Question for religious parents

wrote in message
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If you rephrase the opinions to be propositions ("translation"), like
"I don't like brussel sprouts", are they not either true, or false?

Aside from that point, if religious belief is like that and no
religious propositions can be said to be true or false, then it's not
the sort of thing we talk about when we're using commonsense notions of
"truth" and such -- it's non-cognitive, and assertions about religious
belief cannot possibly be intrusive or offensive, since whatever it is
that someone else says, it's consistent with your own personal
religious faith.

The statement "You are ugly" is neither true or false,
and yet is quite offensive.

Bizby

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Circe wrote:
wrote in message
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That's talking about verification. You don't have to have any reasons
at all for a proposition to believe it. It might be that it's a good
idea to have reasons, since it makes you more likely to believe true
things, but the act of believing doesn't require reasons. It's just a
propositional attitude -- taking a belief to be true. That's what
makes faith *possible*.

Well, indeed. Which makes me wonder what in the heck we're arguing about
in
the 200+ posts in this thread!

Whether or not Words Mean Things, to quote Rush Limbaugh of all people.

And "belief" can mean anything from "something one holds to be verifiably
true for all persons" (such as the sun rises in the east and sets in the
west) to something one holds as a moral/ethical value independent of its
verifiability (as in the "all persons are created equal" example) to
something one thinks is true, but may only be true for oneself (as in my
example of considering death peaceful and non-threatening--I'm perfectly
willing to accept that someone else's near-death experience has convinced
them of the precise opposite and for that person, that belief is as TRUE as
mine). I can think of no native English speaker I have ever encountered who
uses the words belief/believe to mean exclusively those opinions that fall
into the first and second categories, which seems to be what you're
insisting the word has to mean.

That is something that most people think probably isn't about truth *at
all*, it's expressing something you believe about your husband's
appearance. The important thing about such expressions is that they
aren't asserting that any proposition is true. It's non-cognitive, and
amounts to saying "Hooray for my husband's appearance!"

But what you have been saying about RELIGIOUS belief is that if a person
believes one statement to be true, he or she cannot at the same time
maintain the belief that someone who holds the opposite opinion is also
correct. One or the other has to be RIGHT. And I'm saying that with
religious belief, as with opinions about another person's appearance or
about how brussel sprouts taste or about whether thong underwear are
comfortable, it is possible to fervently believe the truth of one's own
perceptions and reasoning without thinking that anyone who holds an
opposing
position is, by definition, wrong.

If you rephrase the opinions to be propositions ("translation"), like
"I don't like brussel sprouts", are they not either true, or false?

Aside from that point, if religious belief is like that and no
religious propositions can be said to be true or false, then it's not
the sort of thing we talk about when we're using commonsense notions of
"truth" and such -- it's non-cognitive, and assertions about religious
belief cannot possibly be intrusive or offensive, since whatever it is
that someone else says, it's consistent with your own personal
religious faith.

Seems an odd conclusion to me, considering what touched this whole
thread off, but some people assert it.

Consider the proposition, "My keys are on the kitchen table" -- if it's
both true, and false, what can it *possibly* tell you about the
location of your keys? What can you learn from it? What information
does it carry?

For someone who says "Jesus died for my sins" and believe it is fact, there
are all sorts of things that could be learned and applied to life (both for
good and for bad, I might add) regardless of whether the original
proposition is true or false or both. (How could it be both true AND false?
Well, maybe Jesus died for that person's sins, but not for mine, for
example. That would mean the original proposition is true when that person
says it, but not true if I say it!)

I'm just saying that there's more than one way to think about reality and
truth, that's all.

Sure. Some of them are more likely to lead to accurate depictions of
reality than others, though.

Every depiction of reality is just a depiction, though. Whatever we say
about reality, we are really only symbolizing reality, not capturing it in
all its detail and complexity. (And here, I might be tempted to go off on
the tangent about the experiments often done to test the credibility of
eyewitness descriptions of real events, but I won't.)

But perhaps in some cases, an "accurate depiction of reality" isn't what
we're seeking when we hold something to be true. Arguably, in some cases, we
hold beliefs despite the fact that accurate depictions of reality would
appear to contradict them, and that is not *necessarily* a bad thing.
--
Be well, Barbara

bizby40 wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message
...

In article , bizby40
says...


wrote in message
egroups.com...

bizby40 wrote:


The fact that a belief might change at some point is
irrelevant.

But see, it's not really. If you understand that you
cannot know for sure, you can still hold a belief
-- that which you consider most likely to be true
-- without having to decide that people who
believe differently are wrong.

It's entirely possible to hold a belief is true without having any
evidence that it is true. It's even entirely possible to hold a belief

is true, have no evidence that it is true, and have it actually be
true. It's also possible to have very good reasons for believing that
something is true, and have it be false.

Consider the proposition "All unicorns have one horn." It's either
true or false regardless of whether or not you have any evidence for
the existence of unicorns, or any faith in their existence for that
matter.

Of course there is an ultimate truth. We'll find it out
when we die. Unless of course there is no afterlife,
in which case we won't find out anything, but it won't
matter either.

Until then it's all speculation.

What's your point?


Why would we find out after we die? Even if there is an afterlife? If
there's
no afterlife, then we won't know for sure.

