.

Dear George,

.

Suffice it to say that I read the first half of your post with an acquiescing smile. I find it is equally as true as Ockham’s razor.

If you don’t mind, I’ll christen it “George’s theory of relativity”.

More seriously, the last paragraph of the second half of your post highlights a misunderstanding I should have addressed long before this. It’s important. I’ll address it now. You wrote:

« You see, you made me compare unbelievers to deaf people, to counter your insistence that believers must have irrational (going against reason) reasons for their faith. We should agree that although both analogies reflect something, they are in essence caricatures expressing the inability to put oneself into the other’s shoes, be they “belief in God” or “belief in Sagan’s maxim” »
.

I need to provide some background so please bear with me.

My understanding of the laws that govern nature is that “everything in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity”, an idea attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher, Democritus (460 BC – 370 BC. Jacques Monod, the French biologist, a 1965 Nobel Prize winner, later accredited and developed the idea in his book “Le hasard et la nécessité” (Chance and Necessity) published in 1970. From this, Monod deduced that “Life is a spontaneous, evolutive, sensitive and reproductive process triggered by the fortuitous encounter of complementary elements of matter and energy in a favourable environment” (chance meaning a “random variable” and necessity an “inevitable” event).

As an integral part of nature, I understand that this is not only how life began, but also, how we human beings function.

Like many living species and perhaps more than most, we are highly cooperative, forming large societies. As a result, we have developed an extraordinary degree of mimicry, physically, mentally, and in just about every aspect of our lives.

Though “randomness” has been largely harnessed over time by the development of freewill (understood as autonomy), free will, in turn, has progressively become heavily influenced and increasingly controlled by a multitude of social constraints.

.

(Continued ...)

.

.

(Continued ...)

.

Human “rationality” operates within this context and I am inclined to think “solely” within this context. I don’t think we can be anything “other than” rational. We are inextricably subjected to the laws of nature.

As a normally constituted human being, George, I am convinced that everything you say and do is rational, just like everybody else on earth (apart from the few exceptions who are not of sound mind).

I don’t think you or any other normally constituted person can be irrational. Even if you tried, there would be a rational reason for your trying - just as there would be a rational reason for your doing something unusual and completely out of character.

That is why I consider that normally constituted people such as yourself who hold religious beliefs have perfectly rational reasons for doing so. Their reasons may be vastly different from one person to another across the globe since they are not based on objective elements (such as material evidence, etc.) but on deeply ingrained subjective factors of a cultural, emotional and psychological nature (as we both seem to agree).

Rational arguments based on objective elements are, of course, totally irrelevant to the subjective but perfectly rational reasons for which people hold religious beliefs. Such arguments are about as effective as water on a duck’s back.

This is what I meant when I wrote that “rational arguments are of no avail as regards their [religious beliefs’] subjective, cultural, emotional and psychological aspects »

I hope that clarifies my position.

.

Dear Banjo,

Everyone, religious or otherwise, starts off with a basic set of subjective and irrational desires. These desires could be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual - but regardless, there is never a rational necessity to desire anything.

Once our desires are established, we have the capacity to proceed in a rational manner to try and fulfil those desires. Some of us do so more than others.

.

Dear Yuyutsu,

.

I appreciate you sharing your opinion with me. I think I understand where you are coming from but that is not quite how I would express it.

No doubt you have in mind the exuberance of young children discovering the world into which they have been born. They are full of desires and curiosity.

It seems to me that that is the way nature works. That’s life and it’s a very healthy sign. The contrary would be preoccupying in my view.

It is the role of parents to encourage the curiosity of their children but to teach them to be prudent. It is also their role to temporise their impulsive desires as gently, intelligently and persuasively as possible but with all the necessary firmness and unyielding determination.

Having said that, I do not qualify such impulsive desires as “irrational”. I view it as perfectly rational or logical behaviour for children discovering the world and all its temptations for the first time, just as animals might have impulsive desires when they see something that makes their mouths water. It is a perfectly natural reaction.

I think “unreasonable” would be a more appropriate term. The OED indicates for unreasonable: “not guided by or based on good sense” and “beyond the limits of acceptability”.

Admittedly, the difference between “irrational” and “unreasonable” is not huge but it is important for a correct understanding of the forces of nature and how they determine our thought processes and behaviour.

.

Dear Banjo,

If an action or an interest is rational, this implies that it is not basic or primary, that you should dig deeper. For something to be rational, there must be an underlying desire plus a rational conclusion that doing or wanting something should forward that underlying desire.

For example, a child may want to discover the world because she understands that her parents expect her to. The deeper desire in that case could then be to have her parents like her. Now if even that is rational, then the further-deeper desire could be to keep the body fed, with the rationale that "if parents like me then they will feed me".

You can always dig further until eventually you arrive at an irrational desire.

Dear Banjo,

Thank you for an interesting post. Jacques Monod is a good example of an atheist thinker whose insights into the functioning of our world are an enrichment also for a theist world view (http://creation.com/jacques-monod-and-theistic-evolution) - there are quite a few of them, and not only scientists.

These posts started with a subtlety beliefs vs faith. You brought in another subtlety: the difference between irrational (or unreasonable if you like) - i.e. going against reason, even logic - and “arational”, something that Pascal had in mind with his “Le coeur a ses raisons que le raison ne connaît point.”

As Yuyutsu points out, any world view starts from some basic assumptions (I would not call them desires) about how we regard the world around us from where one makes conclusions, theoretical and practical, rational or arational, sometimes even irrational/unreasonable.

Anyhow, thanks again for the discussion and insights. I hope Graham is not cross with me for bringing in the topic through the back door (Sellick’s article)