Tag Archives: Christianity

Is God Immoral?

07 Monday Apr 2014

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Like all law students I took a course on “property.”  Throughout my life, I was lucky enough to take courses from some very interesting people.  My property professor, Douglas Kmiec,[1] was no exception.

The idea that we gain rights over what we create was to some extent developed by John Locke.  He described how people will mix their labor with items from the common property and make it theirs.

 “The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to….”

John Locke Second Treatise of Civil Government Chapter 5.

I read this in my property class taught by Kmiec.  He explained that I might pick up a branch in the forest.   Now if I put it down again, then anyone else can pick it up and do what they want with it.  But if I pick it up and carve it into a wooden statue, well then it’s mine.  At that point I would have the right to do with it what I wanted even destroy it, but no one else would have that right.   I thought it was an interesting insight.

 

 

Ok so now many atheists want to say God is a “murderer!”  He asked/commanded people to kill others.  We have such stories in the Old Testament.  How can we worship such a God?

 

Well first of all I tend not to believe the Old Testament is literal.  I think the Old Testament is by and large a collection of stories.   Yes the Holy Spirit inspired them but how exactly that works, I do not pretend to speak for that Holy Spirit.  But even an atheist should consider that Jewish scripture consists of what possibly the very best and brightest cultures thought was some of their best literature.  I agree some books do nothing for me but other books I find delightful and wonderful.    I am somewhat saddened when I see people reading it only for the purpose they want to get out of it instead of thinking about what the author was up to.

 

Now although I do not take the Old Testament literally I do think it teaches true messages.    But what message can Abraham being commanded to kill his son possibly be teaching?   What can stories about God wiping out whole cities be teaching? One answer is that it teaches God is our creator and as such he is not like us.  We are not the same.  Regardless of what we or even God might want the truth is we are not the same.   Reality doesn’t cater to our wants.

 

Let’s think about this.   If a lion intentionally kills a human without justification we don’t say that it is a “murderer.”  If a human intentionally kills a human without justification he/she is a murderer.  What if God intentionally kills humans?  Should God be treated like other humans?  This is the hidden assumption of every anti-theist blog crying out that God is a murderer.  I just read a paper which seems to imply God committed a holocaust against children who died from natural causes.   I am not suggesting that God is not a murderer for the same reasons a lion is not a murder.  But I am saying we should not automatically assume God is just like us, in this analysis.

 

Here is something to consider.  If I create a sand castle, I can destroy it and it is not immoral.  If someone else destroys my sand castle it is wrong, unless I as the creator give them permission.  God created us and he can destroy us and it is not immoral.  Others however cannot destroy us and remain blameless, unless they are given permission by our creator.

 

I realize that this is not an appealing view.   But if God is bound by the rules of Logic not even he can change that fact can he?  If we are in fact, created by God we cannot truthfully claim otherwise.  Even God cannot make this truth, false.  This wounds our pride and tradition teaches it wounded Satan’s pride as well.  He was unhappy with the truth that he was not like God, and rebelled against it.

 

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!   For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.  Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” Isaiah 14:12-14[2]

 

Now my point is not to say the people who claim God is a murderer are “Satans.”  Not at all.  But it is to say that they are not accounting for the fact that Christians believe God is our creator and generally we think a creator has a right to destroy his creations.  They engage in special pleading when they refuse to acknowledge this principle when discussing God’s relationship to us.  This is a double standard.  They recognize a painter has a right to destroy his painting if he is unhappy with it, but they want to deny this right to a creator God.

 

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[1] Before I did my blog arguing that marriage should no longer be governed by the state I googled to see if anyone else came to the same conclusion.  I was somewhat surprised to see my old Property and Constitutional Law Professor arguing the same thing.  Doug Kmiec is an inspirational professor who brought energy and excitement to everything he taught.   I am not surprised by this quote from Wikipedia:

“On July 2, 2009, President Obama nominated Kmiec as Ambassador to Malta.[24] He was confirmed by the Senate. In April 2011, he was criticized by the Inspector General of the State Department for spending too much time on what the OIG reported as unofficial (religious) duties, which Kmiec saw as integral to his ambassadorial role.”

And I likewise am not at all surprised by this quote from Tiffany Stanley of The New Republic:

“in the annals of diplomatic misbehavior, Kmiec’s is rather an unusual case. Even the critical OIG report notes that embassy morale was good, he was respected by the Maltese and his staff, and had ‘achieved some policy successes’. The problem, it seems, was that Kmiec may have taken the job a little too seriously.”[27] Columnist Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times writes: “Over the last few years, Kmiec has emerged as one of this country’s most important witnesses to the proposition that religious conviction and political civility need not be at odds; that reasonable people of determined good conscience, whatever their faith or lack thereof, can find ways to cooperate in the common good. Though Kmiec has not sought their intervention, the president and the secretary of State ought to deal with the bureaucrats seeking to silence a voice whose only offense is to speak in the vocabulary of our own better angels.”

I read some other things that make me believe he likely had some hard times.  I wish Doug Kmiec the best, and will keep him in my prayers.

[2] But see:  https://bible.org/article/lucifer-devil-isaiah-1412-kjv-argument-against-modern-translations and http://pastordougroman.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/do-isaiah-14-and-ezekiel-28-refer-to-satan/

 

Pascal’s wager without God and without Hell

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

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This blog is a response to some questions posed by David W in my earlier blog. I drafted this response and decided I should put it up as a separate blog, because it covers an important point of how I am coming at these questions.

I think you will understand where I am coming from if we first drop the idea of God all together.   My strongest reasons for believing in God come out of my understanding of morality.  So you can’t really gloss over my views on morality and start asking about my reason to believe in God.  So let’s just think about morality and specifically whether the moral realist’s position is true.  For example is it a moral fact that what Hitler did to millions of Jews was evil regardless of what anyone thinks?

It seems the holocaust either was really wrong or it wasn’t.  Now in general I think the actual “evidence” of moral realism is pretty weak.   For example I think there is *no* empirical evidence that the moral realist view is correct.  Sure we all might see the photos of corpses or even have seen the corpses or the families of those Hitler killed directly.   Looking at this might cause us to be repulsed.  That emotional response might somehow yield a strong belief that what Hitler did was morally wrong.     I do not think strongly believing something (especially when it’s due to an emotional response) is itself evidence for what we believe.    There is no empirical indicia of wrongness that the moral realist can see, and point out to a Nihilist.

A nihilist will look at the same pictures and there is no reason to think he does not experience the same emotional response of repugnance.    His emotional response would lead to him to try to prevent that sort of thing from happening.  In fact a moral nihilist might take more actions to prevent it from happening.   But if the nihilist is consistent, he would not claim he is trying to prevent the holocaust because it is morally wrong.   Why he would try to prevent it is an interesting question that might have a variety of answers.  Richard Joyce is as philosophical nihilist (although he doesn’t like the term “nihilist”) who I agree with on many issues and have allot of respect for.  He has given glimpses into his views on this but never really fully explored this.

