Is reason a good enough basis for belief/non-belief?

[cottage]

So faith and reason are actually part and parcel of each other. Faith is how we reason that our past experiences will predict our future experiences (given the fact that we can never know with certainty that they will).

The everyday belief that past empirical events will predict future events (otherwise known as reasoning from cause and effect) is not the same as having faith in a supernatural deity who is supposed to do, and have done, particular things. Religious faith by its very definition requires belief in something that is not the empirical world.

 

[PureX]

The everyday belief that past empirical events will predict future events (otherwise known as reasoning from cause and effect) is not the same as having faith in a supernatural deity who is supposed to do, and have done, particular things. Religious faith by its very definition requires belief in something that is not the empirical world.

I think it's more similar than you may realize. That "deity" in most cases is a representation of the unknown. When people implore their "deity" to help them though situations in which they have little ability to control things themselves (lack of working knowledge) they are in effect addressing the unknown directly, and personally. In both instances we are placing our faith in the benevolence of the unknown. The fact that one instance uses the vehicle of deity to address the act of faith while the other addresses the act of faith directly doesn't change the reasonability of using faith to move ahead in the face of our own ignorance.

 

[cottage]

I think it's more similar than you may realize. That "deity" in most cases is a representation of the unknown. When people implore their "deity" to help them though situations in which they have little ability to control things themselves (lack of working knowledge) they are in effect addressing the unknown directly, and personally. In both instances we are placing our faith in the benevolence of the unknown. The fact that one instance uses the vehicle of deity to address the act of faith while the other addresses the act of faith directly doesn't change the reasonability of using faith to move ahead in the face of our own ignorance.

They are very, very different kinds of faith, as your example clearly shows. You will drink coffee on the very reasonable assumption that you have drunk coffee before and it hasn’t poisoned you. And if you commit to jump across a ditch it will be because you have confidence in your physical abilities based on past performances. You would not drink an unknown substance, happy in your faith that it is harmless, and nor would you jump a ditch believing faith alone might carry you safely to the other side.

 

[PureX]

They are very, very different kinds of faith, as your example clearly shows. You will drink coffee on the very reasonable assumption that you have drunk coffee before and it hasn’t poisoned you. And if you commit to jump across a ditch it will be because you have confidence in your physical abilities based on past performances. You would not drink an unknown substance, happy in your faith that it is harmless, and nor would you jump a ditch believing faith alone might carry you safely to the other side.

The only thing that differs is what you place your faith in. We all can place our faith in past experiences: that if we do the same things as we did before, we will get more or less the same results. This is easy and requires little faith. But when confronted with situations in which we have no previous experience, yet must make a decision, this is when we must trust in the unknown to act. Some people can do so directly, and some people will use the vehicle of deity to help them. Nevertheless, it's the same basic act: to trust in the unknown and to act on that trust by walking through it blindly. This requires a lot of faith, and not everyone can do it.

Yet it is a reasonable thing to do.

 

[cottage]

The only thing that differs is what you place your faith in. We all can place our faith in past experiences: that if we do the same things as we did before, we will get more or less the same results. This is easy and requires little faith. But when confronted with situations in which we have no previous experience, yet must make a decision, this is when we must trust in the unknown to act. Some people can do so directly, and some people will use the vehicle of deity to help them. Nevertheless, it's the same basic act: to trust in the unknown and to act on that trust by walking through it blindly. This requires a lot of faith, and not everyone can do it.

Yet it is a reasonable thing to do.

I was responding to what you said here:

“So faith and reason are actually part and parcel of each other. Faith is how we reason that our past experiences will predict our future experiences (given the fact that we can never know with certainty that they will)”

and:

"Faith and reason are part and parcel of each other"

But now you are saying faith is also trusting in the unknown and ‘walking through it blindly’. Well, that is not a reasoned thing to do and neither is it reasonable. Blind trust is not reason.

 

[PureX]

I was responding to what you said here:

“So faith and reason are actually part and parcel of each other. Faith is how we reason that our past experiences will predict our future experiences (given the fact that we can never know with certainty that they will)”

and:

"Faith and reason are part and parcel of each other"

But now you are saying faith is also trusting in the unknown and ‘walking through it blindly’. Well, that is not a reasoned thing to do and neither is it reasonable. Blind trust is not reason.

I disagree. Faith is a part of reason.

We can reason that because the sun has arisen every day of our lives so far, that it will arise again tomorrow. But the fact is that we don't know that it will. In the face of that unknown, however, we can place our faith in our reasoning, trust our past experiences, and live as if the sun will arise tomorrow. This is an example of faith and reason working in compliment. And when reason comes up short, in instances where we have no past experience to illuminate possible future outcomes, then we must move ahead using faith alone. It is reasonable to do so because we must move ahead, even though our knowledge and experience cannot offer us much help. Again, faith and reason work together, but faith takes over where reason leaves off.

