Religion not the only path to altruism

You're right that most fundamentalists trust medicine, but you've forgotten the point at hand.
People have beef with religion because it causes people to act against reason.
And it's the fundamentalist types of belief where people act against reason.
Doesn't mean that they always do, but it's fundamentalism where these things do happen.
These things don't happen at all with liberals.
While they might still do the praying/ritual, it will never corrupt their "certain beliefs" that they use to solve problems.
Fundamentalists, on the other other hand, have a reputation for trying to apply religious belief where it doesn't belong.

Anyway, getting to your definition of claim:

That wasn't a helpful definition.
You put a complex word in terms of other complex words.
There was a reason I gave you examples of joke, fiction, lying etc
They described the sentence in how it should be treated, what role it plays in our lives.
Once you've determined the role and the aims, you can determine how appropriately to use it.
The reason we have given that facts need to be accurate is because we use them in a way (e.g. technology) that requires accuracy.
So far this reason doesn't seem to apply to the beliefs of the liberal theist because they don't seem to apply beliefs in this way.

Why?

And what would be wrong with that?

Again, why?

The problem with "by definition" arguments is that definitions themselves are justified by practical reason.
You're probably familiar with ontological arguments?
It's where theists try and use definitions of God to deductively prove that he therefore exists.
Sometimes their argument is a non-sequitur but other times it's that their definition of God is worthless.

This means that you can't appeal to a definition of "fact" to sidestep my demands for practical reasons.
This is because any definition of fact will also be justified by practical reason so such a sidestep shouldn't be necessary, otherwise that indicates that the definition you're using is flawed and irrelevant.

When I suggested that your requirement for accuracy was an ideology/dogma you used medicine as a reason for why we needed this accuracy.
You're right, religion does not make medical claims.

I think there is a difference.
You're right in that they'd both be miracles/supernatural events with no evidence to back them up, but creationism flies in the face of science a bit more than the resurrection does.
The resurrection merely requires that a one-off event didn't follow the usual laws of nature.
Creationism requires not only this, but God went out of his way creating fossils, moving light waves depicting galaxies, human artifacts over 6000 years old etc...
Creationism/Intelligent design as in "God set things in motion with the big bang" is a lot more acceptable.
Still unsupported but without flying in the face of scientific evidence.

Lol! I should probably find something better to do with my life.
I swear that my obsession with silly issues like this is why I don't have a girlfriend...

I didn't need to.
I wasn't arguing that it was true, just that it didn't contradict scientific fact.
Unless it's scientifically proved that the laws of nature can never be broken then miracles are unsupported rather than contradicted.
Yes, science has proved that the laws of nature don't allow resurrections but there's no proof that such laws are never ever broken.
That's why doctrines such as the virgin birth and resurrection have to be seen as miracles.
They are like the flying spaghetti monster and celestial teapot - unsupported but not dis-proven.

If there's positive practical reason to do action B (e.g. believe in X) and no negative reason against it then the reason adds up positive.
You're right that if there are reasons not to believe then it's not plain sailing.
Is lack of evidence a reason not to believe?
This is where I ask you why we need evidence/accuracy in the first place.
You'll bring up examples such as technology or medicine, and then I'll say "Fair enough, but what about 'beliefs' that have no such application?"

Your admiration for science has caused you to forget that 'belief' is a human activity with human reasons behind it.
There's a time and place for scientific rigidity and accuracy.
Such a time and place needs to be justified by practical reason, otherwise we're talking about some kind of idealistic ideology that has forgotten the real world that originally gave it relevance.

 

Basically, Strafio is saying that moderates/liberal theists do not treat their religious factual claims as they treat other factual claims, and as such, we should not insist that the claims be met with critical scrutiny. Whether it is true or not that they hold their religious factual claims different to other factual claims is an irrelevant issue here. Strafio seems to agree that they do purely on the basis on behaviour. Moderates and liberal theists will often treat their religious beliefs differently to how they treat other factual claims, I agree, however, as I've stated, the relationship between belief and behaviour is very complex subject, and generalities aside, I don't think Strafio can make reliable conclusions about how or what theists believe from behaviour alone. Take my original example: a moderate and a fundamentalist Christian both hold exactly the same beliefs regarding the resurrection of Jesus, and I'm sure they share many other beliefs, and yet the behavioural difference will be quite distinct. Conversely, two people may hold different beliefs and yet behave similarly. I'm sure some religious beliefs can lead to more reliable generalities than other, but even then it will be a complex issue.

In any case, I say that is all irrelevant because I am saying that regardless of what or how the theists treat or use their religious beliefs/claims, they are still factual claims.

So the question is: is there any situation when factual claims do not need to be justified?

I say there isn't. I think that once you start to make claims about reality... factual claim, historical claims, truth claims, then you automatically submit that claim to be assessed for validity by virtue of the fact you've made a claim about reality.

If, however, it should be the case that we should only critically assess factual claims based on how the claim is used, then by what criteria do we play by, and who decides? When does a religious factual claim become eligible for critical scrutiny? Do we need a majority of theists to hold the claim in a way that makes it eligible, or does a single theist make it eligible? Since religious beliefs are so disperse, I'm sure there are theists out there that hold every theistic claim in a way that makes it eligible, in which case this entire argument is merely academic.

Either claims about reality must by definition be scrutinised, as I think they should, or they shouldn't. If you're going to claim they shouldn't then the above questions need to be answered.

 

Welcome back Timmy.
Kudos for keeping up as well as you did.
Our debates tend to wind upwards, downwards, tangent leftways, rightways...
I'm quite amazed that anyone even bothers to try and keep up!!

Close. My more specific wording would be as follows:

1) Our rules for treating facts/fictions/jokes/lies are ultimately based on the role these play in our lives.
2) Facts require strict rational justification because of the role they play in our lives - we depend on their accuracy because of the way we make use of them.
3) Religious beliefs play a different role and therefore need to be evaluated accordingly, based on this role.
4) The applications we make use of fact, e.g. technology, aren't ways that we treat faith, so faith need not require the same strictness of facts.

