Submitted by thelivingphilosophy t3_yt6m03 in philosophy
Reply to comment by flammablelemon in A cross between an Existentialist and an Old Testament prophet, Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard urged his "single individual" reader to follow the "highest passion" of faith rather than becoming one of the stereotyped pseudo-individuals of "The Crowd" by thelivingphilosophy
I just find it hard getting behind a "philosopher" who's answer is essentially "don't think about it and just believe for no reason". To me, you can dress that up in however passionate and flowery language you like, but it's still anti-philosophical.
Have you actually read anything he wrote?
I remember reading some of him in uni, but nothing too serious. I'm at least glad he didn't try to pretend faith in God is somehow rational, I just don't respect an anti-rational approach because it's somehow "the best path" (which I don't even think is demonstrable on the evidence).
Faith is experiential. It isn't about throwing blind hope into the air. It's a two-way process. You do x, you receive y. But you don't know you receive y until you give x.
That’s called post hoc ergo propter hoc. It’s a fallacy, and precisely why you can’t use faith as any form of rational thinking. It is what you want it be, therefore nothing in the end. There’s no way around faith being total bullshit.
I'm not arguing for it being rational. I'm arguing that it works. You believe, you receive. Whatever neurological or cosmological explanation that has, it's still true.
To argue that it works you’d need to show it, logically, with evidence, rather than pull an assertion out of your ass. There is no more reason for anyone to believe this is true than there is for my claim that a unicorn flew out of my ass today.
You can stop your bullshit here.
> you’d need to show it, logically, with evidence
More 🤡
You can give x because you believe it will work based on a rational process of hypothesis development. You don't need faith. The difference is that making a rational prediction will make you more likely to acknowledge if you were wrong and move on to try different things, whereas faith—which is belief in something without evidence—will cause you to falsely attribute your results to your faith-driven actions, will cause you to make up some sort of fake cause that explains the results which you have no reason to believe is true, and will blind you to flaws in your perception that could show you the actual truth. Faith has no genuine use and it causes a litany of problems.
Can I ask you whether you believe this reality is all real, or whether it's a simulation?
It depends on what you mean by "believe". If I hold myself strictly to only making truth claims for that which I have real, objective verification, then no I can't say whether reality is real or a simulation. I don't believe it is on faith, or I wouldn't really consider it faith, more so that I consciously choose to live as though I believe it is true because there's literally nothing else I can do. If I didn't internalize the belief, informally, that the world is real, I would cease to be able to coherently act as an agent. It just wouldn't work. So there's no way I can't even if I wanted to.
Contrast this with belief in God, which is a totally unnecessary belief. People are able to exist as agents totally fine without that belief.
> I consciously choose to live as though I believe it is true because there's literally nothing else I can do
That's how I feel about God. Is that not faith?
You're wrong though. You are either too mentally weak to handle not believing in him, too arrogant to not accept there are things about the universe you can just say "I don't know" to, or too ignorant to understand that he isn't a logically necessary element of the universe. There's a difference between that and the belief that the world is "real", which is something that, if any of us were to truly commit to, would logically undermine our ability to perform actions in the world. If the world isn't treated as real, even on an informal basis, then our entire ability to do things and expect results that we interpret as significant is destroyed.
No, God is as real to me as my wife, and you'd have a difficult time convincing me my wife doesn't exist.
God is a part of my reality, just as tables and chairs are a part of yours. You believe in those tables and chairs, and I believe in God.
>If the world isn't treated as real, even on an informal basis, then our entire ability to do things and expect results that we interpret as significant is destroyed.
That's suspension of disbelief. You know that if you make Mario jump on a Goomba, he'll destroy him. That's doing things and expecting results. That's not destroyed by Mario, the Goombas, and the entire world he exists in being nothing more than transistors firing.
You're obviously lying though. You can see and feel your wife, chairs and tables, etc. You can't literally see and feel God. Any attempt at trying to say otherwise is necessarily metaphorical.
> That's suspension of disbelief. You know that if you make Mario jump on a Goomba, he'll destroy him. That's doing things and expecting results. That's not destroyed by Mario, the Goombas, and the entire world he exists in being nothing more than transistors firing.
Yeah? That's the point, just like we're able to pretend that Mario's world is real, we can "pretend" that we have "justifiable reason" to believe that our world is real, such that we can act in it. That's not faith, that's an intentional decision to suspend our lack of real justification for believing in the world because to do otherwise would render our ability to act impossible.
> You're obviously lying though. You can see and feel your wife, chairs and tables, etc. You can't literally see and feel God.
