Theists - I want to know what you think

[Edwardo Piet]

Nonsense. You are confusing ends and means, i.e. choosing a belief versus holding it.  Choosing to believe includes all the precursory activity leading to knowledge, such as fact seeking, challenging assumptions, reframing perspectives, and making a sincere effort to reflect about an issue...and then after all that choosing to accept it.

The bolded part is the part I am saying is not possible.

When someone like alpha says that you choose not to believe, and he can correct me if I am wrong, he means that you are not taking a question seriously enough to consider other possibilities and/or not subjecting your current beliefs (or lack thereof) up for scrutiny, and even if you did find everything tilted in favor of a certain conclusion, even then, you could choose not to accept it. You cannot escape responsibility for your own choices, Hammy.

Belief is not a choice.

You do appear to be talking about confirmation bias. But as I've said... I seek knowledge for its own sake... so that's how I avoid confirmation bias. And if God is an unknowable being then it doesn't seem much sense to be able to know that being. And if you can't reason yourself to Christianity then how can one possibly believe reasonably?

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There's no gap for atheists such as myself who believe in a first cause.

There is a whole host of gaps! The persistence of being,

What do you mean by "persistence of being"? Do you mean the fact that reality persists?

intelligibility

Why would God be required for that?

, rational order,

Why would God be required for that?

moral facts...

Don't moral facts make God redundant?

the list goes on and on. Your only escape is to ignore the Principle of Sufficient reason and call everything for which atheism cannot even hope to address a "brute fact."

No... I am a big fan of the principle of sufficient reason. You seem to not understand it. The principle is that there is a valid reason behind everything not that one should pretend to give a reason for everything prematurely. If you don't really know what the first cause is the rational response is to admit that there is a reason but the rational response is not to pretend to know what the reason is before you actually do.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...if you can't reason yourself to Christianity then how can one possibly believe reasonably?

A belief system can be reasonable without being rational. My position is that there is no certain basis on which any belief system rests and yet the human condition requires each of us to have beliefs that rest, either tacitly or explicitly, on some freely adopted intellectual assumptions.

[Edwardo Piet]

A belief system can be reasonable without being rational.

At face that's a contradiction so you're going to have to justify it.

I mean, if a belief can be reasonable without being rational can it also be rational without being reasonable? What's the difference?

My position is that there is no certain basis on which any belief system rest and yet the human condition requires each of us to have beliefs that rest, either tacitly or explicitly, on some freely adopted intellectual assumptions.

This makes you sound like a presuppositionalist. It makes you sound like you are saying that you think the most fundamental premises for any worldview is ultimately entirely irrational. It makes it sound like you're saying that theism isn't based on reason but atheism isn't either.

My biggest problem with the idea that belief in God doesn't require being reasoned to is the fact that you have to define God before you even know what you're believing in... and it's not possible to define things without reason. Belief in God is surely either reasoned to poorly or reasoned to successfully. In my experience it always seems to be the former and never the latter.

[RoadRunner79]

A belief system can be reasonable without being rational.

At face that's a contradiction so you're going to have to justify it.

I mean, if a belief can be reasonable without being rational can it also be rational without being reasonable? What's the difference?

My position is that there is no certain basis on which any belief system rest and yet the human condition requires each of us to have beliefs that rest, either tacitly or explicitly, on some freely adopted intellectual assumptions.

This makes you sound like a presuppositionalist. It makes you sound like you are saying that you think the most fundamental premises for any worldview is ultimately entirely irrational. It makes it sound like you're saying that theism isn't based on reason but atheism isn't either.

My biggest problem with the idea that belief in God doesn't require being reasoned to is the fact that you have to define God before you even know what you're believing in... and it's not possible to define things without reason. Belief in God is surely either reasoned to poorly or reasoned to successfully. In my experience it always seems to be the former and never the latter.

I just wanted to say good post Hammy. If this is the "new you" asking questions and engaging, then I like it. Kudos!

[Edwardo Piet]

I just wanted to say good post Hammy.   If this is the "new you"  asking questions and engaging, then I like it.   Kudos!

Thank you very much. And yes this is the new me.

[Godscreated]

@ Mister Agenda, how many time has your conversation with Neo in the last few posts been exactly what every Christian here has said to atheist. We all can blame each other for saying this or that and claim we do not disrespect the person but in reality everyone knows that at times nearly everyone here has lost their respect for someone on the opposite side. We all should just fess-up and tell it like it is and quit beating around the bush. Tensions can run high here because there are extreme opposites in opinion and everyone wants to be right and things get said, rightfully or not they hurt and anyone who denies they haven't been hurt in a conversation IMHO are not being truthful. Most Christians here want civil conversation and we try to do so because it is our nature through our belief in God and the atheist doesn't really see that they need to be civil because they believe they have no one to answer to, please do not misunderstand there are atheist here who will be civil to some Christians and some who try to be civil to everyone, atheist and Christian alike, I have two specific ones in mind but want say who so that no one gets their feelings hurt, okay. I've always wanted to have civil conversation with everyone here but at some point things break down and the trash starts. I've l have left here three times to regroup and refresh because I've found myself lowering my standard to a combative stance and it has bothered me because I know it's not who God wants me to be. Bantering back and forth about who did what to whom is no solution, it only contributes to continued battling, we are for the most part adults here and we should stop being children and have conversation in an adult like way, civil. Many atheist say that Christians here are only following goat herders, which is a reference to the crude and uneducated, yet they act like what they claim we are, this is no way to treat people no matter how much they disagree with what we believe. So I am saying to everyone let's get along as fellow human beings and not a bunch of squabbling apes. I believe this has been a good group of Christians and if we were to leave then what would you all do. I can tell you from the behavior you have demonstrated, fight and quarrel. This is exactly why I will not participate in Christian forums, there is no place for that kind of behavior in a forum where they profess a belief in the living God. Almost all Christian forums will jack atheist out so they do not have to deal with their questions and then that leaves them to themselves and then inevitably bad behavior breaks out, it would be no different here. 

GC

What I'm hearing is that I shouldn't expect better from Christians than I do from atheists. I agree with you on that point.  

 It amazes me how people can turn things around to fit what they want to hear instead of taking what was plainly said and applying it to the situation. I was saying if you treat Christians in a bad manner why should you expect to receive any better. My greater point which it seems you totally missed is that we as adults should stop acting like children on a play ground who argue over stupid small things and call each other names and be adult like, civil. We ask this of our children, we should actually do what we ask others to do. What is so wrong about being civil with our fellow man, I mean really how hard can it be.

GC

[Neo-Scholastic]

I mean, if a belief can be reasonable without being rational can it also be rational without being reasonable? What's the difference?

I don’t want us to get all hung up on semantics and have a pointless argument about definitions. So instead of defining what makes a belief reasonable, I’ll explain when an opinion is warranted. Instead of writing about what counts as rational, I will write about justified beliefs.

My point is this. Someone can have warranted beliefs even if those beliefs cannot be justified.

Someone’s opinion is warranted if it is 1) coherent, 2) makes few unnecessary assumptions, and 3) that someone has performed adequate due diligence in forming his opinion. Determining warrant is a judgement call. People who are consistent, don’t jump to conclusions and carefully mull things over are the kinds of people we call “reasonable.”

A belief is not justified if 1) it doesn’t depend on a prior belief and 2) it is not possible, even in theory, to establish with certainty whether it is true. Axioms, rules of thought, and absolutes are foundational beliefs that usually cannot be justified. The Principle of Non-Contradiction is a good example. The PNC is a first principle; there are no prior ideas that must be accepted to support the truth of PNC. The PNC is also apparently self-evident. However, just because it is so strongly intuitive doesn’t mean it is true. Human beings could just be mentally wired in such a way that they cannot believe otherwise. There is no way to know if the PNC is a fundamental principle of reality or if it is simply a useful artifact of evolution. It is not that we can really know that the PNC is true, we just must trust it, i.e. make a leap of faith that it is indeed true. In that sense the Principle of Non-Contradiction is “irrational” – it is a belief you can only reason from and not a belief you could ever reason to.

This makes you sound like a presuppositionalist. It makes you sound like you are saying that you think the most fundamental premises for any worldview is ultimately entirely irrational. It makes it sound like you're saying that theism isn't based on reason but atheism isn't either.

I don’t know much about presuppositionalism as a Christian apologetic, so I cannot say. I get the sense the it’s just basic existentialism wrapped up in Reformed theology, but I don’t know. I know it gets a lot of bad press. My ideas follow from mostly from Kierkegaard and Sartre. It’s getting late for me and I could write more but it’s probably wiser for me to let you consider what I’ve said before going any further.

(Wow, Hammy! I went a whole post without insulting you. We’re doing pretty good I’d say.)

[The Grand Nudger]

I actually think..that...extremely limited,..but your christerism can be defended.  I can do as much better than most christers.  

That's worth something, right?

[Angrboda]

Coherence is a very low bar to meet in terms of justification. And parsimony with respect to assumptions helps, but not a lot. In general, non-naturalistic accounts will contain more assumptions than naturalistic ones. As to due diligence, how does one determine that one has correctly applied this requirement? Beyond the problems associated with perseverance of belief undercutting the notion that this is achieved in practice, it seems much like the role that "true" plays in "justified true belief," in that it is assumed rather than demonstrated. That makes it a rather hollow criterion. Due diligence in some sense can be better attributed to communities than individual's, but one has to ask whether in Christianity, dogmatic belief is being substituted for diligence?

[Mister Agenda]

What I'm hearing is that I shouldn't expect better from Christians than I do from atheists. I agree with you on that point.  

 It amazes me how people can turn things around to fit what they want to hear instead of taking what was plainly said and applying it to the situation. I was saying if you treat Christians in a bad manner why should you expect to receive any better. My greater point which it seems you totally missed is that we as adults should stop acting like children on a play ground who argue over stupid small things and call each other names and be adult like, civil. We ask this of our children, we should actually do what we ask others to do. What is so wrong about being civil with our fellow man, I mean really how hard can it be.

GC

It amazes me how remarkable your sense of humor is and how you're such a good sport about everything. You stand as a shining example to the rebellious masses.

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If you don't have a candidate now, you never will. You must admit an unknowable first cause. A gap in your metaphysical framework--a gap in your worldview.

Unknown and unknowable are not synonyms.