Re: Question for religious parents

Circe wrote:
<cjorp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Circe wrote:
<cjorp@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1141203811.330242.71930@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Epistemology" is just a fancy way of saying that we're talking about
knowledge. My epistemological contribution to this entire thread is
the assertion that it is *impossible* for a proposition to be both true
and false.

That's the basis of pretty much all knowledge. "That car is green" --
true, or false? "There exists a number both greater than and less than
5" -- true, or false? If both true *and* false, what in the world are
we accomplishing by opening our mouths and asserting that proposition
in the first place?

But religious beliefs are not mere constructions of fact. They are much
more
like propositions such as "All human beings are created equal and endowed
by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights." That's a proposition I
fundamentally *believe*, despite the fact that the evidence of my own
eyes
shows that it's very difficult for human beings to treat each other with
equality and quite easy for them to violate supposedly inalienable
rights.

So you believe two propositions are true, one along the lines of "All
people are morally equivalent", and one along the lines of "People
don't act as if everyone is morally equivalent."

Pretty much, yeah. But the only one I can *prove* or *disprove* the truth
of, however, is the second of those propositions. I am saying the religious
beliefs are like the first proposition, not like the second one.

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*.

Religious belief isn't based on one's ability to verify fact but on
whether
or not the belief is *symbolically* true to the person who holds it. That
doesn't mean that many religious people don't think their beliefs are
based
in facts, but it does mean that the inability to *verify* the facts upon
which their beliefs rest requires them to jettison their beliefs. It is
perfectly possible to believe that something actually happened (such as
the
Resurrection or that God spoke to Moses or that Mohammed received the
Koran
directly from God) without being able to *prove* that it did.

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.

Indeed. However, it is also possible to have a "truth" for oneself that is
an "untruth" for someone else. For example, if I say I think my husband is
the handsomest man alive, I am speaking a "truth" for myself. The fact that
you may not agree with me because you think YOUR husband is the handsomest
man alive does not make me WRONG, any more than my truth makes your truth
false.

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!"

Religious belief doesn't HAVE TO BE about FACTUAL truth. Some people--both
religious and areligious--may think otherwise, but I think they're wrong.

You think someone's wrong! Good for you!

You're endorsing a non-cognitive view of religious truth here, and the
only point I have to make is that I've said over and over that it's
possible to make that claim. Dragonlady and Chookie are both arguing
that religious truth *is* cognitive, that religious beliefs are making
a claim about reality.

So you have a disagreement with them. You believe the proposition
"Religious beliefs are non-cognitive" and they believe the proposition
"Religious beliefs are cognitive." You're both making a claim about
the way things really are, and one of you has to be *wrong*.

I
think religions are symbolic systems of belief that allow people to gain
insight into the human condition. Religious ideas, therefore, aren't called
on to be factual in order to be useful and effective in gaining such
insights, any more than a great work of fictional literature is called upon
to be factual in order to be useful for the same purpose. One can find
"truth" about the human condition in all sorts of ways; analysis of data and
facts is only one of them and, I would argue, a remarkably minor one when it
comes to understanding human nature and human relationships or searching for
meaning and spiritual fulfillment.

Go ahead. :-)

It is even possible to have a life experience that convinces one of the
"truth" of some core belief or value without being able to "prove"--even
to
oneself--that one's interpretation is correct. For example, I'm
thoroughly
convinced that death is completely peaceful and utterly non-threatening
since my near-death event 2.5 years ago. (I suffered a cardiac arrest due
to
a severe asthma attack.) I can't *prove* to anyone else the truth of my
experience or even prove it to myself; I just know what I felt and what I
believe I experienced.

The point, I guess, is that there are some beliefs which are not called
upon
to be either true *or* false.

The belief is either true or false. You've got a belief about what
death will be like. When you actually die, it either will or it won't
be the way you believe it will be -- that's all there is to the
belief's being true.

I'm not arguing whether my belief is true or false. I am saying that it
doesn't MATTER whether it's true or false, any more than it MATTERS whether
my husband is the handsomest man alive or yours is or Matthew McConnaughey
is!

So you're a non-cognitivist. Fine. :-)

Same thing goes for many religious beliefs. It doesn't matter whether Jesus
rose from the dead or not, to use the example you gave below (which I
snipped for brevity); it is a proposition that many people believe and it
gives their lives meaning and purpose. What possible GOOD does it do to
attempt to dissuade people from that belief? (And when one says that certain
religious beliefs are held because they haven't been critically examined,
one IS saying that IF those beliefs were critically examined, they would be
forsaken. So one IS trying to dissuade people from their religious beliefs,
whether one realizes it or not.)

I'm not talking about dissuading people from their beliefs at all, or
about what good it does to believe things. I'm talking about What. It.
Is. That. We're. Meaning. When. We. Talk. About. Belief.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief

First sentence: "Belief is usually defined as a conviction to the truth
of a proposition." No, really??

"Belief is considered propositional in that it is an assertion, claim
or expectation about reality that is presumed to be either true or
false (even if this cannot be practically determined, such as a belief
in the existence of a particular deity)."

--
C, mama to three year old nursling

.

Relevant Pages

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