tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post6915612417381272617..comments2023-10-24T04:29:23.693-06:00Comments on Atheist Ethicist: E2.0: Scott Atran: The Causes of TerrorismAlonzo Fyfehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-81333566260687702962008-03-03T08:53:00.000-07:002008-03-03T08:53:00.000-07:00derekjamesWhile I agree with much of what you wrot...<B>derekjames</B><BR/><BR/>While I agree with much of what you wrote, it has a large hole in it.<BR/><BR/>None of us has the time or the resources to hold every belief we have up to scrutiny. We must, if we are to live, adopt methods for evaluating our beliefs that are less reliable, but faster, or we would often never act fact enough to survive.<BR/><BR/>When it comes to evaluating those beliefs for error using the much slower method of reason, morality binds us to looking first at those beliefs which are about things that threaten our lives and well-being. It makes perfectly good sense to put off questions about whether or not a God exists until one has secured food, clothing, and shelter. Even then, there will be a huge number of issues (concerning medicine, engineering, law, morality, who to have sex with, how to raise one's children, education that will be helpful in one's carreer) that we have more reason to be concerned with than whether God exists.<BR/><BR/>We must necessarily adopt some beliefs using less-than-reliable criteria, and once adopted we may have a lot of more important things to do than to evaluate whether the less-than-reliable criteria in a particular case has given us a false belief.<BR/><BR/>One of those less-than-reliable criteria, by the way, is whether the vast majority of people in one's culture believe something. It's not a perfect system. Yet, one thing that I know is that the beliefs that are held by the vast majority of people around me at least got them this far. It is not irrational to say, "Let's go with these for now, and then start going through the infinite list to see which ones we should change."<BR/><BR/>It would take a long time, using this system, to get to the proposition "God exists".Alonzo Fyfehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05687777216426347054noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16594468.post-61549767739068370782008-03-03T08:35:00.000-07:002008-03-03T08:35:00.000-07:00This sounds like something I have said. I have arg...<I>This sounds like something I have said. I have argued that the proposition ‘God exists’ is morally neutral. It does not tell you anything about what to do or what not to do.</I><BR/><BR/>I disagree strongly with this idea. One's willingness to assert the existence of entities for which there is little to no evidence or logical justification bears directly on one's values and actions. Such a person will have a tendency to be less skeptical and more gullible in general (look at the overlap of beliefs in god and other pseudoscientific concepts). This bears directly on their views about how best to acquire knowledge and hold justified beliefs. This is <B>not</B> moral neutrality.Derekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02776917750757825408noreply@blogger.com