Battleground God

June 30, 2003 3:40 AM

Are you hypocritical about God? And don't cheat.
posted by PenDevil (63 comments total)

Double post. Though, admittedly, it was over a year ago.

Personally, I bit only one bullet.
posted by Cerebus at 3:58 AM on June 30, 2003

Damn. I searched for the URL and the title (although I think I had a typo in there so no hits...). Oh well delete away. I think there should be an option in the search page to search for URL's as well.
posted by PenDevil at 4:03 AM on June 30, 2003

I bit no bullets and had 1 direct hit. Damn (sorry, God, if you exist) I thought I was being entirely consistent.
posted by cbrody at 4:08 AM on June 30, 2003

The "test" is biased in favour of strong atheism. It takes a minscule leap of faith to conclude that something certainly does not exist in the lack of strong evidence. I prefer to say that it probably does not exist in those circumstances.
posted by walrus at 4:32 AM on June 30, 2003

no bullets, one hit, and I'm grumpy. Thinking that it is not justifiable to base knowledge of the external world on one's "inner conviction" - ie, faith - shouldn't render believing in God based on inner conviction un-justifiable, as any belief in God will require such "inner conviction".

However, I suppose that the latter view is informed by my atheist understanding of how a believer would have to take it, and that it is logically inconsistent of me to allow believers in God to have faith if I withhold it from myself.

But I still think I'm right
posted by cohappy at 4:33 AM on June 30, 2003

the atheists 'round here seem to be very preachy lately.

one hit by answering true to both the following:

As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality.

If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist.

As someone pointed out in the earlier thread, faith and rationality are not mutually exclusive. i'm quite comfortable with the apparent contradiction given the wording of the questions. The nessie question is presented purely as an an issue of rationality, while the god question brings faith into the equation.

i have pretty dim view of rationality all by itself. it's rational (==logical) to conclude neither god(dess) nor nessie exist...it still takes a certain leap of faith to firmly believe they don't exist.
posted by danOstuporStar at 4:58 AM on June 30, 2003

"You've just taken a direct hit!

"Earlier you agreed that it is rational to believe that the Loch Ness monster does not exist if there is an absence of strong evidence or argument that it does. No strong evidence or argument was required to show that the monster does not exist - absence of evidence or argument was enough. But now you claim that the atheist needs to be able to provide strong arguments or evidence if their belief in the non-existence of God is to be rational rather than a matter of faith.

"The contradiction is that on the first ocassion (Loch Ness monster) you agreed that the absence of evidence or argument is enough to rationally justify belief in the non-existence of the Loch Ness monster, but on this occasion (God), you do not."

Bollocks. The Loch Ness monster and God are incomparable in this way. People have been searching a relatively small body of water for a large material creature. It is reasonable to suppose tha if you look for an object in a given place well enough and fail to find it that it is not there.

It's rubbish.
posted by nthdegx at 5:04 AM on June 30, 2003

nthdegx - bollocks, the was my first thought as well.
posted by johnnyboy at 5:08 AM on June 30, 2003

Preachy athesists are just as bad as preachy religious types, IMHO.

Metaphysics? No thanks.
posted by spazzm at 5:08 AM on June 30, 2003

Disclosure: one bullet, one hit

The 'bullet' criteria are absurd. Mine was that I think it ultimately impossible to disucuss God rationally (or that's how they construed it). The site claims that most people would find this "strange, incredible or unpalatable." Really? That faith is not a matter of rationality was taught me over and over again by Catholic priests, nuns, etc.

Apparently, Catholics are not people (insert tasteless child molesting joke here).

As far as the hit, it's the same as cohappy's. My objection is different, however. The early question was whether it was justifiable to believe something regardless of evidence or lack of evidence. I said 'no'. Persistent belief in the face of contradictory evidence is not, in my opinion, justifiable so the statement (because of the 'or') is true.

However, persistent belief despite a lack of supporting evidence--providing there is also a lack of contradictory evidence--is absolutely justifiable. I therefore answered 'true' to a later question asking if it was justifiable to believe in God despite an utter lack of supporting evidence, and got a 'hit' for it.

Sorry, kids, but the test writer gets that hit, as he's got a logical fallacy in his test.

