Do we expect too much from human reason?

[Whateverist]

I came across this nugget at http://www.agnosticsinternational.org/forum/portal.php
and wondered what you all would think of it. For myself, I agree and think it is a useful point to make. I don't think it takes anything away from human reason to think about the limits of its applicability. I'll go on admiring the many achievements of human reason. I just won't think it is a net which can catch all fish.

Logic and reason a 'matter of faith'? C'mon, that's a wild stretch of the imagination.

Let's start with the easy stuff.

It's proven beyond doubt that holy books have brought comfort and meaning to billions of people over thousands of years. So holy books have convincingly demonstrated their usefulness in some regards.

However, it doesn't follow that because holy books are good for some things in human life, they are therefore automatically qualified to answer the very biggest most fundamental questions about all reality. It's a HUGE leap from "provides comfort" to "answers biggest questions", right?

If a holy book believer wishes for us to make that huge leap with them, we will require them to provide very strong evidence for such an enormous assertion of ability.

That part's easy, right? Ok, now let's apply the very same logic to the qualifications of human reason.

It is proven beyond all doubt that human reason is very useful for very many tasks. But it doesn't automatically follow that human reason is therefore qualified to address and answer the very biggest and most fundamental questions about all of reality.

If we are to make that huge leap, somebody needs to provide very strong evidence for such an enormous assertion of ability.

What we usually see is that those who challenge religious authorities are rarely willing to defend the qualifications of their own chosen authority, human reason. It usually doesn't occur to them that such a defense is required. That's typically because they sincerely take those qualifications to be an obvious given, even though the existence of human reason's ability to address and answer the very biggest and most fundamental questions is not yet proven. That is...

They are people of faith. Most often an unexamined faith. That faith is very common and understandable in human terms, but it's still faith.

See? No imagination needed. All that's required is intellectual honesty, a willingness to challenge all chosen authorities in an even handed manner.

This fellow (if it is a fellow) who calls himself thoughtage has started his own forums. http://thoughtage.com/threads.cgi?1&1&3&1 Its design is pretty unusual and I suspect it is fairly new venture. He has modeled it after an e-zine. So that anyone can read anything but joining is only by invitation. Of course one can also apply. As I understand it, those who are accepted can 'publish' what they like with over site coming from the 'editor' who made them a member to begin with. You as a member would have control of what responses you'd allow to post. A person can also be invited or apply to become an editor. At that point, you could admit others to join whose writings you'd like to see published.

I could imagine our own Pickup_Shonuff would do well in a setting like this.

[The Grand Nudger]

It doesn't automatically follow, no - but in making this statement he's leveraging reason.....so there's that. I think that anyone who's studied either philosophy or logic will realize that no one made that assumption or leap at all, and that reason has been a learning process itself. We've had the "rules" wrong before, and it lead us to conclusions which we later found means to demonstrate inaccurate, thus the model was inadequate. So long as our system of logic models the behavior of the universe as we experience it, it will be qualified to give competent answers to the "biggest and most fundamental". I do think that some people expect to much, but I sometimes wonder why people expect so much from a statement that goes like so:

"-if- a, then b, a therefore b" - the provision was supplied with the very first word. Further provision is supplied in that what we plug in must be descriptive and accurate, for the system to work...and yet further provision is supplied in that the system itself must be descriptive and accurate - to accomplish that work. I don't see what room faith has in any of that.......reason has limits, and many of those limits are well delineated, some may not be(as above, we've been there before)....but we can only work with what we have - and who expects anyone or anything to do work it makes no claim to, and is expressly stated as not being capable of?

IMO, the author isn't doing much in the way of deep thinking, more like excusing faith on ground leveling terms. This is demonstrated in the manner in which the author chooses to approach faith from the very start, as a giver of comfort and meaning...and proven no less, beyond doubt (despite there being a whole range of doubts a to whether or not faith is accomplishing this at all, many of which we discuss here)! I doubt that anyone would be able to assess the relative comfort or meaning granted by faith set against the discomfort or meaninglessness caused by the same. I don't even know how such a study would be accomplished or why we would trust it's results. I certainly doubt that this claim and it's resulting bafflegab is a fact of any sort, or that the author has any knowledge that would put him/her in a position to make such a claim. To then go on and cast doubt on the very method the author is using to make further statements leaves him.her in the category of "demonstrated bullshitter".

It's an assertion put forward as a setup for an excuse. No shits are given.
(the rest of the site is lukewarm trash as well, but I'm sure they circle the drain with something legit every now and again...after all, we manage, between the titty jokes and dick puns, eh?)

[watchamadoodle]

That looks like an interesting forum.

On the thread topic, what is the alternative to human reason? IMO religious people are also using human reason, because that's all we can do. The difference is that theists try to stretch human reasoning into realms where it doesn't work in an effort to plug gaps in our knowledge? Theists are probably bothered by these gaps more than atheists? Often science finds real answers to plug these gaps, and theists are forced to revise their beliefs.