 

[cottage]

Quote:
Originally Posted by cottage http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...d-enough-basis-belief-non-11.html#post1586997
I was responding to what you said here:

“So faith and reason are actually part and parcel of each other. Faith is how we reason that our past experiences will predict our future experiences (given the fact that we can never know with certainty that they will)”

and:

"Faith and reason are part and parcel of each other"

But now you are saying faith is also trusting in the unknown and ‘walking through it blindly’. Well, that is not a reasoned thing to do and neither is it reasonable. Blind trust is not reason.

PureX: I disagree. Faith is a part of reason.

We can reason that because the sun has arisen every day of our lives so far, that it will arise again tomorrow. But the fact is that we don't know that it will. In the face of that unknown, however, we can place our faith in our reasoning, trust our past experiences, and live as if the sun will arise tomorrow. This is an example of faith and reason working in compliment.


Cottage: Yes, I agree.



PureX: And when reason comes up short, in instances where we have no past experience to illuminate possible future outcomes, then we must move ahead using faith alone. It is reasonable to do so because we must move ahead, even though our knowledge and experience cannot offer us much help. Again, faith and reason work together, but faith takes over where reason leaves off.



Cottage: Hang on a minute! What’s happened now? Your argued that faith plays its part in reasoning from experience, which of course it does, but then you say where we cannot reason from experience we must plough on without it. Thus you are saying now that faith isn’t part of reason!

 

[PureX]

You argued that faith plays its part in reasoning from experience, which of course it does, but then you say where we cannot reason from experience we must plough on without it. Thus you are saying now that faith isn’t part of reason!

No, only that faith surpasses reason when reason falls short. And it's in these instances where some people find the need for a deity to help them through. Others do not, of course. But these are difficult times and not everyone makes it through them.

 

[Alceste]

I wouldn't necessarily agree. It is reasonable that when we find ourselves constrained by our lack of knowledge, and yet required to make a decision to move ahead, that we then rely on faith, and move ahead without sufficient knowledge. And in fact we practice some degree of this scenario all the time, as we never have ALL the information required to be CERTAIN of the outcome of our decisions. And for what information we are missing, we fill in with our faith in what information we have. It's called acting on probability. Which is basically how we all live.

I agree somewhat with your thoughts on faith - that in some ways it can take up where reason leaves off - but I would still say they're not related. I don't even think they use the same part of the brain. Faith is subconscious / intuitive, and reason is conscious. It's a lizard-brain vs primate-brain thing. Personally, when I am acting on faith - trusting my intuitive impulses regarding the unknown - it is nothing like reasonable action, where the factors are considered and a decision is reached by taking them all into account. My intuition (which is what I have faith in) says things like "go stand over there". Why? What makes over there any better than over here? But, when I do whatever I have been instructed to do there is often (not always) some personal benefit. Experience has shown me that using my faculties of reason only interferes with decisions made on faith, so for me at least they don't really work together. Reason must be switched off for faith to be effective. I can choose whether to act on reason or faith, and I prefer faith. My preference isn't reasonable though - it's not because faith has never steered me wrong, or because I'm taking any probabilities into account, it's because I get an adrenaline buzz for barreling headlong into the unknown based on the flimsiest of impulses.

Edit: I think there's a difference between the type of faith that feeds into loyalty, intuition and conscience and the type of faith that says "believe without proof that this story I'm telling you is true". I have an abundance of the former, and none of the latter.

 

[PureX]

I agree somewhat with your thoughts on faith - that in some ways it can take up where reason leaves off - but I would still say they're not related. I don't even think they use the same part of the brain. Faith is subconscious / intuitive, and reason is conscious. It's a lizard-brain vs primate-brain thing. Personally, when I am acting on faith - trusting my intuitive impulses regarding the unknown - it is nothing like reasonable action, where the factors are considered and a decision is reached by taking them all into account. My intuition (which is what I have faith in) says things like "go stand over there". Why? What makes over there any better than over here? But, when I do whatever I have been instructed to do there is often (not always) some personal benefit. Experience has shown me that using my faculties of reason only interferes with decisions made on faith, so for me at least they don't really work together. Reason must be switched off for faith to be effective. I can choose whether to act on reason or faith, and I prefer faith. My preference isn't reasonable though - it's not because faith has never steered me wrong, or because I'm taking any probabilities into account, it's because I get an adrenaline buzz for barreling headlong into the unknown based on the flimsiest of impulses.

Edit: I think there's a difference between the type of faith that feeds into loyalty, intuition and conscience and the type of faith that says "believe without proof that this story I'm telling you is true". I have an abundance of the former, and none of the latter.

