[MD] Confirming the existence of God?

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Ant, Mark, all,


> Ant McWatt Mark:
>
> My apologies if this question has already been asked recently but rather than
> confirming the existence of God, how do you know this “feeling” doesn’t instead
> indicate that you’ve gone insane, been affected by drugs (legal or otherwise),
> been hypnotized through social conditioning, suffered a stroke, been subject to
> carbon monoxide poisoning or even some combination of these?


Steve:
This sounds like the "brain in a vat" philosophical boogie man that we
don't need to be afraid of if experience is reality and if we follow
Pierce in asserting that such doubts need to be justified as well as
beliefs need to be justified.

Mark may well be rationally justified in his belief in God since
justification is a context-sensitive affair and we don't know all that
much about his context. If Mark's experience leads him to believe, as
a nonbeliever critical of religious faith I am still supportive of his
right to believe. My concern is about the concept of religious faith
as a virtue where it is asserted that it is actually good to believe
when your experience suggests that your belief is false.

This passage from John 20 is frequently pointed to by the religious to
say what faith is all about, and it show the incompatibility of
science and faith:


24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the
disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, “We have
seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put
my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will
not believe it.”

26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was
with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among
them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27Then he said to Thomas, “Put
your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my
side. Stop doubting and believe.”

28Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

29Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed;
blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”


The concept of religious faith is that it is actually better to
believe without evidence than to believe based on experience. This is
the problem with faith and why faith is anti-intellectual. Religious
faith asserts that belief should not respond to intellectual quality
when it comes to religion. Setting up faith as a virtue is literally
to say that it is good to believe things that are bad to believe.

Best,
Steve