Participate in this interactive exercise, then answer the questions below. http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/god/Default.aspx
- What were your direct hits and/or bitten bullets?
- Describe any interesting tensions that arose from your answers and your reactions to those tensions.
- Identify and explain what role, if any, reason, evidence, and argument should play in religious belief.
- Is religious belief different from other kinds of belief?
- Develop and defend your position.
I navigated the battlefield while suffering 0 hits and biting zero bullets, very unlike the average of 1.48 hits and 1.29 bullets most people experienced. That’s not to say I didn’t come close to experiencing such travails, however. Certain questions did force me to think rather deeply. I found many answers to be heavily dependent on just how one defined and perceived ‘God’. Some of the wording had to be taken quite literally to answer the questions, such as “For a being to be called God, they must have the power to do anything,” quite literally meaning ‘anything.’ Really though, with how I answered, only the two questions come to mind when I think of those that were any semblance of uncomfortable.
One of them was the question regarding whether atheism was a matter of faith or rationality. I agree that atheism is a belief system that tries to ground itself very much in rational thought; if there is no evidence of God, it concludes that one must believe in the nonexistence of God. I would think that agnosticism is a more appropriate matter of rationality, though. Atheism, depending on the degree, doesn’t just recognize that there is a lack of evidence for belief in God, but it draws a final conclusion and exchanges belief in an entity for belief in the nonexistence of the entity, dealing an absolute. That, I would say, is more of a matter of faith, unlike agnosticism. I still answered that it was more of a matter of rationality, however.
The other question was the final question. “It is justified to believe in God if one has a firm, inner conviction that God exists, even if there is no independent evidence that God exists.” On the basis of the wording, and consistent with my previous answer that it is not justifiable to base one’s worldview entirely and solely on a firm, inner conviction, I answered false. Just as with the atheism question, I answered this with a caveat. No, it isn’t justified to believe in God, or anything, without evidence in the sense that it must be concluded as fact, but that’s just one connotation of the word ‘justified.’ I think humans are ‘justified’ in choosing to believe in a deity, in a religion or set of beliefs, insofar as it provides benefit to them, the word here meaning that it is an action one would not fault.
Reason, evidence, and argument - as far as I’m concerned, the only role they play in religious belief is whether the religion is consistent with itself and what the reasons for a person’s belief in that religion are. I choose religion not because I ardently believe in alleged pieces of evidence, but because I find it gives me benefit and does not cause harm to others or to myself. Religion is convenient for humans and it is convenient for me. Outside of trying to resolve conflicts that are religiously grounded, I don’t think there’s serious need to think too much more on it without risking the creation of new conflict.