But I would say though that if I were to accept the view that no one should ever believe anything unless they have empirical evidence to support it, then there is no way I could be a moral realist.  But I think rational people consider more than empirical evidence and indeed more than the probability of a belief being true when deciding whether or not to accept it.  They also consider the consequences.

Let’s think this through with respect to moral realism.  I have no empirical evidence that moral realism is true.  But I also understand that it might still be true because it is really not the type of thing I would expect to have empirical evidence for.  So what to do?  Well I think there are people who would tend to say I must reject moral realism until I have evidence of it being true.  Others would say they don’t know what to make of it.  But some people would say they are going to believe it anyway.   For me I will consider the consequences of believing or not believing.

Now moral realist’s view either corresponds with reality or it does not.   I.e., it is either a true view or a false view.  And let’s just say we either accept moral realism or we reject it.  I.e., we either believe it or we do not believe it.

So ok that leaves 4 possibilities:

Possibility 1) We believe in moral realism but in fact it is not true.  Well then I hold a false belief.  But holding that false belief is not really morally wrong.  Why?  Because if this situation holds true then there is no real moral right or wrong.    Now it might be wrong in some peoples morality that they create in their head – ie. a relativist view.  But you know what?   I don’t really care.  That consequence has no weight for me.  Not any more than whether my actions correspond with any other sort of make believe.  So the consequences of my holding the false view that morality is objectively real is basically zero.

Possibility 2) What if I hold the view that moral realism is false when it really is true?   Things get a bit more sticky here.  Now my holding that false belief might have some real moral implications.  Moreover I might be inclined to not be very concerned with what might or might not be really moral.  (After all, I don’t believe in it)  This might lead me to not carefully consider the different views of what is morally right and wrong or carefully consider what basis people have for giving me their moral views.  In the end I might lead a life doing things I truly should not have done and not doing things I really should have done.   I would have lived my life wrong in a real sense.  This is basically what I am trying to avoid.  And so to the extent I am trying to avoid that then rejecting a belief in moral realism seems to be a bad way to go.

Possibility 3) Now what if I correctly reject moral realism.  Well then yes I would have got that one right, but it doesn’t “really” matter.  Why doesn’t it really matter?  Because if moral realism is false then nothing really matters.   So again there is no good reason to reject moral realism despite the lack of evidence.

Possibility 4) So the final option is that I believe in moral realism and moral realism is true.    I think this is really the possibility that we need to focus on.    Let’s accept that moral realism is true.

So a pascal wager like analysis leads to the conclusion that we should believe in moral realism.  But now how do we know what is really moral or not?    That is our next step as a rational person right?  If what I said earlier is true then we should believe in/accept moral realism.  But what is really moral or not moral?

It is only at this point that God comes in.  After careful consideration it seems to me that it is impossible that we can with any reliability believe what is moral or not, if we evolved without any supernatural guidance.   I argue why this is here.

From that conclusion I do a similar analysis and conclude a rational person should believe in God here.

Thoughts on Pragmatic Encroachment

30 Sunday Mar 2014

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Can beliefs be justified by anything other than evidence that they are true?   I think allot of people would want to say “No” to that question at some time in their lives, myself included.  Any other justification for beliefs seems somehow wrong and intellectually dishonest.   But because

1 ) Beliefs have  a causal connection with how we act,

2)  Often we have to act on uncertainty about the actual state of affairs and

3) When rational people decide how to act based on uncertainty they must weigh the likelihood and the consequences of being right or wrong as to the state of affairs

 

it may be irrational to only consider the likelihood of being right or wrong and not considering the consequences.

In this blog I would like to offer some of my thoughts on pragmatic encroachment.   But first let’s start with some observations of the traditional definition of knowledge.

There are various ways that philosophers have tried to define what Knowledge is.  The most traditional is to say that a subject S knows a proposition P if and only if:

 

1)            S believes P,

2)            P is true,

and

3)            S has sufficient reason for believing P

 

Now the third condition might be phrased differently.  For example it might be stated as “3) S is justified in believing  p.”  Or “3) S’s belief in P is properly warranted.” [1]

As it turns out I think this 3rd conditions is ambiguous in a few respects.  One way is that we often think someone might be “justified” in believing something even when we don’t think their justification is sufficient to call that belief “knowledge.”   I might have believed the Seahawks would beat the Broncos in the Super Bowl.    That belief might have been a “justified” belief based on different things I have learned about the two teams.   Hence in that sense we can call that a “justified true belief.”  We might say my belief was a rational belief.    But I don’t think most people would say I “knew” the Seahawks would win the Super Bowl – at least not before the game started.   So we can see there is “justified true belief” and there is “justified true belief.”  The “justification” required for knowledge is greater than the “justification” needed to hold mere “justified belief.”

Notice that this ambiguity remains regardless of whether we use the formulation of “justified” belief or “sufficient reason” or “proper warrant.”  What is “sufficient reason” to rationally believe something is less than the “sufficient reason” required to know something.

 

The justification that yields knowledge is stronger than the justification that allows us to simply say we are justified in believing something.   This raises a few questions:

1)            How much justification do you need to” know” something?

2)            How much, if any, justification do you need to be “justified in believing” something?

3)            Is there any difference in the forms of justification that can relate to “knowledge” versus the forms of justification that can relate to mere “rational belief.”

 

I think those questions are bit vague, and even if clarified, somewhat difficult to answer.  But here are some thoughts.    The justification for “knowledge” might require something close to 100% certainty.  We might be inclined to say mere “rational belief” would require something like a preponderance of evidence.  That is, that it is more likely than not true.   But I think the cases presented by those who consider pragmatic encroachment shows “justification” (or “sufficient reason” or “proper warrant”) can get a bit more complicated than just looking at the certainty/probability that your belief is true.

 

Let’s consider theDeRose’s “bank cases” as set forth and explained by Jeremy Fantl and Matthew McGrath in their paper “Pragmatic Encroachment”:

Some of our intuitions about specific cases seem to support the claim that knowledge can depend on practical factors   Consider DeRose’s famous (1992) “Bank Cases”:

‘Bank Case A (Low Stakes).  My wife and I are driving home on a Friday afternoon.  We plan to stop at the bank on the way home to deposit our paychecks.  But as we drive past the bank, we notice that the lines inside are very long, as they often are on Friday afternoons.  Although we generally like to deposit our paychecks as soon as possible, it is not especially important in this case that they be deposited right away, so I suggest that we drive straight home and deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning.  My wife says, “Maybe the bank won’t be open tomorrow.  Lots of banks are closed on Saturdays.”  I reply, “No, I know it’ll be open.  I was just there two weeks ago on Saturday.  It’s open until noon.”