By connecting 'evidence' with 'lack of evidence' with an 'or', he makes the entire early statement true if you believe either that it is justifiable to believe in something regardless of the existence of contradictory evidence or that it is justifiable to believe in something regardless of a lack of supporting evidence. The two statements are not equivalent, and one does not require the other. By joining them, he has created a 'complex question' fallacy.
posted by setmajer at 5:16 AM on June 30, 2003

No hits, no bullets & I win a medal, which, for some reason, reminded me of this. 'Curst atheists: too cheap to send out real medals.
posted by misteraitch at 5:16 AM on June 30, 2003

it still takes a certain leap of faith to firmly believe they don't exist.

No, actually, it doesn't. It's not a matter of faith at all, it's a matter of following the evidence. It's belief in god that's a leap of faith, because it flies in the face of logic, rationality, and has no evidence to support it.

It's fallacious to think that because the positive formulation (god exists) requires faith, one can conjecture that the negative assertion (god doesn't exist) requires faith as well. You're projecting.
posted by Cerebus at 5:23 AM on June 30, 2003

i have pretty dim view of rationality all by itself. it's rational (==logical) to conclude neither god(dess) nor nessie exist...it still takes a certain leap of faith to firmly believe they don't exist.

I don't understand. Why does it take a leap of faith? You would be right if we were predisposed to believe in God. Many people are, and for them it might take a leap of faith for them to embrace atheism. But this isn't true for everyone. For instance, I have no emotional connection with God. I don't feel His presence -- even as a strong fiction. I don't feel Him at all. So it takes no leap of faith for me to believe He doesn't exist.

Bollocks. The Loch Ness monster and God are incomparable in this way. People have been searching a relatively small body of water for a large material creature. It is reasonable to suppose tha if you look for an object in a given place well enough and fail to find it that it is not there.

I agree. Consistant atheists don't disbelieve because someone has proved to them that God doesn't exist. How is such a proof possible? We believe God doesn't exist because no one has proved He DOES exist. Ditto with the Loch Ness monster. Ditto with the Easter Bunny.

As an atheist, the most common reasons I encounter for belief are (1) because life would be terrible without God, (2) many wise people throughout history have believed in God, (3) because that little voice inside tells you God exists, and (4) how would everything have gotten here without God?

(1) I agree. Life is terrible without God. But it's also terrible without a million dollars. Just because I want something to be true, that doesn't make it true.

(2) And...?

(3) It doesn't.

(4) I don't know. Not knowing isn't grounds for belief.
posted by grumblebee at 5:24 AM on June 30, 2003

You're projecting.

probably. but the point of the test is whether i'm consistent in my beliefs. the testers say i'm not. my "certain leap of faith" statement says i am, that's all. i'm not attempting the futile task of convincing atheists they rely on faith for their beliefs.
posted by danOstuporStar at 5:32 AM on June 30, 2003

0 hits 0 bullets - I feel justified in my agnosticism today.
posted by re_verse at 5:41 AM on June 30, 2003

I don't understand. Why does it take a leap of faith? You would be right if we were predisposed to believe in God.

Predisposition has nothing to do with it. You either agree something is true or you do not. If you agree something is true based on evidence, then that is knowledge. If you agree something is true based on a feeling, that is belief.

You say that you disbelieve God due to a lack of proof that he does exist. Lack of proof does not disprove. It can cast doubt, but it can never truly disprove. Your belief in the nonexistence of God may be wholly rational and consistent, but it is still a belief.
posted by setmajer at 5:44 AM on June 30, 2003

You took zero direct hits and you bit zero bullets.
I feel justified in my refusal to hold inexorable convictions today.
posted by dilettanti at 6:12 AM on June 30, 2003

You claimed earlier that any being which it is right to call God must want there to be as little suffering in the world as possible. But you say that God could make it so that everything now considered sinful becomes morally acceptable and everything that is now considered morally good becomes sinful.

They're playing too much with the language for this quiz to hang together logically. They point out as a contradiction my answers to 2 questions, one about what God wants and one about what he's capable of. I don't see any contradiction in having God be capable of doing things he would not wish to do. I'm capable of taking a gun and shooting a random stranger on the street, but I wouldn't do it. God, being a theoretical more perfect being, should be able to exercise even greater powers of self-restraint than I am. A & !B doesn't allow you to draw any conclusions about the truth or falsity of the statement.

