Question. How can a rational person be theistic and not believe in fairies?

[Devil Flamingo]

I believe in faeries (I'm 100% serious. shit serious, in fact) but not in god. The fay make sense to me; they're part of Nature (I'm Pagan, lol).

But the whole god(s) and goddess(es) thing doesn't make sense to me; I don't understand how they fit in the framework of natural things.

I do revere Cernunnos, but it's more of a symbolic thing than an actual belief in the deity per se. Cernunnos to me is simply the personification of the forest, representing the balance between humans (hence its human body) and nature (hence its deer horns).

 

[ptgatsby]

It's a good argument (although I disagree with it). And I suppose the causal argument is in most people's eyes more sensible than fairies. Although if you think of fairies as being on the same level as ghosts, then they are not-entirely-physical or non physical beings. And God is a non physical being. So it's not that silly; disproving the idea of fairies involves things that might disprove God. Like, if there are no nonphysical beings then there is no God unless God is the only exception.

So is God simply a cause and not a being or a mind?

It's not the only argument for God though, only the most direct counter-example. You mention the ontological argument, but there are quite a few (of varying quality). Some don't differ notably to "there be fairies", as you are saying, but it's not universal.

The fundamental issue here isn't in the truth of their existence, but in the quality of argument that represents a probable truth. Is there a God? Let me use my example of a simulated reality. If I believe that, then I typically would believe in a creator. This creator, at this point, is undefined but is explicitly true. Now, if I wanted to give a quality to this creator, I could say that for whatever reason it wanted to create, and this is again explicitly true. And again, everything that exists now is created and therefore represents something, for some purpose. I could progressively define traits from this.

This argument is pretty robust. It's also entirely deductive off of physical laws and (progressive) logic.

Using other metaphysical properties doesn't disprove its existence - you cannot prove a negative, and here I have provided a framework for a positive. Approaching the problem in this regard is simple: you can disprove the positive argument, but you cannot disprove the existence. IMO, your original post hits on an important point, but it's not about the existence of God, but rather that current mainstream religions are not notably different than other myths. That is true! However, it can only be applies to the argument/belief in God, and only a subset of them.

 

[greenfairy]

It's not the only argument for God though, only the most direct counter-example. You mention the ontological argument, but there are quite a few (of varying quality). Some don't differ notably to "there be fairies", as you are saying, but it's not universal.

The fundamental issue here isn't in the truth of their existence, but in the quality of argument that represents a probable truth. Is there a God? Let me use my example of a simulated reality. If I believe that, then I typically would believe in a creator. This creator, at this point, is undefined but is explicitly true. Now, if I wanted to give a quality to this creator, I could say that for whatever reason it wanted to create, and this is again explicitly true. And again, everything that exists now is created and therefore represents something, for some purpose. I could progressively define traits from this.

This argument is pretty robust. It's also entirely deductive off of physical laws and (progressive) logic.

Using other metaphysical properties doesn't disprove its existence - you cannot prove a negative, and here I have provided a framework for a positive. Approaching the problem in this regard is simple: you can disprove the positive argument, but you cannot disprove the existence. IMO, your original post hits on an important point, but it's not about the existence of God, but rather that current mainstream religions are not notably different than other myths. That is true! However, it can only be applies to the argument/belief in God, and only a subset of them.

I will have to think about this more to fully digest it. So since I can't immediately see anything to argue with, kudos.

I believe in faeries (I'm 100% serious. shit serious, in fact) but not in god. The fay make sense to me; they're part of Nature (I'm Pagan, lol).

But the whole god(s) and goddess(es) thing doesn't make sense to me; I don't understand how they fit in the framework of natural things.

I do revere Cernunnos, but it's more of a symbolic thing than an actual belief in the deity per se. Cernunnos to me is simply the personification of the forest, representing the balance between humans (hence its human body) and nature (hence its deer horns).

This is exactly my point of view!

Yay, another pagan!

 

[Ivy]

I think because, theoretically, fairies (as most people understand them) would have bodies and a physical presence and thus be theoretically falsifiable, sort of like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. God, being totally non-corporeal (to most people), is inherently unfalsifiable.

Just to be clear, I'm pretty much agnostic and don't fully believe in anything along these lines. I have some hopes and do some things as if God is real even though I know the chances are pretty overwhelmingly against it, from a purely rational point of view. (I'm not a purely rational being- neither are any of you.) I don't really have the same hope that fairies are real. They can just stay cute stories and that's quite okay with me.

