quote name='JeffCR07' post='1116446' date='Nov 9 2006, 08:33 PM']
I disagree wholeheartedly.

One need not believe in God in order to make sense of the concepts of contingent or necessary being. Even the atheist can understand the meaning of the terms. Moreover, the atheist will readily admit that contingent beings exist. The point upon which the atheist disagrees is whether or not a necessary being exists. The purpose of the cosmological argument is to show that if one asserts the existence of contingent being, this assertion necessarily presupposes that a necessary being exists.

Now, if you think (as you seem to assert) that the cosmological argument begs the question, then the burden of proof lies with you. Rather than simply asserting that one must believe in God in order to make this a "valid meditation," perhaps you would like to point out where you think the fallacy in the actual argument lies?

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff
[/quote]

It is question begging because the argument is suppose to have some kind of irresistible logic that puts the atheist in a contradiction, a contradiction that you have gone on to explain. Yet, one can affirm the phenomenon without falling into presuppositional metaphysical traps. Contingent and necessary are already metaphysical claims and thus essentially presuppositional (as you yourself seem to admit). That's great and fine, but I doubt you will be convincing many non-believers with that kind of reasoning.

[Guest JeffCR07]

First, I want to apologize for the combattive nature of the above post. I was re-reading it and it came off more harshly than it was intended to be. Second, I want to address the issue at hand:

First, we must distinguish between the defining of metaphysical categories and the [i]existence[/i] of those metaphysical categories. Definitions are not presuppositions, and that is a critical point to understand. Any philosopher is permitted to define terms without being accused of presupposing anything.

Now, with this understood, the argument is clearly [i]not[/i] question begging. The argument defines the terms "contingent" and "necessary" being. We then look around and see, through empirical evidence, that at least [i]one[/i] of those two categories exists: contingent being. The argument then goes on to show that, granted the existence of contingent being and the definition of contingent and necessary being, there must be a necessary being that exists.

If you really are committed to the assertion of question begging, you would do better if you took to a Kantian critique and argued that the cosmological argument depends on the ontological argument, and then argue that the ontological argument doesnt work.

Won't get much sympathy from me though, considering I think Kant is wrong and the ontological argument works

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff