Re: Hitchens on religion

Steve Goldfarb <slg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But questioning the whole system is the question of "should I remain O",
which many people ask, whether actively or just de facto losing interest
and drifting away. "Should I stick with the system?" is definitionally
not going to be a question /within/ the system.

In other words, it's a system based on faith. (and once again, you and
Lisa seem to be the only people who have a problem with that, if I can be
frank)

No, in other words, the system assumes the system. IOW, once you
conclude A, you believe A. You asked how one reaches or affirms the
belief; that's not part of the belief itself.

I did, and said "neither" -- not "do" or "can", but "ought". Some of them
find justification (flawed, but still not "cherished presumption"). But
most forms of Christianity laud cherished presumption, ie Faith.

OK, but for those cases when they do find justification, is it then
justified by your definition? Is it other than faith, even if they still
refer to it as faith?

If you really want to know how they relate to comprehension vs Faith,
you would need to go to a Christian group and ask them.

....
You seem to be saying that one's experiences are evidence of some kind of
absolute truth. I'm saying they aren't. We can't know - we can only play
the hands we've been dealt as best we can.

Your last sentence belies your first. If you "only play the hand you're
dealt with", then you are forced to treat it as evidence of absolute
truth.

It says something about the system. See "Reliabilism" -- agian, I
checked wikipedia, I agree with the content of the entry (as it
exists at the moment).

Yeah, I read it. Makes no sense to me. "One knows that p if and only if p
is true, one believes p is true, and one has arrived at the belief that p
through some reliable process"

It means that if you read 100 facts in a book, and 99 of them are true,
it makes sense to accept the authority of the book WRT that 100th fact.

So if I guess right 3 times in a row (proving my process is
reliable)....

Parenthetic is false.

know it is, but only if it in fact is? ...

Micha, you're a programmer -- two words for you: "HALTING PROBLEM." It
proves that there's no such thing as a "reliable process" in the sense
that this theory is using it.

Why? Am I an algorithm?

Thou shalt not murder is a rule in the user's manual. It isn't moral
because it was commanded. Both the morality and the reason G-d commanded
it are that refraining from murder is in line with our reason for being.

OK, I'm not following this. I give up on morality - based on your
definition (which I'll stipulate for this discussion) I can't define a
moral sytem. However, that doesn't prove that you can, either, and in fact
I'd say you cannot according to your own rules.

What you're saying reduces to "I believe* that my beliefs are moral."

I am saying I believe my value system is moral, and I believe I have
strong reason to believe it.

You're playing a word game, because any assertion I make implictly is
only a statement of I believe. "The sky is blue" really means "I believe
the sky is blue" which really means "I believe that I believe the sky is
blue and I believe that I have reason to believe it is blue." Which
in turn really means... and so on, recursively, ad infinitum

Similarly, to return to my usual example, I only believe gravity exists,
and only believe other people believe it exists.

What that has to do with having a justification strong enough to make
ignoring the possibility of being wrong the sane choice is beyond me.

* you can make that "justified belief" or any other qualification you
want, it doesn't help

You just dismissed the whole point. In a debate as to whether religion
is about cherished presumption or justified belief, the thing your
called a "qualification" is the point.

:-)BBii!
-mi

--
Micha Berger Today is the 45th day, which is
micha@xxxxxxxxxxx 6 weeks and 3 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org Tifferes sheb'Malchus: What is the beauty of
Fax: (270) 514-1507 unity (on all levels of relationship)?
.

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