(May 30, 2015 at 6:21 am)robvalue Wrote: I've yet to hear anything that is more convincing than "this book is magic". And the arguments sound no less silly than that either. "My mummy wouldn't lie to me" maybe.
I normally get drenched in loads of little arguments, all of which are fundamentally flawed. By the time I've shown what is wrong with the first one, three more have taken its place. I don't care how many arguments you have got, if none of them are sound, they don't amount to anything.
Yes, but there is an important psychological fact about having a bunch of flawed arguments. By the time the believer has gotten to argument 6 (or whatever number it takes), they have forgotten your rebuttal to the first argument, so that it regains its importance from a psychological standpoint.
The arguments are not generally why anyone believes. Usually, it has to do with being told religious nonsense along with ordinary truths when one is being raised as a child, so that they all form part of the person's world view. Its authority is the same authority that told them that stoves are hot and so you should keep your fingers away from stoves. They know that their mothers did tell them the truth about a great many useful and important things, and the religious claims are other things that their mothers told them were very important. Normally, in the beginning, the religious claims are not all presented as a separate category of thing, called "religion," but are just part of the totality of "truths" that the person is taught. And normally religious claims are included in the totality of things claimed from the very beginnings of one's upbringing, so that they form a part of the core of beliefs that a person has. That is why most religious people are religious.
The arguments are generally just a support to push away doubts that might come up later on. Basic psychology will tell you that it takes less to convince someone of something they already believe than to convince them of something else, so the arguments do not have to be that great. Normally, if they have a superficial appearance of working, that will be enough, as most will not examine the details of the arguments too carefully. And, of course, if a person sees through one of the flawed arguments, there are many others at hand, and if the person fails to see through just one of them, then the person maintains belief.
So, the arguments have an important function, but they are not for the function that most people seem to suppose.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
