“I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist.”
– Excerpts from the book
People almost always mature for their beliefs not on the basis of the evidence, but on the basis of what is considered attractive.
— BLAISE PASCAL
Author and speaker James Sire organized for the students of colleges and universities across the country the interactive workshop, which really opens your eyes. The seminar is called “Why should anyone believe anything at all?” Thanks so interesting name this event usually attracts a large audience. Sir begins with the fact that the participants asks the question: ‘Why people believe what they believe?’ Despite the wide range of answers Sir shows that every answer he gets, falls into one of four categories: sociological, psychological, religious and philosophical.
THE REASONS WHY PEOPLE BELIEVE WHAT THEY BELIEVE
| Sociological | Psychological | Religious | Philosophical |
| The Parents Of The Friends Of The Company Culture | Consolation Mental calm Sense of life Purpose, Hope, Identity | Font Pastor/priest, Guru, Rabbi, Imam of the Church | Consistency the Consistency of the Completeness (the best explanation of all the evidence) |
Sire passes through the reasons in each category and asks the students: ‘this Is a good reason to believe in something, because…?’ If it has bright students, a dialogue can take place, for example, as follows:
Sir: I See that many of you have pointed out the sociological factors. For example, many people have certain beliefs, because their parents have the same beliefs. Do you think that that in itself is reason enough to believe in something?
Students: No, parents can sometimes be wrong.
Sir: Okay, and what cultural influences? Do you think that people should believe in something just because it’s culturally acceptable?
Students: No. The nazis had a culture that accepted the killing of all the Jews. It certainly doesn’t mean it was right!
Sir: Okay. Some of you have mentioned psychological factors, such as comfort. Is that enough of a reason to believed in something?
Students: No, we do not feel ‘comfortable’! Seriously, the comfort is not the measure of truth. Can we calm the belief that there is a God who cares for us, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there really is. He might as well be a drug addict temporarily pacified by a certain kind of drug, but the drug it can actually kill you.
Sire: So you’re saying that the truth is important, because if you’re wrong, it can have consequences?
Students: Yes, if someone is wrong about the drug, it may take too much and die. Similarly, if someone is wrong on the thickness of the ice can into him, fall down and freeze to death.
Sir: for pragmatic reasons, makes sense, therefore, to believe only things that are true.
Students: Of Course. In the long term, the truth protects and error is harmful.
Sir: Okay, so the sociological and psychological reasons themselves are not a sufficient reason to do this, we believed in something,. And what religious reasons? Some have mentioned the Bible, others the Quran, others get their beliefs from the priests or gurus of. you Should believe something just because it says some religious source or the holy book?
Students: No, because the question arises: ‘Which Font should we trust you?’ After all, teaching contradictory things.
For example, the Bible and the Qur’an cannot be both true, because contradict each other. , the Bible says that Jesus died on the cross and three days later rose from the dead (1 Cor 15,1-8), while the Qur’an says that Jesus existed, but he didn’t die on the cross (surah 4,157). If one of them is true, second is false. On the other hand, if Jesus never existed, are both false.
Sire: so How can we decide between the Bible and the Koran?
Students: we Need some evidence outside of these so-called scriptures that will help us figure out which of them is true, if at all certain.
Sire: From which category we can derive such evidence?
Students: we only have a philosophical category.
Sire: But how can be someone’s philosophy proof? It’s not just someone’s opinion?
Students: No, we don’t think the philosophy in this sense of the word, but in the classic sense of the word, where philosophy means the search for truth through logic, evidence, and science.
Sire: Excellent! With this definition in mind, let’s start with the same question about the philosophical category. is Worth it to believe in something, if it’s rational, if supported by evidence, and if that best explains all the data that are collected?
Students: It definitely seems to be correct!
When we reveal that some beliefs are not sufficient evidence, opens up to us the path to finding the adequate evidence. It is the task of apologety. Apologeta is someone who shows how good reasons and evidence to support or refute certain beliefs. That we’re trying to do in this book and that is what Sir is doing in his seminar. – Uses the Socratic method. – Withokratovo query is a technique based on the dialogue and asking a series of carefully formulated questions, which has the participant to bring to the separate discovery of truth, knowledge, or exposing the contradictions in their own thinking. The teacher or the interviewer does not provide ready-made answers, it helps the other ‘give birth to’ their own ideas, explore assumptions and come to a deeper understanding.
Sireův socratic approach helps students to realize at least three things:
First of all, any teaching – religious or other – it is worth it to trust, only if it shows the truth. Indifference to the truth can be dangerous. In fact, it may faith in the mistake be fatal, and both time, so – if he is some of the religious teachings of the true and eternal.
