• Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    OK - cool - now on to Russel

    I agree with Russel, that the person making the claim has the burden of proof. With a few caveats. The first is the intent of the claim has to be evangelical - you are trying to change the mind of the person you are arguing with to your position. The second one is, who holds the definition of what "proof" is.

    So if I make a claim that such a thing as love exists, and i want you to believe as I do that love exists, it is my burden to make an argument that convinces you. If however, you establish a burden of proof that is, by definition, outside any possibility, do to the nature of the claim. Than that person has established an impossible burden. If in the case above, you tell me you will believe in love, it I can bring you a box with a pound of love in it. Without that proof - you tell me i have not made my argument, and you have no reason to believe such a thing as love exists. All your position turns into is I don't believe you, because I don't believe you.

    Now on to point one, Russel was aware, that the teapot can orbit in both directions. If one wants to make a claim that God does not exist, and wants to change the theist mind to agree with that, than he is holding the teapot, and has the burden of proof. Russel was very aware of this, and if he did have a definitive argument that God does not exist, he would have been happy to make it. He did not however, so he needed a method to deny God is, yet not hold the teapot. And being a very very smart man came up with the "You have not convinced me, i have no reason to believe" argument. With this tactic he feels he is free to be completely atheistic - and free of defending the non belief.

    And I am fine with all of that, except that the atheist does not want it to end there. As on this board and almost everywhere else the atheist wants to challenge the belief that God is, with the implicit claim God is not, with a semantic excuse they don't have to prove it. I find this disingenuous, and pure tactic.

    Finally all of this is dependent on one party trying to change the mind of the other - the argument has to be evangelical. Personally i find such arguments useless. I have no interest in changing anyone's mind from atheism to theism. My only objective in all or these arguments is to claim theism is reasonable. And if I make such a claim as reasonableness, it is outside Mr. Russel's argument.
  • Thesailor123
    6
    No the math is correct. You just have to look on it as consecutive rolls not individual rolls
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    So if I make a claim that such a thing as love exists, and i want you to believe as I do that love exists, it is my burden to make an argument that convinces you. If however, you establish a burden of proof that is, by definition, outside any possibility, do to the nature of the claim. Than that person has established an impossible burden. If in the case above, you tell me you will believe in love, it I can bring you a box with a pound of love in it. Without that proof - you tell me i have not made my argument, and you have no reason to believe such a thing as love exists. All your position turns into is I don't believe you, because I don't believe you.Rank Amateur

    Except that in the case of love I actually don't "believe in love", I rationalize that it is a concept that we use in language to describe our attachments through chemical reactions and psychological factors based on social constructs around those emotions. I could probably make this case for almost anything and for that which I cannot explain I can do educated guesses, hypotheses, as long as I try to stay within what I previously know and not apply personal belief to that hypothesis. In the case of love, I could, through the sciences of psychology, sociology, biology and anthropology, argue that love is simply a concept, it does not exist as it's own thing and I could probably prove this point through all the different aspects of the above sciences and the only counter-claim would be a belief that it's something more anyway for which I would demand counter-proof that holds against the science.

    But that wasn't the actual point, I get that. However, I would argue that there are very few things we couldn't categorize within more responsible handling of epistēmē.

    And with this, I'm going back into my own argument about irrational belief being unethical, a thread you've been posting in. Through that, I argue that irrational belief is always wrong and that we can only hold a belief that has some support as long as we treat it as a non-value in our actions, until proven. Meaning, any time acting on a belief that doesn't have any support, we break epistemic responsibility and it creates a risk of distorting knowledge and how people act upon that knowledge.

    So if you actually came to me with the love question, I would not say I believe in love, I would say that the most rational explanation for love is through the evidence of why we humans act according to the concept of love. If you hold a belief that love exists outside of the concepts we can measure, I would ask for a burden of proof, just as with any other belief and because you cannot bring a box of love as proof, I would not say that I don't believe you, or that I believe you, I would say that I have no reason to even accept the idea of such a belief as it's a concept with no attachment in reality outside of fantasy (for which I can also probably explain why people have fantasies about love as magical concepts).

    This is why I could probably call myself the most atheist member of all on this board since I don't even hold "belief" as a valid concept outside of educated guesses/hypotheses. Irrational beliefs are just fantasies we've made up to explain the unexplainable, we believe a lot as children and less and less the older we get, but because of human psychology, we are prone to always lean towards believing something before actually explaining something. This is the point of my belief-argument, that we need to stop accepting things as truths just because it's comfortable and feels nice and instead take that personal belief that we take for granted as truths, and exile it completely from our minds and emotions.