That's where you're wrong, because I do. Religious experience is common among our species!
> an intentional decision to suspend our lack of real justification for believing in the world because to do otherwise would render our ability to act impossible
Given that simulation could exist, and therefore multiple simulations could exist, the odds on this being the original reality is slim. You believe with zero evidence that this is real.
>an intentional decision to suspend our lack of real justification for believing in the world because to do otherwise would render our ability to act impossible.
That says more about you than about the nature of reality. Why is it axiomatic that function breaks down if the possibility that this is all not real is accepted, and/or believed? Plenty of people have concluded that it's not real and still manage to function. Are you so weak that you need this belief as a crutch?
In fact, could it not be that believing it's not real could free you up to try things you may have been scared to try? To lighten up in stressful situations?
You have faith in a materialistic universe because that's what you're experiencing, even though you know it could all be a dream you're having.
So it is with believers of God.
No, you can't literally see and feel God. You experience stimulus that you attribute to God, but it is not literally equivalent to the experience of seeing a physical object with your own eyes. You are presuming that the cause of your religious experience is God, but you lack the ability to verify through repeated consistent observation that this is the case the way you do for your wife.
Assuming without cause the world is real is axiomatic because something being "real" to you is a necessary quality in something having a "real" result that affects your life. If you believe that a banana is not "real", then you also believe that its ability to satiate your hunger is not "real". If you believe that is not "real", then logically there is no reason to eat the banana because it has no actual tangible impact on your life, so you won't do it. Exploding this to its extreme means that, if you refuse to live assuming the world is real, you won't ever take any actions.
You have to grant the reality of the world, even if you know you're doing it arbitrarily, because unreal things do not have any tangibility, real qualities, or real impact. You can understand you don't REALLY know the world is real, but you can't COMMIT to this authentically and purely. It would result in you basically taking a seat and starving to death.
> You experience stimulus that you attribute to God, but it is not literally equivalent to the experience of seeing a physical object with your own eyes.
You experience stimulus that you attribute to eyes, photons, and a materialistic universe.
>If you believe that is not "real", then logically there is no reason to eat the banana because it has no actual tangible impact on your life, so you won't do it.
Mario is not real. Goombas are not real. Millions of people are making Mario jump on Goombas worldwide. Logically there is no reason to jump on Goombas. Yet millions do. So that argument is a bit weak, isn't it?
>You have to grant the reality of the world, even if you know you're doing it arbitrarily
That's no difference to faith in God.
> You experience stimulus that you attribute to eyes, photons, and a materialistic universe.
Yes, and I am axiomatically bound to assuming at least some of those things are real in certain circumstances, otherwise the implications of not doing so would literally render me incapable of living as an acting being. The same is not true of God, as evidenced by the many atheists who are able to live without psychological contradiction.
> Mario is not real. Goombas are not real. Millions of people are making Mario jump on Goombas worldwide. Logically there is no reason to jump on Goombas. Yet millions do. So that argument is a bit weak, isn't it?
No, because while Mario and Goombas are not real, the screen that is displaying the images of Mario and Goombas is real, and based on the way it is programmed pressing certain inputs will objectively cause the images on the screen to behave in a predictable way. Treating Mario and Goombas as actual people is a mental delusion we engage in because it makes the experience more interesting, but from a logical sense it is silly to argue that the act of playing a video game is not grounded in something we can take to be real.
> That's no difference to faith in God.
No, you don't have to grant the reality of God. It is not a requirement to be rationally coherent, and in fact having faith in God is irrational.
> otherwise the implications of not doing so would literally render me incapable of living as an acting being.
Again, not believing it's real doesn't have to be so destructive! It's a simple belief. So what if it's not real. Why does that change anything at all? Lots of people believe in simulation theory, or that it's just a dream, or a samsaran illusion without starving to death! Playing the game is not an admission that it's real.
>No, you don't have to grant the reality of God. It is not a requirement to be rationally coherent
I suffered huge anxiety, PTSD, depression, etc from a childhood of sustained abuse. I met God. Now it's all gone. So for me, the exact opposite is my reality. God gives me coherence. Lifts me above anxiety, above fear, above all my thoughts. Cuts right through them.
God is with me, and it's as real as anything else in reality. And while I'm experiencing God, it's rational to believe. Just as it's rational for you to believe in a materialistic universe while that is your experience of reality.
> Again, not believing it's real doesn't have to be so destructive! It's a simple belief. So what if it's not real. Why does that change anything at all?