 

[EffEmDoubleyou]

I suppose not, but that person is not entitled to accuse the other person of being any more irrational. I would call it logically inconsistent if that person refused to acknowledge the possibility of the other things, as opposed to simply not affirming it and leaning toward rejection of it.

That's fine, and I agree with you.

But the thread is called "How can a rational person be theistic and not believe in fairies?", not "How can a rational person be theistic and judge someone else for believing in fairies?" That's why I answered how I did.

 

[greenfairy]

That's fine, and I agree with you.

But the thread is called "How can a rational person be theistic and not believe in fairies?", not "How can a rational person be theistic and judge someone else for believing in fairies?" That's why I answered how I did.

Ok, touche. I labeled it somewhat incorrectly. But I was really interested in both questions, as they are related.

I think because, theoretically, fairies (as most people understand them) would have bodies and a physical presence and thus be theoretically falsifiable, sort of like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. God, being totally non-corporeal (to most people), is inherently unfalsifiable.

Just to be clear, I'm pretty much agnostic and don't fully believe in anything along these lines. I have some hopes and do some things as if God is real even though I know the chances are pretty overwhelmingly against it, from a purely rational point of view. (I'm not a purely rational being- neither are any of you.) I don't really have the same hope that fairies are real. They can just stay cute stories and that's quite okay with me.

That's interesting you saying people imagine them as having physical bodies and being physical beings. I was kind of assuming that wasn't true. I guess the extent of whether they are or aren't can't really be known; but I do know they aren't purely physical. The mythology pretty clearly presents them as being "more" than what is conventionally physical. They can shape shift, become invisible, and are in many cases immortal, for example.

 

[Coriolis]

And I would answer: I don't believe in God as an absolute form of all power. I believe in deities as concentrations of energy, created by people as thought forms. Most fairies would fit that description as well. However, I think some probably existed before humans, but they were created as part of nature. Everything is energy, and all things are concentrations of energy. So I have reasoning for my mystical belief. Do you?

If fairies were created as part of nature, though, that makes them natural rather than mystical beings, quite distinct from deity in any form.

Yes, my argument was somewhat unclear, and probably intentionally so; but what I was getting at is simply that people's reasons for automatically rejecting belief in fairies could usually be applied to the concept of God. I'm really going for the incongruity of rejecting one belief and holding another by the same standards of dismissal. People often have further arguments for God, but there is an assumption that they are not needed; whereas I may have further arguments for fairies and people assume that there aren't any to have.

If this is your real concern, you might have been clear about it up front. I don't advocate automatically rejecting much of anything. Entertaining an idea, however, does not require accepting it in the end. Different worldviews will result in different mystical landscapes. Yours might be populated by fairies, mine by angels. I evaluate my beliefs by the rational yardsticks of consistency and utility, but understand that our subjective experiences will lead us to different conclusions.

Using other metaphysical properties doesn't disprove its existence - you cannot prove a negative, and here I have provided a framework for a positive. Approaching the problem in this regard is simple: you can disprove the positive argument, but you cannot disprove the existence. IMO, your original post hits on an important point, but it's not about the existence of God, but rather that current mainstream religions are not notably different than other myths. That is true! However, it can only be applies to the argument/belief in God, and only a subset of them.

I have never understood why the highlighted is so difficult for people to accept. It is a crucial understanding.

 

[sprinkles]

I think because, theoretically, fairies (as most people understand them) would have bodies and a physical presence and thus be theoretically falsifiable, sort of like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. God, being totally non-corporeal (to most people), is inherently unfalsifiable.

Just to be clear, I'm pretty much agnostic and don't fully believe in anything along these lines. I have some hopes and do some things as if God is real even though I know the chances are pretty overwhelmingly against it, from a purely rational point of view. (I'm not a purely rational being- neither are any of you.) I don't really have the same hope that fairies are real. They can just stay cute stories and that's quite okay with me.

Noncorporeal is an interesting concept because it really only has to do with how physically solid it is.

How can something that is not made of anything actually exist, though?

Electricity might be said to be incorporeal - you can't exactly hold a piece of it in your hand, and it is relatively formless, but it still exists in a specific location and can be contained or transported in detectable, finite quantities.

God is unfalsifiable not just because of being incorporeal, but because nobody dares to give specific existential properties that can be falsified to begin with. If somebody were to say that "god is made of this kind of energy and lives over here" we could falsify that. But strangely, God is always in the places that you cannot look for it.

