Can a nonsecular state be considered "rational"?

[MobBoss]

Well, going by Mobby's map, I'd have to say that Argentina (nonsecular), for example, is a more rational State than North Korea (secular).

On the other hand, if the question was can a nonsecular state always become more rational by going secular, I'd say yes.

Precisely. Rationality has nothing to do with either being secular or non-secular at all.

but horses do exist, unicorns apparently not...

People were unaware that the Great Apes existed until a hundred or so years ago. Who is to say that a unicorn, or unicorn like creature (rhino maybe) has not existed in the last 20k years or so?

Our knowledge of the past, or of our current earth is still rather incomplete and limited. We still have a long ways to go before we can answer such questions with absolute sureity.

 

[holy king]

eran, let me put it this way:
noone knows if atoms are really constructed the way we learn at school (bohr's model), but at the time it is a necessity to assume they are, to make further assumptions and advances in physics...
like atoms, noone has ever seen god, but it is not necessary for anything to assume that there is one (in my opinion)

 

[holy king]

Our knowledge of the past, or of our current earth is still rather incomplete and limited. We still have a long ways to go before we can answer such questions with absolute sureity.

we find they did exist (unicorns), allright, but up untill this point it is not rational to believe they existed...

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

eran, let me put it this way:
noone knows if atoms are really constructed the way we learn at school (bohr's model), but at the time it is a necessity to assume they are, to make further assumptions and advances in physics...
like atoms, noone has ever seen god, but it is not necessary for anything to assume that there is one (in my opinion)

Atoms are however they are regardless of what humans think they are. What we consider "necessary" does not enter into it. There is no reason to think that current human understanding is the best perspective for understanding the universe - it is a useful one, but not to the degree that anything that is not required in order to explain that understanding either can't exist or is irrelevant.

 

[holy king]

Atoms are however they are regardless of what humans think they are. What we consider "necessary" does not enter into it. There is no reason to think that current human understanding is the best perspective for understanding the universe - it is a useful one, but not to the degree that anything that is not required in order to explain that understanding either can't exist or is irrelevant.

well, i dont think so, i even say it's irrational to assume such a thing exists
btw. could you tell me another example for such a thing that is not to consider irrelevant but we have no evidence for it existing and it doesnt help us to understand the universe as a construct? (besides god)

oh, and we dont know for sure that atoms exist, it's just a model it think (and i could think crap, since physics isnt particularly my strong side )

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

You say there is no evidence that God exists. My response is that you have no evidence that God exists, but that I have good reasons for doing so - and that thus, even if I am incorrect, I am not irrational if I believe in God.

 

[holy king]

You say there is no evidence that God exists. My response is that you have no evidence that God exists, but that I have good reasons for doing so - and that thus, even if I am incorrect, I am not irrational if I believe in God.

this is not evidence in the traditional sense...
as in "mr. watson, that smoking gun in the hand of that guy is evidence for him being the murderer!"
anyone who was there to see that smoking gun (and hopefully mr. watson makes a photograph of it, so everyone can see later on), would have seen who the murderer was...

you havent told me what your evidence of god is, but i assume it's not something that can be objectivley experienced by anybody else?
i can only guess, but i think it's quite an educated guess when i say: "that evidence is merely made up in your mind, thus it is irrational." (i mean i assume this is going to be my answer, except if your evidence IS objectively experiencable)

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

It's spiritual, and personal. I don't claim that anyone should believe based on what I say.

But that isn't really the point - whether or not there is evidence, saying that a concept, being, or entity is not necessary given our current understanding of the world gives us no clue as to whether or not it exists.

 

[holy king]

It's spiritual, and personal. I don't claim that anyone should believe based on what I say.

But that isn't really the point - whether or not there is evidence, saying that a concept, being, or entity is not necessary given our current understanding of the world gives us no clue as to whether or not it exists.

that's right and that's why it's irrational to believe it exists, just as it is irrational to believe in unicorns...
from now on we're gonna move in circles, so let's stop here...

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

We don't want this to be an argument about the existence of God, after all . . .

But, let's take a moment to agree on definitions for "secular", "state", and "rational".

 

[Swedishguy]

Non-secular states can be rational. 21 50.00%
Non-secular states are naturally irrational. 21 50.00%
Other 0 0%

Hmm. What are the odds of that?

 

[DNK]

We don't want this to be an argument about the existence of God, after all . . .

But, let's take a moment to agree on definitions for "secular", "state", and "rational".

That was the point of this discussion.

I think Eran, etc, have argued along the same lines I would, but I will add to it.

It's hardly irrational for someone to believe in a god or be religious. The conclusion may be less empirically founded than, say, believing in atoms, but it's hardly necessarily in the realm of insanity and extreme irrationality.