I took a further hit because I said God can do anything, and then said he couldn't make 1+1 = 72 (rationalization: he would merely be changing the meaning of 1 and 72, the net effect being meaningless), which is, I suppose a contradiction but I think it's really stupid that first they ask me whether I believe God exists, and then proceed to ask me a bunch of questions about a God I don't believe exists. Why should I be obligated to have a well thought out and consistent view of God if my primary opinion is that he doesn't exist?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:25 AM on June 30, 2003

Yeah, I'll readily say that the test seems skewed towards strong agnostics, not strong atheists. Though I did take a hit from the same Loch Ness problem as nthdegx.
posted by kaibutsu at 6:27 AM on June 30, 2003

I won't reveal my results. Let's just say that my broken and battered body should NOT be allowed to answer philosophical questions early in the morning.
posted by graventy at 6:33 AM on June 30, 2003

Heh...

When I was asked "Any being which it is right to call God must have the power to do anything" I thought to myself "Do you anything at all or anything logically possible" so I gurdgingly answered "True" thinking it probably didn't mean he could make 2 + 2 = 5. Anyway that came back to fuck me.

Also it said I'd contradicted myself twice when I had actually done it once, then back again. Bit dodgy that.
posted by ed\26h at 6:39 AM on June 30, 2003

jacquilynee:

The problem your referring to is one I've done bit of thinking on. God cannot do everything. God cannot make 1+1=72, nor create a married bachelor. These are logically impossible propositions. As you point out, God could simply change the value of the expressions, but that'd be a copout - instead of thinking about physical examples, think just in terms of ideas that are irreconcilable.

What does this mean? Not a whole lot, really. Sure God can't do everything, but he/she/it can/could do everything that can be done. Which is (has to be) good enough.
posted by cohappy at 6:44 AM on June 30, 2003

The FAQ made me feel a little better.

6. What a silly question about God being able to do contradictory things!

Okay, it's a fair cop. Many people will consider question 17, and the hit that results if you answer "No" (having previously claimed that God is omnipotent), to be a little unfair. Question 17 effectively asks whether God is able to do logically impossible things (that's the point of it, even if some people want to argue about whether there are such things as square circles, etc!). The criticism is that omnipotence doesn't require that we're able to do logically impossible things. We agree! But...
posted by ed\26h at 6:51 AM on June 30, 2003

You say that you disbelieve God due to a lack of proof that he does exist. Lack of proof does not disprove. It can cast doubt, but it can never truly disprove. Your belief in the nonexistence of God may be wholly rational and consistent, but it is still a belief.

I think our issue here is the word "belief." We need to define it better. On the one hand, you could say that everything I hold true (or false) is my belief. But in that case, the word "belief" means the same thing as the word "know."

"Belief" becomes a more potent word when it implies acceptance without evidence. Or even acceptance in spite of evidence to the contrary.

If we accept this definition, then when can we say that we KNOW something (without belief)? Can we know that dogs have ears? Can we know that the earth revolves around the sun?

We have no definitive proof of these things. Still, I think it is resonable to claim that we know them to be true -- to know WITHOUT faith. Because we have EXTREMELY compelling reasons to believe they are true -- and these reasons have nothing to do with our feelings or desires.

So I'm defining "to know" as to mean to think something is very very very very likely.

More interesting: how can we KNOW that there are no dragons or space-jellybeans when we can't search the whole universe to find out? Some would say we can't know. I say we can. But, again, I think this a semantical argument more than anything else.

It's prompted by Occam's Razor: there are two possibilities -- dragons exist or they don't exist. If they do exist, then we have to explain why we never see them or find any evidence of them. It's much simpler to suppose that they don't exist. Then we have nothing to explain except for our longing for them to exist.

I feel pretty safe saying that I KNOW dragons don't exist (even though I can't prove they don't exist), and I wouldn't call this a belief. I think we all do this constantly:

I KNOW there's no beer in the refridgerator.
I KNOW I graduated from college 10 years ago.
I KNOW that faries don't exist.