[The Grand Nudger]

Given that it's only recently that most of us stopped believing in Zues, and that many who don't believe in Zues simply replaced his picture on the wall...I"m not so certain that theists are ever forced to revise their beliefs...but if they are, the force applied must be exceedingly slight. Sometimes I like to conceptualize religion as one part of human conservatism (no, not politics....back off fuckers!). We stick with what we've been doing so long as it hasn't been killing us at too great a rate. It may be that what we're sticking with isn't actually an operative factor in our success (or failure-with-grace) but, as creatures of limited knowledge and means to acquire knowledge...we aren't always aware of that. Tons of little sayings we have on this express our position. Babies and bathwater, if it aint broke...., good enough for my pappy.....on and on it goes.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Reasoning invents computers and jet engines and vaccines.

Get back to me when religions invent something beyond neat little stories to exploit guilt and inflict misery.

[Ben Davis]

Thoughtage is talking trash; written sleight of hand. There's no direct equivalence between religious faith and human reason. Further, he's stretching the definitions of both the usefuleness of holy books and of faith. Let's look at the headline claim:

It's proven beyond doubt that holy books have brought comfort and meaning to billions of people over thousands of years. So holy books have convincingly demonstrated their usefulness in some regards.

False. The usefulness does not derive from the holy book but from the belief in it: holy books claim that 'supernatural occurrence A will provide benefit 1' and people's belief in that claim brings comfort, irrespective of the accuracy of the claim in the book. The best that can be supported here is that belief has demonstrated its usefulness in some regards. People can and do believe in pretty much anything. In fact, I'd challenge anyone to provide a unique, practical and direct use for a holy book.

As the basic premise in support of his defense of religion fails, there's little reason to pay attention to the rest of the piece. However this bit deserves some attention:

It is proven beyond all doubt that human reason is very useful for very many tasks. But it doesn't automatically follow that human reason is therefore qualified to address and answer the very biggest and most fundamental questions about all of reality.

If we are to make that huge leap, somebody needs to provide very strong evidence for such an enormous assertion of ability.

Well said. This question should be at the forefront of any rational enquiry.

What we usually see is that those who challenge religious authorities are rarely willing to defend the qualifications of their own chosen authority, human reason. It usually doesn't occur to them that such a defense is required. That's typically because they sincerely take those qualifications to be an obvious given, even though the existence of human reason's ability to address and answer the very biggest and most fundamental questions is not yet proven. That is...

They are people of faith. Most often an unexamined faith. That faith is very common and understandable in human terms, but it's still faith.

*GASP* Sounds dire, doesn't it! Fortunately, this is more nonsense and we can show this to be so because of the demonstrable results that the application of human reasoning provides on a daily basis: almost every aspect of human life relies on reliable results from human reasoning. If something regularly shows itself to be reliable, it ceases to be 'faith' that underlies one's belief and instead becomes 'trust', earned trust. The most robust version of human reasoning is the scientific method which, whilst far from flawless, is demonstrably trustworthy in answering questions regarding 'the very biggest and most fundamental questions about reality'. It has the added bonus of being a learning, self-correcting system meaning that results become more trustworthy over time. No 'faith' required and Thoughtage's main challenge is rebutted as easily as his initial premise.

Also, it's telling that the best defense of religion that he can think of is 'religion can sort of be useful, sometimes... well not really but your method's just as bad as mine!'.

[KevinM1]

Comfort is irrelevant and meaning is subjective, so the person starts off with empty platitudes and then tries to paint logic with the same brush. It's completely asinine. It's masked by flowery language, but asinine nonetheless.

I also take issue with their "answers the biggest questions" premise. What are those questions? Who or what determines their importance? Are they actually universal?

And, they miss a very important fact: religion has been proven wrong time and again. That it provides comfort and meaning to individuals means absolutely nothing if what it teaches doesn't actually jibe with reality. There's comfort in ignorance. We have a name for it: Dunning-Kruger.

Logic and reason may not give us all the answers, and it may even give us wrong answers, but it's not a stretch to say it's the best tool we currently have. The results alone show that, so no, it's not a matter of faith to think its the best way to approach things. And I don't think that those of us who actually employ logic and reason believe it WILL answer ALL questions. There may be things we simply won't get an answer for. But it's a far better tool than believing in the writings of ancient Middle Eastern people.

[Mudhammam]

Wow whateverist, I'm flattered at the suggestion. What made you consider me out of all the FAAAB-U-LOUS posters here, of whom I am honored to be considered among, by one of its most commendable members no less!?

[The Grand Nudger]

Maybe your bedside manners.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, as an equivocation of the two, the argument doesn't work at all. But as a criticism of a blind faith that science and reason will unlock all secrets, I think it works just fine.

Think of the kinds of questions we banter over around here all the time: determinism vs free will; cosmology; origins; purpose; values; ontology. In every case, reason is more useful than theology hands down. But often enough I hear one or the other of us opine how such and such just doesn't make sense and I think, should it? Making sense in terms of what else we know is a valid point. But assuming we know enough about the big picture to say unequivocally what is and isn't possible? Probably an over reach.

That doesn't mean I should throw out my preference for natural over supernatural answers. But what really can I say to another human being that should persuade them to adopt the same bias? Probably no more than they can offer as to why it is I should join them in acknowledging a god. Both are biases but I like to think all useful advances have depended on people who shared my outlook.

But in the end there just isn't any reason I can offer to a theist why naturalism is better. Hell, most of them accept naturalism everyday. They just like to think there's a magic genie holding the natural order together.