 

Bank Case B (High Stakes).  My wife and I drive past the bank on a Friday afternoon, as in Case A, and notice the long lines.  I again suggest that we deposit our paychecks on Saturday morning, explaining that I was at the bank on Saturday morning only two weeks ago and discovered that it was open until noon.  But in this case, we have just written a very large and important check.  If our paychecks are not deposited into our checking account before Monday morning, the important check we wrote will bounce, leaving us in a very bad situation.  And, of course, the bank is not open on Sunday.  My wife reminds me of these facts.  She then says, “Banks do change their hours.  Do you know the bank will be open tomorrow?”  Remaining as confident as I was before that the bank will be open then, still, I reply, “Well, no.  I’d better go in and make sure.” (913)’

 

It looks like Keith speaks truly in Case A in attributing knowledge to himself that the bank will be open tomorrow, while he also speaks truly in Case B in denying himself knowledge.  The only thing that changes in the two cases is how important it is for Keith to be right about whether the bank will be open tomorrow.  Therefore, it looks like how important it is for Keith to be right about whether the bank will be open tomorrow is relevant to whether Keith knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.  And relevant in a clear way: holding fixed Keith’s evidence concerning whether the bank will be open tomorrow, whether he knows it will be open varies with variations in how important it is for him to be right about this.

But here we find some odd consequences.  If this is the proper lesson to draw from the Bank Cases, it would appear to follow that two subjects can have the same evidence concerning whether the bank will be open tomorrow, even though one of them knows it’ll open tomorrow and the other doesn’t.  ……What makes the difference in knowledge has nothing to do with these traditional factors.  In fact, one subject might have more evidence than another that the bank will be open tomorrow – be better informed, have done more checking, etc. – but because much more is at stake for the more well-informed subject, the more well-informed subject can fail to know that the bank will be open tomorrow while the less-informed subject knows that the bank will be open tomorrow.  All this is hard to swallow.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&ved=0CDQQFjAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fweb.missouri.edu%2F~mcgrathma%2Fpubs-papers%2FPragmaticEncroachment.doc&ei=UJD-UoDjCoHm2AWag4D4Ag&usg=AFQjCNGMBYTohUuRYmF0oT6BsV0dlx0gCQ&sig2=YyCPP25IPEfzLjAsoyYfIA&bvm=bv.61535280,d.b2I

 

I think these cases can illustrate few different ambiguities about what it means to “know” something or be “justified” in believing something.    The first ambiguity is the one I already mentioned.   It seems to me that having gone to a bank a few weeks back and having it be open on a Saturday is pretty good justification for the belief it will be open next Saturday.  Is it certain enough that we would say we “know” it will be open this Saturday?  I think so, but it’s getting pretty close and some might disagree.   If he went there 2 years ago we probably would say it’s not enough certainty to count as “knowing” whether it will be open this Saturday.  So I think these examples are playing on that gray area of what amount of certainty we need before we call something knowledge.    Accordingly this example tends to open the door to look at other ways Keith might or might not be “justified in believing” it is open on Saturday.

 

The bank cases clearly isolate the role of justification in our beliefs that deals not with the probability of our beliefs being true, but with the consequences of their being true or false.  Let’s consider how that is working here.

First, saying that as “the stakes” increase, better evidence is required for knowledge, is not quite what this shows.  It’s not just that “the” stakes are increased, but only certain stakes.  Specifically the stakes are increased in such a way that if he acts on his belief and he is wrong he will suffer greater consequences.

 

Consider case C (another high stakes case).  This case is just like case A as far as it goes.  It is not the case that any important checks will bounce as in case B.  There is nothing else that would cause any urgency for Keith to deposit that check before Monday.    But let’s add a few other facts that increase the stakes.   Keith is on his way to a very important interview.  He is sure he will get this job if he is on time, because a decision maker told him that everyone was so impressed with his credentials and past interview that so long as he shows up, on time, for this interview they will probably make him an offer.  This would be the offer of a lifetime.  And he is not sure with parking and the odd traffic around the bank, whether he will be on time for that interview if he stopped to deposit that check.

 

It seems to me the stakes are just as high in case C as they are in case B.  And I think we would still agree that Keith’s knowledge claim is just as valid as in case A.    So it’s not just that “the” stakes went up in Case B.  The stakes went up in a way that made his being wrong in his belief yield harsh consequences.  Case C increases the stakes concerning his belief as well but it increases the stakes in a way that reinforces acting on his belief.   Could we still say he knows the bank will be open on Saturday due to his going a few weeks ago?  What about 2 years ago?

 

Rather than get bogged down on how much certainty we need for “knowledge” I would rather explore how this second view of “justification” works with our belief.  The distinction is whether we are justified due to the probability of our belief being true or due to the consequences of our belief being true.

 

In an earlier blog I explained what a belief is so that we perhaps better understand how they might be “justified.”   I accepted that “[a belief] is a disposition to respond in certain ways when the appropriate issue arises.”  From W.V. Quine and J.S. Ullian’s  book The Web of Belief.     This description helps us make sense of the bank cases.  Case B demands more “justification” to “respond” as if the bank will be open on Saturday.  The way we would “respond” if the bank is open on Saturday, is to simply drive past the bank on Friday night.   But that response is less justified if there is some doubt in our belief about the bank being open and we risk having an important check to bounce.

 

However the “response” of driving past the bank is not less justified if the stakes are raised in such a way that supports driving past the bank.  Should our “disposition to respond in certain ways” (i.e., our belief) be effected by the stakes we have for responding a certain way?  I think they should.   That is, I think our beliefs should be effected by the stakes we have for responding a certain way.

 

Some people will recoil from this.  They will think our beliefs should only be effected by the probabilities that they are true.    I think that view will usually work out ok for them.  However in certain circumstances this approach may lead to irrational behavior.  But we are skipping ahead too fast.  Let’s back up and think about a few things.

 

First in case C the inherent importance of holding a “true belief” seems to be overshadowed.  Since there is no urgency to have the check deposited on Saturday, the belief “that the bank will be open on Saturday” being true seems relatively unimportant.   Adding the fact that you might be late for a very important interview further decreases the concern whether that belief is actually true or false.  The consequences of your “responding a certain way” is determining your “disposition to respond in certain ways” as much as, if not more than, any inherent importance of holding true beliefs about bank hours.     The probabilities that the bank will actually be open on Saturday becomes relatively less important in Case C, because the decision is really hinging on the consequences of missing the interview.

When we look at the “justification for believing” that the bank is open on Saturday, in case A and C we tend to think he has more justification to than in Case B.  And clearly he does have more justification to be “disposed to respond” by driving past the bank.

