Belief and Knowledge

[Heywood]

The crux of it is that knowledge requires rational proof. Belief can be just an opinion held with or without, or even in the face of the evidence. Belief can also be an opinion rationally based on what is most likely. It is possible to hold a belief while knowing that it is only the most likely outcome not the only possibility and therefore subject to change should new evidence present itself. That would be a rationally held belief.

Knowledge requires an experience. I have knowledge of Jenny A because of a practical contact with you by way of conversing on the internet. Belief requires a commitment which is a choice. I believe, or have committed to the ideal that you are an attorney or someone who otherwise works or is studying to work in the field of law. I don't know that to be true, I don't have any experience which allows me to know that to be true....but I believe it to be true.

Lack of belief is simply a lack of commitment. When an atheists claims to have no belief in God, they are expressing they have chosen not to commit to the idea of the existence of God.

Now when an atheist is asked, "Do you believe in abiogenesis" and the reply is, "I don't know"....."I don't know" is a statement about knowledge and doesn't tell us anything about what you actually believe or what ideas you have chosen to commit too.

[Surgenator]

Knowledge requires an experience. I have knowledge of Jenny A [...]

Now when an atheist is asked, "Do you believe in abiogenesis" and the reply is, "I don't know"....."I don't know" is a statement about knowledge and doesn't tell us anything about what you actually believe or what ideas you have chosen to commit too.

I have experience with physical laws and gained knowledge from those experiences. I know of the physical laws that govern the intermediate steps in abiogenesis, namely chemisty. I don't have any experiences with a god. In fact, I have experience that suggest no such being exist. Therefore, I believe abiogenesis is the best explanation for how life came to be on Earth.

[bennyboy]

Lots of reasons to believe stuff without actual knowledge. Perhaps you are told something by someone you trust who has or should have actual knowledge. Perhaps you believe something because it conforms with your world view. Abiogenesis conforms to an atheistic world view which is why they believe it.

I don't see how it's possible for anyone to believe something that does NOT conform with his world view. So the question is-- how do people arrive at a world view, and how should one examine his own world view for flaws, in the hope of arriving at beliefs which actually represent reality?

Both atheism and science (for the most part), have arrived at the conclusion that those experiences which are shared, and which can be reliably communicated about, serve as the best basis for a world view. Rocks, when released, will drop for anyone. Materials, when treated in a particular way, will consistently form into other materials with different properties.

There are no experiences that we can share which are consistent with the God idea. As you've mentioned, this world view is developed differently. It focuses on the transmission of ideas through religious leaders and parents, through mutual affirmation and constant reaffirmation in a church community, and through the interpretation of experiences as being in support of the ideas.

But is this a good basis for a world view? I don't think so. You can see in the US that the suspension of critical thinking due to religious practices has led to serious and far-reaching consequences: to the neglect of the environment, for example, where the same process (accepting ideas based on transmission from trusted sources rather than on personal observation or critical thinking) has led to a complete refusal to observe. Forests are disappearing, ice caps are melting, people are becoming unhealthy, and what do you get? An unswerving acceptance of the party line, without regard to the visible, and important, changes happening in the world. And I find it highly ironic, given the content of the New Testament, that almost all of this is done in the name of Money.

So no. A world view based on shared observations is a sound one, and a world view based on feelings and proclamations from authority is a bad one. And everyone who believes in abiogenesis will tell you the same thing: show me the one who you say created these things, or give even plausible evidence-- actual observable, testable evidence, that your world view is anything more than a cultural fantasy. You might love your Granddad or whoever and be willing to take his proferred "wisdom" at face value. But we don't have to.

[Jenny A]

The crux of it is that knowledge requires rational proof. Belief can be just an opinion held with or without, or even in the face of the evidence. Belief can also be an opinion rationally based on what is most likely. It is possible to hold a belief while knowing that it is only the most likely outcome not the only possibility and therefore subject to change should new evidence present itself. That would be a rationally held belief.

Knowledge requires an experience. I have knowledge of Jenny A because of a practical contact with you by way of conversing on the internet.

Empirical knowledge requires an experience. You experience a collection of posts by a person, persons, or rather more improbably a computer program, under the name of Jenny A. You have knowledge of the character and content of those posts. Most likely you have some rationally held beliefs about Jenny A. You may also have some irrationally held beliefs about Jenny A.

You also have knowledge that 1 + 1 = 2. That knowledge is entirely logical.

Belief requires a commitment which is a choice. I believe, or have committed to the ideal that you are an attorney or someone who otherwise works or is studying to work in the field of law. I don't know that to be true, I don't have any experience which allows me to know that to be true....but I believe it to be true.

I think that's an odd use of the word commit.

transitive verb
1
a : to put into charge or trust : entrust
<snip>
2
: to carry into action deliberately : perpetrate <commit a crime>
3
a : obligate, bind <a contract committing the company to complete the project on time>
b : to pledge or assign to some particular course or use <commit all troops to the attack>
c : to reveal the views of <refused to commit himself on the issue>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commit

You have some indications about my profession based upon what I say about myself, knowledge displayed by me, how I say things, what is important to me, and my vocabulary. My spelling might suggest I'm rather less educated than that. I hope you haven't committed too deeply because yours is a perfect example of mistaken but rationally held belief. In this case, not so very mistaken. I am not an attorney nor studying to be one. But I once was an attorney. I have not practiced in 15 years.