You can't say that these are all beliefs -- based on faith -- but I suspect we're generally talking about something different when we use the words BELIEVE and FAITH. It's odd to say, "I BELIEVE I graduated from college 10 years ago."
posted by grumblebee at 6:55 AM on June 30, 2003

I think it's really stupid that first they ask me whether I believe God exists, and then proceed to ask me a bunch of questions about a God I don't believe exists. Why should I be obligated to have a well thought out and consistent view of God if my primary opinion is that he doesn't exist?

I'm an atheist, but this doesn't seem stupid to me. Even if you don't believe in God, you can accept Him as a fiction. As a character. And, as such, He should have internal consistancy to his fictional world.

Do you believe Jay Gatsby exists? No. If he did exist, would he choose to wear cut-off jeans? Of course not!
posted by grumblebee at 6:59 AM on June 30, 2003

I took two hits, mainly because to me the concept of supernatural beings is intrinsically self-contradictory, so I feel no need to define it in a consistent way.
posted by signal at 7:55 AM on June 30, 2003

I remember taking this when it was posted before. I disagree that it's skewed toward strong agnostics, but rather toward atheists, as the Loch Ness fallacy, if you will, illustrates.

The quiz authors posit that "If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist." That's true. However, it may also be rational to believe that such a monster does exist.

Why? Because it does not follow that If it is rational to believe A, then it must be irrational to believe not-A.

Is it rational to believe that that there is Earth-like life on planets in other galaxies? Sure. Is it rational to believe that there isn't? Yep. Both possibilities can be rationally supported, thus the implied syllogism used by the quiz authors is invalid.

More to the point: In the 19th century it was "rational" to believe a great many things did or did not exist: Quantum particles, a woman who could run a four-minute mile, a mental state where the brain is asleep but the mind is conscious. Since all of these turned out to exist, we must acknowledge that it was also rational at that time to believe that they did exist.

I throw lucid dreaming in there because it's such a splendid and contemporary example of the power of "rationality" in denying the existence of something that clearly exists (the state described above was impossible until Stephen LaBerge provided the evidence in lab experiements). What atheists refuse to take into account is humans' extremely limited and prejudicial grasp of reality and our ability to rationally judge same. The fact that we've been unable to "uncover evidence" of something in another realm has almost no bearing on that realm's existence.
posted by soyjoy at 7:56 AM on June 30, 2003

Just to make my point clear: lack of self-consistency is one of the main reasons why I don't believe in gods in the first place.
posted by signal at 7:57 AM on June 30, 2003

One direct hit and one bullet. Interesting quiz though.
posted by insomnyuk at 8:01 AM on June 30, 2003

Cerebus: absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. To argue that something absolutely does not exist based on an absence of evidence is a similar category error to arguing that it does exist. The best one can say is that in all likelihood it does not exist. If you want to say it absolutely does not exist, then you are now making a claim which I would require evidence to accept.
posted by walrus at 8:01 AM on June 30, 2003

I can't get past question #6:

Evolutionary theory maybe false in some matters of detail, but it is essentially true.

It is difficult to answer either true or false. The "truth" of evolutionary theory will never be established, so I can't say "true"...yet answering false leads to a direct hit where I "reject scientific orthodoxy..." which I do not.

The test is therefore flawed. ;-)
posted by Qubit at 8:07 AM on June 30, 2003

"Of course, you may go along with ..." almost everyone who has spend time seriously thinking about the issue "...... and believe that religious belief does not need to be rationally consistent."

Interesting how we can spend so much time talking about this (and even have a good conversation) when they state right up front that it's irrelevant.
posted by y6y6y6 at 8:13 AM on June 30, 2003

Yeah, I think the test favors strong agnostics too. Which describes me, and I didn't take hits or bullets. To be more specific, I think it favors the attitude that morality can be separated from deity. That's a hard concept for folks of deep faith, but I think you can view them as inseparable and still be logically consistent. But it's harder, and I've noticed it more among clergy and other pros than among the flock.

With the whole Nessie thing: you can't prove a negative. So you can't prove God does not exist. The point of the quiz is to test for these sort of things.