 

In sum I think these cases do indeed indicate not only that the probability of our beliefs being true is not the only consideration to holding true beliefs.   In fact, I think we can see that given certain circumstances the probability of our beliefs being true can be relatively unimportant in whether we should hold them.

 

Now I think allot of what I said depends on how we understand “belief.”  Some might not agree with my analysis.  They might say that the belief is not better justified depending on the consequences.  Remember the definition “[a belief] is a disposition to respond in certain ways when the appropriate issue arises.” (emphasis mine)   They might say that the belief has the same justification regardless of the consequences, but the “appropriate issues” change leading to the action of Keith driving past the bank in Case A and C but not driving past in Case B.

 

They might argue that the belief should not be held more or less strongly dependent on the consequences but your actions should be change as the consequences change.  This seems a sensible way to view things.   If we were a computer program or robot that might be the best approach.  But sometimes I think we know we should act a certain way but our doubts about probabilities prevent us from following through.    But I wonder what people think of what I said so far so I will end here.

 

[1] “  A philosopher named Gettier provided some important counter examples to this definition which ends up being the subject of other important philosophical developments on this topic.  However, I don’t mean to address that now.  This idea of knowledge being “justified true belief” remains a sort of default view and its good enough for our purposes.

A Life of Make Believe

24 Monday Mar 2014

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I generally spend more time reading and commenting on atheist blogs than I do posting my own blogs.   Since a lack of a satisfactory morality is, to my mind, a real problem for the atheistic belief system, I frequently ask atheists what they make of morality.

On one atheist’s blog, the author was comparing being Christian to be being like John Nash as portrayed in the movie A Beautiful Mind. Just like John Nash believed in people who weren’t real, he argued that Christians believed in an unreal God.   He also compared Christianity to Buzz Light Year’s belief that he was really on a mission from mission control.   The author thought he could relate to Buzz Lightyear because, when he was a Christian, he thought he was on a mission from mission control and had to face the hard realization he really was not.      The blogger was hoping that he could disabuse Christians of their “make believe” ideas.

As it turns out this blogger replaced the idea of mission control, with the idea that when it comes to morality we create our own meaning.    I found this interesting.  He was trying to help people stop believing “make believe” but he thinks he “creates” his own meaning when it comes to morality, and presumably lives his life based on these creations.    It became clear to me that this author and perhaps a few people who follow his blog did not see the irony.   So I explained the difference between moral realism and relativism.  He clearly indicated he is a subjectivist.   That is, he is some who thinks right and wrong is dependent on our own view of what is right or wrong.  In other words morality is a creation of our mind – just like those imaginary people John Nash believed in.

I am aware meta-ethical views and their implications are really not all that well known outside of philosophers interested in the field.   I did a brief introductory blog on it here https://trueandreasonable.co/2014/01/20/what-do-you-mean-im-wrong/  So I am not trying to be critical of the blogger, or any of the other commentators, defending him.  They were all pretty intelligent and reasonable people.   I think this is an important illustration of why gaining an understanding of these issues is critical if you want to discuss the reasonableness of believing in Christianity.  Here the blogger assumed we shouldn’t live our lives based on make believe.  Yet this person admitted he lives by a morality he made up.

Russ Shaefer-Landau said it best:

“Nihilists believe that there are no moral truths.  Subjectivists believe that moral truth is created by each individual.  Relativists believe that moral truth is a social construct.  These three theories share the view that, in ethics, we make it all up. ”  Page 11 Whatever Happened to Good and Evil.

But don’t take his, or my word for it, think it through yourself.  If your morality is based on creating your own meaning you are indeed “making it up.”  Now there are several reasons people might not believe in God.  But if you reject belief in God because you fear God might be “made up”, it seems you would be contradicting this principle, to then accept some sort of relativist theory of morality.  Because there you know you are living your life based on make believe.

In the end if a rational person really wants to keep close contact with reality then rejecting a view that might be made up for one that you know is made up seems a poor approach.

What Goal are We Rationally Pursuing?

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

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It seems to me that we act rationally toward a goal.  If the goal changes then it’s likely that the rational way to act will change.   I decided that my goal would be to try my best to act morally to the extent there really is a moral way to act.  That is, do real good and avoid real evil.   God, or no God, what if there is something I should be doing to make the world really better.

Now I don’t mean good as made up by someone or group, as a constructivist might think of it.  That sort of made up morality in some ways sounds good but I decided not to live my life based on make believe.  I am pursuing the real morality, if such a thing exists.   It is with that goal that I decide to consider what beliefs I should hold, to the extent I have control over my beliefs.

I decided that if I live my life trying to live as I really should, and because of that do not live by some rules a person or group of people made up, well I am fine with that.   Sure it’s possible there is no real morality, in that case, there was nothing I really should have done anyway.   But if it does really exist then I think trying to discover what it is, and trying to live by it, should be my focus.    I think everyone should give their best efforts in this regard.

Fairly early on I realized that if naturalism and evolution are true our moral beliefs are completely unreliable.    If you don’t think I am right on that point (or perhaps just don’t understand what in the world I am talking about) please share your thoughts in the comment section to my last blog.   But for this blog I want to rest on that conclusion.   I argued for it in the last blog, and now I want to draw some other conclusions.  So for this blog Ill assume my conclusion in the last blog is correct.   This also happens to be the conclusion reached by a few other philosophers including Richard Joyce, Sharon Street, and Mark Linville.

What that means is if evolution and naturalism are true our moral beliefs are completely unreliable.  From that I concluded that pursuing one set of moral beliefs is no better or worse than any other set of moral beliefs if N and E are true.  Accordingly pursuing the morality of Christianity would be no less likely to be true than any other, even if N and E are true.   Accordingly even if evolution and naturalism is true, following Christ would not be a worse moral option than any other in the rational pursuit of my goal.

It’s at this point that I think it is established that the nonbeliever has lost his case that the believer is acting less rationally – at least toward the goal of living a life that is really morally correct.   From this point forward I will try to push things a bit further and argue that the nonbeliever is less rational than the believer in pursuit of the goal to lead a really moral life.

Ok so we see that if N and E are true our moral beliefs are completely unreliable, so then it doesn’t matter what moral beliefs we choose.  But what if N and E are not true?  Since any moral beliefs, are a wash if N and E are true, I think it’s rational to focus our attention on the possibility that N and E are not true.

