On Belief in God X

[FallentoReason]

I don't know if you're picking up on the subtleties here, or if you outright disagree with these subtleties, but the royal flush scenario highlights the irrelevance of probabilities. Think of this alternate scenario: I deal 5 cards to you. You turn them over and see cards p, q, r, s and t. The chances of that ever happening were going to be some ridiculously small number, yet you sit there with the experiential justification that rightly allows you to claim you indeed have been dealt cards p, q, r, s and t, regardless of the maths.

I disagree. While the experiential justification is sufficient for me to believe that I hold those cards, to rightly claim it,

FULL STOP

i.e. claim with the expectation of others believing me, I would require more than that.

*bzzzzt* I haven't once said anyone else *but* the person with the experiential justification should be believing event x/belief y.

While experiential justification trumps improbability, they don't have that justification for believing me and therefore, for them, the improbability still is a valid reason for skepticism. And while, as a matter of convenience, they may accept my claim due to the lower significance of cards I hold, I cannot expect the same acceptance if I claim to hold a royal flush.

Sure. But we're not talking about what others should take away from your anecdotal evidence. All I'm saying is that the theist has the right to claim their religious experience but ONLY because internally they are being consistent; you see a royal flush, you can claim you have a royal flush. End of. If you want to bring in other people's degree of belief with respect to any given claim, well, that's a different matter altogether...

because (and this is up for debate) I think the royal flush scenario *by nature* puts the royal flush holder in a position where they have a "one up". Why? Well, because properly basic beliefs are a damn strong reason to hold on to said beliefs. Would you ever accept that you need to question I dealt you cards p, q, r, s and t when they're sitting right in front of you? Do we need to acknowledge Descartes' demon has been sitting at the table this whole time? No, I think we can assume that what you see is what you see, regardless of improbability or deep skepticism of the senses. As the nature of the scenario implies, no one actually has impaired senses.

As I have said before, given sufficient reason to do so, I would accept that I need to question that I have been dealt the cards p...t. And as I have also said before, I do not consider improbability to be sufficient reason, but improbability combined with a myriad of other reasons would be.

This is beyond the scope of the basic thought in the OP.

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In light of this, that's why it's actually irrational to ask the royal flush holder to check again, to see if they really have a royal flush. I could ask you the same thing with cards p, q, r, s and t, and it would go something like this:

Me: so you really have those cards, despite the odds?

You: yes.

Me: are you sure? The odds suggest you should check again. Do you really have those cards?

You: yes.

Me: ok, but just to make sure, could you check one final time?

You: ok... *looks down, and back up again* *sigh* yeees!


Let's bring this back to the real world:


Atheist: you are deluded. You didn't experience God.

Theist: I am sure of it. It was *undeniable* (appeal to their properly basic belief).

Atheist: you need to be rational. It's highly unlikely that it was a genuine experience.

Theist: I know what I felt/heard/saw (appeal to their experiential justification of said belief).

Atheist: there are a myriad of other explanations.

Theist: ...I know what I felt/heard/saw!!!!

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That is both an inaccurate representation and analogy. The "myriad of other explanations" argument isn't reflected in the cards analogy. And more significantly, appeal to improbability is not the only argument we use in a theist atheist debate. If that were the only counter in our arsenal, then we wouldn't expect theists to question their experience even if we still would've sufficient reason to remain skeptical.

...yes, true, but what I was getting at is that if you see a royal flush, then you have reason to believe there's a royal flush in front of you. Getting that person to check and recheck, question themselves and think of alternative explanations is ridiculous. The only thing that would suffice from that angle would be to accept there really is a demon controlling our minds which are actually floating in a vacuum. Only then might a properly basic belief be false, because in actuality there isn't an external world like we perceive there to be. If you personally have no reason to accept that crushing level of scepticism, then treating the theist's properly basic beliefs as B-grade makes *you* the inconsistent one.

Basically, I think properly basic beliefs are something we can't deny to ourselves. I dealt you cards p, q, r, s and t, and as a result, you have an inescapable belief that that is in fact so - that I dealt you cards p...t. Therefore, to allow such beliefs to be "sound" in everyday living, such as giving testimony about something relatively trivial you saw to a friend, and not have to ask to "check your hand again", surely means that the same should go for a theist who felt/heard/saw something x years ago which made them think differently about the world. Unless of course one has a strong bias against that particular brand of properly basic belief for some unknown reason. Then maybe you should stay consistent and question the entirety of what you experience and ask if there really is an external world beyond the Self. If you don't have reason to do that, then neither does the theist for their subset of alleged experiences. If so, then your only logical alternative is to grant them that experiential justification, but find *different* means to show them that justification actually needs to be discarded.

I think you are trivializing the significance of triviality here. We grant validity to experiential justifications in trivial matters, even though it is not logical to do so, because it is much more convenient. It is not a question of bias but of relevance to oneself. I may accept someone's claim that they experienced Angelina Jolie (that came out dirtier than intended) because such a claim is relatively insignificant. The claim of experiencing god is much more significant. Especially when it entails directives regarding my behavior. The consistency here would be regarding the thumb rule for experiences of greater significance to require greater evidence.

Again, you're dipping into a slightly different topic. When I said "grant them that experiential justification" all I'm saying is that you should accept that they're being internally consistent, just like the guy who sees a royal flush has the right to claim they have a royal flush. Whether we believe him or not is a different topic altogether.

