Calvin on the Sensus Divinitatis

[thedoc]

That 'core message can be expressed in different ways but simply put it is to love, or have compassion for your fellow man.
Very simple really but I have yet to find a religion that does not claim to have that message at it's core.

Well, let me help you there. Most of them do not say that.

For one obvious example, traditional rural Hinduism holds that there are "castes" into which people are born, and their "dharma" is to stay in those castes. Higher castes have no duty -- and in fact have a positive duty NOT to do so -- to help lower castes rise. Or take Nazi Occultism: it says the weak and corrupt races must die. Or take ancient Mayan religions, in which they routinely murdered prisoners as sacrifices in ritual fashion. Or take Santeria, which incorporates putting curses on other people. These are but a few of the may religions that do not teach "compassion" at all; and many others teach "compassion" only to friends, relatives or members of one's own sect, and outright cruelty to everyone else. And let's not even get started on Dialectical Materialism, the metaphysical belief behind Stalinism and Maoism.

You're reading back your own Western post-Christian liberalism into other people, and thinking they have the same view you have. That's probably kind-hearted and well-indended, but is also imperious and insulting to their beliefs. More importantly, it lulls you into indifference to whatever it is they actually teach. That might not just be unwise and untrue, but also unsafe for you as well.

Yet only one belief system goes well beyond these others, and says "Love your enemies." Now, perhaps that's compassion in its full expression.

Good, now we can get to the 'fine tuning' and I can do that with a simple definition. Your "fellow Man' are those of "us", and this allows you to exclude "them", as you have illustrated above.

[Immanuel Can]

Good, now we can get to the 'fine tuning' and I can do that with a simple definition. Your "fellow Man' are those of "us", and this allows you to exclude "them", as you have illustrated above.

Your answer makes no clear sense, because your pronouns "this" and "them" have no clear referent. A noun or two would fix this.

I assume you're trying to communicate something to the effect that I am implying an "us" and "them" thinking of some kind. Yet if that were true, it would but furnish a further example proving the absurdity of your initial clam, namely that all religions have a common "core message" -- that is, unless you, for some reason, suppose me not to be what you call "religious."

Whatever the case, the point is clearly made: your initial conjecture about the "core message" of religions was simply wishful thinking on your part, and bears no resemblance to reality.

And as for Christianity, a curious conclusion follows from your claim: for it alone of all belief systems makes the common duty to "us" and "them" love -- no other belief does that. So it follows that Christianity alone is the paragon of compassionate virtue according to your own claimed highest "core" value. What an astonishing turn of events!

[thedoc]

Good, now we can get to the 'fine tuning' and I can do that with a simple definition. Your "fellow Man' are those of "us", and this allows you to exclude "them", as you have illustrated above.

Your answer makes no clear sense, because your pronouns "this" and "them" have no clear referent. A noun or two would fix this.

you can be difficult if you like, or you can just read things a little more broadly.

'This' and 'Them' are usually not clearly defined, just whoever you currently like or dislike at the time.

If you are here just to argue and fight about small details, I'm not interested, but if you are willing to read things a bit more loosely, OK.

[Arising_uk]

...
Arising_uk: Any preferences yourself? I think I owe you first, if I recall correctly.

Nope, feel free to reply, if at all, when and as you wish.

[Arising_uk]

Well, I admit, of course, that the data is somewhat ambiguous in the limited sense that one can *choose* to see or not see what is there -- which is true for both religious and irreligous folks, of course. But I would suggest as well that complexity (if by that we mean merely a more sophisticated arrangement of parts rather than one with fewer, unarranged parts) does at least incline the initial instinct of the observer to perceive a design at work. ...

Why? Surely a designer would go for simplicity?

For example, you could *choose* to see these symbols you are decoding right now (i.e. my words) as random collision of non-symbolic lines produced by chance over many millennia, or you could choose to interpret them as intentional symbols arranged by an intelligence. The impression of randomness could be enhanced simply by unfocusing one's eyes, so that the words blur, at which time one could stridently claim, and honestly claim, to "not be seeing any order." And yet, the order could remain there to be seen, the only thing preventing it being the refusal to look. ...