I think my re-wording answers this complaint.
Religious beliefs are no longer a form of scientific claims and treating them different requires no intellectual dishonesty.
We recognise they are religious claims and not scientifically validated and treat them accordingly.
Modern liberal believers have no difficulty at all putting a clear distinction between solid facts and articles of faith.

As it happens, liberal believers don't take the Bible as having a code imposed upon them.
Their moral debates are as secular as the atheists.
They would only use Biblical passages as we would - if we found one that we thought made a good point for secular reasons.
For liberal believers, the Bible isn't a perfect book of commands that sets out strict rules to be followed.
It is a collection of writings over time by people who have tried to understand God.
Simple people got simple pragmatic teachings which made a good rule of thumb.
The teachings changed as people got more complex.

Anyway, here's not the place for me to present a liberal theology.
There's many different theologies out there.
You seem to make use of specific ones in your arguments, one that aren't universal to all Christianity but belong to the more extreme groups that are easier to criticise.
I don't think it's right to make use of them when making claims about all Christianity. (Let alone all religion!!)

IF. Lucky for liberals, they don't!

I agree.
Part of my defence for moderate/liberal religion is that they treat faith in a way that will not get in the way of truth.
Religion is always to be interpreted in terms of factual knowledge rather than the other way around.
This means that their faith will not be destructive.

Perhaps there's an argument against this, that in theory believers can separate faith from fact, but in practice that being happy with faith will give them less incentive to find out fact.
Maybe while my parents are very rational with a good background and interest in science, maybe their knowledge would be even better had religion not held them back.
That said, such an argument would need to provide evidence that religion really does have this effect on people.
This topic isn't supposed to defend religion altogether, just say that "it's not scientific" isn't sufficient criticism and that the criticism needs to have a practical dimension, taking into account the role it plays in people's lives.

Yeah. Both styles of answer have their strengths and weaknesses.
Taking tit for tat allows us to answer directly what's on our mind, which is good for the creativity and fresh thoughts, but it doesn't always present the clearest, most coherent arguments.
Sometimes we have to stop quoting points and re-lay our argument out.
I probably should have done that in the last post, but I'll probably do it in the next.

 

I know this is what makes you think I'm committing the "no true scotsman fallacy" but the truth is that even liberal, moderate Christians DO treat certain propositions of the Bible as fact. Basically, you seem to be trying to blur the distinction between religion and secular moral philosophy. If they were simply scanning the Bible for passages that made a good, logical, secular point, then they would not be treating it as religion at all - just secular moral philosophy. I am a fan of "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill in this area but I don't say that I have "faith" in it. I feel that Aesop's fables, such as "the Hare and the Tortoise", can have a good moral message but that doesn't mean I have "faith" in those tales. And it's because moderate Christians do treat some propositions of the Bible as fact that 1) these propositions really should be subject to scientific sctutiny and 2) it is inconsistent for them to ignore the passages they dislike.

It's also worth noting that the divide between religious moderation and extremism is not clear-cut. The guy who was recently asked to step down as the head of the Royal Society (whose name escapes me, someone remind me? ) was a religious moderate; instead of denouncing evolution, he advocated teaching creationism in science lessons as a valid alternative view.

 

Can you answer the following questions from my last post. They are really the only relevant issue here:

If it should be the case that we should only critically assess factual claims based on how the claim is used, then by what criteria do we play by, and who decides? When does a religious factual claim become eligible for critical scrutiny? Do we need a majority of theists to hold the claim in a way that makes it eligible, or does a single theist make it eligible? Since religious beliefs are so disperse, I'm sure there are theists out there that hold every theistic claim in a way that makes it eligible, in which case this entire argument is merely academic.

Either claims about reality must by definition be scrutinised, as I think they should, or they shouldn't. If you're going to claim they shouldn't then the above questions need to be answered.

 

Sure. I was just waiting to see if you had any comments on my other post before I started on them.
If that's all you want to ask for now then I'll go right ahead.

I don't hold that it should be free from critical scrutiny.
We should still acknowledge whether it's a matter of faith or whether it's proved/justified.
What I'm saying is that it's okay to have faith beliefs so long as you recognise that they are faith and don't try and make more out of them than they are.
The usual rule of thumb is that it's okay to have personal faith but there's certain issues where it has no place.

I give them two possibilities.
Either acknowledge that it's faith or if they are claiming that it's "proved" fact then they need to provide justification and then the normal rules of scientific scrutiny apply.
From there, if the belief is faith then it must be appropriately treated like faith.
This means there are a multitude of ways we should dis-allow them from using it.
E.g. to object to stem cell research or to have it taught authoritatively in classrooms
Only proved facts should be treated and applied like proved facts.

The liberal theist ought to have little problem with this, as for them faith tends to be a wonderous and complex thing that they cannot treat as certain knowledge, that faith plays a more personal part in their life.
Such a rule on "faith use" would block pretty much every illegitimate use of faith out there.
I'd be interested to see if you could find an example of "faith abuse" that could do so while still complying with this rule.

(I won't be surprised if you do manage to find an example - I'm not expecting this to be a single "solve everything on its own" rule but I think it would rule out most of the problems)

 

By critical scrutiny I mean to determine whether the claims are justified. Since these religious claims are claims about reality; factual claims about the world, then the method we must turn to is science, because science is what we use to examine such claims. So, with that clarification, when does a religious factual claim become eligible for critical--scientific--scrutiny?

I expect you to say they become eligible if and when they are treated in a literal/factual way. Now we can debate all day as to whether moderates and liberal theists do this (I think for certain belief, many of them do), however what is undeniable is that fundamentalists DO treat such beliefs in a literal/factual way, so unfortunately for your position almost all religious beliefs become eligible for critical/scientific assessment via the fundamentalists.

