Freedom of Religion

[genkaus]

You sound like a philosopher.

Thank you.

Your statement above (as well as basically all your points in your post), are standing on very thin semantic ice.

Semantics, meaning the study of meaning, i.e. the study pf relation between words and the concepts they identify or represent.

What I'm pointing out is that when you misuse the word, you corrupt the concept it represents. Subvert the meaning well enough and you can play deuces wild with the concepts an represent the irrational as rational. However, once such a mistake or intellectual dishonesty (whichever may be the case with you) is discovered, no further refutation is required.

You say, "That reality is reasonable is tautologically true. Reality cannot be anything other that rational."

But can you prove this statement? I don't believe so. In fact, I know you can't prove it within the scope of our current knowledge. Other than to play semantic games.

No proof is required if the concept you present is self-refuting.

Reason or rationality is the human capacity to make sense of facts, i.e identify and understand reality. Without that capacity, neither knowledge nor proof is possible. The statement "reality is irrational" is a statement of knowledge. It cannot be made unless knowledge is possible, which requires reality to be rational. Therefore, it is a self-refuting statement.

What do you mean by "rational"?

If you mean that a human mind should be able to intellectually comprehend the true nature of reality. Then what is your basis for claiming that Reality cannot be anything other than rational?

Like I said before "true nature of reality" is redundant. The nature of reality cannot be anything other than true.

If a human mind cannot comprehend the nature of reality, then it is incapable of reason. No knowledge is possible in that case and any statement of knowledge, including "human mind cannot comprehend reality", becomes meaningless.

How could you possibly know that every aspect of reality must be comprehensible to a human mind? Where has that ever been established to be guaranteed?

Unnecessary. Comprehension of some aspects of reality is all that is required to develop reason.

You're just spewing personal opinions and claiming that they are "tautologies" when you cannot possible support those claims.

Except those "personal opinions" are facts upon which the very existence of human knowledge relies.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why reality cannot be anything other than rational.

Except for the very existence of reason itself.

What does it even mean to be rational?

All that we mean by 'rational' is that we can make sense of it with our human mind. We already know of things that we can't rationalize. That was my point about the quantum world. We already have examples of nature that we have not been able to rationalize, and we man never be able to rationalize them. To believe that we might same day find a rational explanation is itself nothing more than a faith-based hope.

Your point was that if something has not been rationalized yet (i.e. we haven't made sense of it yet), it is okay to imagine an explanation, believe it to be true and claim it to be knowledge. Upto and perhaps including the point where it contradicts what we have already made sense of. That is knowledge without reason, by definition irrational.

You're just making outrageous claims that have no support.

Much better than making outrageous claim while decrying support.

Where do you get off saying that it's a tautology that reality must be "reasonable"? And what does "reasonable" even mean?

It a human mind cannot comprehend it, then it most certainly can't be said to be "reasonable" to the human mind.

If human mind cannot comprehend reality, then any and all statements of knowledge are meaningless, including "human mind cannot comprehend reality".

Moreover, based on your wild unbounded claim "That reality is reasonable is tautologically true", then if spirituality turns out to be the true nature of reality then spirituality must be reasonable. (ha ha)

So big deal.

All you've succeeded in doing is creating a totally redundant definition for the term "reasonable".

Semantic word games. Nothing more.

IF it turns out that there is a spiritual aspect to reality, it will not be as you defined it. Because as you defined it, it is irrational.

Actually, thinking about this further, this is absolutely bounded to semantics.

In the days of Classical Physics, it was considered "reasonable" that Time and Space were separate things. It was considered totally "unreasonable" that time could dilate or be different for different observers.

Einstein come along, all of a sudden it's "reasonable" to think of space and time as a single fabric of space time that can bend and warp both in space and time.

We don't even have a absolute notion of what "reasonable" even means. These terms themselves are malleable and relative.

This same sort of thing happened as we progressed through are discover of quantum mechanics as well.

On very notion of what is 'reasonable' is itself a relativistic notion.

No, "reasonable" still means the same thing - a way to understand reality.

So the idea that "Reality is reasonable is a tautology" is an utterly meaningless gibberish.

To you? Definitely. You seem unable to understand the very foundations of human knowledge.

The very concept of "reason" is not carved in stone or absolute. We simple change our minds on what we consider to be "reasonable" all the time.

We only consider things that make sense to be reasonable. That hasn't changed.

So to say that "Reality is reasonable is a tautology" is a totally meaningless play on words that has absolutely no value in science or philosophy. It's a totally meaningless statement truly, because the very concept of what we deem to be 'reasonable' is a malleable concept to begin with.

That statement happens to be something science and philosophy are based on.

Unless reality is reasonable, no statement of knowledge can be made. In which case, neither science nor philosophy can be valid.