You are losing the distinction between truth and belief. A belief doesn't have to be true to be warranted, and it doesn't have to be warranted to be true, even if, according to the traditional JBT model, it has to be warranted to be knowledge.

Even a reason that doesn’t make sense, is refutable, or self-contradictory, is still a reason. — Mww

The most common usage of 'reasonable' is equivalent to 'rational'. You cannot claim a belief is reasonable if it is held for entirely self-serving reasons, for example. We have a word for that: 'rationalization', and rationalizations are not generally thought of as being reasonable, but rather delusional or, in extremis, vicious.

All beliefs, that are not simple empirical observations or tautologies, are possibly refutable. A self-contradictory belief cannot be considered reasonable by any standard. You seems to be conflating 'having reasons' with 'reasonable'.

Common usage. I keep forgetting what constitutes philosophy these days.

You are correct in that regard, yes.

A self-contradictory belief cannot be considered reasonable by any standard. — Janus

How can a belief contradict itself? It isn’t the belief that is self-contradictory, it is the reasons for it, that are, because they conflict with each other or with some established condition, usually knowledge. The belief is still reasonable, if only to its holder whose reasons don’t conflict, just under illogical or irrational conditions from the point of view of someone who doesn’t because his reasons do conflict with the holders’.

You seems to be conflating 'having reasons' with 'reasonable'. — Janus

It’s good it only seems that way.

Common usage. I keep forgetting what constitutes philosophy is these days — Mww

The contempt of certain philosophers' for the "common" or "ordinary" is their most revealing conceit, and likely the reason why they fail so consistently to grapple with and solve actual problems, preferring to create problems which they think important precisely because they admit of no solution.

Has any philosophy ever solved any problems? Far as I think about it, philosophy tries to explain something, and leaves it up to others to determine whether that explanation solves anything for them.

I solve my problems; philosophy just sets a proper stage for looking at them.

Faith posits stuff like "The world can't have the reason for its existence in itself". That's highly abstract though. Faith makes the abstract seem concrete and nontrivial because people are told doubting is a sin and leads to punishment. We can easily posit faith to be a sin against reason because in faith you pursue the desire to know the object of your intellectual desire without holding back by any doubts whatsoever. After such an exercise of faith it is near impossible to be convinced you used faith throughout the previous thought exercise and instead you think you were simply doing demonstrations. In a sense through faith you irreversibly tie yourself up into a position you can't get out of

Asking "why is there something rather than.nothing" and why leaves are green from the perspective of philosophy is probably to ask something pretty petty

You are losing the distinction between truth and belief. — Janus

Not at all. All belief presupposes truth.

I'm pointing out the difference between being reasonable and being warranted. The former is satisfied by coherency alone. The latter also considers correspondence to known fact. It is when we consider that that coherency is found lacking for warrant. An argument can be both coherent and contradictory to known fact(current knowledge base). Thus, coherency alone does not warrant belief.

A belief doesn't have to be true to be warranted

Agree.

...and it doesn't have to be warranted to be true, even if, according to the traditional JBT model, it has to be warranted to be knowledge.

JTB talks in terms of being justified, not warranted.

How can a belief contradict itself? — Mww

Indeed. It's takes a plurality thereof.

I think that the point of the paper was that Dawkins' ad hoc had the same justificatory ground(or lack thereof) as many of the religious arguments he was aiming at. None were warranted. All were based upon logical possibility alone(all were/are rightfully called "reasonable").

I'll just throw out there that Dawkins has arisen a lot emotion on this question. Some say explaining improbabilities by multiverses is ridiculous. Others say that saying an infinite mind explains everything is strange and anthropomorphic. Every time I get into religious discussions, being an atheist, I walk away thinking "how is it possible for 2 humans to think so differently". Maybe that thought is the good that results from the debate. Cheers

Not at all. All belief presupposes truth. — creativesoul

Yes but not all warranted, or if you prefer justified (which in my view means the same) beliefs are true. The fact that beliefs presuppose truth (are considered truth-apt) is not relevant here.