But the claim of the neo-darwinists is that order can come from chaos without design? Thats the point of Darwins thesis. One that was pretty much confirmed with the discovery of the method of inheritance that he postulated must exist.

There's no necessity you can only see it one way, but should we not choose the more obvious one, unless reason presents countervailing proofs that such is not the right way to see it?

And its exactly that Darwin has given a reason for the countervailing proofs. Ones that you appear to wish to ignore?

But what I find curious is Dawkins' insistence that though (as he admits) the evidence strongly inclines one to believe in theory #1, design, he absolutely insists on seeing it the other way, theory #2, randomness. It's like he's saying, "I know these symbols look like words and sentences, but I absolutely assure you that they are not."

Nope, he's saying that there is a better explanation and one that appears to fit all the facts.

It is very clear to me from this sort of confession that the man is already, viscerally committed to evolutionary materialism, regardless of (what he admits are his) observations and data. This is not to say he couldn't turn out to right accidentally, of course, but it does suggest his working method is badly skewed and highly unscientific in itself. He is just as much a "man on a mission" as the most ardent religious acolyte. He brackets the data with his preset worldview; and if true, this suggests that he is not entertaining the evidence intelectually anymore: he's just not open to being questioned. ...

Dawkins is always open to discussion. Its that over the years the visceral attacks by the godbotherers have changed his approach. All he wrote was a book that postulated the gene was the unit of selection and everyone went batshit because he used the word 'selfish'.

Hey, if I'm wrong, then perhaps tomorrow you'll read in your newspaper how Dawkins is suddenly rethinking his materialism in light of (what he admits are) the evidentiary data. But I'm not holding my breath on that.

I doubt this'll be happening anytime soon, just as I doubt the godbotherers will accept that they have no concrete evidence for their 'God'.

[Arising_uk]

No. That's Deism, not Atheism. Atheism says, "No God. None." Agnosticism says, "Probably none," and Deism says, "Yes there's One, but he's gone shopping indefinitely."

Disagree, Atheism says that there is not your theist 'God'. Otherwise it doesn't bother to think about 'it' at all. Probably correct about the other definition but for me it's all hot air.

You continue,

There may well be a transcendent cause, the theist just can't say anything coherent about such a thing but apparently think they can.

"Transcendent Cause," opens up the door again to the God explanation, you realize. The question then becomes only "an impersonal cause," or "a personal cause," and ironically, the "impersonal" one becomes the less plausible of the two answers, since "impersonal" things don't actually "cause" things to happen without a prior causal chain in place.

Nope, there is nothing after "There may well be a transcendent cause", as Immanuel Can I'd have thought you'd have known this?

However, this is not the important point: the important one is the second bit. Why would we suppose it to be true? On the hypothesis that there actually *were* a Personal First Cause to the universe, that is an Agent capable of creating whole galaxies, why would it be even remotely implausible to think He could find a way to reveal Himself? That sounds so easy to do that a child could do it, since even a child can say, "Here I am".

I'm waiting for you to show me this 'God' who should be able to do what a child can do?

Self-revelation is hardly the kind of task that should exceed the abilities of a Supreme Being. So why do you think your claim self-evident? Can you expand?

Because you can't show me this 'God' who can revel 'itself'? A pauce 'God' indeed.

[Arising_uk]

That's a transparent tactic, I'm afraid. I'll pass over it, except to say that it is one very habitual with Atheists. The thing they do is dumb down the definition of "belief" or "faith" until it means only "irrational credence" or even "belief contrary to evidence," and then sometimes even insist that analytically "belief" cannot include evidence! Then they triumphantly pronounce that "belief" is absurd, and they think they have won something. ...

Your own peccadilloes I think. Belief is not absurd, it is what lives between our capabilities and identity but has no direct link to the external world.

But the absurdity, in that case, is not on the Theist side. It's a classic case of the Straw Man fallacy. I would simply point out that what they are talking about a sort of "belief" that only lunatics can even perform, and certainly not what the ordinary person understands by "belief": for sane people use the word all the time, and use it for things they do regularly, based on the preponderance of whatever evidence is on hand. If the Atheists would even respect ordinary usage then they would find they could not play such silly games.