To say the least there is FAR more irrationality than belief in god in secular societies in general. It's really nitpicking, imo. Most Americans believe all sorts of stupid crap, regardless of religious beliefs. Is anyone doubting this? By all means, belief in God is probably one of the more rational things the average person believes

So, for the purposes of this argument, talking about "irrationality" should assume a certain, systemic, and governing lack of reason and logic in determining the course of affairs. Otherwise, it's getting into personal beliefs and rather obscure philosophical shades of gray that really don't affect things that much.

If you want to argue about certain faiths, sects, etc, being irrational in a materialistic sense, we can go there, but faith in God/gods alone doesn't seem to be very pertinent to geopolitics, and your statement was such an over-generalization as to be effectively useless.

 

[Defiant47]

First of all, I will equate "rationality" with "logic". At the very least, I will let illogic imply irrationality.

Explain why all religion is irrational.

Please bear with me, as it is a little difficult to get across the answer. Although it's easier to deal with each religion individually, I will attempt to assess a "general" religion.

Religion requires that someone (from now on "you") believes in a certain kind of supernatural power. Usually, religion brings up an issue of infinite importance for your belief and then provides some sort of proof, evidence or reasoning. For example, Christianity promises heaven to believers and eternal torment to unbelievers, the difference of which is infinite, and provides the Bible as the foundation of the belief.

Logically, decisions are made based on the information given and the importance of the decision, as well as the benefits and drawbacks. For example, someone telling me the story behind the story of Troy and the evidence behind it (assuming their story is the most likely explanation out of all given) might not have enough evidence, but seeing as it doesn't affect me too much whether I'm wrong or not, I'll believe it. However, someone telling me that if I jump off a cliff and can fly, providing the same amount of evidence/proof as in the other scenario, would not be enough to make me believe it, as the importance is much higher here: my life.

Unfortunately, all religion fails to provide sufficient proof, evidence or reasoning given the importance. Infinite importance requires absolute certainty of the religion's beliefs, which can never be provided using the proof given. That being said, I'm not even sure that one can achieve absolute certainty about anything! The one thing notwithstanding is the fact that oneself exists, which sounds like logical reasoning and might well be construed with absolute certainty, but I'm not sure. However, anything else cannot be construed with absolute certainty.

This implies that all religious belief is illogical since it requires devotional belief in something that has infinite importance, while not providing the appropriately sufficient proof given the importance. And then we can apply the assumption above: illogical => irrational.

Why is all belief in god irrational?

The belief of a non-specific god or "deity-like" entity is a matter of personal explanation. If the universe makes more sense to you with god, then you believe in god. If the universe makes more sense to you without god, then you don't believe in god. If you're not sure which makes sense, then you might not choose to believe anything.

However, if we're talking about the belief of a specific God, then we run into problems. I shall define specific God as the exact opposite of what I just discussed above; basically you provide some attribute or back story or any detail whatsoever on top of the aforementioned non-specific god. To believe that the specific god exists requires some justification: there is some proof, evidence, or reasoning that this specific God exists.

Let's assign a value to the solidity of our proof. For example, if we saw "god exists" written on a piece of paper somewhere, we would define that as a "low" value. Whereas if we're using our best logical explanation, we'd probably value this as "high". However, we must accept our shortcomings: we couldn't possibly declare that our logical explanations are absolutely perfect, and that the logic system we're using is correct. I mean, after all, when we were smaller, we were sure that the best logical explanation for conception was the stork, as sure as we are now of our explanations. Thus, the value of our explanation is finite.*

We can also assign a value of importance to believing in this specific God. For example, heaven vs. hell would be a matter of infinite importance, whereas someday getting a truckload of donuts for believing we would call a "low" value. Now we can apply the logical decision-making model.

If the value of our explanation is greater than or equal to the value of importance, then we can believe comfortably. If the value of our explanation is less than the value of importance, then we're in trouble. We have something that's very important, but we don't have sufficient reasoning. Ideally, we will not believe until we can get enough reasoning to support this conclusion or find another conclusion that is better-suited.

Here is when things get unfortunate: we are not restricted to the belief of this specific God. We can conceive of other specific Gods, as well as non-existence of gods. The whole thing then becomes an exercise in futility. We have an infinite number of possibilities, each with their own value of likelihood, especially an unknown value of likelihood (since those "values" we were talking about can't be quantifiable). We can't know for sure that the value of reasoning of a specific God is actually higher than the value of another specific God, not to mention never being able to completely discount any possibilities. This effectively makes belief in a specific God logically have ?/INFINITY chance of being correct, where the ? represents the unknown strength of the reasoning behind the belief, and the infinity represents the inexhaustible supply of possibilities.

* - The validity of the logic in this argument is that it is the best system we have of evaluating things, so we will use it (or at least we think we have). Thus, the argument isn't moot due to the disregard of logic as ultimate authority.

I will now provide some examples of how I would logically make decisions on religious and supernatural beliefs.