    And I am fine with all of that, except that the atheist does not want it to end there. As on this board and almost everywhere else the atheist wants to challenge the belief that God is, with the implicit claim God is not, with a semantic excuse they don't have to prove it. I find this disingenuous, and pure tactic.Rank Amateur

    I can say the same about theists. There's a lot of religious nutjobs joining and writing total nonsense and sending private messages about how to "save me from my devilish atheism". I rarely see true atheists acting in the same way, probably since more atheists than theists don't let their emotions guide their reasoning (of course some do, but I would call them uneducated and just as irrationally emotional as any of those religious people). But if you look at a broader picture of the world's population, I would argue, statistically that more religious people behave irrationally and dangerous than atheists. Which is a statistic in support of my belief-argument.

    And my belief-argument thread is a good example of this. The actual argument is about irrational belief, both religious and non-religious, but most of the posts are about God's existence or not, and vague semantical counter-arguments with emotional outbursts rather than dialectics; just because those theists have a problem with my argument challenging their core property of "belief". To criticize belief when that belief does not correlate with anything but fantasy, makes theists grab their pitchforks since they need belief they cannot prove, in order to hold onto the truths they live by. There's no wonder one of them got banned and another got most of his posts deleted after spamming nonsense.

    Is it evangelistic to make an argument that irrational belief without support can be a dangerous moral road to take? And that belief that has support, a belief that is only considered belief and acted upon with caution because of it, to be acceptable? Or is it simply that theists lash out emotionally when their personal core values are threatened by an argument like that? You cannot threaten atheists core values in the same way since there are no core values other than searching for truth and rationality.

    I don't challenge religious belief because I'm an atheist, I challenge it because it's irrational, it's without support, with its arguments filled with fallacies and biases and often become painfully flawed to a point it's not even obvious to the one making it. Theists often demand atheists to just accept their argument without explaining further and why, while atheists demand theists to have solid arguments when they don't. I haven't seen atheistic argument fail in the same way as theists arguments when looking at their validity as arguments. And if they do, those atheists making those arguments seem more willing to go through dialectics and changing the argument to actually make sense while theists just say "you don't' get it" and then posts another, equally flawed argument. I'm of course not saying that atheists are always right in their arguments, I'm just tired of hearing the same fallacies and biases by theists while they blame atheists for challenging their personal beliefs. Especially since philosophical dialectic is all about challenging anyone's argument if it seems flawed.

    It's irrational by theists to demand more than they can bring to the table themselves. Theists and atheists should make their case with equal demand for rational reasoning, no one has more validity over the other and everything else is just emotionally driven opinions.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    Can you actually make a formal argument that ends in a conclusion that states " therefor theism is unreasonable " - i am unaware of such an argument actually existing. Would be interested to see it.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k


    I can form an argument as to why irrational unsupported belief is unreasonable, as I did in my belief-argument thread. It's still evolving though, per the dialectic. Although it hit a roadblock when religious evangelists came in and got banned, spammed posts that got erased etc. Gonna look over it some more, but essentially it's the argument.

    The question then becomes; can that be combined with theism? Or is it essentially that because unsupported belief is an essential property of theism, it falls under the bus of that argument's conclusion? How can you support theism without such belief as a core attribute?

    But in a shorter and simpler version of the longer argument in the other thread:

    p1 An unsupported belief leads to uninformed acts.
    p2 A supported belief leads to informed acts.
    p3 An unsupported belief has a high risk of distorting knowledge
    p4 A supported belief has a low risk of distorting knowledge

    Therefore, unsupported belief is less reasonable than supported belief.


    Then

    p1 High reasonable belief leads to reasonable acts
    p2 Low reasonable belief leads to unreasonable acts
    p3 High reasonable acts are considered ethical
    p4 Low reasonable acts are considered unethical

    Therefore, a low reasonable belief is unethical.