Next, you say "We should still acknowledge whether it's a matter of faith or whether it's proved/justified" as if faith-based beliefs/claims do not have to be justified. The fact it is accepted on faith (without evidence) does not mean it doesn't have to be justified; it does not mean it is not a factual claim. We can acknowledge that it is held on faith and then still insist on some justification. Furthermore, the fact is may be 'personal' does not mean we should just let unjustified claims go. Why? Because these moderate/liberal theists, regardless of what or how they believe, still propagate the idea that faith is a virtue, that it is a good thing to believe with evidence. That is a dangerous idea, firstly because it gives strength to the fundamentalists who are also rooted in faith-based thinking, and secondly because they teach this so-called virtue to children.

You say theists should "Either acknowledge that it's faith or if they are claiming that it's "proved" fact then they need to provide justification and then the normal rules of scientific scrutiny apply."

Well, most theists, including moderates, WILL make such factual claims. For some reason you don't realise this. I think you have such an idealised view of liberal theists that you no longer see just how many non-fundamentalist theists do hold beliefs in that way. Most DO consider it a fact that god exists; they DO consider it a fact that Jesus is the son of god; and they DO consider the resurrection of Jesus to be fact. And there are many other beliefs that fit the bill. Sure, they will not be as crazy as the fundamentalists; as I said a few posts back, their beliefs will be far more socially acceptable, but that does not mean they do not hold those socially acceptable beliefs to be factual. Your claimed justification for the view that moderates and liberal theists do not treat their beliefs to be factual is their behaviour in comparison to fundamentalists, but as we've been discussing, the fact there behaviour is different does not mean they do not hold their beliefs to be factual, it just means they respond differently to them, which could be for many reasons.

I think your focusing so much on those few select theists that don't treat their beliefs in a way that makes them eligible for scientific scrutiny that you miss the majority that do. Furthermore, you seem to ignore that fact that almost all religious beliefs will be eligible for scientific assessment because collectively all religious claims will be treated by SOME theists in a way that makes them eligible.

To review:

1. Religious beliefs must be scientifically assessed because there are theists out there that make the claims eligible.

2. The fact the beliefs are accepted on faith does not mean they are not held to be factual. They are not mutually exclusive.

3. The fact the beliefs may be personal is irrelevant, because holding faith to be a virtue is itself a problem.

 

Not at all. I still think they believe their religion to be true, just not proved or certain.
That's the difference between believing it true and holding it as a fact.

I've already told you that they don't ignore it.
I still recommend the following books:
One on the Old Testament and one on the New Testament. (They're both cheap second hand!!)
I understand that you have better things to do than to study moderate theologies, but you shouldn't be making claims about what they do and don't until you have.
I promise you that they're both an easy read and you'd be able to plow through them in a couple of days.
If you made criticisms on the theology in these books, having actually read them, then I'd find that a lot more persuasive.

 

Fair enough.
I agreed from the start that all religious claims can be put under scrutiny, just as all jokes, lies and fictional stories can be.
From here we use the scientific method to find out whether these jokes, stories and faith beliefs have a scientific justification too.
If so, we can treat them as proven fact.
If not, they remain mere stories/jokes/faith and must be treated as such.

I think that the word "fact" is muddying the waters of this argument, mostly because we can't agree on a clear definition.
Besides, my positive case for the "a-rationality" of faith didn't make use of word.
It simply pointed out what kind of beliefs required justification - ones that we then use in such a way that we depend upon the accuracy.
I pointed out that so long as the believer recognised that "faith beliefs" could not be applied in this way then the need for justification also didn't apply.
Liberals tend to meet this specification.

I agree that they consider it true but not factual.
Factual implies proof. Faith means they believe for different reasons.
If they say it's a fact then demand evidence as we do for fact.
If they then say it's faith then follow up with "Fine, but it's not proved fact then."
To be honest, even though I think you're wrong about what theists believe, it's not something I care to argue about.
Even if I was wrong, here was what I was trying to defend:
An idealised faith based theism is not irrational.
That means faith in God can potentially be a-rational, and that they can hold this a-rationality for rational reasons.
(e.g. thinking this way has made me a better, happier person)

It wouldn't surprise me if no theist out there had a perfectly ideal faith.
Why? For the same reason that scientists don't have all perfectly rational beliefs either.
We're all human beings and none of us are perfect.
We all hold beliefs that are wrong/irrational, sometimes even ones we consider to be proved concretely.
What I am trying to defend here is that faith/religion can be a good thing when done right.

If I could establish that, I would suggest that rather make sweeping attacks on religion as a whole that we attack misuse of religion instead.
1) This would prevent us fallaciously attacking valid religious practices
After all, we want to limit our attacks to negative things if possible.
2) This would be a lot more effective attack on fundamentalism/bad religion
If my claim about "ideal faith" is correct then sweeping attacks on religion attack a good thing, and many people notice this.
They instantly see a flaw in such attacks and take them less seriously.
They end up fighting back against the attack rather than helping deal with fundamentalism.
If the attacks were primed to purely attack fundamentalism then everyone would be on board and there would be fewer objections.
Fundamentalism would no longer be able to hide behind liberalism because the attacks would be designed to target it directly.
It's only attacks on faith as a whole that allow fundamentalists to hide behind liberals/moderates.



To sum up:
Let's settle the argument on this idealised version of faith.
If, hypothetically, someone treated faith as I envision, would you still have objections?
Once we've settled the idealised sterilised version, we'll try dipping it into some real world and see what happens from there.


If I was to hold your points Vs the ILT (Idealised Liberal Theist)

1) The ILT accepts the scientific assessment and accept that these religious claims aren't scientifically justified.
Accordingly they treat them as matters of faith.

2) The ILT doesn't treat the beliefs as factual.
Factual implies proof and certainty and the ILT knows better than to treat matters of faith this way.
If they had proof/certainty then they wouldn't need faith.

3) For the ILT, faith can actually be a virtue.
For starters, they do not treat faith in a way that makes it a vice so it's at the worst neutral.
To tip the balance in favour of neutral, the kind of beliefs they put their faith in cause a powerful psychological effect on their mind that enhance their other virtues in life.
They act with fearlessness and selflessness combined with a zest for life that inspire admiration to all they meet.
(When I say "selflessness" I mean a psychological selflessness in that they are not thinking about themselves. They are still doing what's in their best interested from an "enlightened selfishness" point of view.)

