Note my explanation above.
Theists [Plantinga, St. Anselm, Descartes, and the likes] may use all sort of fanciful presentations and arguments but the final decision re God exists or not is driven by crude reasoning related to ‘cause and effect’ as subliminally compelled by an existential crisis within.
Note Kant demonstrated it is impossible to prove the existence of God via proofs because all proofs will be inherently infected with the equivocation virus.
Pris,
I generally understand what “refined” means, but it is not a term that I’ve seen applied to “thinking” before. I suppose you can squeeze it into that context, but saying that one method of thinking is refined and another is crude seems arbitrary. I find what you’re claiming to be speculative. Whilst we can claim that all theists believe that God exists, I think its difficult (or perhaps impossible) to know the exact manner of reasoning in which all theists conclude that God exists, because insight has its limitations.
You’ve claimed that problem solving is your forte, but how can you problem solve effectively without using cause and effect reasoning or root cause analysis?
I don’t think it follows that, because you can’t use faith to judge a person in court, that faith is inferior to critical thinking. You have to apply different modes of thinking in different situations. Faith, is not appropriate to use in terms of judging someone in court, but it is appropriate concerning having religious beliefs. I don’t understand why you are thinking in terms of inferior and superior?
I find this to be conjecture. I don’t have any clue how you have arrived at these conclusions, perhaps you could explain?
IMV, your claims re existential crisis are speculative, not facts. That Buddhism attempts to deal with existential crisis, does not mean that the root cause of all religious belief is existential crisis.
Whilst I agree that theistic beliefs provide a degree of security for believers, I don’t agree that the security is “mostly subconscious” how could I possibly know that? Why are you claiming to have knowledge and insight into the subconscious mind, do you have any qualifications or training in psychology or psychiatry? What you’re claiming is very speculative, how do you know the effect that your “critique” has upon theists? How would you know that it “shakes the foundation of their beliefs” or that theists need “such confirmation bias”? These ideas don’t seem cogent to me, why do you think that they are?
Yes, I am aware of your position.
I was questioning Fanman because it seemed like he had drunk the Kool-Aid.
Sure, Kant is without flaw and perfect.
“equivocation virus”. 
Your first point is a solid one. Why does he get to make generalized psychic claims? A further problem with his position is he sees only reasoning as the root to grounded belief. Even in the West, where it is emphasized less and faith is often prioritized, religions offer immersion in experiences, and representatives would, in fact, suggest that one must build up an empirical relationship and via experience develop beliefs. In the East this is just a given. You don’t come to believe in a certain Hindu deity through argument - though they certainly do have theological arguments - but rather through long term practices and the experience of the deity or deities. Most masters in any religion do not get new members through philosophical argument - though little quick ones may be interspersed. The idea is to build up, like a skill, a connection and set of experiences over LONG periods of time.
It is odd that he uses a theist when appealing to authority, Kant having problems with anthropomorphized descriptions of God, not thinking that beliefs in God were necessarily or even at all wrong or irrational.
The equivocation virus would certainly eliminate the possibility of any proof of their being a self.
It can be debated
That, since Kant was constipated,
Blockage shows
In his prose.
I mean who can suffer to dig for sense in a sentence that is over a page long? One critic said he read Kant
by placing fingers on certain points in the text and ran out of fingers.
Serendipper, you are not alone.
Karpel Tunnel,
I don’t know why Prismatic believes that he can psychoanalyse people, but he only seems to do so when others disagree with his claims. As if someone who disagrees with him has some kind of issue – read what you will into that perspective, I know that I do. I agree with what you say; in the West, with religions like Christianity, faith is certainly prioritised and appears to be the central theme or at least the aspect of the religion that preachers appeal to the most. I couldn’t say much about Eastern religions, but the Christian God, in terms of the way sophisticated theists refer to it, for whom faith alone doesn’t seem to be enough, do rely on logical arguments for God’s existence. Experiences of God or those that relate to spirituality, in my experience act as a reinforcement of faith, giving theist’s belief a degree of solidarity.
Prism seems to be gone. Is spectrum on the other site?
Serendipper,
I haven’t seen him post for a while here, or on the OPC. Maybe he’s taking a break or busy. I think he’ll be back sooner or later.
Faith is prioritized in certain Christian talk. It is a buzzword that, from their perspective has high value, shows a kind of moral goodness. Fine. They are responsible, when they get in dialogue with atheists, for emphasizing this. Atheists for buying into the false dichotomy and framing the debate repeatedly that way, as if it fit Christians, let alone theists in general. If one listens to Christians in other contexts, especially people who have reinvigorated their religions, they talk about the presence of Jesus, the feeling of Jesus in their hearts, visions, the feeling of the Holy Spirit, a sense of grace, connections to God, hearing phrases, messages, connection in prayer and more. IOW empirical reasons for thinking they are experiencing a deity. Beyond that they also speak in functional terms: when I gave over my soul to Jesus, X happened. Often related to despair, drug addiction, life changing events, sometimes on internal changes, some including changes in the material world. When I pray, I later experience X. These types of experiences also vary wildly and they are also empirical, related to control. This is not even getting near phenomena like being taken over by the Holy Spirit or other more profound types of, often physically overwhelming experiences.
Of course atheists have their explanations for these experiences – and the implicit argument that these experiences they have never had should not be convincing, are categorized correctly by the atheists, and would not convince the atheists, despite the atheists not having had these experiences.