    The other argument goes more into detail about what unsupported and supported beliefs are etc.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    doesn't really address

    Can you actually make a formal argument that ends in a conclusion that states " therefor theism is unreasonable " - i am unaware of such an argument actually existing. Would be interested to see it.Rank Amateur

    as I think you know -

    your argument does not work unless theism is shown unsupported /unreasonable - becomes circular.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    your argument does not work unless theism is shown unsupported /unreasonable - becomes circular.Rank Amateur

    I had a line of premises concluding on theism, but didn't want to see pitchforks but, anyway, here's the third part of that argument:

    p1 Unsupported belief is unethical
    p2 Supported belief is ethical
    p3 Theism relies on an unsupported belief

    Therefore, theism is unethical.


    How can you hold onto theism without unsupported belief?
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    p3 Theism relies on an unsupported beliefChristoffer

    i would counter P3 is false, both the cosmological argument, and some design arguments are valid. Valid meaning the premises are true, and the conclusions follow. That does not mean, there are not counter arguments against, but none of them overwhelm the arguments.
  • Gnostic Christian Bishop
    1.4k
    No the math is correct. You just have to look on it as consecutive rolls not individual rollsThesailor123

    Right over my head.

    What are you replying to? Quote it please. I took a quick backwards loo and did not see anything.

    Regards
    DL
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    i would counter P3 is false, both the cosmological argument, and some design arguments are valid. Valid meaning the premises are true, and the conclusions follow. That does not mean, there are not counter arguments against, but none of them overwhelm the arguments.Rank Amateur

    They are valid in that they point to a first cause but...

    p1 Cosmological and design arguments point to an original point of origin for the universe.
    p2 Cosmological and design arguments does not incorporate attributes and properties outside of the known laws of physics.
    p3 Cosmological and design arguments require known laws of physics to exist before Big Bang.
    p4 There is no data to support known laws of physics to exist before Big Bang.

    Therefore cosmological and design arguments only works within known laws of physics and therefore dismiss any other explanation about pre-Big Bang that does not function by our known laws of physics.


    This is why the cosmological and design argument is failing since it needs to have in their premises exactly what was before Big Bang and that everything there followed the known laws of physics. This is not known yet and scientists don't know what happened before Big Bang, so how can those with the cosmological and design arguments make claims that need truths about pre-Big Bang but still have a valid argument?

    Then, on top of that:

    p1 Cosmological argument does not point directly to a God.
    p2 Design arguments does not prove a link between universe complexity and intentional design without assuming there to be one before the conclusion.
    p3 Design arguments does not point directly to a God.
    p4 Theism requires God

    Therefore, cosmological and design arguments do not support an existence of God.


    Not only do the cosmological and design arguments not really hold up as arguments, but even if we ignore the fact that those arguments ignore the lack of data about pre-Big Bang, they don't directly point to God and Theism require God.

    Therefore I cannot see how my p3 is false as these arguments don't really give support to theism having supported belief. To use those arguments to conclude that theism has supported belief requires them to be bullet proof in evidence, which they aren't because of the mentioned flaws AND that they without flaws point directly to a God, which they don't. There's a lot of assumptions made before those can conclude theism being backed by supported belief.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    p3 Cosmological and design arguments require known laws of physics to exist before Big Bang.
    p4 There is no data to support known laws of physics to exist before Big Bang.
    Christoffer

    P3 is patently false, the entire point of the CA is the creation of the universe is outside physics, that it is supernatural. so then p4 is redundantly false

    This is why the cosmological and design argument is failing since it needs to have in their premises exactly what was before Big Bang and that everything there followed the known laws of physics. This is not known yet and scientists don't know what happened before Big Bang, so how can those with the cosmological and design arguments make claims that need truths about pre-Big Bang but still have a valid argument?Christoffer

    Wow, so the argument that concludes the beginning was supernatural needs a scientific explanation of what it is trying to argue. You realize absolutely none of that paragraph makes any sense at all.

    And hate to do this, but the rest of the post is worse. That well could be the single worst argument against the CA I have ever seen.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    P3 is patently false, the entire point of the CA is the creation of the universe is outside physics, that it is supernatural. so then p4 is redundantly falseRank Amateur

    How can it prove something outside known physics without assuming the properties of what is outside known physics? That is assuming a lot that hasn't even been proven through theoretical physics and drawing a conclusion on that, is false.

    P4 is true, we don't have any data about what was or what the properties or physics were before Big Bang, this is a fact. How can you say this premise is false? Do you have the data but no other in the entire world?