 

It doesn't matter. If they claim it is true OR a fact (I don't see a difference) then they automatically submit it to be critically/scientifically assessed. Facts are by definition true. And to say something is true is to imply that it is a fact. Even if we were to agree to a distinction between truth and fact, both are still assertions about the state of reality, the objective world.

I really don't see how you can escape this.

- I say all truth/fact claims should be critically/scientifically assessed.
- You say they should only be critically/scientifically assessed if they are treated in a factual way. Fine. But at the end of the day ALL theistic beliefs/claims are treated in a factual way, mainly by fundamentalists, but the net effect is all the beliefs and claims become eligible for such scrutiny.

The only way to argue against this is to deny that ANY type of theist treats a given belief in a factual way. Only then would that belief truly be free from that assessment. Unless you can do that, there will always be some theist out there who makes the belief eligible.

Errrr, yes they do! Are you are saying that they don't ignore the command to kill disobedient children, to kill homosexuals, to kill adulterers, etc?!

 

You're still treating faith-based thinking as if it is mutually exclusive to truth or fact claims! Theists DO hold truth and fact claims on faith (i.e. without evidence). What is it about that that you cannot comprehend? The fact the believer may acknowledge their belief is faith does not in any way mean they are not held to be true or fact.

Regarding facts. The point is not whether they are proven facts, it is that they are CLAIMED to be fact. Whether they are proven to be so is irrelevant. It is the claim that they are factual which is the issue. That being said however, most believers will think there is proof. They will cite the Bible as proof, they will cite anecdotes as proof, etc.

You say "faith means they believe for different reasons" (such as?) What faith means is that they believe without evidence. To the theist faith gives them a warrant to believe in things without evidence that would otherwise demand evidence. This is no justification in any sense of the word. As I said above however, if you ask them why they believe, if you ask them what they consider to be proof, they will cite the Bible and anecdotes, and yes, even moderates do this.

When a theists says X is true, should we not question them? "How do you know it is true?" "What evidence do you have?" "What about this disconfirming evidence?"

Regarding how we should criticise religion. I'm not just going to criticise the 'misuses' of religion because I consider the so-called 'correct use' of religion to be just as bad, because the problem I have is with faith-based thinking, and that applies to ALL types of religion. I think "valid religious practices" is an oxymoron. No religion is valid because all religion is without evidence for its fundamental claims. The problem with your approach is that by only criticising fundamentalism you give unjustifiable credence to non-fundamentalist religion; you give the impression that the moderates somehow have it right, when the fact remains they too rely on faith-based thinking, and it is that foundation which is the very problem!

Your claim that attacking faith-based thinking as a whole allows fundamentalists to hind behind moderatism is ridiculous! It is your approach that props up fundamentalism for the reason I just outlined: by giving moderatism credence you intentionally or unintentionally make faith a virtue, which in turn means it becomes socially unacceptable to criticise faith-based thinking, and it is this inability to criticise this flawed methodology which allows the fundamentalists to flourish.

So to sum up, yes, I would still have objections with your idea of faith, because regardless of how it is treated, it is STILL faith.


I think your answers to my 3 'review' points were not sufficient.

#1 simply ignored the question outright. You specifically claimed that we are justified in scientifically/critically assessing religious claims if they are treated in a factual way. My response to that was there will be theists out there, mostly fundamentalists but theists nonetheless who DO treat the beliefs like that, and by doing so they make them eligible for that assessment. The end result is that all theistic beliefs meet your own criteria for scientific/critical assessment!

#2 is simply ignores what moderate theists themselves claim. Ask them if it is a fact that god exists; that Jesus is the son of god; that he resurrected, etc, and they will say yes. And remember, what matters here is not whether they are proven, but that they are CLAIMED to be factual. Even moderate express certainty when it comes to the elementary issues of their religion, after all, if you get a theist expressing uncertainty about the existence of god then they're not a theist, but an 'agnostic'!

#3 Yes they may consider it to be a virtue, but the question is whether it actually is. Even if it only causes good to them personally, we must consider the wider social implications of maintaining and propagating the notion that faith-based thinking is a virtue, and when put into that wider context, it is surely far more problematic than beneficial. You have to stop looking at religion and faith-based thinking from a select few individual liberal theists (who will most likely provide positive conclusions about faith) and start looking at the wider ramifications. Even if it is true that faith can be very beneficial for certain theists, it does not mean it is good thing overall, indeed I suspect there are individual benefits, but I think the over all effect is not valuable. (We should also point out the pragmatic value of religion is a different matter entirely to whether it is true.)

 

The thread has gotten messy again so I've decided to clean things up by presenting my argument from scratch.

Before I do, I just want to make a note of 3 things:
1) The question of "what theists in the real world do" is a different topic for now.
We both still have a different idea about the attitudes of the majority of theists. Even though I still think you're wrong (and you think I'm wrong) I don't really care any more. It has no relevance to my aims in this debate.
I just want to show that faith can potentially be a virtue and religion can be arational.
Even if it was an idealized version that didn't exist in the real world, that's all I want to argue for right now.
If I establish it maybe I'll try and build on it, but for now that's all.
So I will not make any more claims in this topic over what theists believe and won't respond to the ones that you make.

2) The word "fact" is muddying the waters so I'm leaving it out of the argument.
It's my fault. I brought the word in to try and make a distinction but it didn't work. You win some you lose some.
In the meantime we have a word that we both keep disagreeing over the meaning, I suspect that we don't have a fixed definition on it and I think it's muddying the water and causing confusion.
So from now on I'm going to word my position without making use of that concept - it's more trouble than it's worth.

3) Faith doesn't mean anything goes
I don't think that your "belief without evidence" definition of faith is sufficient.
I'll agree that it involves belief without evidence, but that doesn't tell the whole story.
There are still rules as to what and what's not allowed.
Various different theists will have their own rules
e.g. "you have to have faith in this doctrine and not that one"
but I think that the overriding one that comes in all versions of faith is that religious faith is supposed to lead to virtuous behaviour.
If you point out a case where faith seemed to cause a bad incident they will either defend in the incident or claim that the perpetrators didn't have "true faith".
My point being is that "true faith" (which basically means "ideal faith") must lead to virtuous behaviour.
That's why modern Christians condemn the Spanish Inquisition as following cruel dogmas rather than being close to God.
Would you agree that this rule of "must lead to virtuous behaviour", along with "belief without evidence" is part of the common conception of "true/ideal faith"?
After all, if it leads to vice they deny it being "true faith", right?

