Well I wouldn't need your opinion to validate my own when it comes to something so easy to identify. I agree that the human mind is fallable and its easy to fool but for the sake of argument, this is a duck. I know its a duck because it has all the charactaristics of a duck. I can see its webbed feet, bill, feathers and overall image. I know this is a duck. I dont believe in faith to a degree, I believe in informed decisions based on whatever evidence there may be. My evidence is both physical and visual. I understand that you may think that faith is required to complete a belief but if theres evidence, no faith is required since im convinced for reasons surrounding physical and visual evidence. (let me know if you're over this, haha)
Nope, doesn't make it certain, just means we agree. We both still have a degree of faith invested into the belief, it just happens to fit into both of our views.
So can we be absolutly certain that its a duck? And if so, then cant we be absolutly certain about other things? I realise humans have defined it as a duck, but having done so, can that not make peoples perceptions of it incorrect if they were to call it anything other than a duck?
It's not so much that reality changes for each of us, but that we see it differently. Some things in reality are percieved the same way regardless of our fundamental beliefs. For example, we both see the universe as the entity containing all existance (most of which we agree on what is), so all beliefs that are contingent ONLY on that point, we're likely to share. But if I see it as an object of divine creation (I don't), and you as a result of an explosion, we'll have disagreements about points contingent on those beliefs. Another example that relies on simpler concepts. You and I both see something swimming on the lake. We both believe that feathered, winged, creatures with ornage-yellow bills that quack, are ducks. So if either of us says, hey look, it's a duck! We'll agree. If however, on top of those beliefs I, and only I have another belief that all feathered animals that lay eggs are mammals, we may both agree 100% that that thing's a duck, but if I say, "Hey look, it's a mammal!" We'll disagree. Some ideas multiple fundamental beliefs share are compatible, because those beliefs can stand on either base. Other's can't, which is why we agree on some points and not others.
So it all comes down to how we define reality. Each of our realities are different although how can you claim so if we share similar outcomes? reality should be universal for everybody. If i died, I wouldnt be able to be seen by anyone, it applies to all in this world. The reality is we have no way of identifying anything other than our senses. Lets call that logic. So how it is that logic doesnt take precedence over spirituality? Does it come back to fundementals? In which case, are the fundementals even that important if we are getting results and answers? shouldnt the physical evidence be worth more than what we cant see? And I apologize in advance if this is a circular argument as this is pretty deep and its taking me a while to understand it all.
In some cases, we develop the same ideas even with different fundamental beliefs. Math for example is something we beleive in whether you're religious or not. Math however, since defined by man, shares any flaws in understanding and interpretting reality that man does. That makes it equally unreliable as our own senses. It's a part of our thoughts, our thoughts try to confirm it by seeing that it establishes our thoughts. Circular reasoning. Pretty much any metaphysical argument that has any form of positive claim, ends up relying on ciruclar reasoning. Logic and metaphysics, just like oil and water lol. I will say it's more justiifcation to accept our fundamental belief, but no more absolute proof, or logical support (meaning my unnescessarily complex logic that goes back to the fundamentals with every single point I make; with logic contingent on our fundamental belief it does lend more logical support to the idea that there's No God, which is why we believe that), because it still ultimately relies on the same fallacious circular reasoning all beliefs do.
i realise i just wrote that the idea of god is more valid than there not being one, That was a mistake. I realise your point was the one should be neither greater than the other.
yeah, there's really nothing I can argue against that. Although I retain my previous statements and I cannot consider how the idea of a god is more valid than there not being one. Thats my thought process. We can be absolutly certain that 2+2=4, because it is a form of understanding created by man that has developed into everything we have come to know today about the universe. If we can be absolutly certain about math and the proof is in what we have discovered by using it, I would say thats more justification to believe in than anything else, based on what it has allowed us to discover. unless you think that its by accident we discovered things , otherwise the methodology we use it absoultly correct. What do you think about that example?
In a sense. To dumb down the argument for the sake of saving myself from typing... If our senses are wrong, no data we can obtain is reliable, because we can't interpret it correctly. If our thoughts are wrong, even if we see clearly, our logic is faulty, and we misinterpret reality. Why do we trust our thoughts and senses? Without using our thoughts and senses whose trustworthiness is in question, we have no way to answer this. To get past the first, and most fundamental uncertainty, we can't use our reason, we just have to pick our answer, and hope we're right. After we've done that, and established that we do trust these things (illogically), we can move on, and build our understanding of the rest of reality around it.
So you're saying that I have no justification for believing something more-so because I can see it, as opposed to something I cant see? Not just visually, but something interpreted by the senses?
Correct. We have to trust that our own perceptions are accurate, our own minds understand and translate them correctly, and our own logic is reliable, if we don't accept these as facts, we can't really know (or at least accept) anything else. Everything you and I think we know could be absolutely wrong, but as long as our wrong perceptions, opinions, and calculations agree with each other, they appear perfectly logical and correct. They form the basis of the world we know. But, we can't really know, only believe that these concepts that support our entire understanding of reality are correct. Withouth doing so, everything we claim to know becomes moot. This may however not always be the case, if and when we discover the origin of the unvierse as an absolute, only then can the big questions be answered with certainty. Though I don't have any real basis for doing so, I do believe we may reach that level some day.
I think I understand now. Even if you can see something with you eyes, you would still put 'faith' in its existence because even though we can see it has a physical form and effect, how do we know it even really exists other than our senses, correct?
The only answer is faith. I put faith into a fundamental belief that is incompatible with religion. As for why this is, I can't say. Perhaps we never really had a choice, and it was determined simply by the gene sequences that guided the development of the brain. In any case, my mind naturally only sees sense in logic, the alogical and illogical just don't click for me, never have.
I agree with that comeplety. I understand that you place more value in logic, but if both beliefs are technically equal in terms of validity (within their own domains) why is it that you would choose science over god or religion? Or why is that you dont choose god or religion?
It's asinine to you, because your system of beliefs doesn't allow for that kind of thought pattern, mine doesn't either, which is why I'm not religious. However the only reason it isn't allowed in our minds, is because they accept a different fundamental belief than others. In the minds of the religous, not only is that acceptable, but it makes sense. They most likely find our disbelief as asinine as you find their belief. Pragmatism isn't always universal, for you and I, logic and observable data is what works, for others, beliefs that guide them through life work. We may see the religous as intellectually lacking, which is a bad hing in our world, they can say we're spriitually lacking, which is bad in theirs. Neither of us really care, because our beliefs don't depend on the concepts of the other side's. We see religion as detrimental to scientific advancement, new knowledge, and other things we value as people with our fundamental belief, but on the other side, they see the things we value as detrimental to the things they do.