    Wow, so the argument that concludes the beginning was supernatural needs a scientific explanation of what it is trying to argue. You realize absolutely none of that paragraph makes any sense at all.Rank Amateur

    How can it conclude it to be supernatural when it doesn't know if our laws of physics existed before Big Bang? How can it conclude it to be supernatural at all without knowing anything about pre-Big Bang? That's jumping to conclusions in the argument. Answer me how the arguments can prove anything at all? Any properties of pre-Big Bang, prove that it was or wasn't supernatural? If you can't answer that, how can you conclude those arguments to be valid?

    And hate to do this, but the rest of the post is worse. That well could be the single worst argument against the CA I have ever seen.Rank Amateur

    Yeah, I keep hearing it, but I never get any rational counter-argument to the criticism of the those arguments. They assume a lot without even including modern physics or a rational falsification of their own premises.

    The cosmological argument requires a lot of knowledge about pre-Big Bang. Without it, it's just assumptions and guesses about it and if you conclude it to be supernatural, you need support to why it is supernatural, which need actual facts and evidence in science to prove such a conclusion.

    There's a reason these arguments haven't proven anything related to their conclusions and the world's population haven't accepted them as true, because they are flawed and might not even comply with today's understanding of physics. Like, you need to at least disprove or counter the Wheeler–DeWitt equation before concluding that causality can occur before Big bang.

    So please address the issues and tone down the arrogant tone.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k


    Also, in what way does CA in any way make p3 Theism relies on an unsupported belief false?
    How many assumptions must be needed before a belief in God can be concluded unsupported belief?

    It's like if a soccer football came rolling down the road from a couple of houses and you can't see its source. You conclude that something set it in motion, there are a force and a speed to it. You listen and hear nothing. Drawing a conclusion on what set that soccer ball in motion has nothing else than the ball itself and its motion as proof, but the conclusion drawn is that a soccer player must have kicked it.

    Without knowing if it was rather a dog, a random kid, the wind that pushed it from a high place so that it rolled down the road. Without any further data, you still draw the conclusion of the soccer player kicking it. But that is pure speculation, not a valid conclusion. Then saying that such a conclusion is giving support to a personal belief that the couple of houses up the road are homes for professional soccer players is pushing the assumptions and speculations even further. Causation ≠ correlation. Therefore theism relies on an unsupported belief.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    How can it prove something outside known physics without assuming the properties of what is outside known physics? That is assuming a lot that hasn't even been proven through theoretical physics and drawing a conclusion on that, is false.Christoffer

    proving what happened before the Big Bang is outside physics is the entire darn point of the argument. You are making no sense at all with this line of logic
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    proving what happened before the Big Bang is outside physics is the entire darn point of the argument. You are making no sense at all with this line of logicRank Amateur

    That is not what I said, is it? "proving what happened before the Big Bang is outside physics" is not the same as "How can it prove something outside known physics without assuming the properties of what is outside known physics?

    Is it?

    And even so, how does that in any way relate to God? Theism is about God, if God is whatever there is before Big Bang, it's still belief without support. Since you can conclude the argument with "there is something in the beginning". But by attaching "God" to that makes it speculation, it becomes belief and does not in any way or form have support.

    Therefore, theism is relying on unsupported belief.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    all due respect, I am not going to spend any more time arguing the reasonability of an argument that has lasted over 700 years. Again, I am not saying it proves God is, I am saying it shows such a thing as God, is a resonable possibility. And for your argument to stand you need to show the CA is outside reason. You have not done so, and your counter arguments are not making any headway in doing this.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    I am not going to spend any more time arguing the reasonability of an argument that has lasted over 700 years.Rank Amateur

    As all others when pointing out these flaws. The problem with the arguments is that they were made long before any of the modern understanding and knowledge about physics, spacetime, quantum physics and the Big Bang. There are plenty of issues with the arguments and whenever they are brought up, the response is that "they are old arguments and because they are still around, they are valid". I can easily counter that with; "they are old, so why are they still not considered as scientific theories if they are supposed to support the idea of God with solid validity?". That's because they rely on faith and belief in order to work, in order to connect "God" with their conclusions. Just because they are old, doesn't mean they are valid. Or should we bring back old Ancient Greek theories that everything is made of water, just because that is old as well?