I'm pointing out the difference between being reasonable and being warranted.The former is satisfied by coherency alone. The latter also considers correspondence to known fact. It is when we consider that that coherency is found lacking for warrant. An argument can be both coherent and contradictory to known fact(current knowledge base). Thus, coherency alone does not warrant belief. — creativesoul

I don't agree that the criterion for a belief being considered reasonable (or warranted) is coherency alone. It doesn't even really make sense to speak about incoherent beliefs; how would it be possible to believe something incoherent, that is something we couldn't make sense of? If you mean coherent with our overall body of accepted knowledge, then I would say that still wouldn't render a belief reasonable.

That there are believed to be granite outcrops on a particular planet would be coherent with our overall body of scientific knowledge, but believing that would not be reasonable or warranted in the absence of evidence. Anyway I have already stipulated that I am not dealing with such examples of empirical
or scientific assertions or beliefs, since this thread is about the reasonableness of religious belief, which I don't think falls into that category.

JTB talks in terms of being justified, not warranted. — creativesoul

I don't see any meaningful difference between these two terms. If you do perhaps you could explain.

How can a belief contradict itself? — Mww

I was thinking of a set of beliefs, for example a worldview or religion, some of which are contradictory.

It’s good it only seems that way. — Mww

The appearance may well be the reality in this case. If you genuinely think all beliefs that are held for any reasons whatsoever are reasonable I don't know what else to to say.

All belief presupposes truth.
— creativesoul

Yes but not all warranted, — Janus

All warranted belief are belief. All belief presupposes truth. Ergo...

All warranted, unwarranted, justified, unjustified, all well grounded, all purely imaginary, all true, all false...

ALL belief presupposes truth.

I think that the point of the paper was that Dawkins' ad hoc had the same justificatory ground(or lack thereof) as many of the religious arguments he was aiming at. Neither was warranted. — creativesoul

You are yet to explain what you think the difference between warranted belief and reasonable belief is.
Perhaps an example of a belief that you think is reasonable, and yet is not warranted, would help.

All warranted belief are belief. All belief presupposes truth. Ergo...

All belief presupposes truth, warranted belief notwithstanding. — creativesoul

True enough I suppose, but nonetheless irrelevant to the subject at issue.

Be well.

...beliefs presuppose truth (are considered truth-apt...

This needs attention. It's got something wrong that's rather important...

"Truth-apt" is the name for things capable of being true.

Some thoughts, some belief, some statements, some positive assertions, some negative assertions, some accounts of what happened and/or is happening are capable of being true. Some thoughts, some belief, some statements, some positive assertions, some negative assertions, some accounts of the way things are; the case at hand, or reality are capable of being true. Some thoughts, some belief, some statements, some positive assertions, some negative assertions, some accounts of the world and/or ourselves are capable of being true.

Some. Not all.

All presuppose truth, somewhere along the line.

A false statement cannot be true. It can be believed. When one believes a falsehood, they do not know it's false. To quite the contrary, they believe it is true. Thus, when one sincerely says "I believe 'X', where X is a statement about the world and/or ourselves, they believe that the statement is true. We cannot knowingly believe a falsehood. As soon as one realizes that something they once believed is false, they can no longer believe otherwise because they know better. False statements, when sincerely spoken still presuppose truth.

False statements are not capable of being true.

All belief and statements thereof presuppose truth. Not all are capable of being true.

Being truth-apt has nothing to do with the presupposition of truth within belief and/or our statements. 

Being truth-apt has nothing to do with the presupposition of truth within belief and/or our statements. — creativesoul

I would say that a belief's being truth apt (It's being capable of being eithrt true (or false)) is central to beliefs presupposing truth. Of course no one believes something that they do not believe is true but that fact is trivially due to the meanings of the terms. You cannot believe something you think is not true to be true; because that would be a contradiction in terms.

And again this has nothing to do with the reasonableness or warrantedness of beliefs or the question as to why you don't think reasonableness entails warrantedness. It's your reasons for that I asked you to explain.

