They can? They can do anything, but that doesn't make the formal concept of theist untenable.

Do you see that the phrase "doubting theist" includes the word "theist", or not? Simple yes or no will do. — Seppo

This is not logic. I am not sure what you are after.

nobody said that the fact that theists can doubt and remain theists "makes the formal concept of theist untenable".

So... yes? Or no?

nobody said that the fact that theists can doubt and remain theists "makes the formal concept of theist untenable". — Seppo

You said theist can doubt, so the definition theist believes in God is self-contradictory. I am saying you are just trying to break the formal concepts.

So... yes? Or no? — Seppo

Do you think you are in some TV game show?

Its a simple question. But you're evidently not prepared to have a meaningful discussion on this topic, so I'll stop wasting my time.

Its a simple question. But you're evidently not prepared to have a meaningful discussion on this topic, so I'll stop wasting my time. — Seppo

Just screaming out self contradictory for everything you see is not philosophy or logic.

But you're evidently not prepared to have a meaningful discussion on this topic, so I'll stop wasting my time. — Seppo

All you ever try to do is just breaking and distorting the formal concepts, then reasonable discourse is impossible with you.

Okay, you're agnostic; but do you believe in g/G or not? — 180 Proof

Agnostics don't know. (They can and must doubt, because they are not sure.)
Atheists don't believe. (They don't doubt. They have nothing to doubt about.)
Theist do believe. (They must not doubt. If they doubt, they are not theist.)

The whole thing is about belief here. Indeed who is the agnostic you have been talking about?

Corvus,

Your division seems a bit "just so" and contrary to how most people would understand the interaction of belief and certainty.

"I believe X" is a statement of sentiment, i.e. that the utterer assents to the truth of a proposition.
"I know X" is statement of sentiment to the extent it can be reformulated as the claim "I believe I know X", but it is more importantly a claim about epistemic warrant, i.e. that the criteria for knowledge of the utterer are met.

"I believe my mother is my mother" is a sentiment.
"I know my mother is my mother" is a claim.

Depending on definitions, it may be that your mother is not your mother, e.g. you were stolen as a baby and raised by someone pretending to be your mother in a context where all available evidence indicates that she is your biological mother despite her not being so.
On the one hand, the epistemic claim is prone to intersubjective analysis (or even self-analysis) in-so-far as we can both identify the epistemic criteria and the facts/claims/etc. relevant to that criteria and make our own decision about whether the utterer knows his mother is his mother or not. That is to say, we can respond "You are wrong!" to a claim of knowledge, but not to a claim of belief (though we could question the accuracy of the self-report of belief). Both of these things are aside from certainty.

"I am certain x" is a sentiment about both knowledge and belief.

When one is certain, one is stating their belief that both a) they assent to the proposition "X is true" and that b) they assent to the proposition that "There are no further factors relevant to my epistemic criteria that could change my claim to knowledge." Again, this is the sort of thing subject to analysis such that at the end we can say, "Despite your certainty, you were wrong."

As this relates to atheism and theism and agnosticism, earlier posts have variously touched on these themes. Atheists and theists are generally making a statement of belief, i.e. "I do not believe in X" or "I do believe in X" without necessarily expressing their claim as to epistemic warrant for belief or claims of knowledge or their belief as to whether additional information is available that would change their evaluation of knowledge.

An agnostic seemingly withholds belief as a result of their commitment either to belief only in the face of certainty or belief after sufficient epistemic warrant to claim knowledge. In some cases the agnostic makes the claim that there can be no factors which are relevant to epistemic analysis and so both knowledge and certainty are impossible. Regardless, the lack of certainty is not a feature exclusive to the agnostic.

Consider a much less loaded case - you are sick and wish to see a doctor. You may very well have doubts about whether the doctor can help you and you are far from certain that they will, and yet you believe that the doctor will help you.

Sure EE. A good post. I like your points backed up by the argument.
I see your points.

But my reply to that point would be, religious beliefs are not the same class as the sentiment or epistemic beliefs or knowledge.

I feel that religious beliefs are more stringent beliefs than normal beliefs, because they arrived at the beliefs not by their sentiments or epistemological evidence. They are likely to have arrived at their beliefs via personal religious experiences or some form of mental events that is more than simple sentiments or epistemic evidence. Or maybe some theists must have read, studied reflected and reasoned into their faiths. But whatever way they have reached there, their beliefs are far higher level than the normal epistemic knowledge or sentimental beliefs.

Simply seeing all the beliefs as same type is just not right and not meaningful at all for the argument.

If you read Kant, I think his view on the religious faith is that one must take a transcendental leap which is powered by the practical reason in order to see God. It is a totally different class of belief and faith you need in order to be able to say, I believe in God, to saying I believe it will rain tomorrow, or I believe my book is in the living room.

So, no I don't agree with your points and suggestions on the topic.

Im not talking about or to any particular agnostic. The question is addressed to any agnostic who agrees with the OP.

Okay, you're agnostic; but do you believe in g/G or not?

Im not talking about or to any particular agnostic. The question is addressed to any agnosatic who agrees with the OP.
Okay, you're agnostic; but do you believe in g/G or not? — 180 Proof

:nerd:

Corvus,

Though there is some romantic appeal to the idea that beliefs arise from some sort of mental evaluative process, I don't think that I agree, especially when it comes to things like "God".

Whatever Kant thinks about the topic, a six-year-old believes in God long before they would say "I believe it will rain tomorrow." People are socialized to certain sorts of belief and engaging with those beliefs as if they arise from abstracted naval gazing is off.