Secondly, many of the beliefs that people today hold, are not supported by the evidence, but they are only subjective preference of who takes. As Pascal said, people almost always mature for their beliefs not on the basis of the evidence, but on the basis of what is considered attractive. the Truth , however, is not a subjective matter of taste – it is an objective matter of fact. And finally, to find the truth, must be ready to give up their subjective preferences in favor of the objective facts. And the facts will best appear by means of logic, evidence, and science.
Western logic vs. eastern logic
Even if you people trying to tell me that logic does not apply to reality, or that the logic does not apply to God, or that there are different kinds of logic of the (western and eastern) and so on, in skutečenosti there is only one kind of logic that helps us discover the truth. When they say such things, use just the logic, which they deny. It’s like using the laws of arithmetic to prove that arithmetic cannot be trusted.
THE PRINCIPLE OF THE DISPUTE
Tactics noticing and rebuttal of the self-destructive argument is so effective, because it uses the PRINCIPLE of the DISPUTE (the law neprotiřečení). This is a basic logical law saying that the statement cannot be true and false at the same time.
The principle of the dispute is self-evident basic principle of thought, which says that contradictory statements cannot be simultaneously true in the same sense,. in Short, says that the opposite of a truth is a lie. All this principle intuitively know and we use it every day.
Imagine that one day you’ll meet on the street a married couple – your friends – and you ask your wife if it’s true, she’s with child. If she answers ‘yes’ and her husband ‘no’, you think: ‘Maybe he didn’t say it, or maybe the wrong question (or maybe something worse!).’ One thing you know for sure: they can’t both be right! The principle of the dispute it clearly presents.
When exploring any questions related to fact, including the questions of God, the same principle applies to the dispute. Either they are right theists – there is a God – or have the right to be atheists – there is no God. Both views cannot be correct. So either Jesus died and rose from the dead, how say the Bible or not, as they claim the Qur’an. One is right and the other wrong.
In fact, the medieval muslim philosopher named Avicenna suggested a reliable way to fix the opinion of someone who denies the principle of the dispute. He said that anyone who denies the principle of the dispute, should be beaten and burned until she admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be bullied and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned! (An extreme example, but you understand what he was trying to express.)
While reasonable people have with the principle of the dispute no problem, some very influential philosophers of it in their teachings implicitly denied. Perhaps the most influential of them are David Hume and Immanuel Kant. Many people have never heard of Humeovi and Kant, but their learning has a great influence on modern thinking. Why it is important to look at each of them briefly look. Let’s start with the Humem.
Humeův skepticism: Shouldn’t we be skeptical?
David Hume is perhaps more than anyone else responsible for the skepticism that prevails today. As empiricist believed to Hume, that all meaningful thoughts are either true by definition, or must be based on empirical experience. Hume even claimed that the statement can be meaningful only if they satisfy one of the following two conditions:
• the assertion of the truth of it is abstract thinking, as is the mathematical equation or definition (e.g.,’2 + 2 = 4‘ or ‘all triangles have three sides’); or
• the assertion of the truth can be empirically verified using one or more of the five senses.
Although Hume claimed for the skeptic, in the case of these two conditions certainly skeptical wasn’t – he was absolutely convinced that he knows the truth.!!! In fact, he concludes his work (the Search for the human sense) conclusion: ‘let us Take in hand any book – for example, of divinity or school metaphysics – and ask: ‘Contains any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?’ No. ‘Contains some experimental considerations of fact and existence?’ No. Then throw into the fire, because it can contain nothing but sophistry (deliberately misleading) and illusion.“ Do you understand the implications Humeových two conditions? If he is right, then is any book about God is meaningless. All the religious writings you can use straight away for firewood!
Nearly two hundred years later they were Humeovy two conditions transferred to the ‘principle of empirical verifiability’ philosopher of the twentieth century And the. J. Ayerem. The principle of empirical verifiability of claims, that the claim can only make sense if it is true by definition, or if it is empirically verifiable.
In the mid 60’s. years, this view became very popular in the philosophical faculties across the country, including the University of Detroit, where I (Norm) studied. Actually, I completed the entire course of logical positivism, which was another name for philosophy, a post he held Ayer. The professor of this course, the logical pozitivista, was a strange man. Although reported to the catholic faith, refused to believe that it makes sense to talk about the existence of a reality beyond the physical world (i.e., metaphysics, God).
In other words, admitting that he is an atheist and he told us that he wants to convert the entire class on my own kind of atheism. (I Once asked him: ‘How can you be both a catholic and an atheist?’ Ignoring two thousand years of official catholic teachings, and he replied: ‘To be a catholic, you don’t have to believe in God – just follow the rules!’)
