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piercehawkeye45 · 11-29-2007, 09:57 PM

Thank you Aliantha, I thought about this some more so here we go again, same warnings apply.

Now the rationality or irrationality of believing in a god. Well, the belief of a god is just a conclusion. We have certain amount of evidence and therefore we say a god must or may exist. Basically, we say that the supernatural takes over when we cannot explain the natural world, universal laws, creation of energy, etc.

Now, how to relate this to fate. After thinking about this, I would say that belief in a god is just stereotyping the unknown, but in a different form than in my previous post. Lets say we have an infinite amount of possibilities for the answers of the universe, the evidence we have about the world limits down the possibilities, then we are dealing with scenarios, creation of energy for example, that we have no evidence to support and therefore, have to assume that every possibility has the same probability of happening. I wouldn't call this true faith though since we can still stereotype.

Now since we have come to edge of previous evidence, we have a number of possibilities that have equal probability. As I said earlier, saying one is more likely than the other should be considered irrational. So technically saying there must be a god or that god is more likely than a scientific explanation is irrational.

But, even though we have come to the edge of knowledge we can still stereotype, which the rationality is debatable.

For an easier example to imagine, lets say you are walking down a street by yourself and you feel a sharp pain in the back of your head that feels like a punch. You did not see what caused the pain.

You turn around and see a single person in view, who is walking in punching distance behind you. With our current information, we can not say with certain what happened. Our first assumption is that the person punched you, but there technically equal possibility that I magically teleported behind you, hit you, and teleport back without you seeing me, that a supernatural power hit you, or that your nerves randomly went off. But even though each possibility has the same probability of happening, we assume that the person hit you because we have never experienced teleporting, a supernatural power, or random nerve spasms, but we have experienced physical punching, so we assume the person punched you.

Even though this is different than the stereotyping I mentioned in my previous post, I think these are very similar because they are both stereotyping that is based on previous experiences, just one is a prediction and one is a conclusion.

The belief in a god is the same way and therefore would have the same rationality/irrationality factor as before. But the problem is that we can assign a universal rational or irrational factor because we each have different experiences.

Personally, being a non-hard atheist, I have concluded that I do not have a belief in god because every bit of evidence I have seen in this world points to natural solutions, therefore, the questions we can not answer will most likely have a natural solution as opposed to a supernatural solution. I do not see any irrationality in this.

But other people may have other experiences. Lets say that person 1 told person 2 that a god exists. In person 2's perspective, person 1 has always been right so person 2 will naturally assume that person 1 is right again and will believe in a god. I really do not see much irrationality in this except my negative experiences of having blind trust in someone, but that, once again, is personal.

I do not want to go much farther than this because individual experiences have such different effects on people I know I will be completely wrong by making an assumption.

11-29-2007, 09:57 PM	#140
piercehawkeye45 Franklin Pierce Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 3,695	Thank you Aliantha, I thought about this some more so here we go again, same warnings apply. Now the rationality or irrationality of believing in a god. Well, the belief of a god is just a conclusion. We have certain amount of evidence and therefore we say a god must or may exist. Basically, we say that the supernatural takes over when we cannot explain the natural world, universal laws, creation of energy, etc. Now, how to relate this to fate. After thinking about this, I would say that belief in a god is just stereotyping the unknown, but in a different form than in my previous post. Lets say we have an infinite amount of possibilities for the answers of the universe, the evidence we have about the world limits down the possibilities, then we are dealing with scenarios, creation of energy for example, that we have no evidence to support and therefore, have to assume that every possibility has the same probability of happening. I wouldn't call this true faith though since we can still stereotype. Now since we have come to edge of previous evidence, we have a number of possibilities that have equal probability. As I said earlier, saying one is more likely than the other should be considered irrational. So technically saying there must be a god or that god is more likely than a scientific explanation is irrational. But, even though we have come to the edge of knowledge we can still stereotype, which the rationality is debatable. For an easier example to imagine, lets say you are walking down a street by yourself and you feel a sharp pain in the back of your head that feels like a punch. You did not see what caused the pain. You turn around and see a single person in view, who is walking in punching distance behind you. With our current information, we can not say with certain what happened. Our first assumption is that the person punched you, but there technically equal possibility that I magically teleported behind you, hit you, and teleport back without you seeing me, that a supernatural power hit you, or that your nerves randomly went off. But even though each possibility has the same probability of happening, we assume that the person hit you because we have never experienced teleporting, a supernatural power, or random nerve spasms, but we have experienced physical punching, so we assume the person punched you. Even though this is different than the stereotyping I mentioned in my previous post, I think these are very similar because they are both stereotyping that is based on previous experiences, just one is a prediction and one is a conclusion. The belief in a god is the same way and therefore would have the same rationality/irrationality factor as before. But the problem is that we can assign a universal rational or irrational factor because we each have different experiences. Personally, being a non-hard atheist, I have concluded that I do not have a belief in god because every bit of evidence I have seen in this world points to natural solutions, therefore, the questions we can not answer will most likely have a natural solution as opposed to a supernatural solution. I do not see any irrationality in this. But other people may have other experiences. Lets say that person 1 told person 2 that a god exists. In person 2's perspective, person 1 has always been right so person 2 will naturally assume that person 1 is right again and will believe in a god. I really do not see much irrationality in this except my negative experiences of having blind trust in someone, but that, once again, is personal. I do not want to go much farther than this because individual experiences have such different effects on people I know I will be completely wrong by making an assumption.