Because my last post seems a bit meandering and confusing, I will state my position as briefly as possible.

A person may hold experience as sufficient justification for a belief - IF there aren't any valid objections to that belief or any valid alternate explanations for the experience. He also cannot expect others who do not share the same experience to accept his belief on his say so. The probability of his belief would play a role in others' acceptance of it.

A person who does not have the experience and has no valid reasons for or against the said belief, may condition his acceptance (but not his denial) upon the probability and significance of it being true. For example, if the probability of it being true is high or the significance low, one may accept such a belief. It may not be logical, but its more convenient.

I think I mostly agree. Maybe it's in the finer details like further above where we don't really see eye to eye.

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If you get dealt a royal flush, what do you do? It's right there in front of your eyes. Doesn't that give you justification for believing you have a royal flush?

You basically ignored my post...

In addition, your comparison is flawed because there is in fact an objective way to determine, to the satisfaction of all present, whether or not you actually, fairly were dealt a royal flush, which you cannot with religious experience, which can come to contradictory conclusions if it is accepted as a basis for determining the actual truth of the matter.

We're *only* talking about the believer here. I never said we have to accept their claims on a whim simply because they have anecdotal evidence. The royal flush is a metaphor for their experience, and just like literal cards in front of you, the believer is remaining internally consistent by claiming they have a royal flush in front of them. That's how we function - our properly basic beliefs are derived from our senses which are for the most part reliable, unless you believe in Descartes' demon.

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I don't know if you're picking up on the subtleties here, or if you outright disagree with these subtleties, but the royal flush scenario highlights the irrelevance of probabilities. Think of this alternate scenario: I deal 5 cards to you. You turn them over and see cards p, q, r, s and t. The chances of that ever happening were going to be some ridiculously small number, yet you sit there with the experiential justification that rightly allows you to claim you indeed have been dealt cards p, q, r, s and t, regardless of the maths.

Going with the poker analogy, however, you have to remember that the claims made by the religious imply an abrogation of the rules as we all understand them. A theist is not really making a claim of a royal flush, because royal flushes are simply highly unlikely and they do happen. They are making a claim that they hold a super-duper-extra royal megaflush. Every one of them. At the same time. According to their claims, they hold a hand of one million cards and every one of them is an infinity of every suit at once. When we scoff and say that isn't possible in a game of poker, they insist that their hand, and only their hand, deserves a special exception; that the rules of poker don't apply to their hand. But, ask them to show the cards, and they say they can't, because the cards are magical and you can only see them if you believe the theist's claim.

Why, then, should any of the other players not simply ignore these obviously cheating players, finish the hand among the rest of them, and continue the game without the obvious cheaters?

They can say whatever they want about the cards they see in front of them. The way properly basic beliefs function almost always guarantee that they are being internally consistent with their claims. Whether or not the internal is consistent with the *ex*ternal is a different matter, and one that you can tackle by undermining their concept of a super-duper-extra royal megaflush. If it's contradictory like a square circle, then their experiential justification is invalid since the experience was false to begin with, just like someone who claims to have seen a square circle holds a false belief.

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Recently I've realised that it's not correct to counter someone's belief in god x by pointing to n number of historically possible gods and deducing that x/n is low. This is incorrect if, and only if, the believer has experiential justification for their belief.

This thought is exactly the same as if we were all playing poker and we were dealt 5 cards. Someone could look at their hand and say "I've got a royal flush!" and then someone could counter by saying "it's unlikely because the probability of that happening is 1/x". Well, the *fact* is that they have got a properly basic belief that they have a royal flush (i.e. their belief has come directly via the senses). Therefore, they are justified in believing they have a royal flush even if the odds are 1/(10^99).

This is where the believer is positioned. Whether their senses *actually* gave them a true encounter is another matter, but my point is (I guess) that saying the truth of their belief is statistically unlikely is meaningless to someone with a justified belief (of some degree), hence why the two parties just slip right past each other without really engaging in a proper discussion.

Eager to see what the atheist response would be to this...

I didn't read anyone elses personal response but my own would be that when ever I have pointed out to someone who believes in god that their god is one of many that has been and is being worshiped it isn't to point out they might be worshiping the wrong one,
It's to point out that throughout history and throughout the world today mankind is constantly making up strange and unbelievable gods and prophets, plenty of them contradict each other and they are all passed on via human culture, it all points to their being either a bi product of human imagination and superstition.

Making a statement saying there are many gods you might be worshiping the wrong one makes the assumption that there are any that exist at all.

Yes, but when they say they have anecdotal evidence, they are being internally consistent between their beliefs and claims. There's nothing wrong with that.

Also what do you consider to be experiential justification for a belief? If someone believes in god because of an experience with god I wouldn't be able to argue much against that I just simply wouldn't believe them when they told me about it because of my previous point about the amount of prophets and messiahs who have been on this earth already, charles manson, reverend jim jones and so on.

I define an experience as the sensation that arises due to one (or a combination) of our senses. Therefore, a belief is justified if and only if it was actually *produced* by the senses. This is what a properly basic belief is; a belief that was formed due to our senses, which means properly basic beliefs are *always* justified.

I never said you had to believe them word for word. This thread is supposed to be focusing on the believer only.