Naturalism excludes God as a matter of principle. The mistake is to then believe that science has disproved the substance of such a belief, when in practice it has simply excluded it. — Wayfarer

That is not right. It is empiricism which is at play here, not naturalism. What I said was theory- independent.

You know that when Lemaître initially published his 'Hypothesis of the Primeval Atom', it was widely resisted for a long time because it seemed to suggest a creation from nothing. — Wayfarer

But then again the Bible says nothing of atoms while it does offer a creation myth for the world. The presence of a scientific explanation without God for atoms is neutral, and the Pope's attempt to own it for the church was political. Knowledge of how the universe was created is different, since that does overlap with religious terrain. If the universe was created teleologically, then one might expect some evidence of that and, if evidence were found, there might would be a scientific basis for creation. Since creation myths are all about the divine impacting the physical, the lack of any evidence whatsoever makes belief in creation unjustified... for now.

If you genuinely think all beliefs that are held for any reasons whatsoever are reasonable I don't know what else to to say. — Janus

The answer is in the negation of what you said: there is no belief whatsoever to be held, if there are no reasons whatsoever on which it is constructed, no reasons one thinks as belonging to or describing its object. All that on which reason can direct itself, is reasonable. All reducible to....the only belief unreasonable, is that belief the object of which reason cannot direct itself, which is, of course, to the one thinking, simply empty. Building up on that final reduction, what we......er, commonly....ordinarily.....consider an unreasonable belief, is actually merely an irrational one.

Yeah, well....tell an ordinary somebody something is unreasonable they might argue back. Tell an ordinary somebody something is irrational...they just look at you funny.

(Sigh)

Has any philosophy ever solved any problems? — Mww

Some philosophers concerned themselves with problems actually encountered in living and provided reasonable solutions to them, I think.

I solve my problems; philosophy just sets a proper stage for looking at them. — Mww

Well, I agree it can--to the extent it fosters the application of critical and creative intelligence to problems which actually arise.

Some philosophers concerned themselves with problems actually encountered in living and provided reasonable solutions to them, I think. — Ciceronianus the White

Absolutely; no quibble there. Ehhhh.....maybe one. Perhaps these problems and their solutions are the concern of psychologists.

I disagree with you, but will not argue further other than to give what I think is a good example. The conspiracy theory that claims the moon landings were faked is obviously based on certain reasons, but I don't think it counts as a reasonable theory.

Such theories are based on the mere fact they it is not impossible that they be true, and then on a whole series of circumstantial "evidence' and "expert opinion" cobbled together to make the official story look unlikely. I don't think any of that counts as reasonable or, which is the same thing in my book, rational. A belief concerning empirical matters is reasonable if there are good empirical reasons to hold it.

A religious belief may be reasonable if there are good practical or personal reasons to hold it. The reasonableness in these latter kinds of cases of belief is not inter-subjectively determinable, though, because no empirical evidence that would convince any unbiased observer can be presented to support them. So we would generally tend to judge the reasonableness of the latter kinds of personal beliefs by looking at whether the person holding them seems to be a generally reasonable (rational or balanced) person.

I really don't mind if you disagree, it just means we employ different definitions, so I'll leave it there (even though I think my definition is more in accordance with common usage which seems to be the only possible criterion for correctness of terms).

Your common usage definition is fine.

If religious stories are taken to be allegories that profess metaphorical truths then I think the difficulty disappears — Janus

Ultimately, theism is not a theory about some purported being that either exists or doesn't exist, and about which science might have something to say. It's a theory about the nature of reality itself, not about some purported super-engineer or director which might or might not exist. The fact that justification is cast in these pseudo-empirical terms is an indicator of a deep misconception about the nature of the question. — Wayfarer

While I agree that dogmatism and fundamentalism are wrongheaded, even off-putting to me personally. Both in believers and non-believers alike. It does seem like some warrant can be had for faith. Most people here do not have a high view of the classical proofs for God. My idea being is because they're called exactly that, proofs. But I'm quite sure that while they are contentious and far from proof, they can be plausible and elicit faith.