The first day of the course entered the professor’s assignment to the students to prepare presentations on the basis of the chapters of the Ayerovy book “Logic, truth, and language”. I volunteered to prepare a chapter titled ‘the Principle of empirical verifiability’. It must be remembered that this principle was the basis of logical positivism, and therefore also of the entire course.!!!
At the beginning of the next hours, the professor said: ‘Mr. Geisler, first, we hear from you. Please restrict yourselves to a maximum of twenty minutes, we had enough time for discussion. “ Since I used the lightning-fast tactics of the refutation of the self-destructive statements, I had no time constraints, no problem at all. I got up and simply said:
‘The principle of empirical verifiability says that there are only two kinds of meaningful statements:
1) those that are true by definition, and
2) those that are empirically verifiable.
Since the principle of empirical verifiability itself is neither true by definition nor empirically verifiable, can be meaningful.“ That’s all it was and I sat down.😂
In the room there was a stunned silence. Most of the students realized that the principle of empirical verifiability cannot be meaningful on the basis of its own standard of. Right in the second hour was destroyed by the base of the entire course! What will the professor to talk the next two weeks?
I’ll tell you what he was talking about. Instead, to admit that his lecture and his whole philosophical view, were counterproductive, and therefore mistaken, professor of this truth suppressed, twist and then throwing everything with him for the rest of the semester didn’t work for me. His devotion to the principle of empirical verifiability – despite his obvious fatal flaw – it was clearly a matter of will, not of reason.
Hume has many other ideas, in particular his argument against miracles in general, which we will address in chapter 8. For now, however, it is important that: Empiricism Humeův and also his followers And. J. Ayera are counterproductive.
The claim that ‘anything can have meaning only if it is empirically verifiable or true by definition’, itself excludes, because this claim is neither empirically verifiable nor the true by definition.
Instead of all the books about God ‘thrown into the fire’, as proposed by Hume, perhaps you should consider using Humeových books to start a fire.
Kant agnoticismus: we Shouldn’t be against him agnostic?
The influence of Immanuel Kant was a christian view of the world even more devastating than the influence of David Hume. If it is Kant’s philosophy of right, then there is no way of knowing anything about the real world, nor empirically verifiable things! Why? Because , according to Kant, only you know what you get your mind and senses will create. in Short, you don’t know the real tree as such, you only know the tree as you appear….
Incredible!!! Why the average person on the street has no doubt what they see with their own eyes, but supposedly brilliant philosophers yes? The more we study philosophy, the more we are convinced that if you want to be understood appeared as a vague, just put it in the hands of the philosopher!
Yet the study of philosophy we can’t avoid, because, as he said C. With. Lewis, ‘good philosophy must exist, if only because that is the need to respond to the poor philosophy’.
Kant’s philosophy is the wrong philosophy, yet convinced a lot of people, that between them and the real world, there is an insurmountable gap, it is not possible to obtain reliable knowledge about how the world actually looks like, let alone about what God is. , According to Kant, we’re trapped in complete agnosticismu about the real world.
Fortunately, there are all the simple answer – the tactics of the refutation of the self-destructive statement. Kant is committing the same mistakes as the Hume – violates the law of contradiction. Contradicts its own premise, when he says that no one can see the real world, while himself claims that she knows something about him, and that the real world is unknowable!
In the philosophy class I (Norm) taught, I pointed out the shortcomings of Kant’s philosophy in this way. I said: ‘first of all, if Kant’s claim that he can’t know anything about the real world (things about themselves), then how can he know that the real world exists? And secondly, his opinion is self-destructive, because they claim that about the real world nothing can be known, and at the same time declares that he knows that the real world is unknowable!“
One student blurted out: ‘No! It can’t be that easy, dr. Geisler. You can’t destroy a central principle more than a hundred years of philosophical thought with just a few simple sentences!“
I quoted your favorite source and I replied: ‘This is what happens when beautiful theory meets with a brutal group of facts. Besides, who said that the refutation has to be complicated? If someone makes a simple mistake, just a simple fix, keep on bringing it to our attention.“
HUME AND KANT IS WRONG. AND WHAT NEXT?
Since Hume and Kant violate the principle of the dispute, their attempts to destroy all the ‘religious’ truths are failing. However, just because that Hume and Kant is wrong, it does not necessarily mean that we have positive evidence, for example, about the existence of God. Tactic of exposing the self-destructive statement can only reveal that the claim is false. It does not provide positive evidence that a particular statement is true. It is therefore true that teistický there is a God? There is some cognizable evidence, which would give us a reasonable certainty in one direction or the other? There is something like a cognizable evidence for the invisible God? In order to answer these questions, we need to explore how we can know the truth alone.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE TRUTH?
