A divine character would be righteous. It would be virtuous and compassionate...along those lines. Since we are talking specifically about the Christian Son of God, then he would fit the character requirements of the Bible. (Things like the ten commandments, and "God is love".)
I suppose that this ultimately depends on the miracle and the person observing it. I tend to think that if a person were dying of AIDS, and then someone miraculously cured them, then that would definitely get their attention. I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on this point.Originally Posted by Jennifer
As for the pharisees you have a point, and as to why that is somewhat of a mystery to me. The people who were supposed to accept him rejected him instead...and vice versa. I guess why that is, but I don't really know why. I know I like this song:
YouTube - Franz Ferdinand - the fallen
People knew the world was round 2000 years ago. That knowledge was lost during the Dark Ages (among all the other lost knowledge).Originally Posted by IlyaK1986
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Thread: Faith of a Rationalist
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09-10-2008, 08:36 PM #41My wife and I made a game to teach kids about nutrition. Please try our game and vote for us to win. (Voting period: July 14 - August 14)
http://www.revoltingvegetables.com
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09-11-2008, 01:35 AM #42"Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”---Samuel Johnson
My blog: www.randommeanderings123.blogspot.com/
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09-11-2008, 01:36 AM #43"Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”---Samuel Johnson
My blog: www.randommeanderings123.blogspot.com/
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09-11-2008, 01:39 AM #44
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Do you believe there is such thing as a premise that cannot be questioned? If not, doesn't faith come into play in every single argument?
(Don't know if you covered this in your original essay.)
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09-11-2008, 02:08 AM #45"Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”---Samuel Johnson
My blog: www.randommeanderings123.blogspot.com/
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09-11-2008, 02:19 AM #46
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So the faith of a rationalist is basically the faith in their premises. So the best argument, it seems, is the one with the fewest premises, yeah?
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09-11-2008, 02:44 AM #47
I do not understand.
There is no faith here. It would of been faith if I said that although I have only good reasons to believe in a proposition and it is far from apodictic, I will take a leap of faith and assume it is apodictic or unquestionable. This is not what I am doing.
Faith of a Rationalist is an oxymoron. Faith implies belief without due evidence, rationalism means exclusive adherence to reason. This leaves no room for faith as everything a rationalist believes in, he believes because he sees objective reasons for doing so. 'Creed of a Rationalist' would have been more descriptive of the essay as a title. I have only used the term faith to show that such a creed offers us all that religions promise to give us in vain."Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”---Samuel Johnson
My blog: www.randommeanderings123.blogspot.com/
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09-11-2008, 02:57 AM #48
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Hmm. Well the jump I made without explicitly stating it is this: a premise is unprovable. To believe in the soundness of your argument is to believe in the truth of your premise. That belief is faith. To have no faith in your premises is to have no belief in your argument, essentially.
Maybe our definitions of faith don't match?
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09-11-2008, 02:59 AM #49
Soundness of an argument is synonymous with an argument we have good reasons to believe to be true. Not arguments that we can prove with absolute certainty to be true.
Faith: An acceptance of a proposition based on personal will not reasoning.
Again, it would have been faith if I maintained that I know my arguments are true for certain despite that I have no reason to believe in them with full certainty. You can believe in the truth of your premises to the extent that they are warranted, there is no gap to fill in here."Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”---Samuel Johnson
My blog: www.randommeanderings123.blogspot.com/
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09-11-2008, 03:18 AM #50
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How do we know what "an argument we have good reasons to believe to be true" looks like? How do we know if our premises are warranted? People disagree all the time about this. The problems with argument don't come from incorrect logical steps (in most cases), but from different premises.
Some thoughts:
1) There is no absolute soundness of an argument, since there are no absolute premises.
2) We pick premises based on personal will, because we have no absolute ways to know their truth value. (You will probably disagree here)
3) According to your definition of faith, we use it in 2.
To explain 2 further: To defend our premises, we make logical arguments with those premises as the conclusion. We can continue this recursively forever. But at no point will we find anything that can't be questioned. If you continue this process long enough, you will eventually just state personal opinions of how the world works.
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