If this was the case then I'd expect you to be able to show me concrete evidence for your belief that your 'God' exists of the order of showing me the front door of your house when you say, "I believe that the front door of my house exists"

I don't "believe" in the kind of non-reality-oriented "belief" you indict and dismiss here either. I believe in evidentiary beliefs. And I'll bet whenever you say that you personally "believe" a thing, that is also what you mean. So seeing that we are both sane men, let us drop the nonsense about "belief" meaning anything other than what sane people mean by it.

Which is exactly what I am doing. So you show me your 'God' and I'll believe in 'it'. Until then I think you just finding 'evidence' to confirm your belief.

[QMan]

Just started reading this thread. Just one quick comment that may not have been brought up yet.

Harry Baird:
Oh, but I wasn't "genuinely" free to decide to be created in the first place, and thus incur upon myself the very burden of free will choices at all! *That* might be the best way of framing my point. Not only does (would, if the Christian version of God were true) God hold that "ultimate" card, but He holds the card of *knowing* what I will decide, and thus can choose (based on whether He likes my future choices or not) whether or not to "instantiate" me. To put it another way: if God in his foreknowledge knew that I would make terrible ("genuine" free will) choices were He to create me, then why would He go ahead and create me anyway? Surely it would be better for Him to instead create Fred Jenkins, who, He knows, will instead make wonderfully amazing ("genuine" free will) choices? And, once we start seeing things like this, then we see that God holds in His hand the ultimate matter of which good and which bad (human) choices are made, regardless that it might *seem* that they are "genuinely" in "our" hands.

Qman:
Interestingly, the bible conveys that, concerning our sins, God has said he will eventually forget them (to be able to have us around I guess ). By the same token, even though God is capable of all foreknowledge, he may have decided that he does not want to know and so sets creation in motion but let's us muddle around until it's time to call in the chips.

[QMan]

Harry Baird:
In fact, this does not represent a problem to my assertion, the very fact that infinity never elapses counts *in favour* of my view. Basically, I'm applying the same very simple probabilistic analysis to your view of heaven that I applied above to IC's view of the Garden: if p is the probability of any inhabitant of heaven succumbing to temptation and making a wrong choice in heaven during any finite period of time, t, then (1-p)^n as n approaches infinity is the probability of that inhabitant not *ever* making a bad choice, and, as for the Garden, this formula approaches 0 as n approaches infinity (i.e. as time continues on and on and on and ...) - so long as p is *not* 0.

Qman:
Actually this is not quite correct. This type of argument applies to, let's say, a manufacturing process where identical parts go through a process held constant with a constant probability p of failure for any one of the identical parts for eternity for an eternal process.

In Eden the situation is different.
1. Adam and Eve are constantly changing, evolving growing in intellect, understanding and emotion so does their p. My guess is it will significantly improve, go to zero.
2. The p of the manufacturing environment, the garden, is most likely constantly changing and is not as predictably constant as a controlled manufacturing environment. That p can also go to zero.
3. Similar to a processed part, their "manufacture" (period of exposure to a risky p) could cease altogether when that production stage is completed. The p will simply cease to exist or become irrelevant.
4. Don't forget about the process or manufacturing engineer here. His job is to tweak the process to make p go to zero anyhow. In other words, your deterministic argument is that God would not have intervened at any stage to eventually provide a zero risk environment. Since that is unprovable, your arguments are, like 99.99…% of the other material in this (entertaining) spin (oops, thread) just spin.

Btw, will this tome also be available in e-book format and will it still be affordable or get too large for that?

[Harry Baird]

James,

Thanks for your response, mate. I don't really have anything to rejoin with, what you write is fair enough, except that I would only suggest that just as my idea of a Source splitting into the duality of God/Devil for the purpose of forcing its own evolution is speculative, so is your idea of the Devil's nature being driven by unresolvable suicidal tendencies. Both are legitimate possibilities, but as of now, we don't have enough information to know whether either is true.

QMan,

Welcome back.

Interestingly, the bible conveys that, concerning our sins, God has said he will eventually forget them (to be able to have us around I guess ).

