Microbes, atoms, quantum waves and distant galaxies didn't exist because we couldn't show them to be actual and necessary. — Hippyhead

Until we could show these things existed, we did not know they existed. A person could get lucky and imagine something that is true in reality. But to show that it is true in reality, there must be a demonstration of it. As of now, we know these things to be real with evidence.

Why would someone need to demonstrate anything about reality if they are making a baseless claim? — ToothyMaw

The reason why it is a baseless claim is because it has no base in reality. You can always ask a person, theist or not, to back their claim about reality, with reality.

we were not disputing whether or not religious people's claims actually represent physical reality; what is relevant is that they aim to represent reality and fail to do so due to problems inherent to the language used, which is, once again, where Wittgenstein comes in. — ToothyMaw

The problem of the language, is that the language is making a claim about reality, without evidence to reality. I am specifying what the specific problem of the language being used is: It intends to convey reality without any evidence of it. I don't believe we are in disagreement here.

The problem of the language, is that the language is making a claim about reality, without evidence to reality. I am specifying what the specific problem of the language being used is: It intends to convey reality without any evidence of it. I don't believe we are in disagreement here. — Philosophim

The point I was trying to make, mostly for argument's sake, is that religious language, while conveying meaning, is so confused that religious beliefs cannot be subject to truth values and cannot even be potentially representational; the fact that no physical evidence supports what the language intends to convey is irrelevant. But I see where you are coming from.

I should specify: by religious beliefs I mean believed characteristics and actions of god, not ethics and rules and such.

You are right philosophim, we weren't disagreeing, and I just posted some bullshit about representativeness and truth values. My bad to anyone reading this.

The problem of the language, is that the language is making a claim about reality, without evidence to reality. — Philosophim

Here we are again. The requirement for evidence is a rule of reason, a system of thought invented by a single semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies. Reason is not a god proven to have binding authority over all of reality, but instead a tool proven to be useful in a limited context.

If someone should wish to require that religious claims about the most fundamental nature of everything everywhere (typical scope of god claims) are valid only if they come with evidence, that someone would bear the burden of demonstrating that the rules of human reason are binding upon the realm being addressed by these religious claims, typically everything everywhere.

Even in our normal everyday lives at human scale where reason has supposedly proven it's value, it's still a process which can be reasonably challenged. Reason has given us science. Science has given us tools of vast scale which empower a single person pressing a single button to destroy modern civilization in just a few minutes.

Trying to turn reason in to an all powerful god is not reason, it's just another form of religion.

The realization of the fact that God is beyond our understanding or we cannot express a lot of meaningful statements regarding him cannot even be articulated by an individual. The only medium left is music/art/poetry etc. You have to corrupt what you had originally in your mind though. Otherwise, it would not be understood at all by the public. — Wittgenstein

That uncorrupted state of mind the believer has, which loses its original state, let’s call it “pure belief”, when articulated is interesting in terms of some of the arts. A Russian Icon is produced by a believer, an artist, to represent that “pure state”. It has, as you say, been corrupted in the attempt to articulate it. To a non-believer it is simply a work of art, albeit bristling with religious meaning. To the believer, on seeing it, it is immediately recognised and translated back into the “pure belief” they possess.

The orthodox christian tradition embraces (at least partially) this view.

Saint Dionysius, for example, states that we can't try to limit God with concepts as "Being", and that God may be non-being or even beyond-being, simply because there are limitations concerning human reason. As it follows, posterior orthodox philosophers add that, as Kireevsky did, for aiming to know God in some way, it's necessary to reach integrality (a very common term to slavophile philosophy), that is:

[...] Therefore, believing thought is best characterized by its attempt to gather all the separate parts of the soul into one force, to search out that inner heart of being where reason and will, feeling and conscience, the beautiful and the true, the wonderful and the desired, the just and the merciful, and all the capacity of mind converge into one living unity, and in this way the essential human personality is restored in its primordial indivisibility.

Fragments, I. Kireevsky, 1857.

The orthodox approach, conserved by its mystical nature, rejects all the latin medieval philosophy, that empowers reason. The rationalistic view of scholastics is pretty known in the western philosophical tradition (which, by the way, is repudiated by orthodoxy), and, as many orthodox philosophers states: rationalism wasn't born with Descartes and the modernity, but with scholasticism.

Here we are again. The requirement for evidence is a rule of reason, a system of thought invented by a single semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies. Reason is not a god proven to have binding authority over all of reality, but instead a tool proven to be useful in a limited context. — Hippyhead

Do you believe this to be an assessment of reality?

Saint Dionysius, for example, states that we can't try to limit God with concepts as "Being", and that God may be non-being or even beyond-being, simply because there are limitations concerning human reason. — Bertoldo

This is not as esoteric as it may sound.

Does space exist or not? Thought demands a yes/no answer because that is how thought works, it categorizes phenomena in to conceptual boxes. Space defies such simplistic dualistic paradigms by being both real, and not meeting our usual definitions of existent. And, space would seem to be a pretty relevant example, given that it forms the overwhelming majority of reality at every scale.

What happens with God talk is that we often attempt to map paradigms which are reasonable, sensible and useful at human scale on to the very largest of scales. So for example, we ask "does God exist" as if God was an apple on our kitchen counter.

Human reason evolved in an extremely small environment, in comparison to the scope of God claims.

Do you believe this to be an assessment of reality? — Philosophim

Semi-suicidal? Yes, thousands of hydrogen bombs ready to go at the push of a button.

Single species on one tiny planet? Yes, obviously.

Only recently living in caves? In astronomical time, just seconds ago.

Is reason proven to be binding on all of reality? We can't even define what we mean by "all of reality". One universe, a trillion universes? We have no idea.

Reason is, at the very least, one of the most valuable tools we have, along with the science, and has done immense amounts of work in terms of our understanding of the world, and it doesn't appear as if it will stop doing so. That it hasn't explained everything as of yet, and that it can't be understood in the context of some ineffable entity, doesn't mean much imo.

Reason is, at the very least, one of the most valuable tools we have, along with the science, and has done immense amounts of work in terms of our understanding of the world, and it doesn't appear as if it will stop doing so. — ToothyMaw

It will stop doing so once that we use the tools reason has given us to destroy our civilization.



Philosophers who can contentedly ignore nuclear weapons haven't a clue about reason.

Do you believe this to be an assessment of reality? — Philosophim

Is reason proven to be binding on all of reality? We can't even define what we mean by "all of reality". One universe, a trillion universes? We have no idea. — Hippyhead

Cool. So you believe this is reality. How did you conclude this?