Specifically what if naturalism is not true.  Then it seems we might actually have reliable moral beliefs.  But how could we know what they are?  From what I (and the other 3 philosophers) have argued I am convinced that natural processes alone could not produce beings with this knowledge.  So we would need to look for something from a supernatural/non-natural confirming source that could teach us these morals.   From this it seems we should weigh the evidence of what sources of morality seem to have a supernatural/non-natural confirming source.  There are many religions that fit this bill and I would suggest the reader consider these religions and which has the best evidence.  I won’t go into that weighing here.  But I would like to point out that when it comes to weighing the religious moral schemes we are looking for evidence that the moral teachings were affirmed by a supernatural/non-natural source.

Now I anticipate a few objections to what I said.

First is to say what if there is a God who gave us our moral beliefs but he wants us to believe there is no God?

I think we weigh the evidence of this God the same way we would of any other God.  What is the evidence that this God exists?  But I think there is a second problem with continuing to not believe in this God.   It seems like a contradiction to believe in this god and follow this God’s rules.  If we believe and follow this God then we don’t believe this God.

Finally I think there is a third problem with not believing in God.  If we do not believe in God and we understand that what I and the other philosophers said is true, then the belief that there is no God would also imply our beliefs concerning morals are unreliable.  This would undermine our determination to act morally when acting morally is hard.  When it’s hard, it would be easy to rationalize and say “well the reliability of my moral beliefs are suspect anyway.”  Now I admit that reaction wouldn’t be rational based on my goal.  But I think that would happen.   When you know you are subject to irrationally immoral behavior by taking certain course of action (and here I include an action such as adopting a belief or taking actions which would lead to adopting the belief) then rational people will not take that course of action.

Here is a second objection:

So let’s say we agree to follow some God that we think has the best evidence.  But the “best evidence” is really pretty weak.  Let’s say for example we think the Christian God is more likely than Zeus but maybe just barely.   Let’s say we don’t think the evidence for the Christian God makes it more probably true than not true.  But nevertheless that God has better evidence than any other Gods.    What then?

I think we need to consider this carefully.  It seems to me that if we knew full well this God existed because we could see this God continually and literally standing over us watching our every move few of us would sin.   But that is not the case.   And so we all sin or act in ways we might agree is not how we should.  It seems to me that the firmness of our belief in God is important to how well we follow his moral laws.    And again that is our goal.  We want to find and  follow the real moral way of life.

How we should look at this depends how committed we are to our original goal of trying our best to act morally to begin with.

Let me offer an analogy involving a game.  For this scenario let’s say you are not in need of any set sum.   You want to maximize your potential return.   In fact maximizing your potential return in this game trumps all other concerns you have.    Maximizing your return in this game is in effect all that matters to you.

Let’s say there is a roulette wheel with 1,000,002 numbers.  You get $3,333.34 every month over the course 25 years.  You will receive $1,000,002.00.   You must immediately place the money on a number once you receive it.  At the end of the 25 years there will be one throw that will decide the winning number.  You can only keep the money that is on the number that the ball lands on.   You can put the money on more than one number.  So you could have one dollar put on each number.  You would be sure to get one dollar back but you also know you would only get one dollar.

Now everyone knows the number 7 is slightly rigged such that there is 3xs the possibility of the roulette ball landing there than for any other particular number.  I am not saying it is 3xs as likely to land on 7 as it is to land on any of all the other numbers combined.   I am just saying it is 3xs more likely that it will land on 7 compared to it landing on, say, 474,923 or any other particular number you pick.

How do you bet over the 25 years?

Now let’s say you went all in on 7 but the number comes up 775,957.  How do you feel?  Do you feel bad that perhaps you were irrational?

On the other hand let’s say you figured you did not have “enough evidence” to believe in the number 7.  After all, you lacked evidence sufficient to show that 7 was “more likely than not” going to be the winner so you just picked a random number like 42 and went all in on that.     And the number 7 came up.   And then you saw the other people who picked 7.   Would you disagree with them if they told you it was irrational for you to not go all in on 7?

Here is a more interesting question.  Let’s say some people actually claimed to firmly believe that it would be 7 and went all in on 7?  Let’s say they looked at the situation and they just wanted to make sure that they acted rationally in this game.  So they reinforced the idea that it would be 7 so they would be sure not place any money outside of 7.    So for example they convinced themselves that the odds of it being 7 was much higher than it really was.   Was that irrational to the extent of pursuing their goal?

I don’t think it was irrational.  I think so long as your actions concerning an uncertain belief would not change by adding certainty to your belief it is not irrational to reinforce that belief.   That is whether a person believes that the chance of 7 winning is .0003% .3% 33% or 100% when all the other numbers are about .0001% it won’t make any difference, you should still bet it all on 7.  So none of the actions that this belief is relevant to are negatively affected by puffing up the belief.   And in fact puffing up this belief might be beneficial.

Let’s say the evidence suggested that people who did not puff up the belief that it would be a 7 often would put some money on other numbers.    Assuming your goal was to maximize your possible gains then would it be irrational not to puff up the belief that the number 7 would win?  I think it might be irrational not to puff up that belief.

How should those who reinforced their belief feel if it happened to come up 42?  Would you be able to say that their foolishness mattered?

“The Burden of Proof” versus “The Flying Spaghetti Monster”

26 Sunday Jan 2014

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In the law legislatures create burdens of proof so that fact finders can be guided on how to decide a case in light of uncertainty.    The same is done for debates where a “winner” and a “loser” needs to be decided.    These burdens exist so far as we make them up.  But what I would like to talk about is the notion of a “philosophical burden of proof.”

I would suggest that such a thing does not exist and the sooner you free your mind of the notion the better off you will be.

First, let’s address what people mean when they say “you have the burden of proof.”   I think there are actually quite a few questions along these lines but let’s just try to give a statement of what they might claim it is.  Tonight’s version of Wikipedia says this:

1)      “When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on the person asserting a claim.”

I think that sounds pretty much what I hear.  I might also hear something like this:

2)      “The person asserting an affirmative claim has the burden of providing evidence for his claim”

I don’t really think there is much difference between the two.

Now the first thing I would note is that both 1 and 2 are themselves claims which are often affirmatively asserted.   Yet I do not ever hear any proof or evidence that they are true claims.   Is this yet another case of a self-defeating claim?   It seems so.

But before we leave tonight’s Wikipedia I would note that it also says: “The fallacy of an argument from ignorance occurs if, when a claim is challenged, the burden of proof is shifted to be on the challenger.”  That’s true but misleading.  The Fallacy of ignorance occurs when someone argues that because you failed to provide enough evidence to convince them X is true that lack of evidence should somehow prove “Not X.”   So it should be clear that this fallacy in no way justifies a burden of proof.    If anything the fallacy of ignorance is a case where people draw faulty conclusions based on the assumption that a burden of proof exists.      If one never believed in any burdens of proof then it would be much easier to avoid the fallacy from ignorance.   Although I concede that someone can believe in some form of “the burden of proof” and not commit the fallacy of “argument from ignorance”, they are close relatives.