Oh? Can you provide a quote, please? Based on my reading of the Bible, in particular the Gospels, there are many whose sins will *not* be forgotten (by which I assume you really mean "forgiven"), and who will thus be gnashing their teeth in hell.

By the same token, even though God is capable of all foreknowledge, he may have decided that he does not want to know and so sets creation in motion but let's us muddle around until it's time to call in the chips.

This is inconsistent with God's prediction of various occurrences in the Bible though.

Harry Baird: In fact, this does not represent a problem to my assertion, the very fact that infinity never elapses counts *in favour* of my view. Basically, I'm applying the same very simple probabilistic analysis to your view of heaven that I applied above to IC's view of the Garden: if p is the probability of any inhabitant of heaven succumbing to temptation and making a wrong choice in heaven during any finite period of time, t, then (1-p)^n as n approaches infinity is the probability of that inhabitant not *ever* making a bad choice, and, as for the Garden, this formula approaches 0 as n approaches infinity (i.e. as time continues on and on and on and ...) - so long as p is *not* 0.

Qman: Actually this is not quite correct. This type of argument applies to, let's say, a manufacturing process where identical parts go through a process held constant with a constant probability p of failure for any one of the identical parts for eternity for an eternal process.

Whether or not the probability is constant is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is whether or not it is non-zero for an infinity (which is not the same as saying that it must *always* be non-zero, because you can take a finite period during which it is zero from infinity, and still be left with an infinite period during which it is non-zero - due to the magic of infinity). The result over infinity whether the probability is a constant or merely consistently non-zero over an infinity is the same: the probability of succumbing to temptation approaches 100%.

In Eden the situation is different.
1. Adam and Eve are constantly changing, evolving growing in intellect, understanding and emotion so does their p. My guess is it will significantly improve, go to zero.

I have no idea what you mean by "will", assuming you believe that the Bible accurately recorded this event, because then this scenario is over rather than ongoing (as your "will" implies), and, evidently, p did not at all go to zero, because Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation.

2. The p of the manufacturing environment, the garden, is most likely constantly changing and is not as predictably constant as a controlled manufacturing environment. That p can also go to zero.

If p goes to zero, i.e. there is no possibility of Adam and Eve succumbing to temptation, then how could they be considered to have what IC refers to as "genuine" free will? Doesn't "genuine" free will imply that there is *some* meaningful possibility of making any given choice?

3. Similar to a processed part, their "manufacture" (period of exposure to a risky p) could cease altogether when that production stage is completed. The p will simply cease to exist or become irrelevant.

I have no idea what in the Garden of Eden corresponds to a "production stage", nor to its completion. The best I can come up with is that the production stage corresponds to an initial period of time in which the tree in all of its temptation exists, and the completion of the production stage corresponds to a subsequent period of time in which the tree and thus temptation have been removed from the Garden. Is this what you mean or am I guessing wrong?

4. Don't forget about the process or manufacturing engineer here. His job is to tweak the process to make p go to zero anyhow. In other words, your deterministic argument is that God would not have intervened at any stage to eventually provide a zero risk environment.

If God were to intervene in that way, then, as far as I understand IC's views on free will, He would have abrogated Adam and Eve's free will. As far as I understand IC, his notion is that "genuine" free will requires that God allow Adam and Eve the *possibility* of making, freely, the choice to succumb, which implies that p must be non-zero.

Btw, will this tome also be available in e-book format and will it still be affordable or get too large for that?

It will *only* be available in e-book format. Trees are living beings, whose deaths for the mere convenience of paper is unjustifiable given the electronic alternative. Don't worry about affordability though, mate: as a valued respondent in this thread, you will be offered a free, signed copy.

[QMan]

James,

Thanks for your response, mate. I don't really have anything to rejoin with, what you write is fair enough, except that I would only suggest that just as my idea of a Source splitting into the duality of God/Devil for the purpose of forcing its own evolution is speculative, so is your idea of the Devil's nature being driven by unresolvable suicidal tendencies. Both are legitimate possibilities, but as of now, we don't have enough information to know whether either is true.

QMan,

Welcome back.

Interestingly, the bible conveys that, concerning our sins, God has said he will eventually forget them (to be able to have us around I guess ).