    I am saying it shows such a thing as God, is a resonable possibility.Rank Amateur

    So theism is relying on a reasonable possibility, no real support? How is that changing it from unsupported belief to supported belief? Believing the Wheeler–DeWitt equation has support in its math, that is supported belief. And how do you measure that reasonable possibility? Do you need belief in order to measure the number? So if you believe in God the reasonable possibility is 90%? If not its 10%? Agnostic 50%? How is "reasonable possibility" changing theism into supported belief when the conclusion to CA could be anything? There's a reasonable possibility that its an out-of-spacetime-dog that kickstarted the universe since we don't know, how can that not be a possibility as well?

    It all boils down to a belief that doesn't have true support in conclusions, only speculations based on a possibility that sounds more like wishful thinking than actual logic to the reasoning of the arguments.

    And for your argument to stand you need to show the CA is outside reason. You have not done so, and your counter arguments are not making any headway in doing this.Rank Amateur

    I have shown that it has nothing to do with God. Theism requires God. Theism is not about an out-of-spacetime-dog, it is about God. The validity of CA can be discussed and there are plenty of more counter-arguments that I can bring up, but the point is still that you cannot attach God to its conclusions since that requires a belief without the support of an actual connection, i.e my premise still holds that theism is unsupported belief.

    Just saying I'm wrong does not work if we take this as a dialectic. And criticizing that my arguments don't hold with making a point that the arguments lasted 700 years is just a fallacy. I can list plenty of arguments that won't hold the test of time.
  • creativesoul
    11.4k
    If what counts as being real is having an effect/affect, then of course God is real.

    What's the difference however, as a matter of elemental constitution, between belief in God and God?

    None as far as I can tell.
  • Echarmion
    2.5k
    If what counts as being real is having an effect/affect, then of course God is real.

    What's the difference however, as a matter of elemental constitution, between belief in God and God?

    None as far as I can tell.
    creativesoul

    Are you making a general statement about belief in things and things in and of themselves or do you want to say that the idea or concept of God, specifically, is set up so that there is no difference between belief in God and God?

    I think there is an interesting case to be made about the latter. Traditional attributes of God (perfection, goodness, omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience) are mental constructions that seem incoherent as attributes of an object of some kind.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k


    you have done a lot of work here, and you deserve a proper, reasonable response, so here goes:



    p1 An unsupported belief leads to uninformed acts.
    p2 A supported belief leads to informed acts.
    p3 An unsupported belief has a high risk of distorting knowledge
    p4 A supported belief has a low risk of distorting knowledge


    In all of the above, you need to define all the terms, they are not standard and are
    subject to lots of interpretation. So please define:

    Unsupported and supported belief
    Informed and uniformed acts
    And distorted knowledge.

    Secondly, independent of your definitions, there is no causality in your premises.
    You would have to add, something like :

    An unsupported belief, always or usually, etc leads to uninformed acts.

    Without such a link, there is no direct cause one to the other. All your premises turn into - people who like vanilla ice cream leads to uniformed acts.

    Lastly, what are the origins of “ supported beliefs” do such beliefs spring into our collective consciences fully supported?? I would opine, most if not all “supported beliefs” begin their existence as a thought, and idea, an “unsupported belief” that someone works on to validate and if successful turns into a “supported belief”


    Therefore, unsupported belief is less reasonable than supported belief.

    Pending you definitions of the above, I have no real issue at all with this statement
    And no clue why you need the premises above to arrive at this.

    Then

    p1 High reasonable belief leads to reasonable acts
    p2 Low reasonable belief leads to unreasonable acts
    p3 High reasonable acts are considered ethical
    p4 Low reasonable acts are considered unethical

    Therefore, a low reasonable belief is unethical.

    On to these:

    As above you need to define

    Reasonable and unreasonable acts
    And your definition of
    Ethical/unethical

    Also as above, there is no causality in the premises . A does not directly cause B

    Cant address any more of this until it is defined and causality is established

    p1 Unsupported belief is unethical
    p2 Supported belief is ethical
    p3 Theism relies on an unsupported belief

    Therefore, theism is unethical.


    And finally

    Define – theism
    And as above
    You need to establish casualty

    When you do all this - I am happy to continue
  • creativesoul
    11.4k
    Are you making a general statement about belief in things and things in and of themselves or do you want to say that the idea or concept of God, specifically, is set up so that there is no difference between belief in God and God?Echarmion

    The latter.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    you have done a lot of work here, and you deserve a proper, reasonable response, so here goes:Rank Amateur

    Thank you, you prove to be a step higher than many others when it comes to a proper dialectic, I appreciate that. :up:

    Unsupported and supported belief
    Informed and uniformed acts
    And distorted knowledge.
    Rank Amateur

    Supported belief is a belief that has some evidence for it, but cannot be deduced as pure truth yet. Essentially an "inductive belief" compared to a scientific theory which is more of a deductive conclusion, if we were to use those terms. Supported belief, in this case, can be said to be a hypothesis, it needs facts and observations in order to lead to a qualified guess but cannot be pulled from nothing. This belief needs to be supported by something that isn't a belief itself.