You act according to belief. It is a necessary component of logical chains of action. You have to have certain facts you're committed to that explain why you do what you do. Again: you eat a banana believing that it will satiate your hunger. You don't eat drywall, in part, because you don't believe it's going to satiate your hunger (at least as much drywall as you can stomach eating). That is what beliefs are for.
> Lots of people believe in simulation theory, or that it's just a dream, or a samsaran illusion without starving to death!
No, they really don't. They talk as if they believe in simulation theory, or that it's a dream, but they don't truly and authentically commit to it. They can't. To truly and authentically commit to the idea that the world is not real would require you, for consistency, to remove any meaning from the idea that things need to be real to motivate action. You would need to treat the delusions of all hallucinatory schizophrenics as equally real as anything else you see, not just for them but for you. You would have to believe in all gods, fairytales, and supernatural entities, and live as though they exist.
True belief is not a mere fancy that you entertain mentally without integrating it into your chain of action. Belief is BELIEF, an earnest commitment to the reality of something such that you factor it into the decisions you make. If you make any decisions that are contrary to your supposed "belief", that's an indicator that you are not truly and authentically committed to it and therefore it doesn't comprise an actual belief.
> I suffered huge anxiety, PTSD, depression, etc from a childhood of sustained abuse. I met God. Now it's all gone.
It's very nice that you were able to delude your brain into thinking it healed by slapping a cure-everything placebo over it, but that has no place in philosophical discussions of what exists, or whether or not faith is a valid path to truth.
> God is with me, and it's as real as anything else in reality.
It's not, you're twisting and warping the definition of "real" because you aren't committed to coherency. You're arguing the topic in bad faith.
> I suffered huge anxiety, PTSD, depression, etc from a childhood of sustained abuse. I met God.
That explains quite a bit actually. You’re incapable of being objective due to this.
Well if you're only going to cherry-pick my quotes for self-confirmation, you can believe anything you want about me.
The next bit, I said
>Now it's all gone
That's been logged with my doctor. I had mental illness, now I have none. I'm happy, productive, clear-thinking, and have fun in life.
That's a real change.
How can a real change be caused by something that isn't real?
Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Please, for everyone's benefit, learn basic logic and skepticism. Basic. Even if you jump past causality, that in no way proves anything supernatural was involved. You can't just jump from "I found God belief and now feel better, therefore a God exists."
>"I found God belief and now feel better, therefore a God exists."
That's not my position exactly. God happened to me, so I believe in God as much as anything else in my reality.
If you say "I found a banana, and it cured my hunger" can you jump from that to say that bananas exist and objective reality is definitely real and not just an experience you're having? You can describe your experience with labels like "banana" and "hunger" but there's no way to prove to yourself that bananas and hunger are actually real and not part of the dream you're currently having.
I describe my experience with labels like "God" and "consciousness" but it is just the labels on the experience. I experience tables and chairs, I call them tables and chairs. I experience God, I call it God.
> Please, for everyone's benefit, learn basic logic and skepticism
Sure. Prove that your belief in objective reality is justified logically and rationally. Prove it's real, and not just a materialist dogma you're applying to your experience of reality. Prove that things can even be provable, and it isn't a circular argument that relies on reality being provably real when it isn't.
I'll be sitting here reading Sextus Empiricus until you do...
You’re a clueless clown
An erudite argument with many good points. Sadly, it hasn't convinced me. Sorry. :)
🤡
> You believe with zero evidence that this is real.
Wow so your God exists based on…solipsism being possible. Good grief you’re a moron
No, I believe God exists based on personal experience and acceptance of that experience.
You believe objective reality exists based on personal experience and acceptance of that experience.
In fact, everything you've asserted relies on objective reality. Can you prove this is real? Using logic and evidence? Because if you can't, all other arguments based on predictable objective reality fall apart...
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> No, God is as real to me as my wife
Unicorns are real to me, boss. What now?
Well then, compare your experience of unicorns to others to see if they corroborate.
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How the fuck is it relevant to bring solipsism into a conversation where you’ve made claims about a supernatural beings existence? Gish gallop gallop gallop
We're talking about belief in our experience. You believe in yours. You have faith in yours. I believe in mine. I have faith in mine.
You can't argue that your position is more logical than mine.
You don’t understand the basics here enough to understand why your response makes no logical sense. You don’t understand logic at all. I would avoid using the word if I were you
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No sense arguing with a buffoon
You can think I'm wrong, but thinking I'm a buffoon is pretty silly. I deal with these abstract philosophical ideas at a decent enough level of proficiency.
Edit: Unless you mean the other guy is a buffoon lol.
I’m taking about mr. theist
Ah ok
Now kiss :)
🤡
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