(May 12, 2017 at 12:02 pm)Lutrinae Wrote: The harshness of the truth, that god does not exist, is preferable the comfort of the lie, that god does exist.Do you call it a lie because it can't be demonstrated to be true or do you call it a lie because it can be demonstrated to be false?
(May 12, 2017 at 12:07 pm)Aroura Wrote: Do you have evidence that there is great utility in adopting it? Or it just another faith based proposition to support your other faith based proposition?
I'm not espousing any faith-based proposition here. I'm asking whether or not utility would validate the adoption of one.
(May 12, 2017 at 12:10 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: If you still aren't convinced you're not going to actually believe it regardless of if you find it useful to 'behave as if' it's true or not.
I don't know. If a person behaves on a daily basis as if some undeterminable thing is true and that behavior is constantly producing overall positive results, strengthening the tendency to continue doing it, I'm not sure that the adoption and the belief would always remain distinguishable to them. At a certain point, it might be just as good as true.
Quote:P.S. Pretending God exists when you don't believe he does is certainly a futile act; not a useful one.
That's a bit semantically misleading. "Pretending" implies that you actually know otherwise. "Assuming" is more about what I'm talking about. Would you say the same thing if you used the word "assuming"?