Oh? Can you provide a quote, please? Based on my reading of the Bible, in particular the Gospels, there are many whose sins will *not* be forgotten (by which I assume you really mean "forgiven"), and who will thus be gnashing their teeth in hell.

By the same token, even though God is capable of all foreknowledge, he may have decided that he does not want to know and so sets creation in motion but let's us muddle around until it's time to call in the chips.

This is inconsistent with God's prediction of various occurrences in the Bible though.

Harry Baird: In fact, this does not represent a problem to my assertion, the very fact that infinity never elapses counts *in favour* of my view. Basically, I'm applying the same very simple probabilistic analysis to your view of heaven that I applied above to IC's view of the Garden: if p is the probability of any inhabitant of heaven succumbing to temptation and making a wrong choice in heaven during any finite period of time, t, then (1-p)^n as n approaches infinity is the probability of that inhabitant not *ever* making a bad choice, and, as for the Garden, this formula approaches 0 as n approaches infinity (i.e. as time continues on and on and on and ...) - so long as p is *not* 0.

Qman: Actually this is not quite correct. This type of argument applies to, let's say, a manufacturing process where identical parts go through a process held constant with a constant probability p of failure for any one of the identical parts for eternity for an eternal process.

Whether or not the probability is constant is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is whether or not it is non-zero for an infinity (which is not the same as saying that it must *always* be non-zero, because you can take a finite period during which it is zero from infinity, and still be left with an infinite period during which it is non-zero - due to the magic of infinity). The result over infinity whether the probability is a constant or merely consistently non-zero over an infinity is the same: the probability of succumbing to temptation approaches 100%.

In Eden the situation is different.
1. Adam and Eve are constantly changing, evolving growing in intellect, understanding and emotion so does their p. My guess is it will significantly improve, go to zero.

I have no idea what you mean by "will", assuming you believe that the Bible accurately recorded this event, because then this scenario is over rather than ongoing (as your "will" implies), and, evidently, p did not at all go to zero, because Adam and Eve succumbed to temptation.

2. The p of the manufacturing environment, the garden, is most likely constantly changing and is not as predictably constant as a controlled manufacturing environment. That p can also go to zero.

If p goes to zero, i.e. there is no possibility of Adam and Eve succumbing to temptation, then how could they be considered to have what IC refers to as "genuine" free will? Doesn't "genuine" free will imply that there is *some* meaningful possibility of making any given choice?

3. Similar to a processed part, their "manufacture" (period of exposure to a risky p) could cease altogether when that production stage is completed. The p will simply cease to exist or become irrelevant.

I have no idea what in the Garden of Eden corresponds to a "production stage", nor to its completion. The best I can come up with is that the production stage corresponds to an initial period of time in which the tree in all of its temptation exists, and the completion of the production stage corresponds to a subsequent period of time in which the tree and thus temptation have been removed from the Garden. Is this what you mean or am I guessing wrong?

4. Don't forget about the process or manufacturing engineer here. His job is to tweak the process to make p go to zero anyhow. In other words, your deterministic argument is that God would not have intervened at any stage to eventually provide a zero risk environment.

If God were to intervene in that way, then, as far as I understand IC's views on free will, He would have abrogated Adam and Eve's free will. As far as I understand IC, his notion is that "genuine" free will requires that God allow Adam and Eve the *possibility* of making, freely, the choice to succumb, which implies that p must be non-zero.

Btw, will this tome also be available in e-book format and will it still be affordable or get too large for that?

It will *only* be available in e-book format. Trees are living beings, whose deaths for the mere convenience of paper is unjustifiable given the electronic alternative. Don't worry about affordability though, mate: as a valued respondent in this thread, you will be offered a free, signed copy.

Hi Harry,
Concerning my last appends above I meant to imply that things get more complicated when human beings, and of course God, is involved with probability calculations since they can take action whereas a fixed process or piece of equipment does not. Consequently, we cannot readily predict what the outcome will be.

In any case, I am not losing any sleep over it and doubt anyone else here is since we probably all know that we have entered the realm of pure speculation.

