Circularity of belief systems

[madnak]

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You'll note that since we work from a minimal list of premises there is no need or way to claim trVth ( how could one?) or no place for belief ( in an absolute sense). Any further premises added could ever be 'believed' since the base premises can only on an 'as if' assignment as it is.

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You don't know if your list of premises is minimal, because you have no way of counting them all.

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The point is that, in order to indicate that a belief in God is an efficient premise, you should be able to establish that a belief in God can reduce the necessary number of basic premises. By default, adding a premise is inefficient, therefore each new premise should have some justification.

[John21]

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A Christian who say he believes that the Bible is the word of God (as an axiom) is much different from a Christian who believe in the Bible because God says so, and believes in God because the Bible says so.

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That brings up a very interesting point. The whole foundation of the faith in God thing, is that it's possible to have "direct," albeit subjective, knowledge of God's existence.

So if I said I believe the Bible is true and because of that used it to justify my belief in God, my knowledge of God would then be indirect or secondary, going against the basic tenet of faith.

Then on the flip-side, if I said I believe in God and because of that I believe the Bible is true, then my knowledge of the Bible as the word of God would be secondary.

I'm trying to think of a way to make the acceptance of the second statement exclude the acceptance of the first to build the foundation of an argument against the literalists. I say this because if you accepted the second statement, it would be a strong case for concluding that "knowing" the Bible is the "truth" as a Christian theologian uses the terms, would be an impossibility. But it could still leave the door open for someone to say they believe the Bible is the word of God - unless accepting the second statement would rule that option out. Could you make the case?

[vhawk01]

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Warning: This is long and obscure.

I'd like to expand. Saying that we're biological machines is the result of a number of inductive chains that appear likely to be valid according to most educated people (but then, even that likelihood and the existence of "educated people" depend heavily on axioms). It's impossible to consider the validity of my reasoning process without accepting the axioms that allow me to consider validity in the first place - and those axioms depend on my reasoning process. At heart, there could always be an "error in the system" that is throwing everything off. That's part of what it is to be human. We're balanced very delicately on top of nothing at all.

But if I indulge myself and accept that there are other people communicating with me, and that I accurately experience their communications as English words on a Two Plus Two Forum (whether the English language or the 2p2 forum actually exist isn't necessarily relevant), if I indulge myself in that and assume some level of communication, then it becomes acceptable to conclude that I share certain assumptions with other posters.

I may not be able to determine exactly which axioms I share with these other entities. To some degree it's almost arbitrary in a universal sense, but based on my own framework I can have certain expectations. I can expect, first and foremost, that these other entities experience a world similar to mine, so similar that our worlds appear to be continuous. In fact, we're both aware of certain features of our respective worlds, all of which are consistent, and it might almost be inferred that we live in the same world.

Certainly I can expect, based on experience as well as various other rational supports, that if I were to go to a place I identify as Washington, DC I might discover a series of impressions that I can interpret based on my conception of physical reality, and that series of impressions might include certain individual impressions that would represent, within that conception, a human being. I might further extend my classification within my personal empirical framework and observe that the situational and behavioral attributes of this "human being" qualify it as a male medical student who claims to be the entity "vhawk" from this site. Assuming a meeting was planned, and vhawk and I had both created communicative structures sufficient to instill in me an expectation that we would be "meeting" in the "real, physical world" (don't ask, that stuff relies on way too many inherent assumptions), and if this appearance-of-a-medical-student is consistent with the information I have from the vhawk entity, then I might make the bold inductive assertion that the appearance of the medical student is actually a representation of the very vhawk entity represented alternatively on the forums!

All that is clearly based on many assumptions and even more propositions derived from those assumptions. Thankfully, vhawk agrees with the whole damn thing so all we need to do on meeting is say "hi."

I can expect to share 99% of my assumptions with the others on this forum, to such a degree that I don't need to walk through the maze, I can represent my forum experience as "other people from different places have created usernames to talk over the Internet, and we're doing that in a science, math, and philosophy forum." The level of kinship is so great I might even be able to compress it down to the terse "We argue on a message board."

Many other propositions also go without saying, like "Boston's on the East Coast of the USA," or "the Wii is a recently-released console" or "most people aren't mass murderers" or "gasoline is flammable." It goes on and on. And while we're here, to avoid rhetoric like the stuff in the earlier paragraphs, we try to work within shared contexts of understanding, complete with shared assumptions.

If two people have different basic axioms, and that is the source of their disagreement, then there is no way for either of them to accomplish anything in a logical debate. Thus both parties must enter the discussion under the umbrella of shared axioms. Some degree of "axiom probing" may be necessarily as a preliminary exercise, but a debate is essentially a question of "do the axioms a, b, and c imply the conclusion d?" And this is where we have a problem.

There are a few claims made by the theists here.

One is that they have a fundamental axiomatic belief in God, and they therefore can't discuss the subject of their own personal beliefs in logical terms. They can still "play" by assuming for the sake of argument or asking what the implications might be given a certain basic assumption, but they don't claim to be able to justify their belief in any way according to axiomatic principles accepted by the atheists. That seems to be your position, bunny.

