What are the Benefits of Theism?

[Immanuel Can]

Have you heard the term "rhetorical" before?

Of course. Why would you ask such a question?

It was rhetorical. (Man, you're literal.)

It isn't my rule, it is one of the most important lessons that a study of philosophy teaches and one of the first.

But you get to be the lone exception to it? How'd you manage that?

That is a loaded question; I haven't claimed to be an exception.

Okay. If you're not an exception, then we can only surmise that your supposition that decision-making is primarily aesthetic is just the product of an aesthetic decision you made. As such, others have no obligation to regard it as a truth claim.

I really don't care for these idiotic 'gotcha' arguments,

Well, it's a gotcha, alright. Somebody who doesn't believe in rationality can't claim to be behaving rationally in saying that.

We can attempt a civilised conversation about things we happen to disagree about, or we can try and make the other look foolish. You choose.

Did you feel foolish? Was that your aesthetic experience at the moment? Well, it wasn't intended: I was merely showing that the position you're taking cannot be coherently held. I have nothing negative to say about your person...I don't know you.

But your public argument, well, on a philosophy site, that's just fair game.

[tillingborn]

Have you heard the term "rhetorical" before?

Of course. Why would you ask such a question?

It was rhetorical. (Man, you're literal.)

Ah; you have no sense of irony.

we can only surmise that your supposition that decision-making is primarily aesthetic

As I have told you many times: it isn't. You have created a strawman and you are attributing its imaginary beliefs to me. I've said before I don't know whether that is because you are forgetful, dishonest or stupid. I'm still none the wiser and you have said nothing to refute any option.

[Greatest I am]

What are the Benefits of Theism?

Would be like asking a child what are the benefits of

Religions and theisms, philosophies and political stripes are just labels we give to tribes or like minded gangs.

There are many benefits to being in tribes and if you look at your own, you will see the benefits of fellowship.

We are driven by our insecure gene to seek the security of whatever tribe we are born affiliated with. Most remained tied to these.

You, like all of us, are a mix of theisms. Look at your affiliations and tell us why they benefit you.

Regards
DL

[Immanuel Can]

we can only surmise that your supposition that decision-making is primarily aesthetic

As I have told you many times: it isn't.

Everybody else's is, you say, but yours isn't.

How do you account for your exceptionality?

You dismiss everyone else so blithely. But you also propose that you are an exception; and thereby, you also propose to be a case disproving your own theory.

[tillingborn]

we can only surmise that your supposition that decision-making is primarily aesthetic

As I have told you many times: it isn't.

Everybody else's is, you say, but yours isn't.

My position is not that decision making is primarily aesthetic; that is the position of the strawman you have invented.
Here's where I think we differ:
1. You believe that logic and evidence will always favour one theory.
2. I believe the same logic and evidence can support different theories equally.
That's two theories. There's no way you can prove 1, therefore you are wrong.

How do you account for your exceptionality?

You dismiss everyone else so blithely. But you also propose that you are an exception; and thereby, you also propose to be a case disproving your own theory.

I haven't claimed exceptionality; it is either forgetful, dishonest or stupid of you to claim otherwise.

[Immanuel Can]

There's no way you can prove 1, therefore you are wrong.

You don't see the irony?

Your objection is a demand for proof as a condition of belief. If decision making is aesthetic, it can't possibly be "wrong."

I haven't claimed exceptionality...

I said, "...we can only surmise that your supposition that decision-making is primarily aesthetic"
You objected: "As I have told you many times: it isn't."

You say you have "told me many times" that your decision making isn't primarily aesthetic, but everybody else's is.

So how does that not frame you as the lone exception to your own rule?

[Skepdick]

All things being equal, how do you choose your theory?

This question is loaded with no less than two misconceptions and continues to ignore falsification.

You've trapped yourself in the same predicament as Buridan's ass.

Lets say that you have two theories and you've (somehow) determined that they are "equal with respect to all qualities.". Is this a falsifiable theory? Lets see...

If ALL things are truly equal then they must be equal even with respect to all their properties - even aesthetics! They are also equal with respect to emotional; cultural or nostalgic appeal, utility, computability, error margins, economics, originality, applicability or any other distinction/quality you could fathom to identify.