 

[Devil Flamingo]

Yeah, the physicality of fairies is not... how shall I put it... well, it's not a guarantee. As Greenfairy mentions, there's plenty of mythology on them alluding to shapeshifting, invisibility, immortality, etc. Moreover, there's also tons and tons of mythology about them not appearing as they are, or appearing differently, depending on the environment or 'realm', if you will. In other words, they may appear ghastly in our world, but more corporeal elsewhere (wherever 'elsewhere' is) or like, look more beautiful to us than they are in reality (glamoring). Is that not akin to god(s) and angels?

We often assume 'god' to mean the Judeo-Christian-Islamic god, but there's plenty of deities elsewhere who do have a human-like form, and/or have the whole glamoring, shapeshifting or invisibility thing going on for them, same as faeries do. The "cute stories" thing is another misconception; I personally think the fay are about as cute as we are. In other words, there's ugly and grotesque ones, wingless ones, cute-as-a-button ones, etc. There is no reason to assume they are good or kind; it's akin to an alien race assuming humans are inherently cute or kind. We have ofc lots of modern fiction depicting them as such, but people who look beyond the smoke and mirrors know it's silly to think the fay are cute little things about which cute stories are written.

...Sorry, I don't mean to derail the thread, I just find it illogical to assume unicorns are pure, fairies are cute, dragons are violent, etc. There's plenty of mythology suggesting the contrary, and since science can't prove their existence or lack thereof it seems queer to me to assume these creatures (be they real or not) are inherently... well, anything, really. To me, this is not unlike people assuming awfully good-looking people don't commit crimes ("but she's such a pretty girl! how could she have murdered someone?") and people who look like hobos are inherently guilty of something ("well he certainly looks like a dirty old man, so he must be bad").

EDIT:

I might as well point out that one of the reasons I don't so much believe in god(s) as I am rather apathetic about the whole thing is because... I don't inherently assume god cares about me or wants what's best for me, and it doesn't make sense to me that people do, either. "Jesus loves you!" ...Why? This reminds me of girls confessing to me in high school. Why are you in love with me? You don't know anything about me at all. Tell me you love after years of living with me and putting up with my ugly bitch face in the mornings. Otherwise I am not at all inclined to believe you.

On the other hand, believing in faeries make sense to me because their existence (or non-existence) is not something that benefits me or them, nor is there an assumption that they care about me, or that I care about them. They simply exist, here or Elsewhere, and they're part of Nature as is everything else. Likewise, I believe in aliens. They, too, exist elsewhere, I don't know where or how or why, but their existence isn't necessary to mine, nor mine to theirs, they simply exist for their own sake, not for mine, and that's partly why I'm not concerned with finding them or them finding me.

 

[greenfairy]

If fairies were created as part of nature, though, that makes them natural rather than mystical beings, quite distinct from deity in any form.

This is one of my arguments in favor of their possible existence being more reasonable than deities, but that's another can of worms. Most people don't see them this way.

If this is your real concern, you might have been clear about it up front.

Oh but if I did that, people would misunderstand even more and think it all came down to "Greenfairy is upset because people don't believe in fairies. Poor NF." And like I say, I'm interested in both the rational side of things and the proper behavior side of things. A more accurate title would have been worded "how can a rational person justify..."

I don't advocate automatically rejecting much of anything.

And this is one reason I like you.

Entertaining an idea, however, does not require accepting it in the end. Different worldviews will result in different mystical landscapes. Yours might be populated by fairies, mine by angels. I evaluate my beliefs by the rational yardsticks of consistency and utility, but understand that our subjective experiences will lead us to different conclusions.

Certainly.

I have never understood why the highlighted is so difficult for people to accept. It is a crucial understanding.

Because people are dogmatic and think they have the only right answer?

 

[Coriolis]

Because people are dogmatic and think they have the only right answer?

I admit, sometimes I think this, but only when there is a possibility of it being true.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=11052]Devil Flamingo[/MENTION]

Guu actually reminds me a lot of a faerie. Shes physical, but a shapeshifter that isn't confined to dimensions. Nobody really knows the extent of her powers.

At one point she's chopping vegetables at lightning speed and 'accidentally' chops her whole hand up into slices, probably just to freak out Hale (she likes to mess with people from time to time) and you could see that she doesn't have anything internal, just the same on the inside as the outside like a solid body.

