Faith and "Truth vs Utility"

[LastPoet]

On an existential level every belief rests on “as-if” pre-commitments. My personal opinion is that those atheists who consider atheism rational in contrast to theism, which they consider irrational, do so because they adhere to Enlightenment-era classical foundationalism. Their position is that knowledge is warranted only if it traces back to either self-evident principles or incorrigible experiences. Generally they believe that these two basics exhaust all possible options. That may or may not be the case. Either way, there are strains of skepticism that will deny one or both of those propositions to one degree or another. Even before someone can apply the methodology of classical foundationalism, each person must make private and pre-rational existential choices about: 1) whether or not reason is effective and 2) whether or not the world is intelligible. Again, you will find that there are strains of skepticism that will deny one or both of those propositions to one degree or another.

You keep telling us what we believe when we keep telling you what we DON'T believe. Eg, your personal fantasy of a god.

It seems you almost finished your Bullshit Degree. Good job. You know nothing more than others really, but you get to pretend that you do. Without much effort.

[Neo-Scholastic]

You keep telling us what we believe when we keep telling you what we DON'T believe. Eg, your personal fantasy of a god.

If the shoe fits, wear it. I carefully qualified my comment so that it only applies to a particular kind of atheist - those who disparage theism as irrational while not acknowledging his own irrational intellectual commitments. If someone, be they atheist or theist, is not aware of those pre-commitments he runs the risk of making arguments of convenience.

[Edwardo Piet]

I am not sure because I haven't thought epistemology through in years... but I think I'm an evidentalist rather than a foundationalist.

I'm much more interested in metaphysics and ethics.

[Valyza1]

So if I'm constantly acting as if proposition X is true, and I know it could never actually be shown to be true or false, that would be different than believing it?

No, it would not be different from believing it. You can believe something is true, even if you know that you can't demonstrate it to the satisfaction of skeptics. Thinking that something is actually the case, is actually true, is what belief means.

It's not about whether you can show it to be true. It's about whether you believe it's true. Not useful, true.

believing something to be true is not a choice, yes. You either believe something is true or you don't. Acting as if something is true, when you have no way of ever finding out it's truth value, is a choice. Since you can't find out whether or not it's true, but have been presented with the notion, you can either act as if it's true, or refrain from acting as if it's true. Either one is a choice.

So yes, believing and acting as if are different in that one is not a choice and one is. So the first sentence of my initial post may be misleading because I mention belief. But the actual question involves "acting as if" something's true, which is actually different than believing.

{belief in a god} provides a sense of purpose...

For me the idea of a god has the exact opposite effect, total negation of purpose because some purported invisible, intangible being of unknown motives is pulling the strings.

While a god's motives may be unknown, people don't typically believe in gods that are defined as possessing any harmful motives. Usually, the god they believe in is defined, at least in part, as motivated by what's best for all creation. The perfection descriptor usually includes perfect goodness.

[Sal]

I have often heard people say that the only good reason to believe something is if it is shown as likely to be true.  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?  Is adopting this kind of proposition as if it's true just as good as (if not even better than) adopting a proposition that is demonstrably true?  If the proposition is "God exists", I think many theists might answer yes to the question, but I'm not sure.

(bold mine)

Then it would be unfalsifiable.

I can pretend something to be true, but in doing so, I've created a cognitive dissociation in doing so, defeating its utility. I don't see how thinking, something that's unfalsifiable, as true will make its utility desirable.

I can think there's a omnibenevolent god who will look after me while a tornado is heading my way trashing everything on its path. I can pretend the god will look after me, but that won't stop the tornado, now will it?

This is analogous to, on the odds end, that being thrown imaginary rocks at my head. You can shout any amount of how god will kill me, when anything to the effect doesn't happen, to the contrast of getting a real rock thrown at your head. If you see the rock coming, you're gonna duck, because we have falsifiable knowledge about the hardness of rocks.

[Edwardo Piet]

Val, you're completely confusing knowledge and belief.

[chimp3]

I have often heard people say that the only good reason to believe something is if it is shown as likely to be true.  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?  Is adopting this kind of proposition as if it's true just as good as (if not even better than) adopting a proposition that is demonstrably true?  If the proposition is "God exists", I think many theists might answer yes to the question, but I'm not sure.

Looking at this from another angle, the utility of your belief may serve someone else more than you. Your belief that god may heal your disease might serve the miracle worker more than you. You receive false hope and the fraudulent healer drives off in a Rolls Royce. 

Your belief in an unfalsifiable premise may harm others. 72 virgins and a ticket to Paradise does no good for the victims of the faith based explosion you caused.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I can pretend something to be true, but in doing so, I've created a cognitive dissociation in doing so, defeating its utility. I don't see how thinking, something that's unfalsifiable, as true will make its utility desirable.

I presume you believe that other people have subjective interior mental states i.e. minds. I also imagine you tacitly accept that your senses reveal information about the a world that is objectively external to yourself. You might even believe that round objects are actually round in some meaningful sense. These beliefs are useful and unfalsifiable.

[Sal]

I can pretend something to be true, but in doing so, I've created a cognitive dissociation in doing so, defeating its utility. I don't see how thinking, something that's unfalsifiable, as true will make its utility desirable.

I presume you believe that other people have subjective interior mental states i.e. minds. I also imagine you tacitly accept that your senses reveal information about the a world that is objectively external to yourself. You might even believe that round objects are actually round in some meaningful sense. These beliefs are useful and unfalsifiable.

There's a world of difference between minds, seeing agents and their behaviors and a god - and no, both those examples are not unfalsifiable. I can easily draw a circle, 2 pencils and a piece of string, without arriving of some idealist state of "roundness". As for minds, the falsifiability of minds is easy, I can just ask people what's on their minds without arriving at some idealist state of being in the minds, thinking their thoughts, and conclude what they're thinking, even if they're lying - I just need to be able to detect that.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Not really. Perhaps if you had a better understanding of the philosophical issues you would understand.