@Frank Apisa,
Quote:Okay, but we either are with or without gods whether we can know or not, correct? Either gods exist...or they do not exist...and that Reality is independent of whether or not we can know it.
Correct. But we only have our reality. As our reality is that we cannot know there is no point to the sophistry. It's a mere word game but lacks the wit and style of Trivia word games.
Quote:I prefer not to use the word “believe” in this case, because the word is ambiguous.
It doesn't matter to others what you prefer Frank. They will assume, not without good cause, that your preference serves your own purposes. I take "belief" to be unambiguous. I might question its integrity but if it is genuine it is unambiguous.
Quote:If we can agree that the best we can do is to guess one-way or the other…we are in agreement.
A guess is a gambit. One might go with a guess and act in the appropriate manner. Such a manner if acted well might not be distinguishable from genuine belief except to the person acting it. Hence my question to fm about Dr Murray's genetic success in getting 8 kids out of 5 different females. To test whether he is acting his atheism and evolutionary credibility. Hence his refusal to answer. Which is actually an answer itself.
Like your preference for not using "believe" the guess is obviously likely to serve subjective purposes. An acted out guess is not to be compared with a genuine belief. Amount of personal sacrifice in the service of a belief is a guide to whether it is genuine. A well acted guess will fail that sort of test. It can be undermined. Shakespeare's "unconditional love" for example.
A genuine belief can be wrong too. A football score in the paper will result in genuine belief that it is true. But it could be a misprint. A person reading a misprint, or even a deliberate error, in a paper will believe it. And act as if they believe it. And it would be a genuine belief assuming such errors are very rare. Such is the power of the printed word.
A guess might be irrational. But it might have a rational function. If so, and proved to be by beneficial effects consistently resulting from it, it can become internalised and thus transformed into genuine belief. Even so, unintended consequences might disclose an irrationality in the term "beneficial effects".
Is it a guess that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door or is it a better guess that if you promote your mousetrap expertly the world will beat a path to your door irrespective of whether it is a better mousetrap?
I think your arguments are circular which is why you go round and round with them and risk inducing catatonia. Beliefs, along with other mental states such as desires, fears and intentions, function as reasons for action. The irreducible complexity of such combinations of mental states as springs of action are distinguishable from physical reflexes. The action is all that matters to me.
BTW--You can impress your mates by using the expression "doxastic states" to include both beliefs, doubts, judgements, opinions and suchlike.
Also--if you don't believe in immaterial states then beliefs, doubts and thoughts are material objects and thus any belief, doubt or thought must exist as an object in the physical constitution of the organism. A belief in immaterial states implies soul and then the continuation of soul separate from body is obviously a possibility. The fact that such a physical object is overwhelmed by contrary physical objects is neither here nor there. If God exists in thought then God exists. No God cannot exist in thought unless God is thought of first.
If only material states exist then we are all clockwork oranges.