My preference, as a more concrete sequential kind of guy, is to try and see if things can be made more realistic and quantitative (even semi quantitative). For example, one of the reasons I became a theist (after having tried agnosticism) is that I wanted to avail myself of the promised benefits like heaven, physical, mental and material support, protection from evil, buildup of character, etc..

Now, it is clear that if benefits are available and actually applied that this has to happen in a concrete fashion in our material universe. Obviously, more or less material benefits are possible some of which I would even classify as (my own makeshift category) tangible intangibles. For example, if your doctor asks you to describe your headache pain on a scale of 1 to 10, he is doing exactly that with intangible pain. He is making your totally subjective qualitative experience quantitative. Even though intangible to him it nevertheless exists and is very real to you. The doctor will take your word for it and has thus assigned a personal probability to your relayed experience of pain with regard to truthfulness, magnitude and type (dull, sharp, pounding, etc.). In other words, the doctor has to have faith to properly go about his business.

This is a perfectly sound procedure in the soft and hard sciences but it always involves categorizing information obtained based on different types of likelihood. Personally, I will automatically and instinctively assign an overall likelihood and evaluate what type of action is needed, and when, and if at all. Basically, this is one important way in which knowledge is acquired, the other one is running a physical science test, or gathering physical quantitative data.

With regard to the "benefits" their effect on the recipient(s) must therefore be measurable in a similar fashion. Thus, just as promised in the bible, a personal relationship and interaction with God, given faith, is feasible and results are (actually, must be) quantifiable. This is a perfectly logical conclusion based on the idea of being given benefits and without that quantifiability, the theist would fall on hard times. However, this is not necessarily a win for the atheist since his/her contribution would have to be a fair scaling and assessment of the probabilities involved just as the doctor had to do.

Note that what I am suggesting here is an explanation why God is not detectable with physical science experiments. To the theist it is apparent that God's wish is to instead have his presence and influence deduced through the agency of his creation. In other words, God thinks it is important to delegate (there are other reasons as well, of course). Clearly, this is where the difficulty comes in, namely, the theist will according to him/her assign reasonable probabilities and the atheist may refuse to assign any at all based on the assumption that God is only an idea and not real. Thus, the whole thing requires faith and also character on both sides of the debate to admit to the results and an agreed upon scaling to probability. As I see it, it should be doable and I have even suggested it would make a good master's thesis for an ambitious student.

Note that I am too lazy to do the leg work of a larger scale experiment and the required data gathering myself but would be agreeable to act as an unpaid consultant to interested graduate students . And, after all, the process of engaging on a personal level with God is straightforward, is encouraged by him, and allows anyone to gather their own experimental results quite easily. So, I am not interested to do it for them and I feel I have the edge in this type of argument because I have been and continue to run this experiment successfully on a personal level (and by that I am not implying hubris, but am relaying the information that it can be done).

[QMan]

James,

QMan,

Welcome back.

Interestingly, the bible conveys that, concerning our sins, God has said he will eventually forget them (to be able to have us around I guess ).

Oh? Can you provide a quote, please? Based on my reading of the Bible, in particular the Gospels, there are many whose sins will *not* be forgotten (by which I assume you really mean "forgiven"), and who will thus be gnashing their teeth in hell.

You are correct Harry, forgetting in the case of God is the wrong term. Logic is so wonderful, if God forgot my sins and I did not, then I would know more than he does. Not very likely .

Here is the reference that explains it better.

"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. (Heb 8:12)We are imputed Christ’s righteousness. Since we have His imputed righteousness, we can be treated as if we had no sin. We are credited Christ’s righteousness and He will treat us as if we did not sin because of Christ’s righteousness."

http://fruitoftheword.com/2009/03/does- ... -our-sins/

[Immanuel Can]

Hello again, Arising: sorry for the time away. I was on vacation. I'm back now, and pleased to be talking to you again.

When we left off, we were discussing the nature of belief. In short, you posed the following:

If this was the case then I'd expect you to be able to show me concrete evidence for your belief that your 'God' exists of the order of showing me the front door of your house when you say, "I believe that the front door of my house exists"

[By "this" here, you were referring to my statement that belief is not contrary to or absent evidence, but is rather involved with evidence.]