I never got this where we are *necessarily* going to find out after
death.. do
we all get a Cosmic Security Clearance, or what?


We would find out what happens to us at least. We
may not find out what happens to anyone else.

Bizby



If there is no afterlife, you aren't going to find out what happens to
you, either. You're just going to die, and that's it.

Clisby

"Clisby" wrote in message
ink.net...


bizby40 wrote:
"Banty" wrote in message
...

In article , bizby40
says...


wrote in message
legroups.com...

bizby40 wrote:


The fact that a belief might change at some point is
irrelevant.

But see, it's not really. If you understand that you
cannot know for sure, you can still hold a belief
-- that which you consider most likely to be true
-- without having to decide that people who
believe differently are wrong.

It's entirely possible to hold a belief is true without having any
evidence that it is true. It's even entirely possible to hold a belief

is true, have no evidence that it is true, and have it actually be
true. It's also possible to have very good reasons for believing that
something is true, and have it be false.

Consider the proposition "All unicorns have one horn." It's either
true or false regardless of whether or not you have any evidence for
the existence of unicorns, or any faith in their existence for that
matter.

Of course there is an ultimate truth. We'll find it out
when we die. Unless of course there is no afterlife,
in which case we won't find out anything, but it won't
matter either.

Until then it's all speculation.

What's your point?


Why would we find out after we die? Even if there is an afterlife? If
there's
no afterlife, then we won't know for sure.

I never got this where we are *necessarily* going to find out after
death.. do
we all get a Cosmic Security Clearance, or what?


We would find out what happens to us at least. We
may not find out what happens to anyone else.

Bizby

If there is no afterlife, you aren't going to find out what happens to
you, either. You're just going to die, and that's it.

Clisby

I realize that. That's why I said, "Unless of course there
is no afterlife, in which case we won't find out anything, but
it won't matter either."

Bizby

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...
In article pOJNf.319$ia3.238@fed1read08, "Circe"
wrote:
I pretty much DO disbelieve in a *personal* afterlife because I don't
believe it's possible to have a concept of self without the hardware on
which to operate a brain. If I wake up after I'm dead and find I can
still
think, I'll be pleasantly surprised, though! It wouldn't upset me to
discover I was wrong g.

One of my favorite statements at a memorial service for one of our
church members who was a staunch atheist was, "If there IS a heaven, "C"
is sure to be one of the most delightfully surprised people there right
now."

LOL!

As a tangentially related aside, one of my absolute favorite movies of all
time is Albert Brooks' _Defending Your Life_. If there IS a personal
afterlife, I hope it's kinda like that g!
--
Be well, Barbara

In article ,
dragonlady says...

In article geJNf.315$ia3.10@fed1read08, "Circe"
wrote:

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...
Well, at least if there IS an afterlife, we'll know there is one after
we die, and what it's like.

Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe there is an "afterlife" of sorts but it's an
afterlife in which one's conception of self is entirely lost. So we'd all be
in the afterlife, but unable to grasp that fact.
--

Good point.

But if there is an afterlife in which one's conception of "self" is
lost, are we really there at all?


Only if someone hears

In article , toto says...

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 11:41:09 -0800, "Circe" wrote:

As an atheist (at least in the sense that I have believe in a sentient,
supreme being)

Huh?



She words out.

Banty

"Banty" wrote in message
...
Else, how would we be on notice that it's an afterlife? Memory? Memory is
an
organic function.

Tell that to my computer's memory chip, will ya? (Yeah, I know it's not the
same thing.)

The proposition still holds, though. Without hardware, ya can't run software
g.
--
Be well, Barbara

toto wrote:
On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 17:33:38 GMT, jules wrote:


Unlike the main character in "Life of Pi", my humble opinion
is that neither atheism NOR fundamentalism are very logical,
and I don't believe faith can be a choice.


How would you explain those who convert then? It most certainly
is a choice. Many atheists grew up in various religions. Many
of the spritual, search for their own way and end up converting to
religions that are different from the ones they grew up in. And still
others, search outside churches for spirituality.

I was vague in my previous post. It doesn't have enough context without what was in my head at the time,("Life of Pi").

The main character referred to agnosticism by saying something along the lines of "choosing indecision as a way of life..." I suppose what I am trying to say is that the ability to have faith is not a choice. Those who convert have somewhere within them the ability to believe in that faith. I have tried to "choose" to have faith, but I haven't got that gift. I can't entirely discount the possibility of God either. If you arranged it so I was born in a fundamentalist Christian home or an atheist home, and I turned out differently you would disprove my belief (I think it's in my nature, and not how I was raised) but we can't run that experiment again.

bizby40 wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...


It's entirely possible to hold a belief is true without having any
evidence that it is true. It's even entirely possible to hold a belief

is true, have no evidence that it is true, and have it actually be
true. It's also possible to have very good reasons for believing that
something is true, and have it be false.

Consider the proposition "All unicorns have one horn." It's either
true or false regardless of whether or not you have any evidence for
the existence of unicorns, or any faith in their existence for that
matter.

Of course there is an ultimate truth. We'll find it out
when we die. Unless of course there is no afterlife,
in which case we won't find out anything, but it won't
matter either.

Until then it's all speculation.

What's your point?

That there's a difference between *what* we believe, and *why* we
believe it.

--
C, mama to three year old nursling