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Why would people believe in something which are not proven?

Is it rational if one believe in something which are not proven?


  • Total voters
    30
  • This poll will close: .

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
Why would people believe in something which are not proven?

Life starts with trust/faith/belief in something and it is but natural to do so.
One should continue doing so unless it is proven wrong. Isn't it reasonable, please?
Regards

No, that's not reasonable.

Believing things "until proven wrong", is basicly an argument from ignorance...
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Your poll is missing an option for "well supported by evidence".

The world isn't black and white. If you can only believe things that are PROVEN, then there won't be much you can believe.

Most things can never be PROVEN, only supported.

I'ld say that to be rational, belief should come in degrees of certainty. And the degree of certainty should be determined by the amount and quality of evidence in support of something.

Lacking any evidence at all, it is not rational to believe something (to any degree).

You have no evidence of whether you are a Boltzmann Brain or not.
Nor any evidence regarding this:
"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists." William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis.

Reason and rational are in your mind and not out there in the rest of the universe. You are using an internal mental standard to say something about something it doesn't work on.
Just as meaning, morality, fair, just, purpose, useful, truth, evidence and indeed gods.
You start by having faith that the universe is fair. Otherwise the belief in knowledge doesn't work.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
You have no evidence of whether you are a Boltzmann Brain or not.

Indeed I have not.
I also don't have evidence that I am, or not, being followed by undetectable unicorns.
Or that we are in the Matrix. Or that everything was created last thursday.

There's an infinite amount of unfalsifiable things for which we have no evidence for pro or con.

Nor any evidence regarding this:
"The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.'

That's not really true. Since independend measurements of things in reality, tend to be uniform. In fact, even something as silly as driving cars, is evidence for that principle. These devices are engineered using theoretical models of the relevant natural phenomena. These models are the result of scientists figuring out how reality works through observation.

The model explains the observation in detail. How it works.
Everytime any of us drive a car, we confirm that our experience of reality matches the experience of others.
Gravity works the same for everybody.


This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout.

No, it does not. And science has proven numberous times already that it does not.

You can't see radiation. Or magnetism. Or soundwaves.
But you can demonstrate each of them.

Science doesn't shun things you can't "see".
It only shuns things you can't demonstrate.

Centuries ago, claims of radiation must have sounded like claims about undetectable unicorns.
But then somebody came up with a way to prove its existance.

The laws that are assumed to apply, are the laws that can be shown to be accurate descriptions of reality.

In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists." William C. Keel (2007). The Road to Galaxy Formation (2nd ed.). Springer-Praxis.

I disagree.
The idea that the properties of the universe are the same for everyone, in no way implies that those properties are therefor knowable for us. There might be things we will never figure out. Or that we simply can't figure out because of having no way to study it.

Reason and rational are in your mind and not out there in the rest of the universe. You are using an internal mental standard to say something about something it doesn't work on.

That's just silly.

Just as meaning, morality, fair, just, purpose, useful, truth, evidence and indeed gods.
You start by having faith that the universe is fair. Otherwise the belief in knowledge doesn't work.

I don't think the universe is fair at all. In fact, I think it's mega weird.
Quantum mechanics is the opposite of "fair". It spits on so many rules we all took for granted.

Don't remember who, but some quantum physicist once said "I hate quantum physics. Literally hate it. What I hate most about it? ...that it actually works."
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
...
That's just silly.
...

You are not that special nor unique. Neither am I. But I know what to look for and I know where it ends. It always ends in the following. Reality must make sense to me and if it doesn't, it is silly.
Now the problem is that word "silly" has no objective referent. It is not particular to "silly. It comes in many variant and ends here for most humans: Reality must make sense to me. The problem or joke is that it is first person subjective, mental and not about reality as such. It is a relation between the rest of reality and the individual and the evidence, proof, logic, reason, truth and what not is not objective. It is subjective. It ends in that it must makes sense!!!

Now I am a skeptic so I love "silly" and all the variants, because I look for the limitations, where it breaks down, where it doesn't add up and so on. I use reductio ad absurdum on everything including reductio ad absurdum and then I note the following, when I check my thinking against the rest of reality:

Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:

(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;

(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

We are playing both combined and your claim amounts to that you have an universal method for which you can make a metaphysically privileged standpoint. I then test that by thinking differently and then I note that we are both here. Thus we both don't have a metaphysically privileged standpoint. And you answer to the effect that reality must make sense to you. That can be tested and I have do so. It doesn't work for reason, logic, evidence and what not.
You just believe that you are special, because you believe you got it and everybody else, who gets it differently, don't get it.