So if this "true faith" was possible (i.e. a set of faith-based beliefs that caused virtue and no vice in a person) then surely it would be a virtue?
(Remember I said if - you don't have to agree that such an ideal faith is possible.)



Anyway, I'm now going to try and define and defend such an "Ideal Faith" from a perspective of practical reason.

Defining "Proved belief" and "Faith Belief"
My argument starts with the linguistic premise that the word belief, like most words in the English language, has a certain amount of ambiguity .
Various related mental states come under the word, each with their own subtle differences.
I'm going to make a distinction between two types:
"Proved belief" where we consider a belief to be proved/certain and can rely on it.
"Faith belief" where the belief has a religious significance.
In both cases they consider the proposition to be "true" or "really happens", but one they mark as proved/certain and the other they mark as faith.
They do not have to be either/or - it is possible for a person to consider a belief with religious significance proved or a proved belief to have religious significance.
All beliefs would be subject to scientific scrutiny - it would determine which beliefs could be treated as proved and which ones shouldn't.

Argument that Ideal Faith would be harmless
Earlier we agreed that the reason why we need beliefs to be accurate is because we apply them in situations where we need such accuracy.
E.g. for justice to be done we need to know for sure the truth of what happened, for medical problems we need to be as certain as possible on how the body works etc.
For such situations, only "proved beliefs" should be used, whether they do or don't have religious significance.
A "faith belief" should not be used unless it is also proved, and faith should not be considered proof.

The practical reason you gave for belief being accurate was that we required accurate information for certain activities.
The ideal theist, therefore, should follow the following rules:
1) These activities should only make use of "proved beliefs"
2) Faith does not imply proof/certainty.
Should they follow these rules they meet the requirements set down by your practical reasoning.
This would mean that the "belief without evidence" part of faith would be harmless, so long as these rules were followed.
Do you agree that faith would be atleast harmless if these rules were followed by everyone who had faith?
That ideal faith in an ideal world would be harmless?


How Ideal Faith could be virtuous
For faith to not only be harmless but beneficial, consider the following examples:

Premise 1) If I give to charity then God will be pleased with me and reward me in the afterlife
Premise 2) I want God to be pleased with me and reward me
Conclusion) Therefore I should give to charity
This argument is to be rejected.
It is using Premise 1, a faith belief, as a certainty about the world they we can rely and act upon.
It is unsound until Premise 1 has been justified/proven.

The ideal theist would do something more like:
Premise 1) Giving to charity is good because [insert secular moral reasons here]
Premise 2) Having faith that God is pleased with charity and rewards it encourages and supports my acting on it
Conclusion) Having faith in God being please and rewarding charity will encourage and support my morality.

Would you accept this argument as valid?
If so, wouldn't it demonstrate that faith can potentially be beneficial and lead to virtue?
If so, combined with its harmlessness as argued for above, wouldn't it be a virtue?
So long as it was done properly?

 

Well from the very start you create a problem by ignoring the real world of theism. Even if it were possible to come up with a actual virtuous version of faith-based thinking (which I doubt) it would most likely be completely irrelevant to the real world, where faith is a problem. Anyway, as you say this is just theoretical, so lets run with that.

Regarding the supposed rules about faith. I agree that theists will invent rules (which usually derive from their particular brand of theism, and therefore only support that brand of theism), however I reject that these rules are in any way inherent to the concept of faith. By definition, once evidence becomes irrelevant for faith-based thinking, you essentially allow for any possibility. Any beliefs are therefore theoretically possible. You will also likely find that theists freely alter these apparent rules to suite their own need, should they feel it necessary. So what you have is theists working backwards: the 'rules' are defined by the theology, not the theology being defined by the rules.

As for the idea that "true faith" must lead to virtuous behaviour, I think you will find that all theists *believe* their behaviour is virtuous, even the extremists, so that 'rule' doesn't really reveal anything surprising. A more appropriate question is whether that behaviour IS virtuous, but since faith-based thinking by its very nature does not feature any evidence/empirical testing, it is a question that faith is incapable of answering. In any case, determining whether it actually is virtuous is largely irrelevant because the ultimate problem with faith is not what it may or may not lead to (although that is important), it is very 'methodology' itself. Even if we could ensure only good outcomes, it would not make it any more justified. I would not be virtuous simply because it may theoretically lead to positive outcomes because the methodology itself inherently tarnishes it. You need to separate any pragmatic value of the beliefs from the [so far non-existent] empirical justification. When dealing with truth claims, the need for empirical justification trumps pragmatic value.

You mention modern liberal/moderate Christianity shunning the bad stuff from the past. I agree, and I see that as it loosing credibility. It is a concession that secular/scientific values were an significant improvement to all areas of life. See Richard Carrier's argument for more (Here's a smaller file: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/111064/RichardCarrier-PZMyers2.mp3 119 MB).

Your distinction between "proved beliefs" and "faith beliefs" is problematic. The fact one is marked 'as proved/certain' and the other is marked as faith does not remove the requirement for justification. As you say, "in both cases they consider the proposition to be "true" or "really happens"" and once you declare your belief to be true/historical, you automatically submit it for empirical justification. That's just the way things go with truth/historical claims, and the fact it is religious does not in any way exempt it.

You say they should be subjected to scientific scrutiny to determine which beliefs should be treated as proved and which ones shouldn't. I presume by this you mean they should be empirically tested to see if they are justified? What happens to the unjustified claims; the claims that lack evidence? Do you think the theists can continue to believe in them simply because they call it faith? You argument is flawed because, and correct me if I am wrong, under your system, unjustified beliefs that happen to fall under the rubric of faith can continue be held by theists without issue. However, once it has been established that the claim lacks evidence the theists has no right to declare it to be true, regardless of it being labelled faith.

