Pericles, I can no longer tell if you’re saying that theism is irrational.

When you say –

“This does not of course prevent the religious from protesting 'but I have experienced God, therefore he must be real', and using this as the foundation for their belief. That is perfectly acceptable, so long as the individual isn't kidding themself.” -

– you seem to me to "allow" theism as rational.

However, when you say –

“Your experience is your experience. But it ain't science, and it ain't reason.” –

it sounds like theism is, after a brief respite, back in the bad books on rationality.

Anyhow, Dawkinsian atheists certainly presume a monopoly on rationality, which I see as simply a conceit. “More Rational than Thou” is their boast. We probably all agree about the rules of logic, but we don’t agree about the premises on which those rules operate. For people like me, “God exists” is a premise, and I can follow the rules of logic from then on. For the empiricist, “Nothing exists without empirical evidence (or similar)” is a premise. Once we leave our starting-blocks, we may be equally rigorous in our adherence to the laws of logic, and therefore equally “rational”. Our conclusions are different because one of our critical premises is different.

But, it doesn’t mean we’re entirely on an equal footing (it is only here that I differ from George). We all start with a leap to our premise: neither of us can establish it, but simply recommend it. However, theists recognise this and live consistently with faith and reason, while atheists don’t admit it and spend their life deriding faith even though they took a leap themselves. In this sense, theists live more consistently, while atheists live with a dread secret.

Fine, then I hit bushbred’s powerful point about oneupmanship – “sniping” and “righteousness”. I never call atheists “damned atheists”. However, I am called a “deluded, superstitious, bigoted Christian”. I’m prepared for a truce with no more name calling. And we might even find we agree about some things – wouldn’t that be amusing?

Pax,

Pericles, Sorry, I did not understand your reference to “wookie”. The link you provided explains what you meant: “The Chewbacca defense is a fictional legal strategy ... meaning a defense consisting solely of nonsensical arguments meant to confuse a jury.”. Well, I do not know whether all of the jury - readers of this OLO - were confused, and if you think what I wrote about euclidean geometry as nonsensical, you will have ask some philosopher you can trust.

As said before, I tried to explain the meaning of the term axiom - how “self-evidence” depends on context - because you and goodthief put different meanings to it. However, I agree that “quibbles” about whether faith can be rational or not are just tangential (nevertheless relevant) to the topic of Ameer Ali’s article.

Besides, according to my Merriam-Webster, axiom is “a proposition, principle, rule, or maxim that has found general acceptance or is thought worthy thereof whether by virtue of a claim to intrinsic merit *the axioms of wisdom* or on the basis of an appeal to self-evidence *the axioms of euclidean geometry*. Firstly, you see here that euclidean geometry is a prominent example elucidating the meaning of the term in general (not just what you call “mathematical usage”), and secondly that the “a priori” of an axiom depends on those who hold it as self-evident.

I must agree with the rest of your post. The question of how various religious models of Transcendental Reality relate to each other and to “Truth” is much more complicated than the question of how various mathematical/physical models of physical reality relate to each other and to the “truth” about material reality. And the latter is not simple either (see e.g. controversies around “science wars” or “cultural studies”). This would not be the place to tackle such questions, even if I knew how to. (ctd)

(ctd) All I wanted to defend in my post was the rational equivalence of such fundamental belief systems (axioms, if you like) as the existence or non-existence of Transcendental Reality or God, where the personal choice of one or the other is based also on other than rational grounds: you choose (and/or are educated into) your belief (or unbelief), you do not derive it logically from something more basic accepted by “religious” as well as “nonreligious” people, because no such “super-axiom” exists.

If you abolish all political parties except the only one you think is democratic, you would not have a democracy by the very definition of it. If you call arguments supporting a belief system (system of axioms if you like) different from your own, irrational (I know, you did not use that word explicitly, but others do), then you would not have any rational argument by the very definition of it. Nevertheless, you made me think about these matters, and for that I am grateful to you.

goodthief, Of course, I agree with you, and I do not think we differ that much about “equal footing”: We both believe that our faith gives us some extra dimension to our understanding of the world around us, but in certain contexts (e.g. when talking about what is rational, logical, etc, or when tackling scientific problems) we are on equal footing with the unbeliever. Like when you look at a B&W picture you are on “equal footing” with a colour-blind person.