I remember during the whole war build up thinking "This war is inevitable, because you can't prove the WMD don't exist. And if you have faith that they do exist, as the White House clearly does, the USA is going to war. " In that sense, it is a war of faith, and maybe that's why I'm so unnerved by it.
posted by bendybendy at 8:14 AM on June 30, 2003

Not knowing isn't grounds for belief.

I disagree. "Belief" is not the same as "knowledge". I would argue, per Kierkegaard, that doubt, or a state of not-knowing, is the necessary precondition of faith.

Faith transcends rationality, which is why nothing ever gets resolved in discussions btwn atheists and believers.

When atheist me sez "God" I mean something very different than when Bible-totin' Aunt Millie sez "God", even though we think we're talking about the same thing.

Neat quiz tho'.

Full disclosure: no direct hits, two bullets. The "evolution" question hung me up, too.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:27 AM on June 30, 2003

"If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist."

"As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality."

Rationality and faith are not mutually exclusive. When trying to disprove negatives (I hate these double negatives!), you have to rely on degrees of evidence to support your belief. I could provide evidence that shows the Earth revolves around the sun, but I could offer much better evidence that it's the other way around. Ignorance of knowledge does not necessarily equate to irrationality. Similarly, even pure science sometimes relies on small degrees of faith for that which is currently unknowable. Good science always leaves in the possibility that it's wrong.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 9:02 AM on June 30, 2003

Interesting quiz, great site. I got through it unscathed using my true agnostic/atheistic beliefs, but did pretty poorly when I tried again answering as if I did believe in a god. I agree that the test is biased against believers, but that is because it is logic-based and belief is usually not logical; i.e., it is a matter of faith, not reason.
posted by TedW at 9:05 AM on June 30, 2003

"If, despite years of trying, no strong evidence or argument has been presented to show that there is a Loch Ness monster, it is rational to believe that such a monster does not exist."
"As long as there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality."

There's a slight difference here...If I say "that lake contains thousands of tons of stockpiled biological weap a great big serpent, and after scouring the lake for a long time, nothing turns up, it's been pretty well established that Bush was ly the monster isn't there. At the same time, it's perfectly rational not to postulate the existence of something without evidence of its non-existence, for example, the Lake Erie Monster.
But I agree that they would have been better off not throwing around contentious terms like "faith" and "rationality".
posted by uosuaq at 9:27 AM on June 30, 2003

One hit, no bullets. But I place partial blame on varying intended meanings of the word "atheist."
posted by Songdog at 9:47 AM on June 30, 2003

you can't prove a negative.

Let's agree that half of 3 is 1.5.

Let's state that 1+1=3.

1 is the same number as 1, so if 1 + 1 = 3, then the two 1s must each be contributing an equal amount to 3. So each 1 is half of three.

So that means half of 3 is 1.

But we already agreed that half of 3 is 1.5.

1 is not equal to 1.5.

So 1+1 does NOT equal 3.
posted by grumblebee at 10:02 AM on June 30, 2003

Yeah, what caught me was their interpretation of the question:

"It is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of these convictions."

Which led, after a bit, directly to the Peter Sutcliff question which caused me to take a bullet. It is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on inner convictions and in fact, we pretty much have no choice in the matter. Even scrict empiricsm requires some sort of an a priori framework, and sometimes it is better to act as if a belief is true in the absense of evidence. (I feel that the belief in superstrings and gravity waves are justified in spite of a lack of external evidence, that does not automatically make a belief that it is permissable to kill prostitutes justified.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:03 AM on June 30, 2003

The evolution question, by putting in the qualifier "essentially" true, is where they tripped me up. Bad wording there.

and then I took a second bullet for this:

In saying that God has the freedom and power to do that which is logically impossible (like creating square circles), you are saying that any discussion of God and ultimate reality cannot be constrained by basic principles of rationality. This would seem to make rational discourse about God impossible.

Well - yes. Why do I get penalized for thinking this?

If God is all powerful, then surely God can make a square circle. The concept of God implies that the rules of logic and geometry etc were created by God, no? Therefore, they are mutable.
Pah. I'm off to look for space jellybeans.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:22 AM on June 30, 2003

Last time I played this time I got one hit. This time two.

Like others here, (nthdgx, johnnyboy) I don't buy the equation of The Loch Ness monster with God.

