RE: Evidence and causes for doubt
March 8, 2016 at 6:10 pm
(This post was last modified: March 8, 2016 at 6:11 pm by Simon Moon.)
(March 8, 2016 at 5:53 pm)pocaracas Wrote:(March 8, 2016 at 1:34 am)MysticKnight Wrote: 5. If I was shown I have no good reason to believe in God.
Funny you should use the word "believe".
One of my greatest qualms with any god is the actual requirement of belief.
Luckily, the clue to it's wrongness is right there in the title... Belief system.
Not to be pedantic, but in all fairness, a belief is simply the psychological state in which one accepts a premise or proposition as being true.
There are good reasons to believe something (demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument) and bad reasons (faith, feelings, anecdote, ancient texts).
I have no problems using the word "belief" for the things I accept as being true, because I know I have good reasons for believing them.
But I understand where you are coming from.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.