To say "ALL things are equal" is to say "I don't have a specific preference for one over the other"

And then it's important to ask: Is it really true that I don't know HOW to choose between two things? Of course I know how - I can always flip a coin.

If you find yourself flipping a coin, THEN ALL things are equal and you can let luck decide.
If you find yourself deciding on your own, then the "equality" is falsified.

To choose is to identify the presence of a preferred quality

[tillingborn]

There's no way you can prove 1, therefore you are wrong.

You don't see the irony?

Your objection is a demand for proof as a condition of belief. If decision making is aesthetic, it can't possibly be "wrong."

Here are two examples of decision making that is not aesthetic:
1. Do apples fall to the ground?
Yes they do. I know that and everybody else knows it, because we have seen enough examples of similar events.
2. Does something make apples fall to the ground?
Yes it does. Apples fall to the ground so consistently that the reason they fall must be the same every time.
And here is one example of decision making that is aesthetic:
3. Do we know what that reason is?
No. There are lots of theories that explain falling apples equally well. There is no compulsion to believe any of them, but if you do decide that one is better than all the others, it is because you happen to like it.

You keep arguing on the basis that I have said all decision making is type 3. This is not so and the decision making on the issue should be of type 1, because there are multiple examples of me saying so. Is there a reason why you keep repeating something I haven't said? Well, type 2: you do it so consistently, that there must be. Do I know what that reason is? No, but per type 3 there are multiple possibilities that explain your behaviour equally well. It could be that you are forgetful, dishonest, stupid or insane, but if I were to decide which, it would be because I like that reason best.

I haven't claimed exceptionality...

I said, "...we can only surmise that your supposition that decision-making is primarily aesthetic"
You objected: "As I have told you many times: it isn't."

You say you have "told me many times" that your decision making isn't primarily aesthetic, but everybody else's is.

That is what your strawman says. Frankly, I'm leaning towards you being insane.

So how does that not frame you as the lone exception to your own rule?

I hope, rather than expect, that one day the penny will drop.

[tillingborn]

You've trapped yourself in the same predicament as Buridan's ass.

I've already dealt with that:

The thing that saves us from the fate of Buridan's Ass is that we can choose.

To choose is to identify the presence of a preferred quality

That's quite a good way of putting it. Well done Skepdick; you're much cleverer than me and my ego is crushed.

[Dontaskme]

What are the Benefits of Theism?

Would be like asking a child what are the benefits of

Religions and theisms, philosophies and political stripes are just labels we give to tribes or like minded gangs.

I agree.

My theory is that human brain got too big and became complicated enough to be capable of artificially creating a thought processing biology that emerged as a phantom self/mind that could imagine all sorts of ideas and thoughts to be real, even though these images/imagined things were seen by neuroscientists to be just hallucinatory pictures, not differing too much in context to a nightly dream image, all created by the same brain.
The entire manifested human body is but an Image of the imageless, for there is nothing/ behind the image of me-self, except the concept itself. But even the concept is empty.
Human language has created the story of 'my life', via the brain of course, but there is nothing more to it than that. Reality is all one huge hallucination. But the human organism has been humanly conditioned to believing what their own believing brains are showing them, so they do not know any different, they function on the human programmed level from birth.

There are many benefits to being in tribes and if you look at your own, you will see the benefits of fellowship.

We are driven by our insecure gene to seek the security of whatever tribe we are born affiliated with. Most remained tied to these.

You, like all of us, are a mix of theisms. Look at your affiliations and tell us why they benefit you.

Regards
DL

The benefits are survival. That's it, there is nothing more to it than that.
I was born a human, so I have to live the human way, which is full of it's own conditions and traditions that never seem to change. I have no choice but to follow the human herd, I depend on the herd for my very survival.

If I had been born a fox, then I would have to live the fox way, or if I had been born a crocodile I would have to live the crocodile way and heaven help those poor creatures who end up inside the jaws of a crocodile, who have to endure what I can only imagine as the horror nightmare of being thrashed around in the water until swallowed, not really an ideal way to spend ones alotted time on this planet.

[Skepdick]

The thing that saves us from the fate of Buridan's Ass is that we can choose.