The Loch Ness monster - if it exists - was claimed to be a corporeal being, a big fishy, brontasaurousy creature.

God, as usually posited, is an omnipresent, sometimes omnipotent non-corporeal being which transcends human understanding.

So - my standards of proof for faith or disbelief in the Loch Ness monster vs. my standards for faith or disbelief in God are very different.

[ "....Bollocks. The Loch Ness monster and God are incomparable in this way. People have been searching a relatively small body of water for a large material creature. It is reasonable to suppose that if you look for an object in a given place well enough and fail to find it that it is not there." - nthdgx ]

Also concerning the website's reasoning:
"...You claimed earlier that any being which it is right to call God must want there to be as little suffering in the world as possible. But you say that God could make it so that everything now considered sinful becomes morally acceptable and everything that is now considered morally good becomes sinful. " This observation is not logically consistent, for it presumes that

1) There can be no disrepancy between our expecations of God and the deity's actually behavior - why can't I have personal standards for God's behavior which God, nonetheless contradicts or violates?

If God is omnipotent, then God has free will, and the power to reverse "Good" and "Evil". Imagine God does in fact pull this mean little switcheroo. OK. There I am - I call out to God - "hey you, Mr. "I don't really think you're God after all", I don't accept as the real, ultimate God any (lesser) God who pulls this sort of Sh_t. You're not really God after all."

So, "God" burns me to a cinder with a big lightning bolt.

But this still only bullying, coercion, for my God is a better God than that!

Apparently those who constructed "Battleground God" are unaware of Gnosticism, in which the malevolent "Demiurge" held sway over the Earth like a cranky, mean low-rent landlord (or Yaweh of the Old testament on a bad day) while the real God was farther away and more diffuse.

2) a reversal of "Good" and "Bad" would lead to an increase in suffering? - I rather doubt that this claim can be logically proven ( in the rigourous sense ). First of all, "good" and "bad", as linguistic terms, cannot be reduced to logical propositions.

By humans in any case. Perhaps God can pull that one off.
posted by troutfishing at 10:24 AM on June 30, 2003

Something else that bugs me about this test:

There are methods that you can use to determine the existance or non-existance of the Loch Ness Monster. They might not be available currently, but the methodolgy is sound: you could empty the Loch, or develop really good sonar, for instance.

On the other hand, there is no scientific instrument or established method for determining the existance of God. Saying "we haven't found Nessie" and "we haven't found God" are two very, very different statements, and it would not be a logical inconsistancy to believe that maybe, perhaps some day we will find something at the bottom of Loch Ness, but that any belief in God, whether for or against, relies on faith simply because there's no mechanical way to determine the truth.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:41 AM on June 30, 2003

Would you say that any belief in Gobbergobbersnooksy, whether for or against, relies on faith?

In case you don't know, Gobbergobbersnooksy is a beast very similar to a hippo, but with a carrot instead of a left eye -- not a carrot-shaped eye, an actual carrot! It always carries a suitcase filled with Jello, and on Wednesdays at 3pm it sings "Hey Jude." It may be living anywhere in the universe.

Now I feel pretty safe saying, "there is no such beast." I guess you could say that my disbelief is faith-based, since I can't check everywhere in the universe.

But I think when people talk about God, they are generally not talking about the same thing. People seem very prejudiced -- for or against God. They FEEL like God exists, so they suggest that atheists are really just expressing closeted religious tendencies (faith). Or atheists are so angry about being forced to go to church when they are small, that they would deny evidence of God if it were laid out in front of them in a court of law.

But I simply say, show me some evidence of God, and I'll explore the possibility of His existance. Show me strong evidence, and I'll believe.

Show me a Gobbergobbersnooksy, and I'll believe in that too. If you say one exists, you're making an extraordinary claim. Why should I believe it? Is to faith to DISbelieve all extraordinary claims? Is this the same sort of faith as faith in God? Isn't real faith present even DESPITE evidence to the contrary? If I proove to you that God doesn't exist, and you still believe -- that's TRUE faith!
posted by grumblebee at 11:14 AM on June 30, 2003

Grumblebee:

Have you ever seen a mechanism -- a car, a house, a computer, etc. -- that didn't require someone to build it first? So how can we humans, complex mechanisms that we are, have come about?