    Unsupported belief is a belief which has no facts, evidence or logic behind it. Essentially it's pulled from thin air, emotion, prejudice, flawed logic and the list goes on. Its reasoning filled with biases and fallacies, jumpings to conclusion etc. It's a belief that breaks down as soon as the reasons get a dissection and questioned. An example outside of theism is anti-vaxxers, who tries to argue through facts but jump to conclusions and cannot see that their facts don't hold up or connect to their conclusion, essentially they have a belief that vaccines are bad and dangerous, yet have nothing to actually prove it, not even inductively as their facts break apart as soon as the real data of vaccines link to diseases show that there's zero link. In spiritualism, it's a belief in ghosts, yet there's no evidence for any ghosts ever to be filed as proper evidence and no conclusive data of any event that can lead to such conclusion. In social tensions, it's the white guy who won't buy anything from a certain store because the clerk is black. List goes on, essentially as it's named, unsupported belief.


    Distorted knowledge is common, general and collective information, considered as truth, but since derived from unsupported belief (above), they aren't true but are considered facts anyway. Like during Nazi Germany, people accepted the ideas of eugenics, not as a belief but as facts. Unsupported belief lead to unsupported facts, i.e distorted knowledge. Same goes for the previous analogy about viruses, where the general public accepted the church's ideas of the poor being responsible for bringing down God's wrath through sickness. Unsupported belief leads to a higher risk of distorting knowledge and create common "truths" based on false grounds.

    Secondly, independent of your definitions, there is no causality in your premises.
    You would have to add, something like :

    An unsupported belief, always or usually, etc leads to uninformed acts.

    Without such a link, there is no direct cause one to the other. All your premises turn into - people who like vanilla ice cream leads to uniformed acts.
    Rank Amateur

    Sure, it's a bit semantical though.

    p1 An unsupported belief always leads to uninformed acts.
    p2 A supported belief always leads to informed acts.
    p3 An unsupported belief always has a high risk of distorting knowledge
    p4 A supported belief always has a low risk of distorting knowledge

    Reason for using the definitive "always" is that even if the unsupported belief is accidentally correct, the act upon it is still uninformed. While acting by supported belief always include having information for that act, so it's always informed. However you turn it, that's a true however the outcome.
    Same goes for the knowledge premises, it's always a higher risk that unsupported belief distorts knowledge. It's statistically true of the probable outcome of each belief types.

    Lastly, what are the origins of “ supported beliefs” do such beliefs spring into our collective consciences fully supported?? I would opine, most if not all “supported beliefs” begin their existence as a thought, and idea, an “unsupported belief” that someone works on to validate and if successful turns into a “supported belief”Rank Amateur

    That is true, but the argument is more about the ethical nature of how we live by our beliefs. Let's say you are a white man and media has been pushing a segregating narrative that fuels racist dislikes of black people in the neighborhood. You walk down the street and in front of you there's a black man, nothing strange about him, doesn't look dangerous or anything but you still cross the street to avoid the man. This is acting upon an unsupported belief. But if you instead let that unsupported belief be the "open question" and you directly weight in the facts, how media spins news, how there have not been any problems last week and question why you should fear the man now as you wouldn't have done it last week, you choose to keep walking and not act upon the unsupported belief.

    You essentially turned the open question of unsupported belief into supported belief. The problem is if you hold onto the unsupported belief. This is rather about the long term and not short term. Say you have a day when some very unsupported beliefs pops into your head and you set out to verify/falsify them. As long as you don't act and live by those unsupported beliefs and accept them as mere thoughts to be proved or disproved, they aren't really beliefs yet. They are current thoughts. But if you give up looking into those unsupported beliefs and you just keep going, after a week you still believe them and you still act upon them, you are walking the dangerous path ethically.

    do such beliefs spring into our collective consciencesRank Amateur

    But I don't define beliefs as collective, I define them as personal. I define collective belief as distorted knowledge, as that's when they start becoming common truths, which is the most dangerous consequence of unsupported belief.

