What if we're wrong about our beliefs?

[tango]

I have found that to be a wrong approach to making decisions because I can be easily persuaded by anything that is logical and coherent. If I were to apply the method you mentioned, I'd probably go crazy because I'd be able to find logical arguments to support the vericity of many different religions and heresies.

The thing with assessing whether something stands up is to consider evidence for it and against it. It's easy to find a verse here and a passage there to support all sorts of bizarre theories. Sometimes I find it interesting to get together with Christian friends and see just how ridiculous an idea we can come up with and "support" using Scripture.

If something appears logical and coherent that's a good start but it also has to be consistent with things outside of itself. That's just one reason I don't like watching videos of someone speaking - if I have the words in front of me it's easier to move back and forth, and therefore harder for them to pull a bait-and-switch line of reasoning. Someone who is trying to pull a fast one is likely to present several stages in a process of reasoning where potentially only one of them is fatally flawed. If you find that the conclusion from step 6 seems weird, it's good to be able to go back to the beginning and trace it through again so you can see whether things still make sense at step 5, step 4, etc.

Being logical and coherent only works for as long as something starts well grounded, and every step is logical. If you start with an assumption that isn't valid than anything logically concluded from that assumption is suspect. There's actually a process in mathematics known as reductio ad absurdum (literally, reduction to the absurd) in which something can be proven to be false by assuming it to be true and following a trail of logical to something absurd. To take a simple example, if I assume that x=y and from that deduce that 3=5 I know that the final conclusion is absurd and therefore the initial assumption must be false (in other words, x is not equal to y). The point there is that some known anchor is required - in the absence of such an anchor we could start with an assumption that we may not understand is an assumption, conclude that 3=5 and then go forward thinking that 3 actually equals 5.

Sometimes we just don't have enough information to make a decision so we have to go with what seems most plausible and stick with it until such time as we see evidence that causes us to doubt our original choice.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Sometimes we just don't have enough information to make a decision so we have to go with what seems most plausible and stick with it until such time as we see evidence that causes us to doubt our original choice.

I don't want to do so because that would lead to my apostatizing the Christian faith and creating my own version of the Christian faith, which would likely spiral out into insanity as I come across new information that either disproves or alters previously-held beliefs.

 

[tango]

I don't want to do so because that would lead to my apostatizing the Christian faith and creating my own version of the Christian faith, which would likely spiral out into insanity as I come across new information that either disproves or alters previously-held beliefs.

If you come across something that clearly disproves a previously held belief it makes sense to consider whether the previously held belief is sound.

When we start to hit questions of what we believe a crucial element of it is why we believe something. For instance, I believe there's a big pile of snow outside my kitchen because I spent two hours this morning clearing snow from the driveway and stacking some of it on top of the existing pile of snow that was already outside my kitchen. The temperature is still below freezing so I can be confident it hasn't melted. I don't know for sure without checking whether someone came along and stole all my snow but it seems unlikely - there's plenty to go around. Therefore I hold a belief in the existence of that pile of snow. If I go outside and find it's gone I have to consider what happened to it. Maybe the kids next door decided to build a honking great snowman and needed some extra snow. Maybe someone took it for some other purpose. Maybe I'll never know what happened, only that the snow isn't there any more. Either way, at that point I update my belief that there's a big pile of snow because I can clearly see that there isn't any more.

Since one instance (out of a few) where a specific event triggered a lot of soul-searching about just what I believed in, I've come to the conclusion that if something is true it will align with things I can observe and be internally consistent. It may be that things I can observe appear to point in the opposite direction due to a limitation in my abilities to observe (to take one example, I don't believe the sun orbits the earth even though what my eyes observe is a static earth and the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. The theory that the earth turns on an axis also explains what I can observe, and the notion that the earth rotates about an axis that isn't precisely perpendicular to its solar orbit also explains seasons, midnight sun etc. )

Sometimes things may have to be filed under "I don't know". Using the (silly) example of my pile of snow, it may be that I know for a fact there was a pile of snow, I can see with my eyes there is no longer a pile of snow, but I don't know what happened to it in the meantime. In many ways in this situation I can also file it under "I don't care" because it doesn't really matter what happened to my pile of snow. A person observing for the first time would see the corner of my house with no snow piled up against it and therefore not necessarily believe there was a huge pile of snow this morning. If they heard me talking about the big pile of snow that was there, paired with not knowing what happened to it, they might be justified in believing there never was a pile of snow. Whatever they believe, I would know for a fact it was there because I personally saw it there.

 

[atpollard]

deleted.

 

[tango]

Actually, there isn’t.
Every religion begins from a false premise that “if you do XYZ” then life will be all “sunshine and puppies”.
LIFE and empirical reality tell us differently.

That is what surprised THIS (former) atheist ... who examined and rejected all of the world religions for failing the “laugh test” of empirical reality ... when he stopped listening to what well-intentioned Christians SAID and started to look for myself at exactly what Jesus and his disciples WROTE. What I discovered was a God that doesn’t just blow smoke at you.

With respect, you're really struggling here.

If life were as simple as "believe in God" or "don't believe in God" with consequences for each of two options then we're looking at a classic situation covered by Pascal's Wager. You might as well believe in God because the consequences for being wrong are a wasted life of no consequence if there is no God, or eternity in torment if there is a God. Sadly this very simplistic scenario doesn't even begin to cover the huge range of possibilities, claims and counterclaims from different religions, expectations of different deities and punishments for failing to comply and so on. If we spend our lives in devoted service to Yahweh and Jesus but it turns out that the Muslims were right we potentially still face eternal condemnation for failing to adequately honor Mohammed.

It's also a huge oversimplification to say that every religion promises sunshine and puppies. People of all faiths suffer hardships, illnesses, natural disasters and the like. Not all of them throw in the towel because their religion promised them something better.

Obviously as a Christian myself I don't dispute assertions relating to who Jesus was and is, what we have to do and the like. But to argue that the question of whether our beliefs are accurate or not is as simple as a two-way decision that's so heavily loaded that Pascal's Wager applies as neatly as you have suggested is frankly little more than an insult to people who do struggle with doubts.

 

[atpollard]

But to argue that the question of whether our beliefs are accurate or not is as simple as a two-way decision that's so heavily loaded that Pascal's Wager applies as neatly as you have suggested is frankly little more than an insult to people who do struggle with doubts.

I apologize.
No insult was intended.
I really DO see it as I stated.

 

[pinacled]

deleted.

Amen

 

[pinacled]

I apologize.
No insult was intended.
I really DO see it as I stated.

There's no need to apologize for sharing faith