Here's the problem, Arising: the front door of my house is an object, and an object I happen to own, and of which I have full control. But God is not like that. There is indeed evidence for His existence, but it is not the sort of easy, comprehensive evidence one gets from looking at a controllable object. Really big and really complex things, such as say the universe, the atomic level or even consciousness are not possible to describe comprehensively. That is not to say that we can know nothing about them, but that in knowing them we know something genuine but only partial.

Take the universe, for example. Scientists tell us it's infinite. But they don't know. They have not tested it, because by definition they couldn't. But they know our part of the universe, and they extrapolate to the rest, and then beyond that they simply guess or imagine, or use mathematical projection to estimate that which they cannot possibly measure: you can't "measure" infinity.

God's like that. He's a whole lot bigger than me, and He is in charge, not I. How much of Him I can know is determined both by the size of my brain and by His self-revelation. But I cannot manipulate him with my mind like I can manipulate an object. Yet partial knowledge, as in the case of the universe, is not ignorance, not mere guessing or superstition. Thus "belief" in God means knowing Him in part, to the extent that human beings are capable, and "belief" or "faith" comes in because of my littleness, not His insufficiency.

Belief is something scientists use all the time; so do ordinary people. You "believe" you can understand my message. You "believe" your spouse is reliable. You "believe" your money will still be in your bank account when you use your credit card. You "believe" an airplane will stay up in the air with you in it... In a thousand ways, every day, we all use "belief." And there is nothing irrational in you doing so.

So my question would be, "Why would anyone deny someone else a right to use [this sort of] belief, since we all do it all the time?"

[uwot]

Excuse me butting in Arising, but it's me old mucker Immanuel Can talking bollocks again.

Take the universe, for example. Scientists tell us it's infinite.

No they don't. That the universe is infinite is an hypothesis, as is that it is finite. There are scientists of either persuasion that are trying to devise experiments that will lend support to one or other possibility, but no scientist 'tell us' the range of the universe.

Belief is something scientists use all the time;

You need to be clear about this. Most scientists have some belief about the efficacy of experiments they design. But they know that if the experiment fails to produce the expected results, they will have to amend, or dispense with, their belief. In this they differ from theists, who having no meaningful evidence for the existence of god, will not accept any evidence that he is not as they insist.

You "believe" you can understand my message.... In a thousand ways, every day, we all use "belief." And there is nothing irrational in you doing so.

So my question would be, "Why would anyone deny someone else a right to use [this sort of] belief, since we all do it all the time?"

I'm not sure I "believe" you can understand my message, but as above: you can believe what you will, but it is not the same [sort of] belief.

[Immanuel Can]

You need to be clear about this. Most scientists have some belief about the efficacy of experiments they design. But they know that if the experiment fails to produce the expected results, they will have to amend, or dispense with, their belief. In this they differ from theists, who having no meaningful evidence for the existence of god, will not accept any evidence that he is not as they insist.

Happy to clarify. A scientist does not know *before* he performs an experiment that it will work. He hopes and thinks it will, and perhaps it usually does: but he doesn't know it will. If he did, he would not bother with the experiment, because why waste time on what you already know. So again, he "believes" and acts, and only afterward finds confirmation, disproval or equivocal evidence, whatever the case may yield. And in regards to the universe, I see no difference between your claim and mine: it's a hypothesis offered without conclusive proof, and yet is offered as a scientific opinion. Quite so. No problem there. We agree.

As for your ad hominem indictment of Theists as persons, it's not any kind of reasonable argument here. I happily admit that it is true in some cases: just as it is true that there are fanatics of all kinds, claiming all ideologies including Atheism. But that does not suggest there's no such thing as a thinking person from any of these ideologies. Likewise Theists: some think, some try not to. What's the big deal? You're just describing a human tendency, not one that is unique to Theists. So damning a few radicals you happen to know does not tell us anything about rational Theism.

Your complaint about this also ducks the issue: what matters is that there are many instances in which the best we can do is get partial evidence plus rational belief, but not conclusive evidence. That's all that needs to be said in order to show that condemning a Theist for exercising "belief" is an absurd move. "Belief" is necessary. We all do it, we have to do it, and we're rational in doing it.