(September 9, 2012 at 6:35 pm)IATIA Wrote:(September 9, 2012 at 6:16 pm)Vincenzo "Vinny" G. Wrote: The problem is not so much evidence for the existence of their God. Keep in mind that's not the only criteria.
It would seem to me that evidence, albeit untrue, anecdotal, in their head or even, god forbid, real. is the prime requisite for theism. I mean who in their right mind would worship a non existent deity?
It seems that way, but it's a false paradigm.
In fact, it's factually incorrect that every belief we consider rational to hold is based on evidence for it.
The oft-cited philosophical problem of the brain in a vat: We have no way of disproving it. We have no "evidence" in support of our belief that the world around us is real. But we consider it a rational belief to hold. Here's a nifty illustration:
![[Image: brainvat.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=birdhouse.org%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F04%2Fbrainvat.png)
Or consider Bertrand Russell's scenario where the world came into existence only five minutes ago, with everything falling in place, as well as your memories. We cannot prove this to be false. We have no incontrovertible reason to deny this.
But we consider it a rational belief nevertheless. Or the belief that the very next time you sit down on your chair, it will not break. We don't know that for sure.
I mean you can keep going and think of a lot of beliefs we hold without real evidence. Heck we don't even consider it long enough to put it into a paradigm of evidence-measurement.
This is, I think a major shift, when we realize that it's possible to be rational in believing something in the absence of direct evidence