For my part, finding useful distinctions of belief is related to the context. When discussing what is meant by "I believe in God" by the average theist or "I don't believe in God" by the average atheist or "I don't know if I believe in God" by the average agnostic, trying to parse between belief that stems from higher thought or lower thought is neither the difference between the views nor relevant to the way by which the holders of the views came to them. Sure, belief in god seems awfully more important than "I believe it will rain tomorrow," but that is a fact about how we think about god talk rather than belief being a special case when talking about god.

I feel that religious beliefs are totally different types of beliefs to other beliefs in that it doesn't need rationalising, evidence or explanation.

I find it hard to imagine how religious beliefs could be even thought of in comparison to other types of beliefs.

Because when one is committed to a religion, they don't need any form of standard reason, logic or evidence for their beliefs.  It is even irrational in the sense that one would believe all the contents in the holy scriptures, and they would even sacrifice their lives for their faiths and beliefs.

And your example of a 6 year old believing God before he could believe in other things, should we call that a theism? Could we call him a theist? 

Genuine religious beliefs are not just simple beliefs or knowledge about something, but it is a belief which has been hardened by not just the reasonings and logics of the religion itself, but also the believers own reasoning and their own logical justifications and personal experience too, all mixed and formed into a concrete slab of hard shell faith.  I wouldn't call a 6 year old naively calling out for God because he /she saw it on TV soaps.

Now how one could possibly try to convince anyone with that type of hardened beliefs, same as sentimental beliefs or epistemic knowledge, I couldn't imagine. Sorry.

I feel that religious beliefs are totally different types of beliefs to other beliefs in that it doesn't need rationalising, evidence or explanation. — Corvus

This is probably the trouble. Beliefs simply are - the way that they arise is the subject of study in a variety of fields. You seem to have reached a conclusion about how "religious beliefs" arise that is totally counterfactual, arrived at through no rationalizing, evidence, or explanation, but will now hold firm to your conviction. Is your feeling a religious belief?

One need only to look at the similarity of theistic expression to see that it is a cultural phenomenon constructed in individual interactions, explicit schooling, communal expression, etc. Indeed, someone's theistic commitments can be viewed as an interpretive lens through which to evaluate "evidence" and "explanation." For instance, if someone is narrowly missed by a car speeding past them, a theist might say, "What a wonderful example of God's providence" and add the experience to the otherwise overflowing pool of evidence of god's presence in the world, while a non-believe might say, "About time Musk got those damn Tesla's to stop driving in to people in crosswalks" and not even assign the experience to the "evidence for/against god" bucket. Same experience, different epistemic placement, and belief about god utterly unchanged.

Reasons are hardly any different and even in formal language, one evaluates the soundness of an argument by whether a false statement is the conclusion of true premises. Bearing in mind that argument has no relationship to truth (we can argue about theories of truth later), if someone's truth, i.e. "God does not exist" is denied as the conclusion of an argument, one can be relatively confidant that the person will deny the reasoning as being sound just as assuredly as they will attack the premises. Regardless, reason is often the tool used to convince other people to believe what we want, not the tool we let others use to change our beliefs.

The issue is not that theist lacks evidence of necessity, but that certain sorts of theists maintain beliefs in a god whose attributes do not lend themselves to typical epistemic evaluation. There are many non-religious beliefs that suffer the same trouble, e.g. that what is is reliable indication of what was or what will be. After I demonstrate to you that memory is constructed and human reasoning is flawed, you will still go on believing what you will even though there isn't a stitch of "evidence" that you could produce that would support your belief.

I couldn't imagine. Sorry. — Corvus

Certainty is hardly justified here. I'm sure you can imagine lots of things if you were willing to be a little less certain.

This is probably the trouble. Beliefs simply are - the way that they arise is the subject of study in a variety of fields. You seem to have reached a conclusion about how "religious beliefs" arise that is totally counterfactual, arrived at through no rationalizing, evidence, or explanation, but will now hold firm to your conviction. Is your feeling a religious belief? — Ennui Elucidator

There is no trouble here. Things are crystal clear, but you seem to make it unclear.  I am not religious myself.  So I don't belong to any of the isms, and I am not even an agnostic. I am only discussing it on a philosophical level.

I am not ignoring the linguistic element in beliefs. But in religious beliefs, there are more than linguistic elements in the nature of the belief.

Certainty is hardly justified here. I'm sure you can imagine lots of things if you were willing to be a little less certain. — Ennui Elucidator

It depends on how firm and narrow your definition on these things are. You could make it wide and loose and be uncertain and allow anything and everything to be something, or you tighten up the definitions to more logical manner, and then things get clearer and simpler.

One does not define things logically (cf. systematic definition), one simply defines them and sees what, if anything, their logic can do with those definitions.

Regardless, the problem remains unaddressed. You place “religious belief” in a category of belief defined by criteria that are not features of religious belief except on your definition

all mixed and formed into a concrete slab of hard shell faith — Corvus

I wonder what you make of religious existentialists who spend lots of time doubting and making it abundantly clear that certainty is far from their minds.

If religious beliefs were the same kind as sentimental or epistemic beliefs, then there would be no place for Philosophy of Religion.  But there is the official subject called Philosophy of Religion, and Epistemology of Religion is discussed in the subject. I don't believe my definition of religious belief is unique, and if it were, I wouldn't be worried about it.

I am certain that the existential philosophers of religion would take my definition of the beliefs, because they would believe that religious belief is different from other beliefs in that it tends to be absurd, irrational and based on personal religious experience and insights rather than sensory perceptions, reason or objective evidence and contextual nature.