Oh, I get it. It's just nature. The whole universe and the natural laws that govern it, it exists just because it's always existed. Many religious sorts (not myself, I'm just playing Devil's advocate here) would say that the sheer fact that you exist and are able to pose such a question is evidence of God.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:35 AM on June 30, 2003

Nah, just evidence of the anthropic principle in action-- the universe is as it is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to see it.
posted by Cerebus at 11:46 AM on June 30, 2003

any religious sorts (not myself, I'm just playing Devil's advocate here) would say that the sheer fact that you exist and are able to pose such a question is evidence of God.

Many religious sorts have used many unexplained phenomena as evidence of God. Now that we understand the natural mechanisms underneath those phenomena, there is no need to invoke the divine. A "god of the gaps" whose sphere of influence shrinks as our knowledge grows isn't so much a god as a rag-bag of mysteries.
posted by Mars Saxman at 11:49 AM on June 30, 2003

You have reached the end!

Congratulations! You have made it to the end of this activity.

You took zero direct hits and you bit zero bullets.

Clearly, I am God.
posted by Skot at 11:50 AM on June 30, 2003

None of it matters, anyway; I have discovered God's final message to His creation.

You can clearly see that whether we believe or not matters not at all to Him.

8)
posted by Cerebus at 11:58 AM on June 30, 2003

The fact that Intelligent Design Theory is so dumb prove my own pet theory that there are 2 fundamental forces in the universe: Irony and Perversity.
posted by signal at 12:08 PM on June 30, 2003

Q. Can God create a rock so heavy that even He couldn't lift it?

A. No, because with a big enough lever, even I could lift it.

Q. Are atheists full of themselves?
A. Very often, yes.
posted by Space Coyote at 12:27 PM on June 30, 2003

Now that we understand the natural mechanisms underneath those phenomena, there is no need to invoke the divine.

Great, you understand the mechanism. You have yet to explain how the mechanism came about in the first place.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 12:39 PM on June 30, 2003

You took 1 direct hit and you have bitten zero bullets.

I ran into my only trouble over that rapist, but I thought it was okay to equivocate a little bit over what "justified" belief is: I strongly believe in the Weberian notion that a substantively irrational belief can and perhaps must serve as the basis for any formally rational ethos. One is "justified" in organizing one's entire life around unprovable propositions (all cultures and individuals do, wittingly or no), but this does not exempt the rapist's ethos from criticism from the point of view of an ethos that may be, in many respects, equally "irrational."
posted by Zurishaddai at 12:40 PM on June 30, 2003

(This seems to leave me closest to KirkJobSluder's diagnosis... why it exempted me from a "bullet" here I'm not certain. But I think I felt more comfortable with accepting a truly "a priori" kernel of belief than Kirk.)
posted by Zurishaddai at 12:43 PM on June 30, 2003

Two bullets and two direct hits.

However, I can argue my points with very clear logic (in a very faithful way).

On the matter of 'faith', doesn't it take a certain matter of faith to perform any action, or hold any belief? When I flip on the light switch at home, am I not executing a matter of faith to believe that the lights will come on? Do I have intimate knowledge of the wiring in my home, the electrical current that is or isn't flowing across it, the inner workings of the electric company or even the efficiency of the postal system in delivering my electric bill? The answer is no, but yet I still flip. Even the steps I take while walking, am I not using a matter of faith to believe that the ground beneath me will be there to meet my feet?

So how then, can something be a matter of logic or rational, and not be a matter of faith? Isn't rationality, in many respects, a matter of hedging bets? As much as I rationalize that the lights will come on, isn't it in reality just an educated guess? Not to toss out rationality in its entirety, yet doesn't rationality at some point break down, and matters then become those composed of faith?
posted by jazzkat11 at 12:46 PM on June 30, 2003

