(May 12, 2017 at 5:26 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Leaving God aside for a moment, though, adopting beliefs isn't based on utility. We believe those things of which we are convinced are true. It doesn't even make sense to believe something on the basis of the usefulness of believing it if you don't already believe it's true.
It's possible (and seems to be common in the case of God) for people to assume something is true, and because the rituals and activities that make use of it become such great utilities in their lives, they eventually just accept it as a given. Is that significantly different than believing something?
Quote:Like if I'm trying to sell nutritional supplements, even if I can't show the science that says they work, you've heard of the placebo effect, right? Even if it doesn't really work you might feel better so you should buy them in any case, especially since they're so much cheaper than the pills the medical establishment wants you to take!
The relevant difference between a pill and certain abstract concepts such as a God is that the nutritional value of a pill could at least conceivably be testable. If it makes sense at all to know something's truth value in some possible world, then there's no value in automatically acting as though it were true, at least on a consistent basis, because the mind will automatically know that at any moment, some contrary aspect of reality could disprove it, and the believer would either have to tear down everything they've built up or slip into cognitive dissonance. Concepts such as God, however, are not even conceivably testable. No one could ever justifiably assign the proposition "God exists" a truth value. One can either act as though it's true, or act as though it isn't.
Quote:As far as God goes, what's the utility? Atheists do fine without believing in God, our main problem as atheists is having to live in a world where so many people are convinced that belief in God is necessary. What is the utility that you're claiming? What does belief in God get me that I'm really better off with, even if God isn't actually real?
Without going into religion-specific benefits and just keeping it to the benefits of the belief in some god, here's a few off the top of my head:
It provides a sense of purpose, when one is lacking in drive. It provides a platform for adjudication of actions both public and private, when one is compelled to shrug off responsibility. In times when being virtuous seems almost impossible, acting as though there is a god who wants one to be strong is itself strengthening and could be the difference between one falling into failure and succeeding at an important task. And finally, but not necessarily completely, it is an absolute, and the value of all absolutes is to adjudicate direction. An asymptote adjudicates the direction of a curve. True North adjudicates the direction of something traveling towards a pole. God adjudicates the direction a human makes morally.
(May 12, 2017 at 5:28 pm)Minimalist Wrote:Quote:What if, however, you have a proposition for which it is impossible to show evidence either for or against it's truth value, but also for which there is great utility in adopting?
So........ you think that if you believe hard enough in a goose that shits gold nuggets you'll get one?
1)that's a proposition for which evidence for is possible, so it falls afoul of the conditions.
2)I'm not talking about utility from implications of the believed proposition, but utility from having the belief itself.