Talking about theism as poetry and allegory also seems wrong to me. Poetry without a doubt is a beautiful way to portray reality, but in the end it is nothing more than sugarcoating reality with romanticism. I feel like you take away the entire idea of theism by admitting that it has no grasp on reality in the end. How can one not posit justification about such ponderings of reality? Would you not want your view of reality to be grounded instead of it being a dreamy haze?

I agree with most of the sentiments about God here, especially yours, Wayfarer. But the way you guys speak about it gives me the impression of downplaying.

The conclusion Kenny is working towards is agnosticism. But with this piece, from the second page, he seems to be assuming the virtue of the middle path between credulity and scepticism - to be assuming agnosticism.

SO arguably the article is an exercise in question begging; he assumes his conclusion. But isn't it reasonable to seek this middle ground, rather than to believe without warrant? — Banno

I suppose I agree with the gist of it. But I find it much more attractive to follow where you believe the path leads while knowing and understanding your shortcomings. Your credulity and scepticism. Instead of throwing your hands in the air and saying, I don't know, in order to be completely out of the danger zone and taking the diplomatic route. I believe it's more meaningful and human to accept the risk that comes with faith. If you understand me.

Lets say for example that there is a guy named John who is swayed by one of aquinas' arguments. He knows that they aren't proof in any respect but acknowledges the problem it highlights and believes the premises to be plausible. But accepts the conclusion of God by taking a leap of faith. Because, after all, they aren't proofs. They are not giving you certainty. I wouldn't call John and his belief unreasonable if he understands and has reasoned about his leap here. I would find it beautiful.

But I'm a noob. So I fully accept that this probably is a clouded view of the way it works.

I agree with most of the sentiments about God here, especially yours, Wayfarer. But the way you guys speak about it gives me the impression of downplaying. — DoppyTheElv

Think...of the double standard that many contemporary academic philosophers apply to arguments for God’s existence. Any other idea in philosophy, no matter how insane – for example, that the material world is an illusion, that consciousness does not really exist, that infanticide and euthanasia are defensible, that the distinction between the sexes is a mere social construct, that it might be morally wrong to have children, and so on and on – is treated as “worthy of discussion,” something we must at least hear out with respect even if we suspect we will not be convinced. But if a philosopher gives an argument for God’s existence, then in at least many academic circles, every eyebrow is immediately raised, every eye rolls, and it’s smirks all around – as if such a philosopher had just passed gas, or proposed wearing a tinfoil hat to protect against mindreading. — Ed Feser

t I find it much more attractive to follow where you believe the path leads while knowing and understanding your shortcomings. Your credulity and scepticism. Instead of throwing your hands in the air and saying, I don't know, in order to be completely out of the danger zone and taking the diplomatic route. — DoppyTheElv

:ok: 'In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind, there are few' ~ Shunryu Suzuki, in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind.

But I'm quite sure that while they are contentious and far from proof, they can be plausible and elicit faith. — DoppyTheElv

I agree they can be seen as plausible. It all depends on your foundational presuppositions. That's why I say that for religious beliefs to be considered reasonable they must be considered both coherent and plausible. How do we measure plausibility, though, outside the empirical context? I don't think we can.

On the other hand, that religious beliefs can seem plausible to people we know to be intelligent and reasonable speaks to their reasonableness and allows for the judgement that people are warranted in holding such reasonable religious beliefs. It is kind of an opposite, positive ad hominem.

Talking about theism as poetry and allegory also seems wrong to me. Poetry without a doubt is a beautiful way to portray reality, but in the end it is nothing more than sugarcoating reality with romanticism. I feel like you take away the entire idea of theism by admitting that it has no grasp on reality in the end. — DoppyTheElv

For me this is a very superficial view of poetry. I think the best poetry has nothing at all to do with "sugarcoating" and of all human endeavours has the greatest "grasp on reality".

You are yet to explain what you think the difference between warranted belief and reasonable belief is. Perhaps an example of a belief that you think is reasonable, and yet is not warranted, would help. — Janus

Any and all belief that is based upon logical possibility alone.

I've explained.