But indeed, reality is so weird, that if you check it reason, logic, evidence and what not doesn't work for all of reality. Nor does God.
I just do it differently that you, because I am a general skeptic. I know that I don't have to understand reality in toto to be in it. You don't, because you haven't checked your core assumption that reality must make sense.

Biology as evolution is not about making sense of reality. Biology is a process of the 4 Fs and it doesn't care that you with your big beautiful brain believe in the illusion that reality must make sense. The joke that it is a secondary result of cognition, a by-product, but you don't need to make sense of reality. In biological terms you "need" to function back to the replication of the fittest gene and that doesn't require to make sense of reality. It requires that it functions as a part of reality.

I get that the joke is on both of us. You only get that it is on me and not you because you are special. You can do something where everybody else fails. You can't. Nobody can and that includes both of us. I am special, because I know I am not special. You are special, because you believe that you are fundamentally different than everybody else.

And that has nothing to do with religion or not.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Nietzsche.

There are no monster out there. There are feelings in you. Learn to recognize that or you will project the negative feelings unto the other humans and you treat that human as a monster. That is not a fact. The fact is that it is a feeling in you.
That it makes sense in you, is in you. So if you don't recognize that, it well get back to you as "the abyss".
The meaningless and everything else of that variant as e.g. silly is to you in you and nowhere else. That is the subjectivity you can't escape. In biological terms humans live in a cognitive bubble of making sense.
All the way to this:
Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:

(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;

(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.

So no! You can make sense differently of reality than me and I can do that in reverse.
We just get that differently.
Welcome to the freak show.
Reality is an illusion, which appears to be constant none the less to the mind.
All I got is that it appears constant to me. You believe that it is not in you, that it appears constant to you, but it is in you.

I check all words, when playing this game. All of them and that reality is constant to you, is in you and nowhere else.
It is not turtles all the way down. It is cognition all the way.
I just know that, because I am a general skeptic.

BTW the "we" you use is a social construct just like "gods".
It is not nature, it is nurture, culture, mental, psychological and a social construct just like "gods".
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
You are not that special nor unique. Neither am I. But I know what to look for and I know where it ends. It always ends in the following. Reality must make sense to me and if it doesn't, it is silly.
Now the problem is that word "silly" has no objective referent. It is not particular to "silly. It comes in many variant and ends here for most humans: Reality must make sense to me. The problem or joke is that it is first person subjective, mental and not about reality as such. It is a relation between the rest of reality and the individual and the evidence, proof, logic, reason, truth and what not is not objective. It is subjective. It ends in that it must makes sense!!!

Now I am a skeptic so I love "silly" and all the variants, because I look for the limitations, where it breaks down, where it doesn't add up and so on. I use reductio ad absurdum on everything including reductio ad absurdum and then I note the following, when I check my thinking against the rest of reality:


Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

We are playing both combined and your claim amounts to that you have an universal method for which you can make a metaphysically privileged standpoint. I then test that by thinking differently and then I note that we are both here. Thus we both don't have a metaphysically privileged standpoint. And you answer to the effect that reality must make sense to you. That can be tested and I have do so. It doesn't work for reason, logic, evidence and what not.
You just believe that you are special, because you believe you got it and everybody else, who gets it differently, don't get it.

But indeed, reality is so weird, that if you check it reason, logic, evidence and what not doesn't work for all of reality. Nor does God.
I just do it differently that you, because I am a general skeptic. I know that I don't have to understand reality in toto to be in it. You don't, because you haven't checked your core assumption that reality must make sense.

Biology as evolution is not about making sense of reality. Biology is a process of the 4 Fs and it doesn't care that you with your big beautiful brain believe in the illusion that reality must make sense. The joke that it is a secondary result of cognition, a by-product, but you don't need to make sense of reality. In biological terms you "need" to function back to the replication of the fittest gene and that doesn't require to make sense of reality. It requires that it functions as a part of reality.

I get that the joke is on both of us. You only get that it is on me and not you because you are special. You can do something where everybody else fails. You can't. Nobody can and that includes both of us. I am special, because I know I am not special. You are special, because you believe that you are fundamentally different than everybody else.

And that has nothing to do with religion or not.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Nietzsche.

There are no monster out there. There are feelings in you. Learn to recognize that or you will project the negative feelings unto the other humans and you treat that human as a monster. That is not a fact. The fact is that it is a feeling in you.
That it makes sense in you, is in you. So if you don't recognize that, it well get back to you as "the abyss".
The meaningless and everything else of that variant as e.g. silly is to you in you and nowhere else. That is the subjectivity you can't escape. In biological terms humans live in a cognitive bubble of making sense.
All the way to this:


So no! You can make sense differently of reality than me and I can do that in reverse.
We just get that differently.
Welcome to the freak show.
Reality is an illusion, which appears to be constant none the less to the mind.
All I got is that it appears constant to me. You believe that it is not in you, that it appears constant to you, but it is in you.