For example we can see this fallacy when we read what atheist Kieth Parsons says about Hanson another atheist writer  “According to Hanson, the same holds for the claim that God exists. To show that no compelling evidence or cogent argument can be offered in support of God’s existence is tantamount to showing that God does not exist.” Page 25 in his book “God and the Burden of Proof.”  This is about as clear a case of the fallacy of argument from ignorance as I have ever seen in a philosophy text.  And the fallacy is committed because of the author’s commitment to this imagined burden of proof.

Now, if Bigfoot or fairies existed I would expect we would have better evidence of them.   They are presumably material things that can be seen, captured, photographed, video recorded etc.    It is in part because I would expect that we would have better evidence than we do, that I do not believe they exist.   Moreover the existence of fairies or bigfoot has no other impact on my other beliefs such that I should weigh in favor of believing they exist.  Notice though I am stating my reasons why I do not think fairies or Bigfoot exists.   And indeed that is why I don’t think they exist.    I feel no need to resort to claims someone else needs to shoulder some imaginary burden of proof.  If someone believes in Big foot and I give him my reasons and he still believes ok.   I do not insist that he needs shoulder some burden to prove it to me.  He does not have any such burden.

Ok I imagine there are some readers who will want to ask me questions like “Do I believe that there are purple and yellow spotted platypuses on planets other than earth? And if not why not?”   Well the answer is no, and the reason I don’t is because it sounds made up.    Someone asked me “But what if someone who really believes it tells you this?”  I’m sorry but it still sounds made up.  Perhaps I just grew up with too many people who thought it was entertaining to fool people and so I am a bit distrustful.   When my brother first told me about quarks I thought he was making that up too.      But either way the person who believed in these platypuses would not have any burden to prove this to me.

Do I think we should have reasons for all our beliefs?  Maybe.    But I think 2 points are important here:

1) This is different than saying some “burden of proof” exists.  I might hold the belief that we should have a reason for our beliefs without alleging any sort of burden exists on others to prove anything.

2) The problem with the idea that we should always have a reason for our beliefs, is that the chain of beliefs needs to start somewhere.  If we have to have a reason for all our beliefs we would either be guilty of circular reasoning, or capable of holding an infinite set of beliefs, or believing things for reasons that we do not really believe,  or in a situation where we shouldn’t believe anything at all.   There is the logical possibility that all our beliefs stem from other self-evident truths.  But I don’t believe that is the case.

So right now although I might be sympathetic to the idea that we should have reasons for our beliefs.   It seems there are problems with even that claim.

If you are still convinced that “the burden of proof” is real, I have a few other questions:  1) What is the standard of proof? (e.g.,beyond reasonable doubt, or preponderance of the evidence or fair probability or clear and convincing evidence? Ect.)  2) To whom do I need to prove the claim? (e.g., a judge, a commission,  a jury?)   3) What are the supposed consequences of not meeting this burden?  (go to jail or not, win a money judgment, get an injunction move on to the next round of debate in the winners bracket?) These are all very clear in Courts and debates.     How does this supposed philosophical burden of proof work?

In the end however I believe the notion that others have some burden to demonstrate truths to you does indeed suggest that you are not required to figure it out for yourself.   Believing that you are somehow epistemologically justified in continuing to hold your beliefs so long as you decide some other person did not meet some imagined burden of proof is a poor way to go through life.   If two people give their reasons for believing opposing views and neither convinces the other, so be it.  Maybe one is stubborn or irrational who knows.  (see my blog giving a proof of God)  Thinking that we should insert some burden of proof never helps any discussion.    I think it is intellectually more healthy to place the burden on ourselves to investigate any sort of important question.  Don’t try to pass that off on others.

So anyway who wins “The Burden of Proof” or “The Flying Spaghetti Monster”?  In the end I think the evidence weighs in favor of “The Flying Spaghetti Monster” after all, at least we have pictures of it:

Image

What Do You Mean, I’m Wrong?

20 Monday Jan 2014

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I have started talking about morality and I will continue to talk about morality so I should probably explain a bit about what I mean.   By morals I mean what we should do, and what is right and wrong, good and evil.  I generally don’t distinguish between these different terms.     I am a moral realist so I will usually mean the first category, I describe below.

There are several different notions that people have about what morals are and what we mean when we say something is “wrong” immoral etc.  I think the explanations I give match pretty well with how philosophers generally understand these terms.    Here are what I consider the big 4 general ideas of meta-ethics.  That is if we step really far back from any ethical debate I think these 4 concepts can help us understand what we mean when we call something right or wrong:

Objective Moral Realism:  People in this group believe that when we say something is wrong we are making a positive claim about reality that is true or false regardless of what anyone believes about it.

There are several  types of realists but one distinction is between,  Non naturalists and naturalists.  Moral non-naturalists believe that rightness or wrongness is a property of reality that attaches to certain morally relevant occurrences.

Moral Naturalists think that that the rightness and wrongness simply is the set of facts that make up certain occurrences.     For the moral naturalist there is no additional property of wrongness.    But the naturalist still believes certain events are wrong.  Just like they believe some things are water.  Water happens to be those things that are h2o.  They are not, H2O plus another “water property.” Our understanding of water supervenes on anything that has the chemical composition H2O.  Likewise wrongness supervenes on certain occurrences.

Both are realists.  Moral realists include Russ Schaefer Landau (moral realist of the non-naturalist variety) and Nicholas Sturgeon (moral realist and naturalist)  The best introduction to meta-ethics I have found is Russ Schaefer landau’s “whatever happened to good and evil?”

I am a moral realist.  I don’t really have a strong view on moral naturalism versus moral non naturalism.

Error theorists, Nihilists:    This group believes there is no such thing as morality.    So arguing about whether something is right or wrong is like arguing about whether male unicorns have 38 or 42 teeth.   It’s all based on an erroneous understanding of the world.  JL Mackie’s excellent book “Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong” is a great book that sets forth this understanding.  He is a very good writer and should be read on his own.  Among the points he makes is that if ethical properties were to exist in reality they would be queer things.   And even if they did exist how would we know what they are?

Another error theorist is Richard Joyce.   He argues that even if moral properties did exist what we know about evolution makes it extremely unlikely that we would know what they are.  He wrote an excellent book covering this theory called “The Evolution of Morality.”    He has also written several papers many of which can be accessed on his website.  Both are good writers Mackie’s book might be a bit easier for someone new to the meta-ethics to digest.