    Pending you definitions of the above, I have no real issue at all with this statement
    And no clue why you need the premises above to arrive at this.
    Rank Amateur

    To make it definitive in order to continue the argument in its parts. Need to define definitively that unsupported belief is unreasonable. Think of when someone has an unsupported belief that is accidentally true, it can look like a reasonable act, but by showing the connection to being informed or uninformed and the probability of risk, it shows that even if you are accidentally correct in a belief, you still increase the risk of negative outcomes if that's how you live by beliefs.

    Reasonable and unreasonable acts
    And your definition of
    Ethical/unethical
    Rank Amateur

    Reasonable acts are acts based on rational probability from the reasonable belief (as defined by the first argument). I.e they are acts in direct causal line from the ideas in the reasonable belief.
    Unreasonable acts are the opposite of that.
    Ethical/unethical is where my other moral argument comes in (which I haven't finished yet), but heard it's close to Sam Harris landscape of morality (which I've yet to read). In essence, it's based on harm/well-being induction bridging many of the common moral theories together. Basically, your actions should be inductively reasoned to a probability of the most well-being for yourself and others combined (simplified).
    In this case, it's more ethical that you act upon what is reasonable than what is not, but I'm not sure we really have to go into detail of my own argument for this. I think that even if you apply it to most moral systems, the reasonable act will always be connected to positive morals than negative ones. I.e more ethical.

    Also as above, there is no causality in the premises . A does not directly cause B

    Cant address any more of this until it is defined and causality is established
    Rank Amateur

    p1 High reasonable belief always leads to reasonable acts
    p2 Low reasonable belief always leads to unreasonable acts
    p3 High reasonable acts are always considered ethical
    p4 Low reasonable acts are always considered unethical

    I don't think there's any doubt that high reasonable belief (as per the previous argument) always lead to reasonable acts. If the act is unreasonable, it's in direct violation against the reasonable belief. It's also important not to view an act as common truth, the act is linked to the intention of the moral agent and a reasonable act is intended to be out of reasonable belief. If the outcome is not intended, it's not the fault of the moral agent if the act is based on reasonable belief. But if the act is unreasonable, based on low reasonable belief it has a corrupted intention and therefore has a high probability of a faulty outcome and the moral agent is responsible for that outcome as the intention was corrupted by the low reasonable belief. It also brings back the definition of ethical and unethical by pointing to carelessness in predicting moral outcomes through unreasonable acts and belief. It's careless not to figure out the consequences of your acts essentially.

    Define – theism
    And as above
    You need to establish casualty
    Rank Amateur

    I define theism by a belief in God. It's also more broadly defined as "the belief in the existence of the Supreme Being or deities" as opposed to deism, even though deism is also still an unsupported belief type.

    p1 Unsupported belief is always unethical
    p2 Supported belief is always ethical
    p3 Theism always relies on an unsupported belief

    Definition of why theism always relies on unsupported belief is because if it's proven and we can measure it, it's deism. But even in deism, if we measure it and find God, it's not deism anymore but scientific fact. If "belief" is gone from both theism and deism, it's no longer definable as either theism or deism are defined. They are in opposition to scientific fact through this definition, and since none of them rely on hypotheses based on supported belief, like for instance the M-Theory which has a lot of math supporting it, but cannot be finished before predicted observations are shown and it becomes a scientific theory, theism is based on unsupported belief.
  • Rank Amateur
    1.5k
    before attacking the whole - there is a huge logic breakdown in your argument

    You agree that " supported" beliefs start as unsupported beliefs. This simple acknowledgement of fact is by definition in conflict with your premise

    An unsupported belief always leads to uninformed acts.

    No they often lead to "supported beliefs" after proper evaluation - you can not have one without the other.

    and so on and so on.

    I am not sure you can bridge this logic flaw in the argument. No idea starts as a supported idea, the support follows. My suggestion is you would need to eliminate the idea of "unsupported" and insert , false or disproved. Which is where I think you are intellectually, IMO you equate "unproven" with false, which they are not.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k
    You agree that " supported" beliefs start as unsupported beliefs. This simple acknowledgement of fact is by definition in conflict with your premiseRank Amateur

    I think you misunderstand what I meant there. Your comment was that every belief is unsupported in the beginning and this is true; whenever we have an idea, it does not come into our minds with a support attached to it. However, if you hold on to this belief, this unsupported belief, without going further, you are acting upon that belief and act out uninformed acts.