I was going to mention intuition and creativity in the last post, but decided to keep it simple, instead.

Yes, these are some other tools we can use along with reason (logic) and faith. Faith often speaks to us as an "intuition". And as an artist I have studied for years the interesting interplay within myself and a sculpture involving these various methods of decision-making. I don't believe one is better than another. I found they all seem to inform each other if we can stay open and humbled to the project at hand. In the end, the world will tell us what it needs of us, if we can learn to listen to it. And if we will respond to what it tells us, the results can be quite wonderful.

This way of living surpasses mere logic, and reason. For me, life without art (this process that uses these other methods of decision-making) would be very dull and plodding.

 

[strange]

"Not if I also believe there was never a time when the universe did not exist in some form. No beginning, no need for a "first cause". My existence demonstrates that everything that is always has been and always will be, better than it demonstrates that at some time there was nothing, the something came to be. And an infinite universe that has always existed, if you really insist on getting into a ******* contest about it, is "superior" to a temporally limited universe created by a god.

At any rate, there's no need for a "first cause" even if there was a "before" the existence of the universe. (Which there wasn't. Hawking will back me up on that.)

I don't know how it is that you didn't get the memo, as you seem to be well read, but the standard and decisive undoing of the "first cause" argument is "What made God?""
==================================================================================

Sounds like the ancient idea that the sun revolves around the earth.

 

[strange]

The First Cause argument is a good one, but it is not without its problems. God, being necessarily existent is said to be the uncaused cause, which successfully rebuts any argument for a further cause, and a cause of that cause, ad infinitum.

But cause and effect is a feature of the universe, and it seems to me rather presumptuous to view all other worlds (God) to be as ours, and it means the Supreme Being is dependent upon the same phenomena that is found in the physical world. And that presents a problem! For there is no law of cause and effect. Nothing in the material world is necessary. The sun need not rise tomorrow morning, lead could be buoyant in water, and cork might sink. So if we can deny the necessity of cause and effect then 'God is the First Cause' can also be denied without contradiction. And we cannot make the special plea: 'Oh but God's causal powers are different'. For even God is constrained by logic. The Supreme Being is omnipotent, and to say otherwise (irrespective of whether there is such a Being) is a contradiction. But for all his omnipotence, he cannot change history, make me my brother, or create the proverbial rock that is too heavy for him to lift.

If the first cause is the universe, god=universe and that eliminates the concept of a first cause, god. The "leap of faith" is to believe that there is a god. Either way, it is a "leap of faith."

The logic of God is, or Wisdom, is God. It therefore stands to reason that there is no need to change history. Stars are born and stars die. Creation is perfect no matter how we analyse God's creation and needs no adjustment. Subjective and objective reasoning on our part to understand God.

 

[strange]

Well there you go. A "leap of faith" is not based on reason. Would you agree?

I would agree if you mean to say that no reasoning, can make(as an analogy)it possible to get to the opposite shore by thought alone. Because we exist I believe that God exists. God, being the first cause, needs no first cause. All existence needs a first cause.

As soon as I state that, "All existence needs a first cause.", I have objectified God through my subjective reasoning. A paradox on my part.

 

[PureX]

I would agree if you mean to say that no reasoning, can make(as an analogy)it possible to get to the opposite shore by thought alone. Because we exist I believe that God exists. God, being the first cause, needs no first cause. All existence needs a first cause.

As soon as I state that, "All existence needs a first cause.", I have objectified God through my subjective reasoning. A paradox on my part.

The solution may lay in remembering that we don't possess knowledge or experience of all that exists. So for us to make the claim that cause and effect must rule not only the material universe, but all other possible material universes as well as all other realms of existence seems rather an arrogant claim, to me.

Secondly, our own universe is not ruled by cause and effect alone, as is often claimed, but is also is subject to chance. It seems to me that this should throw a wrench into the whole first cause debate as well.

So for me, the traditional first cause argument, at least in the mechanical a sense, is a very weak argument. Where it is much stronger, however, is in a more philosophical sense.

We know that all that exists is an expression of energy. Matter, space, motion, time, etc.; all these are expressions of energy. We don't know what energy is, yet, but we do know that energy does not manifest itself in any way. It is limited. It is only able to manifest itself in certain ways. And this begs the question: what is governing the way energy can and can't behave? This question is important because whatever the answer is to this question, is responsible for the nature and character and structure of all that exists as we know it. Whatever the answer to that question is, it's the source and sustanance of all the exists, including ourselves. It is "God" by most definitions of the term.

This is the "first cause" that I can't get around.

 

[Alceste]

Sounds like the ancient idea that the sun revolves around the earth.