Note that although Richard Joyce argues that evolution makes our moral beliefs (if they were to exist) unreliable that in itself does not really make him a nihilist.  Richard Joyce, Sharon Street, and Mark Linville are 3 philosophers who have published papers explaining how our understanding of evolution debunks the notion that we can have reliable moral beliefs.    That is if we assume naturalism is true it debunks them.  Here btw “naturalism” just means not believing in anything supernatural.  So no God(s) or spirits or anything of the sort.  “Naturalism” is related to “moral naturalism” but not the same term.   It’s pretty clear that Richard Joyce and Sharon Street are naturalists and Mark Linville is a Christian.   I think Sharon Street is a relativist, Mark Linville is a realist and Richard Joyce is a nihilist.  So Mark Linville is making the argument based on the assumption that naturalism is true, where as the other two really think naturalism is true.

Relativism/constructivism/subjectivism:   Generally speaking this group thinks that moral claims can be true or false by comparing it with reality but it’s not independent of what people believe.    Subjectivists might think what is right and wrong is up to each individual. Here morals are like tastes in food.   Asking if giving to the poor is good is like asking if chocolate is good.  Most will agree it is but it’s up to each individual.

More commonly relativists tend to base morals on a relevant community.  They believe that there is some relevant community (sometimes a hypothetical community which to some extent can make it like realism) that decides what is right or wrong.    Currency is a common analogy.  A $10 bill is a piece of paper.  But it is worth $10.  It would be false to hold a $10 bill up and say “this is worth $14 dollars.”  But that statement is true or false due to the beliefs of the relevant community.   Gilbert Harman is a well-known relativist.

My own view on relativism:  Ok this is where we get the problems along the lines of what if the Nazis killed everyone who disagreed with them so all that was left were Nazis who thought Jews should be killed.  Would it then be right to kill Jews?  That seems a problem with this position.  Russ Shaefer Landau asks if the same event can take place in several different societies.   For example a member of the mafia might kill a victim who is also in the mafia’s cultural community and it is not wrong in that set of circumstances according to that community.  But it also occurred in New York and according to that society it is wrong.   If it can occur in 2 societies, then the same exact event might be wrong and not wrong at the same time.

But beyond that I think I have another deeper problem.  This is taking the position that when it comes to morals we make it all up.   Do we want to believe in make believe?  It is essentially adopting the position that we are staring at the shadows on the cave and we are fine with structuring our lives around that.  For me, I can’t really get behind it.  If that is all we mean by truth when it comes to morals then moral truths lose too much significance.  I don’t really care if I live my life wrongly if all that means is I lived my life wrong according to some group or other.

Noncognitivists:   This group denies that moral claims are the sorts of claims that can be considered true or false.    Thus if I were to say “it’s wrong to stick babies with bayonets” they think this is only my expressing disapproval.  In essence they think I am saying “boo to sticking babies with bayonets!”   Now is “boo to sticking babies with bayonets” true or false?  What about “yay! 49ers” or “Boo!  seahawks”?  These utterances are really neither true or false.  They are not making a claim about reality but instead are just expressions of approval or disapproval.   According to noncognitivists moral statements are really just these sorts of utterances and should not be interpreted as propositions that can be either true or false.

These are what I consider 4 corners of what people people mean by morals.  There are many different theories and terminology involved, and these theories are not always exclusive of each other.   But I think just getting an understanding of these 4 basic ideas is helpful to navigate.

Like I said I am an objective moral realist.  So when I refer to morals that is typically the brand I am referring to.

Dealing with Uncertainty in a Rational Way

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

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In my last blog I explained that I learned we need to deal with uncertainty.  I have found that many people do a very bad job in dealing with uncertainty.  They demand certainty and if they don’t get it, they sort of mentally turn off.  I think rational people take actions (which I think can include holding beliefs or at least trying to hold certain beliefs) in light of uncertainty.  That’s really what I think being rational is all about.

In doing this we not only need to consider the likelihood that a belief is true but also consider the consequences that would occur if our beliefs end up being right or wrong.   Of course Pascal’s famous wager brings this up.   I am not necessarily going to argue the wager in the same way Pascal did, but I do contend that rational people must weigh the consequences of the actions including the act of trying to believe something or other.

BTW I think Pascal’s wager is likely the victim of the more ill-founded criticisms than about any other philosophical argument.  Here is a good paper on it by Lycan and Schlesinger if you are interested:

Click to access pascalswager.pdf

In my post discussing what it means to be rational I argued that Clifford’s claim “”it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”  was illogical because it was self-defeating.

But I think there is at least one other problem.  It seems to only view one of the essential aspects of making a rational decision to believe or not.  It seems to only address the chance of the belief being true.  It does not address the consequences of believing one thing and being right or wrong about it.

William James gives a good counter argument in this regard.  He says that if it is the case that by believing I will survive cancer, I will actually increase my chances of surviving, then it is rational for me to believe I will survive cancer.  This is so even if the evidence doesn’t suggest I will.   So if my chance of survival doubles from 1% to 2% if I believe I will survive it’s hard to say I have sufficient evidence to believe I will survive.  Yet it seems rational to go ahead and try to double my chances to survive by doing my best to believe.

Is that the only type of situation where this might come up?  I don’t think so.  I think in morals it comes up often.  I believe every time we are tempted to do wrong it is easy to waiver unless we strongly commit to believe certain moral standards.  Often we will commit to believing moral standards well beyond the “evidence” that the moral standards really exist.  Whether there can even be “evidence” that a moral standard exists, and what such evidence would look like, will be the topic of another blog.

If anyone would like to comment on what they think evidence of objective moral standards would look like I would enjoy reading it.  Also feel free to just put a link to it in the comments.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! God’s Existence Proven!!

11 Saturday Jan 2014

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How much would you pay for this?   19 thousand dollars?  30 thousand dollars?   For just 3 easy payments of 19.99 you too can own the video in which I prove the existence of God!

Well I have been posting on some atheists websites.  And a very common response to just about anything I comment on is “prove God exists!”  I almost feel like I should be able to say “Ok open up Skype and watch me prove it!”  I don’t fault them.   I’m sure we all would have liked more certainty at one point or other.  But proving things isn’t so easy.

When I was a freshman in college I took my first philosophy course, which happened to cover Plato, and I was completely enthralled with logic.  Logic came easy to me and I really loved it.   I can still remember making a sincere mental oath that I would follow logical principles no matter where they led!  In fact, I never abandoned that oath and I still love logic.

As an undergraduate one of my majors was philosophy.  So my oath to sincerely follow logic lead me down many different paths.  But one day I read a chapter out of a book by a philosopher named George I. Mavrodes.  He really burst my bubble.  You see I used to think to prove anything I just needed to come up with a sound argument.  A “sound” argument is one where all the premises are true and the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises.  (A “valid” argument is one where the premises are not necessarily true but *if* they are true the truth of the conclusion necessarily follows)  Unfortunately I had to concede Professor Mavrodes demonstrated that logical proofs were subjective.   Blasphemy!

