Sound reasoning in support of my definition you mean?

Right, well what you’re calling “an act of reasoned belief” is what I mean by the word “faith”. So whatever your own definition of faith is will be beside the point. I can simply call being a Christian “an act of reasoned belief” and mean the same thing.

Yeah, and of course wholly analogous to Christian belief, where you venture living in a way you wouldn’t otherwise, on the reasoned, but not necessarily certain, belief that it’s true.

No, it could be based on reasoned belief as opposed to faith. I reject your criteria for what counts as faith. Reasoned belief is based on sufficient reason, and sufficient reason doesn't have to be definitive reason, i.e. certainty. — S

The reasoned belief is that the parachute is packed correctly. Venturing something on that belief - the jump - is an act of faith. Why is venturing something on the basis of a reasoned belief not a suitable definition of an act of faith?

In my skydiving example you would be choosing to have faith that your parachute was packed correctly. Would that necessarily be unreasonable?

If theism were reasonable, then there would be no need for the faith that you like to harp on about. You can't have your cake and eat it, so you need to make your mind up and pick just one. — S

Faith is venturing something on a belief you don’t definitively know to be true. If you skydive, you don’t definitively know your parachute has been packed correctly; you make the jump because you both reason, and have faith, that it has been.

Well the Churches are not Christianity, as if they’ve somehow superseded Christ, so their political alignments are beside the point. Peter Hitchens’ description of Moscow, during the final hours of the Soviet Union, depicts a filthy swamp of petty corruption, where everyone informed on everyone else, abortions outnumbered live births, and a simple politeness like holding a door open for someone was viewed with suspicion. And, as far as I understand, Marxism doesn’t have a problem with being rich per se, as Christianity does, but only with riches gotten through exploited labour.

Christianity advocates a practical communism - repudiation of private property and everything shared according to need - but Communism is not inherently Christian, because so much of the Christian message is absent or explicitly rejected.

Communism is as you say, a practical answer to "Matthew 5:5: "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." — DiegoT

That beatitude is an admonishment to live a gentle life; its practical answer is just that. Forceful overthrow of perceived oppressors would be its opposite.

As I understand, early Christians were communist in that they owned no private property and shared everything, but the politicisation of Communism is different, and the claim that the USSR, say, embodied a kind of practical Christianity is odd.

Fair, I’ll take a look for sure. But actually it might be all the “we don’t know” that dampens my interest in these things - metaphysical arguments, it seems to me, can establish really strong grounds for believing something; but seems there might be arguments like that in QM, if it’s discussed on that sort of ground.

Cheers, I should probably take a look. Admittedly I find metaphysical stuff more fun.

Then where is it? And if it doesn’t exist before we see it, how do we come to see it? I know very little about quantum mechanics, but this entanglement theory on the face of it seems credulous.

An electron, say, doesn’t occupy a particular spatial-temporal location?

If you take it that there are individual spatial-temporal locations, each distinct from every other, then it seems there necessarily has to be something immaterial linking them together for them to have any effect on each other, rather than each being self-contained. You can’t posit some kind of material “glue”, since you’re left with the same problem of having to explain how that glue is to everything materially glued. Perhaps that ties in with some of the physics you mention.

I agree that religions are very negative. They'd be fine if folks could somehow just keep their beliefs to themselves, but religions massively impact cultural mores, laws, etc. That's not just keeping the beliefs to oneself. — Terrapin Station

The above is what I’m responding to. It’s the notion of Christians “keeping their beliefs to themselves”, as if they shouldn’t have a say, that I’m taking issue with. But look, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it.

I’m not certain what you mean. I’m questioning your view that Christians should not give a public voice to their beliefs; I called your view bigoted; you claimed that to have a preference against something is, in a sense, to be intolerant of it; I believe I’ve shown that to be false.

Preferring not to eat an orange does not entail that I am intolerant of oranges.

There is no such sense in all preferences. Preferring apples in no way entails that I am intolerant of oranges.

Are you aware that’s a bigoted view to take?

I don't agree with the majority of the ethical views of the major religions. So yeah, I want to see what I prefer have influence rather than stuff I don't agree with . That shouldn't be surprising. — Terrapin Station

There’s an important distinction between wanting your preferred views to have more influence, and desiring that others keep their views to themselves.

The latter part I'm not thinking--I would just like (what I consider) better beliefs to be the influence. — Terrapin Station

And for Christian beliefs to be restricted in their influence, where others you do favour are not? This notion that Christians should keep their beliefs to themselves, as if they should have no part in the discussion, seems ill considered given Christianity’s role in forming Western society, and what it can still offer us. Its admonishments against greed seem especially pertinent now, in our age of rampant and harmful cupidity.

I agree that religions are very negative. They'd be fine if folks could somehow just keep their beliefs to themselves, but religions massively impact cultural mores, laws, etc. That's not just keeping the beliefs to oneself. — Terrapin Station

This seems to assume Christianity has had no positive influence on Western societies, and also that there could somehow be a society that isn’t guided by its beliefs.

I haven’t read the book, but having read the Sermon on the Mount the notion that the Christian religion is a poison will always to me seem patently ridiculous.

