I didn’t see any response to this, I think it is important as you seem to be making the irrational assertion that beliefs are held or even can be held in the complete absence of any knowledge of a concept. How would that work exactly?
If someone had no knowledge of any concept of any deity, one would lack any belief in any deity, and would by definition be an atheist. Do you accept this simple assertion, if not why not?
What is the vacuous “we form beliefs about the world”? I asked you to explain how a system (machine, brain) would establish that first belief and obviously you have no idea.
Only a system with already held beliefs can ever develop new beliefs, to argue we all begin life with no beliefs is another atheist absurdity like so many I see promulgated here.
I suggest you take a close look at Godel’s first incompleteness theorem. If we regard the logical justification for some belief as a proof of that belief (in the logical sense) then Godel shows that in any self consistent system (set of beliefs) there are always beliefs that cannot be justified.
The parallel is more than superficial here too. For mathematics, Godel’s theorem proves that there are true statements in mathematics that cannot be proven true within the domain of the statement.
If you have faith that every question not yet answered can - in principle - be answered scientifically then good for you. It’s not a matter though of “we have lots of unexplained things” it’s about the very nature of explanation itself.
In science EVERY explanation is expressed in terms of already existing things, science deal with ALREADY existing things. It cannot, does not and never has been applied to explaining the presence of what exists, only its state, science allows us to predict future state of something already existing.
What beliefs are you claiming you were born with, and what objective evidence can you demonstrate to support your claim.
You have ignored this again, it’s a bad habit from you to push your agenda relentlessly, while ignoring arguments from others.
Huh? I bought a new house. But I’ve never owned a house before. I walked on a new rug. But I’ve never walked on a rug before.
Belief that the world I experience is rationally intelligible.
The support for this has already been presented to you. It is that unless we have an initial belief we cannot develop new beliefs.
Belief that the experienced world is rationally intelligible lets us attach significance to what we experience and hence develop further beliefs about the world we are experiencing.
Please describe how this is so.
One cannot create mathematical theorems without reference to other mathematical theorems or axioms.
You think you were born holding that belief? I will need to be convinced.
That’s your original claim, it has not been demonstrated at all, hence my question - what beliefs are you claiming you were born with? I will need sufficient objective evidence to support the claims.
It has nothing to do with atheism, but fine, you think you were born with beliefs, please explain what they were, and what evidence you think supports this. did you believe shitting yourself was unhygienic and head for the toilet right out of the womb? Only I had to be taught this.
I am starting to get the uneasy feeling you’re either dealing with some mental health issues you’ve not made us aware of, or this is one hell of a windup. if it is the former then please do let us know.
Your state of conviction is for you to control. I showed you that unless we have preexisting beliefs we can never form new ones.
I asked you to explain how might one’s first belief arise then and you said “we form beliefs” if you regard that as an explanation then we really won’t have much to say to one another.
People for the most part reason logically, even if that be sub conscious. Our brains/minds recognize that IF X THEN Y so to speak and we use that all the time when solving a variety of problems be it doing math or doing gardening.
Noam Chomsky discusses this when he talks about language, arguing that we have innate rules “beliefs” about language which enables a baby in China to learn mandarin but the same baby in France would learn French.
But @Sherlock-Holmes, you still won’t fully describe the god/s you assert exist so that anyone here can let you know if they have experienced evidence of it/them. Sigh, what a handy avoidance technique.
Seems to me that you don’t really want that which you say you’re after, an open mind about the veracity of your beliefs, because you refuse to define them.
If you consider that a slick move or a reasonable stance, I think you’re, well, acting quite silly. You’re just not as good at this as you seem to think you are. I think fully describing your god/s would be a nail in the coffin, so to speak, and you know it and that’s why you refuse to do it.
As an aside, notice I direct what I’m saying to you…not “the theist” or “many theists” or “theists I’ve debated”.
What ever has this to do with theist beliefs in infancy?
Have you stopped beating your wife?
Huh?
(Twenty characters)
Oh, I assumed you’d understand, sorry. I was alluding to the fact that your question:
Is an example of the loaded question fallacy, I thought you’d pick that up from my response.
Here’s a more detailed explanation for you from Wikipedia:
You presupposed that I claimed something about theist beliefs in infancy, I didn’t though.
You think you were born holding that belief? I will need to be convinced.
You seem to have ignored yet another question about a claim you made?
Well you certainly haven’t on here. I have demonstrated this repeatedly, would you like another example perhaps? It also seems a dubious assertion, what is one to infer from great minds creating a complex method of reasoning that adheres to strict principles of validation, if as you claim “People for the most part reason logically”?
Your claim suggests that either “most people” are familiar with that complex method and its principles, a highly dubious claim you haven’t attempted to evidence, no real surprise there of course, or are we to assume you think Aristotle and Plato wasted their time creating a redundant method, if “people for the most part reason logically” already?
That’s not what I said, until you address honestly what I said, and not a straw man I can’t help you understand why you’re reasoning is facile and erroneous. I ask again what beliefs were you born with?
You also did not respond to yet another question:
If someone has never encountered any concept of any deity, they would necessarily lack belief in any deity, ipso facto they would be an atheist by definition, do you agree? Only you have ipied that disbelief can only come from knowledge, one assumes then you hold all manner of beliefs about concepts you have not yet encountered at all?
Oy.