I check all words, when playing this game. All of them and that reality is constant to you, is in you and nowhere else.
It is not turtles all the way down. It is cognition all the way.
I just know that, because I am a general skeptic.

BTW the "we" you use is a social construct just like "gods".
It is not nature, it is nurture, culture, mental, psychological and a social construct just like "gods".

I think we all know (if rational) that reality is not going to change for others when any of us die, other than for the few in our local circle. Hence, reality being an illusion or not, our presence is a bit immaterial. And I can't understand why any bit of our existence has to make the slightest sense.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
You are not that special nor unique. Neither am I. But I know what to look for and I know where it ends. It always ends in the following. Reality must make sense to me and if it doesn't, it is silly.
Now the problem is that word "silly" has no objective referent. It is not particular to "silly. It comes in many variant and ends here for most humans: Reality must make sense to me. The problem or joke is that it is first person subjective, mental and not about reality as such. It is a relation between the rest of reality and the individual and the evidence, proof, logic, reason, truth and what not is not objective. It is subjective. It ends in that it must makes sense!!!

Now I am a skeptic so I love "silly" and all the variants, because I look for the limitations, where it breaks down, where it doesn't add up and so on. I use reductio ad absurdum on everything including reductio ad absurdum and then I note the following, when I check my thinking against the rest of reality:


Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

We are playing both combined and your claim amounts to that you have an universal method for which you can make a metaphysically privileged standpoint. I then test that by thinking differently and then I note that we are both here. Thus we both don't have a metaphysically privileged standpoint. And you answer to the effect that reality must make sense to you. That can be tested and I have do so. It doesn't work for reason, logic, evidence and what not.
You just believe that you are special, because you believe you got it and everybody else, who gets it differently, don't get it.

But indeed, reality is so weird, that if you check it reason, logic, evidence and what not doesn't work for all of reality. Nor does God.
I just do it differently that you, because I am a general skeptic. I know that I don't have to understand reality in toto to be in it. You don't, because you haven't checked your core assumption that reality must make sense.

Biology as evolution is not about making sense of reality. Biology is a process of the 4 Fs and it doesn't care that you with your big beautiful brain believe in the illusion that reality must make sense. The joke that it is a secondary result of cognition, a by-product, but you don't need to make sense of reality. In biological terms you "need" to function back to the replication of the fittest gene and that doesn't require to make sense of reality. It requires that it functions as a part of reality.

I get that the joke is on both of us. You only get that it is on me and not you because you are special. You can do something where everybody else fails. You can't. Nobody can and that includes both of us. I am special, because I know I am not special. You are special, because you believe that you are fundamentally different than everybody else.

And that has nothing to do with religion or not.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” Nietzsche.

There are no monster out there. There are feelings in you. Learn to recognize that or you will project the negative feelings unto the other humans and you treat that human as a monster. That is not a fact. The fact is that it is a feeling in you.
That it makes sense in you, is in you. So if you don't recognize that, it well get back to you as "the abyss".
The meaningless and everything else of that variant as e.g. silly is to you in you and nowhere else. That is the subjectivity you can't escape. In biological terms humans live in a cognitive bubble of making sense.
All the way to this:


So no! You can make sense differently of reality than me and I can do that in reverse.
We just get that differently.
Welcome to the freak show.
Reality is an illusion, which appears to be constant none the less to the mind.
All I got is that it appears constant to me. You believe that it is not in you, that it appears constant to you, but it is in you.

I check all words, when playing this game. All of them and that reality is constant to you, is in you and nowhere else.
It is not turtles all the way down. It is cognition all the way.
I just know that, because I am a general skeptic.

BTW the "we" you use is a social construct just like "gods".
It is not nature, it is nurture, culture, mental, psychological and a social construct just like "gods".

I love how you completely ignored the actual points made in my post.

Sorry for the work you put into it, but I have to be honest and say that I really don't feel like spending all this energy into reading defenses for a silly statement like the one you made.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I think we all know (if rational) that reality is not going to change for others when any of us die, other than for the few in our local circle. Hence, reality being an illusion or not, our presence is a bit immaterial. And I can't understand why any bit of our existence has to make the slightest sense.

And:

Rather than - the next best explanation?

So here the parts of your posts for different aspects of reality.