As for the harm of faith. It has, in my view, problems on two fronts: Firstly, it is used to make truth claims (e.g. having faith that X is true), however as I said, once you declare something to be true you become liable to justify the claim. Truth claims must be justified, regardless of the use of the claim. Calling it faith doesn't exempt it. Secondly, it holds faith (belief without evidence, or worse, belief contrary to evidence) to be a virtue. Even if the way a theist treats their beliefs doesn't have a direct negative impact; if they don't announce it is true/fact, it still has a wider impact by shielding criticism of the method faith itself; it becomes harder to criticise the worse kind of faith-based thinking because the moderates make it harder to do so.

No, because premise two and the conclusion are superfluous. If they have already given secular reasoning, and that is the basis for their acting, then any beliefs they have about god is simply irrelevant. Clearly any benefit--giving to charity--was the result of secular morality, not religious faith.

I don't even see how it is an argument. It's just two unrelated statements, with the second one repeated as the conclusion. It's seems premise one is the actual reason for giving to charity, and yet you snuck in religion and made that the conclusion. More appropriately it should be:

Giving to charity is good because [insert secular moral reasons here]
Therefore I will give to charity for that reason.

 

I didn't think you'd find it controversial.
Being picky, theists don't tend to believe their behaviour is always virtuous.
They always have confessions about how they drifted from God and did bad things as a result.
But do you agree with the rule "True Faith causes virtue" as part of the common definition of faith?
Even if they are wrong about faith causing virtue, you agree that it's part of the common conception of "true faith" and that they'll denounce a faith as "false" if they think it causes vice?

Fair enough. But this does leave you with a question to answer.
Earlier in the thread I suggested that the way you treated claims/truth might be an idealistic dogma that's disconnected from the real world that we live in.
I said that if it wasn't an ideology then you would have justification from practical reason.
The justification you gave back then was how we required accurate information for activities such as technology, medicine, etc.
My new position meets this requirement - only "proved belief" can be used for such activities where we need such accurate information.

This means that your treatment of "claims" is stricter than your justification of this treatment demands.
So is this stricter treatment justified or is it some cloud cuckoo land ideal that's been divorced from the real world the rest of us live in?

Okay... so your concern here is that even if the Ideal Theist has a harmless faith, it might encourage less harmless faiths.
We might have to come back to this later when we get back on to what people really believe rather than talking about just "ideal faith".
In the meantime, in the idealistic world where everyone who has faith treats it in an ideal world, this isn't a problem, right?
So we'll just put this question aside for now until the topic moves back into the real world.

You seem to miss the distinction between rational justification and psychological motivation.
There's all sorts of things that, through my reasoning, I know I should do.
I know I should get more exercise, I know I should get out more, I know I should put time in developing skills like cooking and playing the bass guitar.
I know that in time I'll regret not having done these.
That said, what I know I rationally ought to do and what I am naturally motivated to do are two very different things.
Humans are far from rational beings.
Smokers hear from every angle how disgusting their habit is and how bad it is for their health.
The rational argument against smoking is unbeatable.
Yet it still takes an incredible amount of will power to break the habit.

Fact is, rationally justifying an action does not mean you are motivated to do it.
Premise 1 declared that giving to charity was rationally justified and that I ought to do it.
Premise 2 claimed that faith in the belief "God is pleased with my giving to charity" has a psychological effect that motivates me to achieve giving to charity.
So if I aim to give to charity then faith in that belief will help me towards this aim.

The argument can be generalised as follows:
Premise 1) For rational reasons I aim to X
Premise 2) Having faith in belief Y has a psychological effect that helps me achieve X
Conclusion) I would therefore benefit from having faith in Y as that would help me achieve aim X

 

I agree that theists will often say they have drifted away from god, but that aside, the point is theists will tend to believe that if they follow their particular faith-based beliefs then the result will be virtuous behaviour, however, theists will often hold contradictory faith-based beliefs, which would suggest contradictory behaviour, so the fact they believe the behaviour is virtuous doesn't mean it actually is virtuous. How do you determine whether the faith is virtuous? You cannot just look at the behaviour, for a moderate Muslim and a moderate Christian may both behave in a similar way but obviously not share the same beliefs, indeed they may hold contradictory beliefs, so behaviour in not necessarily an indicator of belief, much less an indicator of whether the belief is virtuous.

I don't agree "true faith" is virtuous or causes virtue because, as I said in my last post, even if it can be assured the resulting behaviour is virtuous, the underlining methodology is certainly not virtuous, and since the most important aspect of truth claims is the epistemological methodology, not any pragmatic value it may have, the result does not render faith a virtue.

Regarding how we should treat truth/historical/factual claims. I only mentioned technology and medicine as a way to get the individual to realise why faith-based claims about truth/fact should not be exempt from examination. It was only an example that will more likely hit home than a purely abstract reason. The actual reason however is that all truth/historical/factual claims must be assessed because they are objective claims about reality. There is no epistemological distinction between faith-based claims about truth/fact and any other claims about truth/fact. The claims themselves are equivalent; how the claim is treated does not change the content of the claim itself, so the fact it is called faith is ultimately irrelevant. That being said, I would contend that theists do treat their beliefs in a way that have an influence in their lives, even if it is not regarding medicine or technology, it still impacts behaviour to some degree. (You yourself provide an argument supporting this later...!)


You keep asking me if I have a problem with this idealistic faith. Let me sum up: I have a problem with anything which makes a virtue of holding beliefs without, or contrary to evidence. This is what faith is inherently about, so regardless of how you present faith, it still contains this fundamental problem.


Regarding justification and motivation. Either they are motivated by secular reasoning (e.g. the thought of helping others), or they are motivated by religion/god. Their rational justification is irrelevant here since what matters is why they behaved the way they did, not how they justified that behaviour. If they are motivated for secular reasons, but for some reason give a religious justification, then ultimately they are behaving for secular reasons. If however they are motivated by a belief in god, but they give a secular justification, then ultimately they are behaving for religious reasons, and this would be a perfect example of how faith-based belief does influence the moderate/liberal theists behaviour.

So you're admitting that faith-based beliefs have a psychological effect, and therefore DO influence behaviour.

(As a side note, rather than say: "okay yeah have faith to achieve that goal" we should instead give them non faith-based reasons for doing and achieving the same outcome, i.e. it is far more moral give to charity for the sake of giving to others rather than because you think it would please god.)


I wonder if you can respond to this bit from my previous post:

What should happen to the claims which have been established to lack evidence? Do you think the theists is justified to continue to believe it?

 

Admitting? That makes it sound like I wanted to deny it?
Maybe I didn't make myself clear earlier on.
I was trying to say that faith didn't affect their rational decisions.
They will only use "proved beliefs" as premises for practical reasoning.

e.g. The fundamentalist might practical reason as follows:
Premise 1) If I give to charity then God will be pleased with me and reward me in the afterlife
Premise 2) I want God to be pleased with me and reward me
Conclusion) Therefore I should give to charity
But the Ideal Theist will reject this as Premise 1 is not a proved belief and therefore shouldn't be used as a premise in practical reason.
They would need secular reasoning to conclude that they ought to give to charity.
Where faith would come in would be after this conclusion:

Premise 1) I aim to give to charity because [insert secular moral reasons here]
Premise 2) Having faith that God is pleased with charity and rewards it gives psychological encouragement and helps me achieve this aim.
Conclusion) Having faith in God being pleased and rewarding charity will help me achieve my aim of giving to charity.

Would the bit in bold have the same psychological power to motivate?
If not, that's why we don't use just use it instead.
But pedantry aside, maybe there are even better motivating beliefs out there that don't involve God.
I just want to make 2 points though:
1) What would be most important would be the motivating psychological effect of these points. Factual accuracy isn't important in this context. Factual accuracy of a psychological motivator would be a happy coincidence.
2) Even if there are better motivating beliefs, that would still make the Ideal Theist's faith a virtue - there would just be even more virtuous alternatives.

My point was that if a theist feels that their faith isn't causing virtue then it isn't "true faith".
That is, faith isn't "anything goes" - it has to "work" and improve them in some way if they are going to stick with it.
If faith isn't working for a person, they tend to either lose it or change it to match a person who does seem to have gained virtue from their faith.

So how does this give the Ideal Theist a methodology in what can be believed on faith?
Firstly we determine what virtues that faith ought to enhance through secular reason.
Then it's a matter of whether belief X will have a positive psychological effect that enhances the believer's aim to achieve virtue Y.
So there we have the methodology:
Secular reasoning to determine the virtues and psychological investigation to judge whether the "faith" encourages virtue or discourages it.
With "Ideal Faith", it's not an "anything goes" with no methodology.
There's a rational method, it just has a different aim than the factual accuracy of the belief.

I also believe that fundamentalists have the same ideals behind their faith but their methodology isn't as good as accurately determining virtue and/or psychological effects.
Their flawed reasoning leads them to come up with some weird ideas for virtue and psychology.
Moderates are less flawed, liberals even less so, and the "Ideal Theist" is absolutely perfect!! :Angel:

This doesn't give a practical reason.
You are demanding that people use concepts like "objective claims about reality" and treat them with strict rules but you are giving no rational justification why they ought to.
It's just an ideological dogma.
Is there any negative consequences to people treating belief like I described?
If not, why shouldn't they do it?
When you call a belief "irrational", does that merely mean that the believer doesn't use the strict conceptual framework that you provide no justification for using?
If that's all it means, why should someone care if you consider them "irrational"?

Yep. And I agree that if I am to defend Ideal Theism, I need to show that this influence is positive rather than negative.

Okay. Is this your only objection then?
If so, the main point of this topic has become whether you can justify the bit in bold on practical reason.

 

Sure. I only cut it out because I thought it had been covered by my answer to the paragraph above it.
I claimed that your objection is based on premises you hadn't justified.
You made practical claims on how we should treat beliefs but did not provide a practical reason on why we should treat them this way.

So long as it clear that only "proved beliefs" can be used as premises in rational arguments/decisions then can you give a good reason why not?

The bit in bold is the practical claim that's awaiting practical justification.


To review the post:
In the first half I tried to show how "Ideal Faith" could be a virtue.
I tried to show:
1) The Ideal Theists knows to only use "proved beliefs" as premises in rational arguments decisions so "faith beliefs" will not pollute a person's rationality.
2) Ideal Faith is beneficial because of the psychological effect it has on a person.
It helps motivate them to carry out their aims.
(Aims which have been determined by secular reason)
3) Faith does have a rational methodology.
Virtues/aims must be determined by secular reason.
The psychological effect of faith beliefs can be monitored through psychological investigation.
This will ensure that faith beliefs do what they're supposed to - inspire virtue in a person.
4) I claimed that fundamentalists have the same ideals to their faith.
That is they encourage faith because they think it will lead to virtue.
If they find it doesn't, they ditch it or change it.
I said that their flaws were in their methodology and could be amended accordingly.

I think that was fairly uncontroversial.
The controversy was in the second half.
I said that you're making positive practical claims on how we should treat beliefs.
I've demanded you justify these claims with practical reason and if my alternative treatment of "beliefs" is unacceptable, that also needs to be argued for through practical reason.

 

I deny that it doesn't affect their rational decisions. It will still play some role, even if minor. Regardless, it still does have some affects on their behaviour, and you agree. If it has effects on their behaviour then it must be justified.

Most theists, including moderates and liberals, WILL believe that there is an afterlife, a certain criteria for getting in (even if it is just 'be good'), and therefore a given set of behaviour to get to the afterlife. So the belief in an afterlife will likely include desired behaviour.


Regarding:

i.e. it is far more moral give to charity for the sake of giving to others rather than because you think it would please god. --Me
Would the bit in bold have the same psychological power to motivate? --Srafio

I think it would have the same power to motivate since non-believers give to charity for precisely that reason. In any case, if morality is of any concern, then the god-based motivation should be rejected.