Could these be done to serve a vile purpose? To become centers of religious indoctrination and produce an army of fanatics? — TheMadFool

If that’s your line then what you have there is a conspiracy theory, where everything that opposes the view that the religion in question is malign is taken as an attempt at trickery, that therefore supports the theory. It’s entirely circular.

No one seriously denies the failings of the various churches, but it doesn’t follow that the religion they espouse can be described as poison.

So, what do you think?

Religion poisons everything?! — TheMadFool

Schools, hospitals, homes for the aged and infirm, foundling homes, orphanages, shelters for the poor, alms houses, medical missions, charitable aid societies, plenty of beautiful art and architecture. So no, not everything.

People buy into conspiracy theories by accepting the evidence and rational offered in favour of them, and subsequently taking all opposition to them to be part of the conspiracy. You could believe anything this way, so it seems what guides the belief is desire; they simply want to believe it. With that in mind, perhaps if the money was more important than the belief you would simply, through a desire to, accept the evidence and rational against the conspiracy theory.

Yeah, nothing I feel compelled to argue with there.

In debates between atheists and theists each side almost always condescends the other, I just assume it and take it as a game. My mistake if you truly weren’t doing that and I played back at you without call.

No worries.

Nah, just led off track it seems, by an assumption he was saying something profound.

Yeah, seems to me he’s simply saying there are people who, thinking their actions only affect themselves, behave badly. Then, when asked to consider what it would be like if everyone behaved badly, they say they don’t care because it’s not actually the case that everyone behaves badly.

My intention was to get across that there’s nothing “hasty” about being a theist, which is what I thought your opinion to be. I gave more detail to the remarks you describe as “aggressive” in my last post. I was rhetorically turning the tables on those who consider atheism to be the default, sensible option, of which I thought you were one; my mistake if you aren’t.

Well... if you had stopped there I'd simply say "OK... it's your life, it's your perception and it's your choice.", but you continued... — Mayor of Simpleton

Thanks, that’s very patronising of you.

I was thinking in particular of Stephen Hawking’s claim that philosophy is dead, and Peter Atkin’s declamations that everything can be explained by science; things many people it seems will take as given. I was speaking also of science’s methodology of examining and explaining the world in material terms, which, given its success, has lead to a widespread assumption, without serious justification, that everything is in fact material.

I find it difficult to decipher the precise points you make, so I was replying generally to the “religion causes badness” sentiment that seemed apparent in your post.

The way I see it, you can believe that the universe just exists, that part of it is necessary and there’s no explanation why.

Or...

You can believe that the cosmos derives its existence from a sustaining reality beyond it, and, being beyond space and time, is necessarily immaterial, necessarily timeless, and since it has creative powers, necessarily conscious.

I choose the latter, because it better fits my experience of the world. As fashionable as it is to think the opposite, I think atheism should be counter-intuitive to anyone who hasn’t been misled by the overreaching claims of some scientists, and the gratuitous application of science’s materialism to a broader metaphysical perspective.

As for religion and society, moral evils have been committed within religious societies, and moral goods have been too. Our evils are committed by us, not by “religion”, as are our goods. Perhaps you can point us to a society that isn’t guided by beliefs, where we do neither?

I take the view that truly moral acts are beautiful, and it’s that beauty we seek in being moral, just as an artist seeks it in a painting, sculpture, photograph, etc.

Arnaud Beltrame, who gave his life for a stranger’s during the attack in Trèbes last year, did a beautiful thing. Imitation or instinct can’t explain that; we all have instincts and we all imitate, but how many of us would do what he did, unless you truly recognised the beauty of such an act and couldn’t help realising it?

So I take Beauty, convertible with the True, to be first authority, and that we can’t know morality without it. Your dog, I think, simply feels sad and anxious about your disapproval, which isn’t the same as feeling guilt.

I imagine there are a lot of criticisms made about any philosophical argument; but if it’s reasonable to believe the premises of an argument, then it’s reasonable to believe the conclusion. The premises of the Kalam Cosmological argument are at the very least reasonable, given the metaphysical axiom that “out of nothing, nothing comes” and given the scientific evidence in favour of a beginning of the universe. So theism seems reasonable simply off the back of that argument, so long as it’s not utterly refuted.

Why, given our uncertainty, is the conclusion that this is a created, purposeful, just universe unwarranted? Believing that this is all a meaningless chaos is just as arbitrary - moreso,
I’d say - and I don’t see why simply withholding judgement should be more respectable than either.

We’re forever and unchangeably oriented toward what we perceive as the Good. We don’t do good simply out of instinct and habit; we desire and seek it for its own sake. I’m not against believing that our basic morality has an evolutionary origin, the way employ it remains indicative of a deeper moral reality.

You set out your argument in a suitable place, and I'll explain why it isn't justified in accordance with a reasonable standard. — S

How about William Lane Craig’s favourite, the Kalam Cosmological Argument?

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe had a cause.

In answer to the initial question: The profound mystery of existence, and our sense of morality and what that suggests about our place and purpose in the cosmos are excellent reasons to posit theism over atheism.