Well, that's precisely the point I am making.

There's always a mechanism for resolving indecision, but then, the story you tell yourself after the fact is "I decided based on <insert favourite quality here>".

Did you really? The one theory didn't make me feel any better; or any worse than the other - they are qualitatively identical!

If the preferred quality you claim exists was present (even in your mind), you wouldn't need the coin.

That's quite a good way of putting it. Well done Skepdick; you're much cleverer than me and my ego is crushed.

Lucky for both of us, "cleverness" is not a preferred quality for me. Even though your hypothesis about my cleverness hasn't yet been falsified.

[tillingborn]

The thing that saves us from the fate of Buridan's Ass is that we can choose.

Well, that's precisely the point I am making.

There's always a mechanism for resolving indecision, but then, the story you tell yourself after the fact is "I decided based on <insert arbitrary quality here>".

Did you really? I couldn't decide even on aesthetics. That's why I flipped a coin.

If the preferred quality you claim exists was present (even in your mind), you wouldn't need the coin.

That's getting into free will/determinism. I like free will, but you're right, I might not have any option.

That's quite a good way of putting it. Well done Skepdick; you're much cleverer than me and my ego is crushed.

Lucky for both of us, "cleverness" is not a preferred quality for me. Even though your hypothesis about my cleverness hasn't yet been falsified.

Not in your head perhaps.

[Skepdick]

That's getting into free will/determinism. I like free will, but you're right, I might not have any option.

I like free will too. The neurons in my brain fire in exactly the way so as to make my fingers type "I like free will".

What choice do I have?

Alas, in the words of William James: My first act of free will is to believe in it.

The neurons in my brain made me type that too.

But on a serious note: I am a non-determinist. Being able to conceptually distinguish between determinism and free will, it is not possible to determine which one is true. Because epistemology has limits that precisely correspond to decidability.

Not in your head perhaps.

It's falsified in mine... I don't like the language of "cleverness" to describe myself.

I like the language of "stupidity". I am very stupid, but most people are stupider.

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance

[Immanuel Can]

Is there a reason why you keep repeating something I haven't said?

Yes. It's that in what you DO say, you keep acting as if your own theory isn't true. So long as you continue to self-contradict, how can I not point that out? This is a philosophy site, after all: and logical contradictions get pointed out here.

Here's your difficulty: you can't know what you claim to know by way of reason, evidence or logic if your axiom "People make decisions by aesthetics, ultimately," is true. So you don't know that your claim is true: you only "like" it.

Or if, as several times before, you deny that, then you deny your own thesis applies to you. But if it does not apply to you, what makes you Mr. Wonderful, that you escape your own axiom? And since the axiom "aesthetics is behind decisions" does not apply to you, you prove it not universal. How then do you assert it?

[tillingborn]

Is there a reason why you keep repeating something I haven't said?

Yes. It's that in what you DO say, you keep acting as if your own theory isn't true.

So in order to demonstrate that I keep acting as if my theory isn't true, you keep repeating something that isn't my theory. That's not going to get you very far.

Here's your difficulty: you can't know what you claim to know by way of reason, evidence or logic if your axiom "People make decisions by aesthetics, ultimately," is true. So you don't know that your claim is true: you only "like" it.

With reference to the rest of the post you are responding to:
1. I know people make decisions about issues that are underdetermined and/or unfalsifiable. I know that with the same certainty that I know that apples fall to the ground and for the same reason: there is a lot of evidence.
2. I know that something makes people choose underdetermined theories with the same certainty that I know that something is making apples fall.
3. There are many underdetermined theories about what causes gravity, but all reason, rationality, plausibility and anything else you care to include being exhausted, the thing that tips the decision one way or the other, is some personal preference; an aesthetic choice.

Or if, as several times before, you deny that, then you deny your own thesis applies to you. But if it does not apply to you, what makes you Mr. Wonderful, that you escape your own axiom? And since the axiom "aesthetics is behind decisions" does not apply to you, you prove it not universal. How then do you assert it?

Absolutely my own thesis applies to me. I believe in free will, I believe the world is 'real' and I believe that everybody else has similarly foundational beliefs.