You could rationally choose to trust what I say about myself on based on the contents of my posts, but you could equally rationally withhold judgment. The first would be a belief, the second not. You could also affirmative choose not to believe me and that would also be a belief. You see belief is merely thinking something is so. There's no need to commit or pledge, though you certainly could make an irrational leap of faith and commit to many beliefs about me. You could for example try very hard to believe I'm a witch and perhaps even succeed.

Lack of belief is simply a lack of commitment. When an atheists claims to have no belief in God, they are expressing they have chosen not to commit to the idea of the existence of God.

It's not quite that simple. Lack of belief can be simply not having thought about the matter sufficiently to form a belief, or determining after thought that there isn't enough evidence to decide the matter. Do you believe that my hair is red or perhaps brown? You have no knowledge whether it is or isn't either of those colors. You don't know. Are you failing to commit to a belief that my hair is red, or are you simply saying, I don't know what color Jenny's hair is. I would say you are without knowledge or belief about my hair color. There's no lack of commitment, just a genuine lack of knowledge.

However, when many atheists, me included, say we lack a belief in god, what we mean is I don't believe there is a god because if there were I would expect there to be some evidence of it, but I acknowledge that a negative position can never be proven.

Now when an atheist is asked, "Do you believe in abiogenesis" and the reply is, "I don't know"....."I don't know" is a statement about knowledge and doesn't tell us anything about what you actually believe or what ideas you have chosen to commit too.

Yes, it's a statement about knowledge. So is I don't know if there is a god.

[Whateverist]

Re the OP: I don't agree that atheists or anyone else withhold belief except where proof is available. You couldn't really live your life like that. Proofs are for math and logic. Also we are wired to operate inductively, not deductively. Nothing wrong with expanding out deductively but you can't restrict yourself to that circle without great loss.

Atheists simply don't believe in gods. That's it. No one is qualified to speak for all of us regarding anything else.

[fr0d0]

Atheists simply don't believe in gods. That's it. No one is qualified to speak for all of us regarding anything else.

That's a cop out though isn't it? Have some balls and nail your colours to the mast. When it comes to the nitty gritty, I don't fall back on theism and say, well, the only thing you can hang me for is that I believe in a god or gods. I get into the detail of what I think. Atheism is a broad term with a simple meaning should we choose that definition. Let's not hide behind it so we can avoid any hard questions.

[LostLocke]

Sure. I'll agree belief doesn't require knowledge.
But without knowledge, and I don't mean total knowledge just some knowledge, then the question would be... what is the basis for said belief?

I can choose to believe there's a purple dragon living in my basis. I don't need any knowledge for that. But why do I believe it? What is my belief based on?

Lots of reasons to believe stuff without actual knowledge. Perhaps you are told something by someone you trust who has or should have actual knowledge...

Someone telling you something qualifies as knowledge. Knowledge doesn't have to be obtained directly.

[Cato]

That's a cop out though isn't it? Have some balls and nail your colours to the mast. When it comes to the nitty gritty, I don't fall back on theism and say, well, the only thing you can hang me for is that I believe in a god or gods. I get into the detail of what I think. Atheism is a broad term with a simple meaning should we choose that definition. Let's not hide behind it so we can avoid any hard questions.

Nobody is avoiding hard questions, simply clarifying terms. Theists continually attempt to patch together various beliefs into an 'atheist world view'. I assume this is because a theist is accustomed to not straying too far from an established creed and filtering observation through a single source guide that restricts what qualifies as acceptable interpretation of the aforementioned observed facts.

That said, not all Christians accept as fact the account given in Genesis. Some Christians also accept abiogenesis as a reasonable explanation, pending definitive proof, of the emergence of life on this planet. What then of the Christian 'world view'? Is there only one Christian world view? Who decides?

Constraining a conversation about abiogenesis through the prisms of poorly defined, and I'll argue non-existent Christian or atheist world views, is absurd. Doing so quickly leads to arguments about how consistent one's view on abiogenesis conforms to a non-existent standard.

We can discuss the merits of abiogenesis. We can discuss how abiogenesis contradicts what's written in Genesis. We can discuss how some Christians reconcile abiogenesis and the obvious contradictions. Hell, we can even use abiogenesis as the basis for a discussion about belief, justified true belief, and knowledge. This is what I was looking forward to when I came to the thread, but Heywood derailed the potential in the OP by invoking the hideous world view concept and making this just another science vs. god did it (atheist vs. Christian) thread.

So, we can back up and have a meaningful conversation or we can just continue to sling shit.

[LastPoet]

Philosophy is a whore, she bares children from just about any idiot. Still love it. If it weren't for that harsh reality, aka brick wall, religion might had a future.

[FreeTony]

atheists believe in abiogenesis(which is an un-falsifiable hypothesis not proven to be true).

Science doesn't prove things. It involves finding evidence to support a hypothesis.

Abiogenesis 3.5 billion years ago is still a hypothesis, but stages of abiogenesis have been demonstrated in the lab.

If you want to start introducing God as a better explanation instead, then you need to at least get to the same stage that science has - demonstrate a God exists, then demonstrate this God creating life from non-life.