(August 9, 2015 at 1:19 pm)pool Wrote:(August 9, 2015 at 5:56 am)pool Wrote: I don't understand what the Theory of relativity is,but that doesn't mean that i don't believe in it,neither does it mean that i believe in it.
Similarly,
I don't understand what a God is,but that doesn't mean that i don't believe in it,neither does it mean that i believe in it.
See,when someone is presented with an idea that they cannot understand and is asked whether they believe in it or not,it is extremely difficult to decide how to respond.
Can you tell me the appropriate response in that situation?
I think my doubts will be cleared and i will live happily ever after if someone could answer what my course of action should be given the situation.
If you don't know what something is, the first step is figuring that out. If someone tells you that a god exists, if you do not know what the person means by "god," then you are not in a position to say whether it exists or not. So, until you know something about that, you should neither believe that it exists, nor believe that it does not exist. It is only after you know what the person is talking about that you will be in a position to look for evidence. If you do know what someone means by their claim, then the default position is still that you do not know whether it exists or not, until after you get some sort of evidence regarding it. Then you should believe what the evidence supports, and you should believe in proportion to the evidence. Which is to say, you should only have a slight tendency to believe something if you have weak evidence for it, and a strong tendency to believe something if you have strong evidence for it. Right now, I am more certain that I am sitting in front of my computer, than I am that the car I have been using is parked out front. The reason being, I presently see my computer and notice that I am sitting in front of it, but I cannot see the car out front from my present position. It is possible (though unlikely) that someone has stolen the car since I last observed it. So my belief that I am sitting at my computer is stronger than my belief that the car is out front.
In the case of the god question, if you find that the person does not mean anything by the term "god" (which is more common than you might think), then the proper response is NOT to say that "god does not exist;" the proper response is that the person is just speaking gibberish and is not really saying anything meaningful.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