I think - that is a part of reality, for which I check if I can think differently and I can and so can you. I.e. cognitive relativism.
we all know (if rational) - there is no universal singular we for all of reality. In biological and social terms is the 4Fs(nature), nurture(the single individual) and the cultural effect of the fight for power, resources and prestige. Humans are not rational as a property of a thing. Rationality is a process in a given brain, which produces a specif output based on a specific input. More later.
that reality is - reality is not a thing. It is the set of apparently interconnected properties for different contexts. For one context with one property there is one truth. But for any situation with 2 or more humans there is never one reality with one truth and there are 2 or more brains.
...
And I can't understand why any bit of our existence has to make the slightest sense. - Yes, I accept you understanding as yours, but I can do that differently and so can you as you. Further that this claim makes sense to you, otherwise you wouldn't claim it, comes back to rational. It is rational to you, but it is differently rationally to me. I accept it as your thinking, but I make sense differently.

So for the best explanation of what reality is?
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". Einstein apparently
Well, reality is, should always be check for "but not simpler", which I have just done.
How you as "I can't understand" in regards to "our existence" is to simple. 2 humans can't always be made one as the same, because there is no simple, universal one property "we" or "our".
We share parts of reality, but our existence is not one for all aspects.

That was the falsification from my POV for your POV. Not that mine is better as an explanation and yours worse or in reverse.
Now you can if you want to connect the dots between these:
- Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
-
Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:

(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;

(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others.
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Why would people believe in something, which are not proven?

Because reality can't be proven using just reason, logic, truth, evidence and what not for one single methodology, which is coherent, consistent and what not. When we play this game, I just check if I can do it differently than anybody else and if so answer: No! It is to simple.
I believe, where reason, logic, truth, evidence and what not don't work, because that in that case, it is what works. All those words and their practice have limitations and that is not just the word - "belief".

Not proven works, where there is no proof, reason, logic, evidence and what not. I am a general skeptic and I check, how it works in practice, even if science and all that doesn't work.

I accept that you and I do it differently, but I don't accept your "our", because I can do it differently.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I love how you completely ignored the actual points made in my post.

Sorry for the work you put into it, but I have to be honest and say that I really don't feel like spending all this energy into reading defenses for a silly statement like the one you made.

How rational of you to use a feeling.
If it is silly and I can do it for my life, it works. That you don't understand me, doesn't mean that I can't be a part of reality and function. That is your problem, because you have explained how I do it as a part of reality. But you have explained it away as irrelevant, yet it is relevant for a part of how reality works, because I am still here.

So I have been doing this for over 25 years now and you are not the first one, who uses in effect a psychological defense mechanism.
That it is silly, is in you and not out there in rest of reality. You are projecting your first person thoughts and feelings.
So back to: "It is silly." That is not what is going on. What is going on, is that it is silly to you as a result of how you think and feel. I just think and feel differently.
One man's silly is another man's that it makes sense. That works in both directions. We just get it differently.
I accept you as a human, but I don't accept that you can speak for us all, because there is no "us" universally.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
How rational of you to use a feeling.
If it is silly and I can do it for my life, it works. That you don't understand me, doesn't mean that I can't be a part of reality and function. That is your problem, because you have explained how I do it as a part of reality. But you have explained it away as irrelevant, yet it is relevant for a part of how reality works, because I am still here.

So I have been doing this for over 25 years now and you are not the first one, who uses in effect a psychological defense mechanism.
That it is silly, is in you and not out there in rest of reality. You are projecting your first person thoughts and feelings.
So back to: "It is silly." That is not what is going on. What is going on, is that it is silly to you as a result of how you think and feel. I just think and feel differently.
One man's silly is another man's that it makes sense. That works in both directions. We just get it differently.
I accept you as a human, but I don't accept that you can speak for us all, because there is no "us" universally.

Sorry I just don't see the value in dissecting a huge post of which the ultimate aim is to question literaly everything, including those things supported by huge amounts of evidence, just because we have to use our brains to process things.

I think it's simply silly, unproductive nonsense to suggest that "rationality" isn't actually rational because we figured out using our brains what the difference between rational and irrational is.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
And:



So here the parts of your posts for different aspects of reality.