    No they often lead to "supported beliefs" after proper evaluation - you can not have one without the other.Rank Amateur

    Do you think that if the premise is changed to: "Holding on to unsupported belief always leads to uninformed acts" is more clear then?

    I am not sure you can bridge this logic flaw in the argument. No idea starts as a supported idea, the support follows. My suggestion is you would need to eliminate the idea of "unsupported" and insert , false or disproved. Which is where I think you are intellectually, IMO you equate "unproven" with false, which they are not.Rank Amateur

    But the explanation is clear about it, if you hold on to unsupported belief you will act out on it, but if you challenge the unsupported belief you either rule it false or find support. I think you are trying to shoehorn in that it's a logical flaw when it really isn't, seems more like it's a misunderstanding because of how the premise is phrased without clarity of what it refers to. But the above change covers it.
  • matt
    154
    We are always in a state of incomplete knowledge.
  • creativesoul
    11.4k


    What do all those different kinds of belief have in common that make them beliefs?
  • creativesoul
    11.4k
    No idea starts as a supported idea,Rank Amateur

    That's not true.

    Some conclusions are novel new ideas that can definitely follow from well supported premisses.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k


    In my belief-argument (another thread) I mention three types (A, B and C). A, being an unsupported belief, irrational, based on nothing more than the personal fantasy surrounding it. B, being supported belief which is essentially a posteriori, an induction based on facts you know, carefully measured to the best of the ability you have within a normal day to day life; a way of thinking that minimize subjective distortion of the idea you have. C, a scientific hypothesis, supported more by facts and observations than type B, but not enough to yet be called a proven scientific theory.

    As per the last part of the dialectic between me and Rank, it's clear that it's important to mention that everyone has a belief that is unsupported in the beginning, or rather, everyone has a thought that needs verification. The key is that unsupported belief, as I'm referring to, isn't about the thought process to reach supported belief, but the end in itself. If you hold on to unsupported belief and never push it towards supported belief by verification and falsification, you act and live by that unsupported belief.

    In essence, it's like this.
    Type A is looking at a door to a room and thinking there's something in there, you are even convinced it's a brightly lit room with a white armchair, maybe even a person in it. You have nothing to support the idea but you are pretty sure that's what's in the room.
    Type B is opening the door to see that there's a dark wooden table with a blue vase and a red rose in it. You conclude that this is the case, but you also noticed the room was pretty darkly lit and you might have gotten the colors wrong. You are careful to conclude every fact as true, but you are pretty sure the basic truth is at least a somewhat darkly wooden table with a vase, maybe blue and a red rose in it, probably red because you have knowledge about common roses and it's a greater probability it's red you saw. You draw an inductive conclusion based on all of it.
    Type C is getting 50 people, everyone goes into the room one by one and examines the table, vase and rose. When each comes out, they write down all the observations they have about the content in the room, without interaction with any of the other 50. You also enter and you use your own observation and the 50 people's gathered data/observations to conclude that there is, in fact, a dark wooden table, a greenish cyan-colored vase with a red rose with a few dark spots on its green leaves. The light in the room was dark, but in tungsten kelvin, which would affect the color perception of the objects based on the difference with light outside the room, you write this observation down as well and look for other observations from the 50 people which supports this and from those that prove against it. Your conclusion is a scientific hypothesis until you can photograph the content of the room to make a definitive scientific truth about what's in there.

    Now, if the different types were to interact with the world about what was in the room, Type A would spread downright fantasies about it, even distort their own fantasy further, changing colors on the white chair and that the person was blond or dark-haired, but always unsupported by any observation. Type B would point out exactly what was in the room but would note at the same time that it was unclear exactly what color the vase had, maybe blue. Type C would have a detailed report which would need confirmation by measurement to reach a scientific theory, but is as close as possible to the truth you can be without a priori data.
  • creativesoul
    11.4k


    That didn't answer my question.

    What do all beliefs have in common such that that is what makes them belief?

    Something else...

    Unsupported belief can be true, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the last statement.
  • Christoffer
    1.8k


    Have you read previous posts in this dialectic? Maybe you find answers there. I've written in detail about this numerous times in this thread.

    In essence belief (outside of unsupported belief which is just emotional ideas conceptualized out of chaotic memory) is a posteriori out of facts.

    You might need to explain your question better if you want another answer.
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