Let’s summarize what we’ve seen so far: truth exists and is absolute and undeniable. To say that ‘the truth cannot be known’, is counterproductive, because this claim, claims to be known, the absolute truth. In fact, every time we say something, we imply that we know at least part of the truth, because any position on any topic assumes a certain degree of knowledge. If you say that the attitude of someone else’s bad, you need to know what is right.
But how did this person know the truth? In other words, how the process of discovering the truth about the world? The process of discovering the truth begins , indeed, the laws of logic, which are called first principles. are Called first principles, because for them nothing else, they are not proven in other principles; they are simply inherent to the nature of reality, and are therefore goes without saying. These first principles, therefore you don’t teach, they just know them. Each of these principles intuitively knows, even if they specifically thought.
The law of the excluded third
Two of these principles are the principle of the dispute and the law of the excluded third. , we have seen the reality and value of the principle of a dispute,. the Law of the exclusion of the third tells us that something either is or is not. For example, either God exists or does not exist. Either Jesus rose from the dead, or did not rise. There is no third alternative.
These first principles are the tools we use to discover all other truths.
Logic can tell us that the argument is false, but we cannot say that the assumptions are true. , we Need more information to these truths discovered. This information we gain by observing the world around us and then drawing general conclusions from these observations.
When you observe something over and over again, you can come to the conclusion that a general principle is true. , for Example, when repeatedly you drop an object from the table, naturally, you observe that the object always falls on the floor. If you do it often enough, eventually you realize that there must be some general principle known as gravity. This method of drawing general conclusions from specific observations is called induction.
The process of growing up to a valid conclusion is called a deduction (a reasonable conclusion). And that’s what we did in the above arguments.
Most of what you know, you know, thanks to induction.
HOW DO WE KNOW THE TRUTH ABOUT GOD?
What, then, are observation and induction to do with the discovery of the existence of God? All. Observation and induction (-a logical progression from specific cases to a general conclusion) us, in fact, help to explore the most fundamental religious question: ‘is There a God?’
You say: ‘Wait a minute! How we can use observations to explore nepozorovatelnou being called God? After all, if God is invisible and intangible, as claimed by most christians, jews and muslims, how then can our senses to help gather information about Him?“
Answer: we use induction to the exploration of God in the same way that we use it to study other things, that we do not see – through observation of their effects. , for Example, we cannot directly observe gravity; we can only observe its effects. As well so we can’t directly observe the human mind, but only as acts. Of these effects, we are taking a rational conclusion on the existence of causes.
In fact, it is the book you are reading, a typical example. Why do you assume that this book is created by the human mind? Because all of your viewing experience will say that the book is the result of some already existing intelligence (i.e., the author). You’ve never seen, that would be wind, rain, or other forces of nature create a book; you saw it only do people. So despite the fact that you didn’t see anyone who would this book wrote, you have come to the conclusion that they must have at least one author.
That makes you think, that this book has the author naturally associate of observation, induction and deduction.
If your thoughts enrolled in a logical form, they would look like this deductive argument:
1. All the books have at least one author (assumption based on the inductive investigation).
2. The book ‘I don’t Have enough faith to be an atheist’ is a book (assumption based on observation).
3. Therefore, the book has a ‘I don’t Have enough faith to be an atheist’ at least one author (inference-conclusion).
You know, that the argument is valid through deduction. And you know, that argument is true, because the assumptions are true – verified by observation and induction.
Now comes the big question: As well as the book requires an existing human intelligence, we can observe some of the effects and the effects of which point to God?
The answer is yes, and the first effect is the universe itself. Exploring its beginning is the next step on our journey.
However, before we look at the evidence of the beginning of the universe, we have to deal with one caveat against the truth. And that is: ‘Well and what? Who cares about the truth?“
SO WHAT? WHO CARES ABOUT THE TRUTH?
Sometimes our students to ask: ‘What is the biggest problem in the world today? Is it ignorance or indifference?“ Once one student replied: ‘I don’t Know and I don’t care!’
Many of us are ignorant and indifferent to the truth – but not if it’s about the money, medicine, or other material things that we mentioned earlier. About you we care very passionately.
But many people’s order, if it comes to the truth in morality and religion, (know that you’re not, because you’re time to read this book).
How do we know that it is not good to be apathetic about the themes of culture and truth, and that it is important to know the truth about morality and religion?