Example 1:

I know the Christian God exists. I can always feel He is with me and I talk to Him on a regular basis.

But wait... could it be a delusion? If I were having a delusion, would I know that I am having a delusion? No. In fact, I can even recall back when I was younger, imagining that I had an imaginary friend to whom I talked on a regular basis. I can't know for sure that at any point, anything (short of maybe my own existence) is not a delusion.

Also, how do I know it is the Christian God? What if this presence is actually a different kind of God that doesn't care if I regard Him as the Christian God? What if this presence actually has malicious intent? I can't know for sure.

However, I am pretty damn sure that I am NOT having a delusion and this God that I feel with me is exactly who I think He is.

However, what is at stake? My eternal life?? So if I get this wrong, I suffer eternally??? Then I need to absolutely certain! 100%. I cannot take the chance that my holy book is wrong. I cannot even take the chance this is all a delusion! I can't believe something like this until I have attained the necessary amount of certainty.

Example 2:

I observed how the Christians have a holy book called the Bible and preach about God. Just because a book says so doesn't mean I should believe it, but the punishment for NOT believing this God is eternal torment. I would be a fool to NOT believe in their God. Thus, I should believe.

I observed how the Muslims have a holy book called the Qu'ran and preach about Allah. Just because a book... the punishment for NOT believing this Allah is eternal torment. I would be a fool to NOT believe in either God or Allah. Unfortunately, I can't be sure which is right, but I have to take a chance: that way at least I have a chance of avoiding eternal torment. As a rough estimation, I guess I have a 1/2 chance of getting it right.

I observe how I can conceive of a god that will punish me with eternal torment if I don't believe. Maybe given the evidence, God or Allah is more likely to exist, but who am I to say that a X-year old book is a better basis than my mind's conceptions? Then I observe that I can conceive of infinite such gods. My chances are now 1/INFINITY that I will not suffer eternal torment. Thus it is hopeless.

Alas, I now conceive of infinite gods who will not punish me eternally for lack of belief, and thus I have hope once again.

I could go on, but you probably understand the gist of my argument by now.



Holy crap, I've spent more than an hour writing this! It has been exhilarating, and it has helped me better form my own thoughts about this issue, having to pause and think many times, something clearing myself of misconceptions and better realizing what my beliefs really are.

Sorry for the long read, but a general religious debate should be a long subject nonetheless.

 

[JohnRM]

Now wait a second....because of global warming, every nation on earth is now 'irrational'?

Did I once mention global warming? I did not.

Regardless, the first and most important aspect of any living creature with any shred of rationality is self-preservation. This seems to have been lost on our (global) culture.

 

[MobBoss]

Did I once mention global warming? I did not.

Here is your quote:

There is not a single nation on this planet that is sustainable. The core population of all of these nations are living in a way that is destroying the planet and our ability to survive, long-term. That doesn't seem very rational, to me.

If the arguement is that man made global warming is destroying the planet, then your arguement does indeed refer to such phenomena.

If you didnt mean something like global warming, then by all means clarify.

Personally, you playing semantics here means you are simply struggling in the debate again.

Regardless, the first and most important aspect of any living creature with any shred of rationality is self-preservation. This seems to have been lost on our (global) culture.

Personal self-preservation is about the immediate here and now. Am I fed? Will I eat next week? Have I eliminated any local threats to that status?

And again, you make references to our 'global' culture and yet maintain that you are not talking about issues like "global warming"?

You are a funny, funny guy, John.

 

[JohnRM]

Here is your quote:



If the arguement is that man made global warming is destroying the planet, then your arguement does indeed refer to such phenomena.

No, my argument is that a vast array of environmentally damaging activities is destroying the planet. Global warming is just one small portion of that, and perhaps quite insignificant when faced with the extinction of dozens of hundreds of plant and animal species, the shredding of our forrests -- the primary producers of oxygen and scrubbers of carbon dioxide, and the increasing desertification of the planet.

If you didnt mean something like global warming, then by all means clarify.

Done and done.

Personally, you playing semantics here means you are simply struggling in the debate again.

Nope, you're just too thick and, frankly, too ignorant to actually think about what I mean instead of just jumping to the conclusions that fit your predetermined "set" for every single one of our "debates".

Personal self-preservation is about the immediate here and now. Am I fed? Will I eat next week? Have I eliminated any local threats to that status?

Preserving the lives of posterity is included in that, but...don't try to think too hard. Don't want you to hurt yourself.

And again, you make references to our 'global' culture and yet maintain that you are not talking about issues like "global warming"?

You are a funny, funny guy, John.

I certainly am talking about issues like global warming, but I am not specifically talking about global warming. Again, it is a very small part of the overall picture of what is happening to this planet.