How awful.  Logical proofs subjective?   Well yeah he gave a proof of God’s existence which I had to agree was likely sound but nevertheless would clearly not be a “proof” to anyone.   Perhaps you are as crestfallen as I was, so let me let you down nice and easy and explain the problem.

One of the beautiful things about a sound argument is the premises just have to be true.  It doesn’t matter if anyone believes them; they just have to be true.  Well that beauty is sort of the problem as well.  I can offer lots of sound arguments that prove God exists but if you don’t actually believe the premises (even though they are in fact true) it will not “prove” anything to you.

This works both ways I might add.  Let’s consider an atheist “proof” that the Christian God does not exist:

Premise1) “If the Christian God (one that was all knowing all powerful creator of everything and thoroughly good etc.) existed then there would be no evil in the world.”

Premise 2) “There Is evil in the world.”

Conclusion:  “Therefore, the Christian God does not exist.”

Now we should be able to agree on whether this argument is “valid.”  I think it is.  Some atheists would likely view this as a sound argument.  That is they think the premises are in fact true and the conclusion necessarily follows.   Now for some Christians this, or something similar, did act as a proof that the Christian God does not exist and they may have abandoned their faith.   This has no doubt caused many thoughtful Christians to think long and hard.   Others would say they don’t believe the first premise.  If, in fact, they do not believe that premise then this argument (even if it were sound) will not be a proof of anything.

Now when I hear atheist ask for a proof of God I picture someone waiting for me to serve the tennis ball so they could smack it back saying that they do not believe one or more premises.  It really doesn’t matter that the premises are true.      I can of course then try to “prove” those premises by presenting other premises which yield the first premises as a conclusion.   But of course they can say they don’t believe those either.    Well this could go on infinitely, and these busy days, who has time for that?    So what use is Logical argument?

I think it’s of great value.  But it’s really of value mainly when people are open minded and intellectually honest about what they think.   They need to be open to discuss the matter so acceptable premises can be found.   The idea that someone will come up with a logical proof that will convince everyone God exists is extremely unlikely.  But I think using logic can convince some people that believing in God is the rational way to go.  Putting ideas in logical format with premises and a conclusion is also a great way to help identify where disagreements are.  Is there a disagreement about one or more premises or is the disagreement about the validity of the argument ?(that is the logical connections between the premises and conclusion).

Well anyway I said I would give a proof of God so here is one:

P1) If anything is sacred then God exists.

P2) Human life is sacred.

Conclusion:  therefore God exists.

Now I think this is a sound argument.   Will it prove anything to anyone?  That depends on whether persons thinks human life is sacred to begin with.

That said I will post more in depth logical arguments that it is rational to believe in God.   I will also often break up arguments into premises and conclusion format when I think it is helpful.    Sorry if this is not what you were hoping for.  I do offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

Do you BELIEEEEVE!

09 Thursday Jan 2014

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Christianity focuses allot on beliefs.  Faith is belief and trust in God.    It’s important to “believe in Jesus” but before we get to what that might mean (another blog)  let’s consider what it means to “believe” anything?

Although it is not a definition, IMO the best description of what it means to believe something was given by W.V. Quine and J.S. Ullian in their book “The Web of Belief.”

“Let us consider, to begin with.  What we are up to when
we believe.  Just what are we doing? Nothing in particular.
For all the liveliness of fluctuation of beliefs, believing is
not an activity.  It is not like scansion or long division. We
may scan a verse quickly or slowly. We may perform a
division quickly or slowly. We may even be quick or slow
about coming to believe something, and quick or slow
about giving a belief up. But there is nothing quick or slow
about the believing itself; it is not a job to get on with. Nor
is it a fit or mood, like joy or grief or astonishment. It is
not something that we feel while it lasts.  Rather, believ­
ing is a disposition that can linger latent and unobserved.
It is a disposition to respond in certain ways when the
appropriate issue arises. To believe that Hannibal crossed
the Alps is to be disposed, among other things, to say “Yes”
when asked. To believe that frozen foods will thaw on the
table is to be disposed, among other things, to leave such
foods on the table only when one wants them thawed.
Inculcating a belief is like charging a battery. The bat­
tery is thenceforward disposed to give a spark or shock,
when suitably approached, as long as the charge lasts.
Similarly the believer is disposed to respond in character­
istic ways, when suitably approached, as long as the belief
lasts. The belief, like the charge, may last long or briefly.
Some beliefs, like the one about Hannibal, we shall proba­
bly retain while we live. Some, like our belief in the
dependability of our neighborhood cobbler, we may abandon
tomorrow in the face of adverse evidence. And some,
like the belief that a bird chirped within earshot, will
simply die of unimportance forthwith. The belief that the
cobbler is dependable gives way tomorrow to a contrary
belief, while the belief in the bird is just forgotten. A
disposition has ceased in both cases, though in different
ways.

In this quote, we can see what the authors say, “[belief] is a disposition to respond in certain ways when the appropriate issue arises.”  I read this description of belief early in my studies in philosophy and never felt the need to stray from it.  As Quine and Ullian explain through their examples, the response can be an action or an utterance on our behalf.   Sometimes I don’t think there is an actual action but our response might be internal/mental.  E.g., when you hear something that doesn’t sound right.  You will tend to think through your beliefs to check why that doesn’t sound right.  But you still have the reaction.

To be sure, there are, perhaps some controversies which can arises in a definition that links belief so closely with action, especially in the field of morals where we talk about beliefs of what we should or shouldn’t do.  I think it is clear that we can imagine examples where people do wrong even though they will correctly say they’ve always believed they should do otherwise.  For example, someone may believe they should return library books on time.  Their failure to return the book on time does not necessarily mean they did not believe they should return it on time.  That said, their failure to return the book might indeed be an indicator that the strength of their belief was quite weak.  To use the battery analogy, the charge that that belief holds is not very strong.

Despite some difficulties when we are dealing with moral beliefs about what we should do and whether someone can hold those beliefs and still not act appropriately, I still believe that a person’s actions can often be a better indicator of what they believe than their claims.  For example, someone may say  that they believe they will go to hell if they do not go to church every Sunday.  If that person does not go to church every Sunday, I believe we are entitled to question whether they truly hold that belief.  Actions often reveal beliefs better than words.

The other issue that can come up with beliefs is whether we have the capacity to change our beliefs.  There is no question whether our beliefs can change.  But what amount of control do we have over our beliefs?  I don’t think we need to really delve into this question more than to state we have some control over our beliefs.

Whether that control is direct or indirect and the extent of the control is somewhat irrelevant to our task.  If it were true that we had absolutely no control over our beliefs, then it would be wrong to assign culpability to people who have stubborn, irrational beliefs.  At least if we believe that it is wrong to blame them for something that they have no control over.