First of all, even though people may say, that in truth, what is morality refers to, does not matter, in fact, you yourself do not believe in the case, when someone is acting immorally. For example, they may argue that lying is not wrong, but follow their moral outrage when people lie to them (especially when it comes to their money!).
If everyone told the truth there would be no fraudulent company. There would be no scandals or scams. The economy is directly ovlivňená morals! Morality is the basis of virtually everything we do. It affects us not only financially, but under certain circumstances also socially, psychologically, spiritually and even physically.
The second reason is the truth in morality important, is that success in life often depends on the moral decisions that a person makes. these Include decisions related to sex, marriage, children, drugs, money, business relationships, etc., Some of the decisions they bring prosperity, the other lead to ruin.
Third, as we have pointed out in the previous book, ‘the Legislative morality’, all the laws legislatively regulate the morals. the Only question is: ‘Whose morality will be legislated?’ Think of. Each law declares one behavior is right and its opposite for incorrect – it is the morality. Whose morality should be enshrined in the laws on issues such as abortion or euthanasia? These are questions that have a direct impact on the lives and health of real people. If it is morally wrong to kill innocent people, it shouldn’t be this truth embodied in the laws? As well, whose morality should be enshrined in the laws regarding your health or finance? The answers that we’ll anchor in the laws, can dramatically affect the life, liberty, and happiness of every citizen.
Do you think it is important that the nazis believed that the Jews are inferior than the aryan race? It depends today on what we think about the moral status of the people as regards racial or religious categories? Of course!
Truth in religion is important.
It is also important whether it is true of any other religion….If they’re right, atheists, then we can lie, cheat and steal to get what we want, because this life is all we have, and in eternity there are no consequences.
But for a moment let’s forget for eternity. Let us consider the temporal consequences of religious teachings around the world. In Saudi Arabia, with some of the kids in school, they teach that Jews are pigs and that non-muslims should be killed (while the majority of muslims that fortunately do not believe, but the militant muslims learn this type of jihad is directly from the Qur’an). It depends on the religious ‘truth’? Wouldn’t it be better to teach them the religious truth that God wants to love your fellow man?
The saudis might teach that Jews are pigs, but in our country by means of a unilateral curriculum biology we teach the children, that between humans and pigs actually there is no difference. After all, if we are merely a product of blind natural forces – if no divine being done with some special significance – then we are nothing more than pigs with a large brain.
It depends on the religious (atheistic) ‘truth’? It depends, if children put into practice the consequences of their unbelief. Instead of good citizens, who see people created in the image of God, we will raise the criminals, who do not see any sense or value in human life. Ideas have consequences.
On the positive side, Mother Teresa helped improve conditions in India that questioned the religious beliefs of many people in hindu culture. Hindu belief in karma and reincarnation is leading many hindus to the fact that ignoring the call of the distressed. Why? Because they believe that those who are suffering, your suffering deserves for it, that in a previous life did something wrong. Unless you’re helping the suffering people, you are interfering with their karma. Mother Teresa taught by the hindus in India to the christian principles of care for the poor and suffering from. this religious idea of the meaning? – Ask the millions of people whose lives it affected. And what a sense of religious teachings about karma? – Ask the million people who still suffer.
The conclusion is this: no matter what is the real truth about religion and morality, our lives are today, and maybe even forever very influenced by. Those who blithely say: ‘Well and what? Who cares about the truth in morality and religion?“, ignoring reality and blindly skate on thin ice. we Owe it to ourselves and to others, to find the real truth, and according to her act.
In the next chapter we’ll start with a question: ‘is There a God?’
SUMMARY
1. People often take their beliefs from their parents, friends, religion, or culture of his childhood.
Sometimes your belief simply shape on the basis of their feelings. Even if such a belief may be true, it is also possible that the true is not. The only way to be reasonably sure of, is to verify the conviction using evidence. That can be achieved using a sound philosophical principles, including those that are found in logic and science.
2. Logic tells us that contradictions cannot be true at the same time in the same sense.
3. Using the tactics of self-destructive argument we see that Hume’s skeptical about skepticism and Kant’s agnostic about agnosticismu. Therefore, their views of themselves refute. It is therefore possible to know the truth about God.
4. Through many observations (induction) we can draw reasonable conclusions (inference) about the existence and nature of God (which we will do in the following chapters).
5. Truth in morality and religion has for us in the present and also the consequences for eternity. Indifference and ignorance can be fatal. What you don’t know or you don’t care about can hurt you.
6. Why should anyone believe anything at all? Should we believe in something, if that’s why we have the evidence , and because what we believe is fraught with consequences.