Dear George
I thank you for your intelligent defence of your faith, which is certainly thought provoking.
However, faith necessarily involves believing in things without any real evidence to support them.
The problem with this is that malevolent people (and I am not putting you or other contributors to OLO in this category) can use, and have used, this propensity to “just believe” for their own immoral purposes.
From this, all sorts of evil can flourish.
A basic one is the indoctrination of children into a “faith” before they have developed any knowledge or critical thinking, this seems to me to be self evidently wrong.
I think this thread has gone about as far as it can go, with no change on either side of the debate. It has at least been an interesting one.

goodthief comments:

>>I can no longer tell if you’re saying that theism is irrational<<

Perhaps because if I did make this assertion, you would proceed to debunk the word “irrational”, on the basis that you need to believe in rationality before you can define it.

We have already been bogged down in disputes over the word "axiom", and queried “experience” - that one even took a detour into the German language, as if that had anything to do with it.

George, Merriam-Webster describes one of many usages of the word axiom, each of which is perfectly valid in context. Which was why I pointed out that the usage I had in mind was a) taken directly from the Greek and b) the earliest usage recorded by the OED. It does not have the same wishy-washy, take-your-pick shape to it as M-W, but is highly specific. That was how the introduction of euclidean geometry was a wookie: in itself valid, but totally irrelevant.

But let's see whether we can get to common ground.

An empiricist will never understand how a religionist can believe the stuff they do. You can't find religion through logic.

Nor can a religious person understand how an empiricist limits their view of life to testable, repeatable experience. Faith, they say, frees you from this limitation.

I agree with goodthief, each takes a different starting point. But there is also a different conclusion.

An empiricist can cope with the fact that there are people who rely upon faith instead of logic to inform them of the nature and dimensions of the universe, because these people are both visible and audible.

But for some reason, religious people are puzzled when non-believers say that on the balance of evidence, there is no God.

Why are they surprised?

If you start from the premise that you need faith before you can believe, surely it is logical and obvious that someone without faith, does not believe?

So surely, to an empiricist, it is axiomatic that theism is irrational.

But to a theist, is it axiomatic that empiricism is irrational?

froggie wrote 'However, faith necessarily involves believing in things without any real evidence to support them.'

'faith' is not being given it real world relevance...firstly there is nothing that is certain in life...until event has occurred, including the sun rising tomorrow...all we have is probability...ie it is extremely likely that the sun will rise...which is in effect a 'faith' that sun 'will' rise tomorrow...ie 'faiths' a belief of something that has not happened yet...

even dawkins fails to realize he uses faith in each and every moment of his life...it was indeed faith of the plane that he took to bring him to Australia...all he had was probability that it will go well...and faith that his plane would not be one that failed the probability...same to the car you took this morning to shopping/bank/work...faith that car will get you there...for if you didnt then the bus it is...so its not the 'faith' but the 'goal' intended that becomes important for relevance to put on the 'faith' applied in it...to result in likely failure/success...excessive 'faith' is as bad as 'no-faith'...

talking about probability(ie...mathematically)...theres no evidence about gods existence...so to question 'does god exist'...the 'probability'(mathematical term) of one getting the answer right is 50%...thats it...toss of a coin...imagine this in real daily terms...

for we humans have rational logical intelligence...those that argue god not-exist/does-exist is effectively a good one for both sides of the 50% chance...as both side depend on faith...except when deceit steps in...ie unbalanced self interested...whom dont care either way...all they care is getting self-benefit in which case will put an 'support' with a hidden plan to side that will achieve this...;this group easily picked out as they usually fail 'rational logical intelligence' applied to god...but pass well with 'rational logical intelligence applied to self-benefit'...

Sam