Regarding negative consequences to people treating belief like you described. The negative consequences is the propagation of faith as a virtue. It says it is a good thing to believe without evidence, or contrary to evidence. That can have the potential to lead to behaviour consequences.

You agree that there is an impact, only it must be a positive one. The problem is once you agree that the belief CAN impact behaviour, you must accept that it therefore has the potential to provide negative consequences, even if it is considered a misuse under your "ideal faith," the potential consequences remains. So the problem with propagating faith-based thinking as a virtue is you potentially allow for negative consequences, and that is one reason why we must ensure the claims are true.


Regarding "practical reasons" for my view that it is not a virtue to hold beliefs without or contrary to evidence. While there are practical reasons, as I've already outlined a while back, there doesn't need to be practical reasons (it can be justified for purely intellectual reason), because objective claims about reality require justification in of themselves. Why? Because regardless of how we treat our beliefs, we surely all desire to hold true beliefs about the world rather than false beliefs about the world, for no reason other than we want to know that our beliefs are true, not false. I think most rational, sane humans want this, and the only way to achieve that is though assessing and testing the claims.

I disagree with the claim that only proved beliefs can be used in an argument. It's true that only justified beliefs/propositions make a valid, sound argument, however that doesn't mean theists (or non-theists) do not do this. You might say your "ideal theist" won't do this but then your argument is completely worthless because it is devoid of any relevance in how theists actually DO behave and treat their beliefs. So what if you postulate a hypothetical perfect theist, what then? Please don't tell me your actually going to try and argue this supposed perfect theist is actually a representation of real theists?!!

 

Any claim that "X ought to Y" is answerable to practical reason.

Anyway, is your argument that people do want their beliefs to be true which is why they ought to justify such beliefs?
(That would count as a valid justification btw)
I think your arguments generally underestimate the complexity of human psychology.
Yeah, we generally want beliefs to be accurate/true but it's not our only value or priority.
When we're in the mood for accuracy we'll focus on accuracy.
At other times we'll focus on other things.
People often react demands for accuracy such as yours with an emotionally charged accusation of "scientism".
The reason for this emotional reaction is because they feel that you are trying to straight-jacket their otherwise free-flow of thoughts.
Let them be the judge of when they want to be accurate or when they want to be doing something else.
If for some instance you feel they need to focus on accuracy, I expect in that situation you'd have a reason why.
Otherwise let them be.

Another point I wanted to mention is that the word belief is very ambiguous.
There are many loosely-connected variations of mental state that come under the concept.
I tried to make a distinction between two by putting them in some kind of context.
"Faith beliefs" had a kind of religious significance.
"Proved beliefs" had a stigma of certainty attached to them.
Your argument seems to rely on an incredible over-simplification of human psychology.
You take belief to be a straight forward, strictly defined mental state.
Yes, it is based on a common usage but common usage allows for variations.
You seem to have taken one of these variations and made it the one.
When people use the word belief they're not always talking about the same thing that your arguments refer to.




Anyhow, we seem to have drifted into the realm of psychology where neither of us have any expertise.
If we were to debate this point any further I'd like to make the following suggestion:
So far you've attacked my positive argument with a counter positive argument.
The problem with that is that you then take on the full burden of proof with your counter.
See if you can find a problem with my argument on its own terms.
Is there a practical reason why people shouldn't treat "proved beliefs" and "faith beliefs" as I've described?
Perhaps you have a problem altogether with the concepts "proved belief" and "faith belief"?
(Although I thought I defined them quite coherently)

The other possibility is that we give this part of the argument a rest for now
Maybe we've heard enough from each other on this subject for now.
We need to take a step away and let it all sink in.
If so, I'd love to recommend you one of my favourite psychology books.
Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind looks into modes of thought that have been neglected in 20th century culture.
We have a focus on conscious, linguistic thought which has its uses but we often over-use it for tasks that it isn't suited for.
It's a good book. No wishy washy conjectures.
All his claims are backed up by experiments and there's even a chapter on how neuroscience supports his theories.
I want you to try it out, partly because it will help you understand the background to my objection to your demands for "all beliefs must be justified" and partly because it's just a fascinating subject.

I'll leave it to your reply whether you want to take this section of the argument any further.



I left out the rest of your points because they left the topic of the ideal theist and started bringing in real world concerns.
Does this mean that you're more or less out of objections against the ideal theist?

No.
I bet there are a fair few out there who are pretty close, but that's not my argument.
Instead I have different arguments that rely on the premise of Ideal Theism being a good thing.
I doubt that you're actually accepted that Ideal Theism is a positive thing.
Even if I have proved myself correct it'll take time for you to be certain that my argument is valid and there's nothing that we've both missed.
In the meantime, fancy taking the Premise "Ideal Theism/Faith is a good thing" hypothetically so you can see where I'm going with this?

Or we could stay on the debate over whether Ideal Theism/Faith can be virtuous.
I don't mind which but I only want to debate one at a time.

 

Sorry if you've answered these points already Strafio but as you may have heard I'm having difficulty accessing several pages of this thread

Your argument in this thread began as a defence of liberal moderate Christianity against the criticisms that Topher and I put forward. You now seem to be shifting the goalposts by trying to argue about whether or not your vision of "ideal theism" is a good idea. Topher is under no burden to prove that people shouldn't treat religious claims in the "ideal theist" way, because your ideal theism simply isn't what liberal moderate Christians really believe.

Religion has existed for thousands of years. People have not been stoned to death, burned at the stake or massacred in open warfare during this time because they regarded the teachings of the Bible as something other than facts. Your suggested concept of "religious truth" as distinct from factual truth flies in the face of history and what liberal moderate Christians - not hypothetical "ideal-theists-come-secular-philosophers-using-curiously-religious-terminology" but real, living, breathing moderate Christians - explicitly profess to believe. This is not a "no true scotsman" fallacy but a mere recognition of reality as opposed to what you think they should believe.

If your previous assertion that moderate Christians don't assign divine authority to the Bible's teachings - thus enabling them to evaluate its claims rationally and dismiss the illogical ones - was actually true, then Topher and I would also be Christians!