Then some theists claim that atheism is not a valid conclusion based on the axioms of the atheists themselves. In this case they try to establish, using the axioms that the atheists accept, that atheism isn't justified. And there are those who claim that based on their own more basic axioms, the existence and validity and authority of the Christian God can be inferred. The authentic debaters represent these groups or variations on these themes - none of these groups are mutually exclusive, by the way, specific partisanism may or may not be involved here. I can argue that, given Atheist Bill's assumptions, atheism is unjustified. I can argue that, given Theist Jim's assumptions, Christianity is justified. But I'm considered an atheist because, according to my own assumptions, I think atheism is justified and Christianity is not. So personal belief gets involved in strange ways. But there's a lot of room for discussion with these types of approaches.

Finally there are those theists who claim that the atheists must accept the theist axioms, and attempt to use logic to support the idea that their axioms should be accepted. Simultaneously, they emphasize the fact tha these axioms are fundamental.

It's these theists who (in my opinion) make up the majority, and who are very circular. You can't "justify" a basic axiom, certainly not through another axiom (such as the validity of logic). And even when such theists try to suggest that their pet God axiom is secondary to (but necessarily implied by) the axiom of cause and effect or basic logic, they tend to get themselves into highly circular systems (in which logic is conveniently dissociated from their justifications, despite being the ostensible basis for them). This kind of thing can be justifiably called circular, and it's all hogwash that wastes the time and energy of those who'd like to have meaningful discussions rather than bang their heads against brick walls.

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I think you just asked me if I wanted to get a beer? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[bunny]

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Can you give me any reason why I should accept that I was just lucky enough to be born into a family that believed in the xtain god, for me to accept The Bible is the word of God BECAUSE the bible says it is the word of God. You aren't seriously trying to defend "The bible is the word of god because the bible says the bible is the word of God?"

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No, I think that's a silly argument but not because it's circular. I think it's silly because it is an axiom which is not self-evidently true - that makes it a poor axiom.

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No one is saying the 1st statement is true becuase it makes it self true. People assume it to be true. If you instead say the bible is the word of god because I assume it to be then we can discuss if that assumtion is justified. But I don't think you can sidestep the circularity regarding the bible just because some assumptions that one uses to exist in the world can be used to justify itself, when really it's the results, and predictions that are usefull, when one assumes the first position. Position 1 is an ansumption. Position 2 is circular.

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I'm not sidestepping the issue - the theist uses circular reasoning to justify their beliefs. My point is that atheists are better off not pointing that out, since they do too. The difference between the two positions is not circularity, it's the assumptions.

I think we agree on this issue, I am just not explaining myself very well. :/

[bunny]

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You'll note that since we work from a minimal list of premises there is no need or way to claim trVth ( how could one?) or no place for belief ( in an absolute sense). Any further premises added could ever be 'believed' since the base premises can only on an 'as if' assignment as it is.

luckyme

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I dont see this - if my minimal assumptions lead me to draw conclusions which correspond with the real world then I am believing something which is true, no?

The issue of how do we know which beliefs are true and which false is different. I cant see why your take on the world precludes the idea of beliefs or claiming truth... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[DougShrapnel]

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I think we agree on this issue, I am just not explaining myself very well. :/

[/ QUOTE ] In that case. Until next thread. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[bunny]

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The real problem here is that theists ABSOLUTELY accept this axiom in every other area of their lives. Every one. No theist will seriously argue that the best way to come up with a belief about the force of gravity is to ignore the experimental evidence. Theists only ignore this axiom when it comes to god. They reject circular reasoning for other gods, too. If I create a book that says I am god, and try and argue that the existence of the book is proof enough, you would just laugh.

The question is, what is special about the bible that makes it ok to add in an additional axiom of 'the bible is true'.

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I agree completely - my point is that phrasing the argument the way you have is much more powerful (in a "more likely to persuade undecided people" sense of powerful) than "The Christian position is circular".

[bunny]

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There are a few claims made by the theists here.

One is that they have a fundamental axiomatic belief in God, and they therefore can't discuss the subject of their own personal beliefs in logical terms. They can still "play" by assuming for the sake of argument or asking what the implications might be given a certain basic assumption, but they don't claim to be able to justify their belief in any way according to axiomatic principles accepted by the atheists. That seems to be your position, bunny.

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It was - and I remain convinced this is a defensible position. As a matter of fact though I no longer consider myself a theist.

[kurto]

Hi, Bunny.

It is true that there have to be premises that we accept as true. Though I would argue that most premises start with things that are readily observable by all, reproducable, testable, etc. From those things that most everyone can accept as truths we build upon.

To say that the Bible is the world of God because the Bible says it is the word of God does not fit any of the above. It is rathar arbitrary and only accepted as truth because the believers WANT it to be true. There is no rational reason to accept that as a reasonable premise.

[madnak]

We're finally getting through to ya? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]