I hate to break this to you, but it was you and not us who brought claims for an extant deity here. I have not seen nor could I define a unicorn, beyond what some people depict, does this mean I must believe unicorns might be real in some as yet undefined way? Of course it does not, it means I don’t believe they are real, nor will I until my doubts are allayed. That would take sufficient objective evidence a unicorn can exist outside of the human imagination, and that objective evidence would necessitate they accurately define what they are claiming they mean by unicorn, else the word becomes meaningless. Just like people claiming god is love, then insisting that since love exists, god exists, that is a meaningless claim, since I could make their initial assumption about anything.
Our minds start to store memories, we form beliefs about the world, we could not function otherwise. I don’t remember what my first belief was, let alone how I arrived at it, do you? Again beliefs do not need to be rational or true, how many infants have you met or are aware of that have mastered any understanding of logic, how many adults come to that?
Like I said earlier, there will always be more to explain and while scientists strive to explain those things, I doubt many of them lose sleep just because something can’t be explained and has to considered assumed for the present. I doubt any scientist considers that “unscientific”.
Again, so? There are several groups working on what happened “before” (quotes intentional as I’m aware time is a property of our universe) our universe started. The multiverse gives it a pretty good framework IMO; of course you could just ask who or what created the multiverse and posit your god as the answer to which I’d likely respond, who created your god?
Where does that leave us?
IMO it is better to remain open-minded, accept unanswered questions as unanswered for now and just keep on observing, creating models, explaining etc. until we blow ourselves to bits
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.
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.
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”.
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?