 

[MobBoss]

No, my argument is that a vast array of environmentally damaging activities is destroying the planet. Global warming is just one small portion of that, and perhaps quite insignificant when faced with the extinction of dozens of hundreds of plant and animal species, the shredding of our forrests -- the primary producers of oxygen and scrubbers of carbon dioxide, and the increasing desertification of the planet.

I got news for you John. Plant and animal species have been going extinct for millenia. Its the nature of things.

I think this planet is far more resiliant than you give it credit for.

Nope, you're just too thick and, frankly, too ignorant to actually think about what I mean instead of just jumping to the conclusions that fit your predetermined "set" for every single one of our "debates".

Rofl. So, you argue semantics and then below say that indeed global warming is a factor.....so I was right to begin with....and you insult me for being right.

Classic.

Preserving the lives of posterity is included in that, but...don't try to think too hard. Don't want you to hurt yourself.

John, first of all, if you are going to insult me, then at least try a bit harder. I mean, if you are going to lose a debate and turn to insults at least make them good insults. I expect certain standards from a poster like you.

I certainly am talking about issues like global warming,

Now this is where you earn a great big for being so silly.

So I was essentially correct in my original allegation and you actually confirm for me that you indeed were referring to issues like global warming all the while trying to argue how wrong I am.

And you call me thick and ignorant?

Oh my god.

but I am not specifically talking about global warming.

I never said you were. I merely used global warming as an example. Which you verified.

Thanks for helping me win the arguement. Again.

Again, it is a very small part of the overall picture of what is happening to this planet.

Well, according to the Al Gore's of the world, its the PRIMARY issue of concern over whats happening to the planet. Perhaps you downplay it too much simply for our arguement here.

 

[JohnRM]

I got news for you John. Plant and animal species have been going extinct for millenia. Its the nature of things.

I think this planet is far more resiliant than you give it credit for.

Yeah, they were going extinct a few per year, now that number is dozens to two hundred per year. One heck of a difference there pal. The scientific fact is that we're gobbling up biological matter and turning it into human matter. Sooner or later, there won't be any left.

Rofl. So, you argue semantics and then below say that indeed global warming is a factor.....so I was right to begin with....and you insult me for being right.

Classic.

This is like saying that I was talking about a poor braking system on an automobile just because I was talking about how poor the automobile is. It just so happens that the brakes suck, and that certainly is apart of it, but it is not specifically what I was talking about.

John, first of all, if you are going to insult me, then at least try a bit harder. I mean, if you are going to lose a debate and turn to insults at least make them good insults. I expect certain standards from a poster like you.

Blah, blah. Yeah. You really ought to try something new. We go through this everytime you reply to my posts. It is truly getting old. The insults, if you call them that, have very little to do with this so-called debate and whatever delusion you have of victory or defeat.

Now this is where you earn a great big for being so silly.

Again, I was talking about issues LIKE global warming. I was not talking about global warming specifically. Am I wasting my time here? You seem to have so much trouble with the simple things.

So I was essentially correct in my original allegation and you actually confirm for me that you indeed were referring to issues like global warming all the while trying to argue how wrong I am.

Last time.

Again, I was talking about issues LIKE global warming. I was not talking about global warming specifically. Am I wasting my time here? You seem to have so much trouble with the simple things.

Lets try another analogy. I say that the US Economy sucks. Someone asks you what I'm talking about and you tell them that I am complaining about the loss of manufacturing jobs. Well, no. I am not. Manufacturing jobs certainly factor into the poor state of the US Economy, but I am NOT -- REPEAT --- NOT talking about manufacturing jobs OR global-freakin'-warming.

And you call me thick and ignorant?

Y-E-S. A thousand times, yes.

Oh my god.

Oh your God, is right. Try praying for understanding. Hold your breath, I know I'm holding mine (fingers crossed).

I never said you were. I merely used global warming as an example. Which you verified.

Let's review what you actually said...

Now wait a second....because of global warming, every nation on earth is now 'irrational'?

Yeah, that doesn't look like an example, to me. It looks like you assumed I was talking about global warming. Meh.

Thanks for helping me win the arguement. Again.

Yes Little MobBoss, you win again. Whatever makes you feel better.

Well, according to the Al Gore's of the world, its the PRIMARY issue of concern over whats happening to the planet. Perhaps you downplay it too much simply for our arguement here.

It is far more likely that there are too few facts about global warming to judge its impact on our planet and ecosystem in order to make it a substantial part of any argument that one attempts to base on facts.

 

[MobBoss]

It is far more likely that there are too few facts about global warming to judge its impact on our planet and ecosystem in order to make it a substantial part of any argument that one attempts to base on facts.

Hmmm. This comment doesnt seem very consistent with your allegation that all the nations on earth are irrational because of what they do to the planet.

 

[The Yankee]

Moderator Action: Cool off, John and MobBoss. This heated talk is serving no one.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889