If you like, jazzkat11, you could say rationality is about making good educated guesses. But you have to adopt an absurdly high standard of knowledge for average rational beliefs to start looking like faith. I can't provide a deductive proof that the sun will rise tomorrow (that doesn't beg the question), but I'd bet any amount of money I can borrow on it. Whereas many matters of faith, and the early Christians, for example, were pretty clear about this, fly in the face of ordinary rationality--e.g. "God took human form, died on a cross, and then came back again"; "these wafers turn into the flesh of a certain person when I perform this ritual", etc. Those are bets I would not take, and those who have such beliefs have, I think, arrived at them by a different route than ordinary reasoning.
Hope I haven't offended anybody here--I just think there's a pretty good commonsense distinction between faith and rationality, although as I said above, the quiz would have done better to leave those words out. (I enjoyed taking it, though.)
posted by uosuaq at 1:38 PM on June 30, 2003

You say that if there are no compelling arguments or evidence that show that God does not exist, then atheism is a matter of faith, not rationality.

I hesitated on this one for a moment, and then decided it was a tautology. If there's no compelling arguments or evidence to show something doesn't exist, then it's given there's no compelling arguments or evidence for the position. It was like asking me to verify a <> a.

Apparently this was a trick question rather than a tautology, because they then proceed to tell me that this was a problem -- not because of a logical inconsitency (There is no logical inconsistency in your answers) but because of the argument they then present. Which I presume they consider compelling. Despite the fact that this argument was presumed not to exist before I made my selection. Bah.

>
posted by namespan at 2:42 PM on June 30, 2003

And maybe a better question than "Are you hypocritical about God?" would be "Are your beliefs tested by this set of questions logically consistent?"
posted by namespan at 2:43 PM on June 30, 2003

You have yet to explain how the mechanism came about in the first place.

That is because it is not explainable. "God did it" is not an explanation; it just pushes the need for an explanation back another level. You still have to explain God, and any believer in God will tell you that He is unfathomable, so in essence they're admitting they don't have an explanation either.

I wonder why so many people have such difficulty saying "We don't know and we can't know."
posted by kindall at 3:21 PM on June 30, 2003

You suffered 1 direct hit and bit zero bullets.

Earlier you said that it is justifiable to base one's beliefs about the external world on a firm, inner conviction, regardless of the external evidence, or lack of it, for the truth or falsity of this conviction. But now you do not accept that the rapist Peter Sutcliffe was justified in doing just that. The example of the rapist has exposed that you do not in fact agree that any belief is justified just because one is convinced of its truth. So you need to revise your opinion here. The intellectual sniper has scored a bull's-eye!

Well, I meant it was justifiable for me to base my beliefs on a firm, inner conviction. I'm not a rapist. Peter Sutcliffe may have thought he was justified based on his inner conviction but I won't justify rape based on another's conviction.
posted by TimeFactor at 3:31 PM on June 30, 2003

kindall - Gods come, and Gods go. First, they decree laws of physics, do a little dance, snap their fingers - Poof! The universe! Existance! Later, they get bored and will themselves into nonexistance when their creations prove disappointingly inadequate. Things break down into chaos, real estate values decline everywhere. But, of course, new Gods eventually emerge. And so on. But where do the Gods come from, you ask? Ah, that's easy: they arise organically from random fluctuations, as self organizing beings. But physical laws don't exist yet, you said. Oh, that's no problem - gods reach back in time, back to when all is formless and chaotic, to shape the conditions from which they, themselves, emerge!

...And it all rests on the back of a turtle, anyway, and that turtle upon a still larger turtle, and that one........well, it's turtles all the way down!~
posted by troutfishing at 3:38 PM on June 30, 2003

I wonder why so many people have such difficulty saying "We don't know and we can't know."

No need to be a self-righteous ass. As I said before, I'm not religious, and have no difficulty saying "I don't know", but have great difficulty completely dismissing other people's ideas without first examining them. You're "the mechanism is not explainable" cop-out is no different than "God did it" -- what you mean is "You cannot explain the mechanism." More religious people have a very good explanation for it, it's just that you don't agree with them.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:49 PM on June 30, 2003

Not only do I disagree with the Loch Ness thing, they also completely changed their wordings to mean different things and equated them. The question about whether it's acceptable to believe something based on inner convictions makes a subtle distinction. First, they ask if it's ok to believe something based on inner conviction in the presence of contrary evidence, the second time they ask if it's ok to believe something without evidence either way.
posted by dagnyscott at 4:07 PM on June 30, 2003