I think - that is a part of reality, for which I check if I can think differently and I can and so can you. I.e. cognitive relativism.
we all know (if rational) - there is no universal singular we for all of reality. In biological and social terms is the 4Fs(nature), nurture(the single individual) and the cultural effect of the fight for power, resources and prestige. Humans are not rational as a property of a thing. Rationality is a process in a given brain, which produces a specif output based on a specific input. More later.
that reality is - reality is not a thing. It is the set of apparently interconnected properties for different contexts. For one context with one property there is one truth. But for any situation with 2 or more humans there is never one reality with one truth and there are 2 or more brains.
...
And I can't understand why any bit of our existence has to make the slightest sense. - Yes, I accept you understanding as yours, but I can do that differently and so can you as you. Further that this claim makes sense to you, otherwise you wouldn't claim it, comes back to rational. It is rational to you, but it is differently rationally to me. I accept it as your thinking, but I make sense differently.

So for the best explanation of what reality is?
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". Einstein apparently
Well, reality is, should always be check for "but not simpler", which I have just done.
How you as "I can't understand" in regards to "our existence" is to simple. 2 humans can't always be made one as the same, because there is no simple, universal one property "we" or "our".
We share parts of reality, but our existence is not one for all aspects.

That was the falsification from my POV for your POV. Not that mine is better as an explanation and yours worse or in reverse.
Now you can if you want to connect the dots between these:
- Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
-
- Why would people believe in something, which are not proven?

Because reality can't be proven using just reason, logic, truth, evidence and what not for one single methodology, which is coherent, consistent and what not. When we play this game, I just check if I can do it differently than anybody else and if so answer: No! It is to simple.
I believe, where reason, logic, truth, evidence and what not don't work, because that in that case, it is what works. All those words and their practice have limitations and that is not just the word - "belief".

Not proven works, where there is no proof, reason, logic, evidence and what not. I am a general skeptic and I check, how it works in practice, even if science and all that doesn't work.

I accept that you and I do it differently, but I don't accept your "our", because I can do it differently.

It hardly needs pointing out the limits of science when the limits of my understanding is more relevant, and why I restrain myself from asking certain questions. That is my reality. I'm more interested in things that are likely to make lives better for us here on Earth whilst not making a mess of our planet. I can make sense of such things and that is enough for me. :)
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
paarsurrey said:
Why would people believe in something which are not proven?

Life starts with trust/faith/belief in something and it is but natural to do so.
One should continue doing so unless it is proven wrong. Isn't it reasonable, please?
No, that's not reasonable.

Believing things "until proven wrong", is basicly an argument from ignorance...
No, that's not reasonable.

Believing things "until proven wrong", is basicly an argument from ignorance...

Didn't one trust one's parents in an early age whatever they told one, please?

Regards
 

McBell

Resident Sourpuss
One should continue doing so unless it is proven wrong. Isn't it reasonable, please?
So you are saying it is completely reasonable for me to believe you are a retired gay midget porn star until such time as you can prove my belief wrong?
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Sorry I just don't see the value in dissecting a huge post of which the ultimate aim is to question literaly everything, including those things supported by huge amounts of evidence, just because we have to use our brains to process things.

I think it's simply silly, unproductive nonsense to suggest that "rationality" isn't actually rational because we figured out using our brains what the difference between rational and irrational is.

That is subjective and amounts to how you feel.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
It hardly needs pointing out the limits of science when the limits of my understanding is more relevant, and why I restrain myself from asking certain questions. That is my reality. I'm more interested in things that are likely to make lives better for us here on Earth whilst not making a mess of our planet. I can make sense of such things and that is enough for me. :)

Good point.
The joker is that "us".
I start with: All humans are scared and have worth and dignity.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
Sorry I just don't see the value in dissecting a huge post of which the ultimate aim is to question literaly everything, including those things supported by huge amounts of evidence, just because we have to use our brains to process things.

I think it's simply silly, unproductive nonsense to suggest that "rationality" isn't actually rational because we figured out using our brains what the difference between rational and irrational is.

Take 2:
"Sorry I just don't see the value in dissecting a huge post of which the ultimate aim is to question literaly everything," I accept that - I will point you that you don't literally see it. It is a combination of thoughts and feelings.

"including those things supported by huge amounts of evidence, just because we have to use our brains to process things." And there it is! You switch to a "we" and apply your own thinking to all other humans, while taking your own thinking for granted.

"I think it's simply silly, unproductive nonsense to suggest that "rationality" isn't actually rational..." Rational is not a force like gravity or a thing like a rock. It is a continuum of human behavior.

"because we figured out using our brains what the difference between rational and irrational is." And there it is again. Your rationally is in part unique to you because of what you take for granted. Mine is different, but they are both a part of the continuum. You and I are not a "we", when we look closer.
Stop talking for a "we", that is nothing but a result of your nature and nurture and then assume it must be the same for all other humans.

Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
This is in part the limit of rationality and empirical evidence.
 
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