Evidence for Believing

[Inqwizitor]

26 pages in and all we have is an ad pop and an argument from ignorance.

Raaa-tion-alll!

Succinct, well, I'm not saying that something is true because of a lack of contrary evidence; but, the inverse of that is something is not false because it has not been proven to be true.

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I suspect your ability in that regard is on par with your alleged rationality.  

-but ofc I'm game.  Go ahead.  Distinguish your faith from any old bullshit.

I did... because "any old bullshit" can be deliberately contrived, illogical, or contradict known facts.

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Thanks for your time, guys. I realize i've been on this site for hours and my dinner is cold.

[The Grand Nudger]

That x hasn't been proven false isn't a reason to believe in that thing, or evidence for that things existence. Nor does it add credibility or rationality to belief in that thing. Not sure what this has to do with the god of cathol, though.

Catholicism is deliberately contrived, illogical, and contradicts known facts. I do appreciate that you have some heterodox beliefs for a catholic, ofc. Common these days, according to the church.

Get thee to a priest.

-and after that, maybe distinguish your faith from any old bullshit, rather than irrationally exclaiming that you've already shown me the ball you claim to be holding. I just want to see the ball.

[Anomalocaris]

If god isn't helpful here, Inq, then you've undercut the entire premise of rationality and ontological argument.  We could certainly agree to proceed as though the bare assertion of some simple x were true, but since you've already declared that this simple x isn't a god, god being reducible, there's no point.

Another poster already offered a candidate for that simple x.  Existence.  This never really escaped attention.  Even by christian theologians, who declared god the ground of being for precisely this reason.  

...and we're still just rolling around on the floating turd of "there's stuff we don't know"...............?  Sure, why not.  Is any of that stuff god stuff?  If not, who cares?

We can logically argue about whether reality ends in a brute fact or not. As for my faith, I can't logically prove that, but I can defend it from contentions that it's indistinguishable from any bullshit.

That you go through the motions you imagine to be a defence doesn’t give your view any added credibility.   You have no credible means to distinguish your faith from bullshit.   So your credibility suffers with every assertion that it is somehow to be considered different from bullshit because you wish it to be.

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How do you know, given an continuous history of ever expanding knowledge base explaining every more of the hitherto inexplicable, what can not be explained in principle can not be explained?

Because we are limited beings with particular powers of perception in an ever-expanding environment. There is truth that we cannot observe our way to because of our limited perception, and truths we cannot logically prove because the parameters of observable reality are not set in an axiomatic system.

Any bullshit has a possibility, but only the most infinitesimal one,  of actually being closer to the truth than we could otherwise reach. .    Your "supernatural" is still indistinguishable both in its nature and in its effects from bullshit.   It has no more possibility of being true than any bullshit.      You merely combine egoism with idiocy so unselfconsciously that you could assert with a straight face bullshit that appeals to you is better than bullshit of other kind.

If I thought it was bullshit, I wouldn't believe it. So you can be sure that I'm sincere and not trying to assert some egotistical or elitist secret knowledge. Not everything that we cannot directly prove to everyone else is bullshit, and something that is consistent with facts and logic is less likely to be bullshit than something that is not.

Whether it is bullshit doesn’t depend on whether YOU think it is bulkshit.  It depends on whether your means of distinguishing it from bullshit has any demonstrable efficacy.

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No one denies there can be truth which you can not find.   One merely denies you found the truths which you can not find.

Right, but that's back to the possibility of revelation.

A means of truth finding that is not clearly defined and testable for its efficacy is the indistinguishable from bullshit and therefore not by any worthy definition any means of truth finding.

Bullshit can contradict known facts or be illogical, and implies something insincere or contrived.

A revealed truth is a clearly defined proposition that can be tested with methods of truth finding, whether it contradicts known facts. Demanding a test for efficacy of a truth is declaring that all truth is a directly observable fact.

So you are saying the highest form of overarching truth is any form of bullshit so long as someone really wants that bullshit to be true.

No, I'm saying there is truth that does not contradict any of our logical or empirical means of truth finding but is not attainable by those means.

There are infinite numbers of possible bullshits that doesn’t appear to contradict known facts.  And a still infinite subset of these can be found that would however contradict any faith you care to contrive.  Why is your faith to be preferred over any of those?

That is a hurdle you must cross.  Yet crossing it still doesn’t get you anywhere.  A bullshit that might legitimately be said to be less bullshitty than some others can still be just as totally false.   So there is no reason to think even the most legitimately preferred bullshit you can come up with has any truth value whatsoever. 

So your bullshit is even more worthless than merely totally without truth value.  It is not even wrong, as one might say who is genuinely concerned with right or wrong that might exist outside of mere imagination.  It can’t even rise as high as to be totally worthlessz

[Inqwizitor]

That x  hasn't been proven false isn't a reason to believe in that thing, or evidence for that things existence.  Nor does it add credibility or rationality to belief in that thing.  Not sure what this has to do with the god of cathol, though.

Catholicism is deliberately contrived, illogical, and contradicts known facts.  I do appreciate that you have some heterodox beliefs for a catholic, ofc.  Common these days, according to the church.  

Get thee to a priest.  

-and after that, maybe distinguish your faith from any old bullshit, rather than irrationally exclaiming that you've already shown me the ball you claim to be holding.  I just want to see the ball.

I'm within the bounds of orthodoxy. "God is absolutely simple" for example, is a Catholic dogma. If you're really interested, we can look at the specific teachings you think are deliberately contrived, illogical and contradict known facts, but I'm really reluctant to bloat the religion forum on this atheist website any more than it already is. The atheist forum should have way more threads and posts. There are plenty of religion websites.

@Anomalocaris do you at least accept that faith is even possible? You seem to be saying — correct me if I'm wrong — that anything which isn't verifiable under direct empirical conditions is bullshit. Do you accept that revelation is a possibility? These are ideas to aim at before we assess any particular faith, or you're just asserting that what I believe is bullshit because it can't be anything else.

[Anomalocaris]

That x  hasn't been proven false isn't a reason to believe in that thing, or evidence for that things existence.  Nor does it add credibility or rationality to belief in that thing.  Not sure what this has to do with the god of cathol, though.

Catholicism is deliberately contrived, illogical, and contradicts known facts.  I do appreciate that you have some heterodox beliefs for a catholic, ofc.  Common these days, according to the church.  

Get thee to a priest.  

-and after that, maybe distinguish your faith from any old bullshit, rather than irrationally exclaiming that you've already shown me the ball you claim to be holding.  I just want to see the ball.

I'm within the bounds of orthodoxy. "God is absolutely simple" for example, is a Catholic dogma. If you're really interested, we can look at the specific teachings you think are deliberately contrived, illogical and contradict known facts, but I'm really reluctant to bloat the religion forum on this atheist website any more than it already is. The atheist forum should have way more threads and posts. There are plenty of religion websites.

@Anomalocaris do you at least accept that faith is even possible? You seem to be saying — correct me if I'm wrong — that anything which isn't verifiable under direct empirical conditions is bullshit. Do you accept that revelation is a possibility? These are ideas to aim at before we assess any particular faith, or you're just asserting that what I believe is bullshit because it can't be anything else.

You seem not to understand the fact that a proposition has none-zero possibility of being true does not make it any less than total bullshit.   

Literally all bullshit has some infinitesimal possibility of being true.   Even bullshit which seems to contradict apparent facts-still have some infinitesimal possibility of not really contradicting them when the how things are evaluated and examined more closely.   So the possibility of something being true is no excuse for thinking it is not bullshit.   If you are to accept faith to be true because it has some possibility of being true, you must then accept all possible bullshit of all possible types are all no less than your faith, because they have have possibilities of being true that are essentially indistinguishable from your pet faith.

What separates bullshit from more valuable proposition is the valuable proposition must have specific and sound evidence for it actually being discernibly more likely to be true than merely having some trivial infinitesimal possibility of being not false. 

Where is such evidence for your received truth?

Received truth can possibly be true.  But no more possibly true than any other random bullshit.    So it is still bullshit.      Now get over it.

[Deesse23]

Faith is assent to superrational truth.  The way I see it is to have a true desire to know God and be willing accept what he gives to you.

Word games. You are asserting/presupposing a superrational truth. Your assertion lacks a certain demontration tho.
Your desire does not automatically makes things true. Presupposition doesnt become a better method to find whats true because of desire.

In other words:
Any proposition, true or (demonstrably) false can be beleived in based on faith. Therefore faith is no good way to truth. What you are doing here is presupposing that what is believed in by faith is true by default. Demonstrate that your *truth* is true!

I've told you a number of times already.  Read my lips!  There is no scientific method that I know of to finding God.

You havent been asked to use the scientific method and demonstrabla facts, but anything that is as realiable as the scientific method and demonstrable facts. I´d say most people here agree with me that "having true desire" doesnt come even close. I have a true desire for this insane thread to end, will it, tho?

faith, which is motivated by a genuine desire for truth.

Since any proposition, true or false, can be believed in by faith it still fail to see faith as a realiable method to actually find the truth.....and i am already giving you the benefit of doubt that faith isnt anything else but (your assertion) motivated by a genuine desire for truth. If faith was, you surely would use a better method to find the truth than faith.

The supernatural is an explanation for something ....

The supernatural becomes an explanation as soon as you have defined it and demonstrated it to at least be possible. Go!

It opens up the possibility of getting us closer to the sort of truth that we cannot empirically verify but is beneficial to our well-being and conforms with all human means of knowing objective reality.  

Presupposition again. How do you figure out your *truth* is actually true?
How do you know your *truth* is benefial to our well-being?
Does something being beneficial to our well being have any bearing on the truth of it?

I am noting that with each reply, you are delving more and more into grandiose blathering, all puff, no substance. Impressive only to the gullible and ill informed (see above).

A revealed truth is a clearly defined proposition that can be tested with methods of truth finding, whether it contradicts known facts. Demanding a test for efficacy of a truth is declaring that all truth is a directly observable fact.  

Word games, equivocation to be precise. You are defining your BS to be true by asserting that your *truth* can contradict known facts. Demonstrate this to be true, in the classic meaning of truth please, not in your own *i define/equivocate my BS to be true* meaning.
Please show me your methods of truth finding. So far i have only read about *true desires* n stuff.

There is truth that we cannot observe our way to because of our limited perception, and truths we cannot logically prove because the parameters of observable reality are not set in an axiomatic system.

So you have discovered new methods to find out truths we cant find without those new methods. Please explain your mehods, demonstrate their effectiveness, and apply them to, let say....a *revealed truth*.

We can logically argue about whether reality ends in a brute fact or not. As for my faith, I can't logically prove that, but I can defend it from contentions that it's indistinguishable from any bullshit.

You couldnt. Not a bit. For real.

but, the inverse of that is something is not false because it has not been proven to be true.

Nope, for 20+ pages you have made assertions about having found some *revealed truth*.
Now, after all these pages trying to assert that you can detect the undetectable about faith and *genuine desire for thruth* you are backpedaling to "my god is not false just because i cant prove it to be true"?

[The Grand Nudger]

You need to make up your mind, Inq. Either you believe that a god is the ultimate brute fact, or you don't. This constant waffling and tendency to directly contradict yourself from post to post, while dropping textbook logical fallacies in "defence" of your god concept... is evidence of incompetence.

There's no point in going through catholic beliefs item by item.

-Do you think it isn't contrived? That it wasn't deliberately created?
--Do you not understand that even if you believe in the illogical "mysteries" of christ..they're still illogical?
---How many known facts does catholicism have to contradict before it "contradicts known facts"?

Lets not be an absolute mouth breather, okay? We get -plenty- of those, we don't need any more. It's okay that you believe based on faith, and not evidence or reason. OFC you do. It's okay that the church you belong to states loopy shit as a matter of fact....and hey, fwiw..you don't have to believe them to believe in gods, lol. Nor do you have to carry their water. It would be an impossible task. They've been fucking too many things up for too long. Something I've always found ironic about the judeo christian faith, is that a person doesn't have to be an irrational loon to come to believe it, but they so often do, or have to repeat the things irrational loons say...when they come here....to defend it.

Your gap argument is and always will be a gap argument. That's just the way it is. It's not a good argument, at all...but it obviously informs you. I think you might want to explore why it informs you, and why you reject other explanations.

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For the rest of us.

Revealed truth isn't logically true, by definition. This is a fun tick of the logical apparatus that I've commented on before. A god that provides us with info no more provides us with a logical truth than a parent who tells a child not to do something just because.

There are requirements for truth, specifically truth of the type we've been discussing. Revealed theology is either fundamentally incapable of approaching that truth, or, in the event that it is, a useless addition to what must have already been notably true. At worst....a talkative god would be useless, at best, a middleman.

-but OFC there are no gods beyond the pages of magic books....so it's all a wash.

[Mister Agenda]

I've never noticed that what is actually true has any dependence on what's 'beneficial' for us to believe. What is beneficial for us can certainly be false. It might be beneficial for a dying person to humor their supernatural beliefs, and I certainly would, but that has no bearing on whether their beliefs are actually true.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Why is it that all pro-theist arguments seem to boil down to, 'I believe this because I believe this?'  It's never, 'I believe this because believing it makes me a better person' or 'I believe this because the evidence/arguments are irrefutable' or 'I believe this because it makes the world a better place'.

Can't it just be admitted that you have no real rationale for your beliefs, and it is more a state of being than anything else?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not as if we filthy heathens wouldn't understand. Every single human being alive believes in some things..just because they do. We're all capable of doing that with our eyes wide open.