Then she picks up her hand slices and puts them back together instantly, freaking Hale out even more. Later she swallows everyone in the class except Hale, hale begs her to let them back out and she does, and everyone is unharmed and thinks they just fell asleep. Even if she chews on things she mysteriously doesn't destroy them and actually has some swallowed people living in a dimension somehow connected to her body.

Guu could easily be a faerie, or some kind of god or demon. Shes fictional but it makes me think.

 

[ptgatsby]

I have never understood why the highlighted is so difficult for people to accept. It is a crucial understanding.

Keep in mind that it's relatively new that religion is not a codified set of behavior. Secularism is relatively new; myth stories (fables?), like the bible, are parables and have tended to define society's code. The same goes for most of the big religions - certainly Islam and Judaism, and even ignoring Confucianism (which is debatedably not a religion), most eastern religions got socially codified.

Err, all that aside, the essence of myth doesn't really change the underlying beliefs or principles.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

Well I think I'm a rational creature. If you don't want to be that's fine with me. I use reason consistently in my life and include religious matters. I don't see why they are some special exception. I may have mystical beliefs, but they don't contradict the use of reason. I guess I'm more of a rational than the NT's in this thread.

Unless you want to provide your reasoning for the existence of God, and how it is different than possible arguments in favor of the existence of fairies.

What most of you are saying is that an unscientifically justifiable belief is fine with you if it makes you feel good.

You think you are rational beings but in actuality your behavior and your beliefs probably contradict each other more often than not.

 

[Coriolis]

Keep in mind that it's relatively new that religion is not a codified set of behavior. Secularism is relatively new; myth stories (fables?), like the bible, are parables and have tended to define society's code. The same goes for most of the big religions - certainly Islam and Judaism, and even ignoring Confucianism (which is debatedably not a religion), most eastern religions got socially codified.

Err, all that aside, the essence of myth doesn't really change the underlying beliefs or principles.

I am not sure what you mean here. I see a difference between someone who believes that the Noah's Ark story, for instance, is literal, historical truth; and someone who understands it as a myth and appreciates it in a more metaphorical sense.

 

[ptgatsby]

I am not sure what you mean here. I see a difference between someone who believes that the Noah's Ark story, for instance, is literal, historical truth; and someone who understands it as a myth and appreciates it in a more metaphorical sense.

Ah, what I meant is that this concept is new. We used to believe in myths literally - they were part of the social fabric.

 

[You]

were talking about humans here. we are irrational creatures. a rational human is an oxymoron. the intellectualism of issues, objective processing of information into logically sound response are contextualized by the fact we are still living, breathing, barely functioning animals. from what i've seen during my short life, all people have moments or behavior which contradictory to their beliefs, truths - humans are not robots. logic is limited in humans. and i can understand when those limits are reached for someone to leap into faith. i, however, am agnostic.

 

[greenfairy]

Ah, what I meant is that this concept is new. We used to believe in myths literally - they were part of the social fabric.

I think it depended. In a lot of tribal cultures myths were understood partly to explain/describe actual things, but also to symbolically explain truths.

were talking about humans here. we are irrational creatures. a rational human is an oxymoron. the intellectualism of issues, objective processing of information into logically sound response are contextualized by the fact we are still living, breathing, barely functioning animals. from what i've seen during my short life, all people have moments or behavior which contradictory to their beliefs, truths - humans are not robots. logic is limited in humans. and i can understand when those limits are reached for someone to leap into faith. i, however, am agnostic.

All this is true, but many people profess to use reason and logic and all that stuff, and yet don't apply it uniformly. I'm not criticizing people who value faith more than reason, only making arbitrary exceptions and having different standards for other people than they have for themselves.

Note: to reiterate, the question was "how" not "why"; although understanding why is helpful.

 

[KDude]

I think it depended. In a lot of tribal cultures myths were understood partly to explain/describe actual things, but also to symbolically explain truths.

Kind of Joseph Campbell's point.. we don't live in a tribal culture now, and therefore lack myth (or lack a grasp on it). His deal was to get people in touch with myths again, but ones that transcended the local/tribal (in his mind, there's no way to get back to the older ones per se. That ship has flown).

edit: Wait, I mean ship has sailed. I'm watching too much science fiction lately.

 

[WALMART]

Hi, my name is jon and I believe in God. I don't believe in fairies.



Wow, that was easy.