My point in all this that even though theists tend to wander towards the value of faith as the foundation, in fact in other contexts they tend to focus on, even when specifically explaining why they believe or why they believe so strongly, empirical phenomena.
This only get stronger when dealing with Christian mystics, including figures like Jesus, who have prolonged complicated empirical processes.
And in dialogue with priests and pastors, most of them will, especially in one on one situations, encourage long term disciplined approaches to an empirical connection to the divine via prayer, contemplation, ritual attendance, along with moral cleansing, etc. which is designed to make it easier to experience the divine. They do not say, simply, have more faith. The indicate that there are processes requiring intention and, really skill.
If we move out of Christianity eastward we get religions like Hinduisms, where the practices are absolutely empirical, faith is not focused on, and these practices are openly considered skills, often requiring lifetimes of practice – reincarnation itself, being something that is not simply taken on faith, but is remembered by practitioners.
Move into indigenous/shamanic religions and there is no clear separation between the divine and the mundane and all beliefs have empirical bases.
Again, of course, we know how atheists view these experiences. Implicitly and explicitly atheists tend to indicate that they base their beliefs on science (usually) and some other beliefs based on logical reasoning. But this is mythical. Just like everyone else, they must, given that they are fallible beings IN SITU, base beliefs on intuition/faith. They wake up and think their memory of what is true and how they reached their conclusions about, say women and men, or politics, or their own epistemological processes or their memories (of learning, deciding) are correct. In the process of deciding what is true intuition plays a huge role. We are not arguments on paper. We are creatures immersed in reality constructing. This does not mean I take a postmodern view of beliefs, that we cannot tell between them. I do think beliefs can be categorized in terms of levels of justification, but no one has claims to purity, all are working with various a priori, AND experience plays a huge role as does the intuitional ability of the experiencers. That is it all logic and empirical research for some is just BS. Scientists managed to not believe animals had emotions and cognition up into the 70s, for example.
I’ve given Prism, elsewhere, scientific research giving other reasons than he does for why theists believe. This does not change is certainty despite not having any research at all.
But a more important issue is the implicit mis-framing of the issue.
It is as if the theist chooses to be theist based on fear than false reasoning.
When in fact most theists are theists from childhood and reasoning and choice come later, if they do.
The real question for most theists is whether to stop believing in God when faced with atheists. Here again to say it is simply faith and bad reasoning, or unwillingness to face fears is confused.
For most theists it seems to be working, their complex set of behaviors and ideas- the social portions of religion, the relations with the religious leaders, their practices and beliefs. What they need to be shown is that it is not working or there is confirmation bias and so on. I am not saying that belief in God should be the default, that the onus is on atheists, but in practical terms for the theist, this is the case. They have been immersed for a long time. They experience it as working. Of course, they need to be shifted off this, by their own curiosity or dissatisfaction or by arguments from atheists, so it is a default for them and to say it is based on fear is confused, though, sure fear could certainly be in there somewhere and all of us are threatened when our paradigms are challenged well enough to make it seem possible we will have to give them up or modify them fundamentally.
what other site?
Karpel Tunnel,
Excellent post. I can’t find any points that I disagree with.
Something changed. He went from diligently replying as if he were on a mission to not even logging on.
Onlinephilosophyclub.com It’s a forum like this one, though after 3-4 days of posting I still haven’t found the end to the “moderator approval” requirement for my posts. I posted about it in “feedback”, but my feedback wasn’t approved, so I’m not too fond of the censorship and perpetual presumption of guilt. There is a bit more activity there, but mostly because it’s all mods. The mods here never talk; the mods there never stop. OPC just isn’t for me.
Serendipper,
Perhaps you’re right. Maybe something has changed as he was very active.
I randomly disappear too, but not in the middle of a debate.
After interacting with you more, I’m beginning to believe you are the author.
I had a project to attend to then.
Anyone want to continue the debate.
I believe theists need to understand the fact that the idea of God emerged onto human consciousness due to some existential psychological dilemma and for most it is because of low tolerance for CO2.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=194667
Since the idea of God emerged due to existential psychological factors, then resolving these existential issues would wean theists off the idea of God.
The resulting positive consequences are the elimination of all evil and violence influenced by evil laden commands within SOME theistics text.
In addition, people will have less involuntary inherent sensitivity to psychologically-based existential threats.
Non-theists were likely killed throughout history which genetically selected for the obedient breed we are.
Also, poverty itself favors neurological “deformities” predisposing one to fear and hate. It requires an abundance of nutrition to grow and power the cerebral cortex.
Yeah people who didn’t value consensus over their own discernment weren’t given much opportunity to procreate. That’s how “consensus is always right”.
If you want to kill someone and get away with it the best way to do it is through consensus.
“Prove” by shuffling existing language into clever formlies that the discoverer is Wrong.
And then take his papers to light that died fire he, in his unconsensus like arrogance showed you how to light before.
Theists clung to a god for comfort and security arising from a terrible and desperate existential crisis.
The majority [not all] view non-theists as non-conformists, i.e. the “them” as in ‘us versus them’ and thus a serious threat to their beliefs.
Since theists have the majority power and SOME will kill non-theists to eliminate their deemed threat.
Note, because of the same insecurities, some theists are also killing other theists with different beliefs.
The serious problem is theists are killing non-theists and other theists merely based on some psychological insecurities and in certain cases compelled by commands from their God which is illusory and an impossibility.
The could be some justifications if any killing is done in self-defense under a very serious threat. But with SOME theists, they kill because their God [illusory and impossible] permit them to do so merely if the religion is threatened [often perceived threats].