It's more in line with the contemporary ideas of the holographic universe / multiverse, and also in line with the ancient taoist idea that expansion and contraction / growth and decay, are fundamental principles from which every manifest thing arises.

"Big bang" is old news. Physics has moved on. Regardless, anyone who thinks there was any such thing as "time" before the universe existed (i.e. a temporal - if not physical - location in which even a supernatural divinity could reside) does not understand the theory.

 

[strange]

The solution may lay in remembering that we don't possess knowledge or experience of all that exists. So for us to make the claim that cause and effect must rule not only the material universe, but all other possible material universes as well as all other realms of existence seems rather an arrogant claim, to me.

Secondly, our own universe is not ruled by cause and effect alone, as is often claimed, but is also is subject to chance. It seems to me that this should throw a wrench into the whole first cause debate as well.

So for me, the traditional first cause argument, at least in the mechanical a sense, is a very weak argument. Where it is much stronger, however, is in a more philosophical sense.

We know that all that exists is an expression of energy. Matter, space, motion, time, etc.; all these are expressions of energy. We don't know what energy is, yet, but we do know that energy does not manifest itself in any way. It is limited. It is only able to manifest itself in certain ways. And this begs the question: what is governing the way energy can and can't behave? This question is important because whatever the answer is to this question, is responsible for the nature and character and structure of all that exists as we know it. Whatever the answer to that question is, it's the source and sustanance of all the exists, including ourselves. It is "God" by most definitions of the term.

This is the "first cause" that I can't get around.

You know, it is not that the first cause rules the material universe or any other dimensional aspect of creation. Creation was set into motion and and does not need altering. No need to rule that Creation. The first cause is responsible for the Creation but that is as far as that responsibility goes. Creation being perfect in itself needs no further interaction.

Taken a step further, for man to pray for God's intercession is a waste of time. Creation was set in motion, it is random and radical, there is life and death. Why would man presume that Creation should be anything other than what the first cause created?

 

[strange]

It's more in line with the contemporary ideas of the holographic universe / multiverse, and also in line with the ancient taoist idea that expansion and contraction / growth and decay, are fundamental principles from which every manifest thing arises.

"Big bang" is old news. Physics has moved on. Regardless, anyone who thinks there was any such thing as "time" before the universe existed (i.e. a temporal - if not physical - location in which even a supernatural divinity could reside) does not understand the theory.

Agreed, we are a part of Creation and therefore exist for a short period of time; life and death with no promise of of anything.

The "Big Bang," there was no such thing as time before that "Big Bang" nor do I suspect that God exists in time and space. Time and space is very much an integral aspect of Creation. Where God exists is beyond our understanding. Another dimension? Doubt that we could claim God exists in another dimension.

As the first cause, God's effects are enough to prove that God exists but not enough for us to understand what God is.

 

[strange]

The solution may lay in remembering that we don't possess knowledge or experience of all that exists. So for us to make the claim that cause and effect must rule not only the material universe, but all other possible material universes as well as all other realms of existence seems rather an arrogant claim, to me.

Secondly, our own universe is not ruled by cause and effect alone, as is often claimed, but is also is subject to chance. It seems to me that this should throw a wrench into the whole first cause debate as well.

So for me, the traditional first cause argument, at least in the mechanical a sense, is a very weak argument. Where it is much stronger, however, is in a more philosophical sense.

We know that all that exists is an expression of energy. Matter, space, motion, time, etc.; all these are expressions of energy. We don't know what energy is, yet, but we do know that energy does not manifest itself in any way. It is limited. It is only able to manifest itself in certain ways. And this begs the question: what is governing the way energy can and can't behave? This question is important because whatever the answer is to this question, is responsible for the nature and character and structure of all that exists as we know it. Whatever the answer to that question is, it's the source and sustanance of all the exists, including ourselves. It is "God" by most definitions of the term.

This is the "first cause" that I can't get around.

Neither ruled by cause nor effect. We are a part of the first cause, the effect, a part of creation. All that exists is the effect of the first cause.

 

[cottage]

No, only that faith surpasses reason when reason falls short. And it's in these instances where some people find the need for a deity to help them through. Others do not, of course. But these are difficult times and not everyone makes it through them.

By saying faith goes beyond reason you are making an appeal to mysticism. To say 'when reason falls short' is to dismiss reason in favour of a belief. And in that case there is a distinction to be made between reason and faith.

 

[Mr Cheese]

Given that human reasoning is demonstrably irrational is reason a good enough basis for belief/non-belief in God?

depends what you define as God

but the answer would be no.

If all things could be demonstrated by reason we wouldnt have things that lay outside the boundaries of logic and reason... like particles and waves at the quantum level:sorry1: