posted
With time and motivation, Tom, I'm pretty sure I could brainwash you into believing in the Great Pumpkin.
It might be more accurate to say he allowed his conversion to occur after his objections and reservations were sufficiently answered, resolved or otherwise overcome.
posted
I think there's a huge difference between setting out to be converted and wanting to convert. You can meet the latter criteria without falling into the former.
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Dag: can you give me an example? I honestly can't come up with one. Even Sophie's Choice ultimately resorted in her wanting to choose one of her children.
posted
"It might be more accurate to say he allowed his conversion to occur after his objections and reservations were sufficiently answered, resolved or otherwise overcome."
Oh, I agree. And it's precisely in the definition of "sufficiently" that I think the element of "want" is most prominent here.
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posted
If what you do is proof that that's what you want to do, then what does the word "want" mean?
I pay my taxes not because I want to pay my taxes but because I don't want to go to jail.
Want is a transitive verb. The object of want is important to the meaning, not separate from it.
People might only choose to do things that provide them with something they want or they they want (although I think this is debatable), but that does not mean they "want" to do the thing doing the providing.
posted
Here's another example. Suppose a man holds a gun on you and says, "Give me all your money." If you do, you have chosen to do so. But it makes no sense to claim you wanted to give the man your money.
posted
Does not-converting in the face of evidence serve as proof that the reason there is no conversion is because one does not want to?
Like Robinson Crusoe hearing singing on the island and still refusing to believe there was another human there because he hadn't yet shook the hand of one.
posted
Which goes back to making a choice between two possible outcomes.
You want to not get shot, so you do what is required to achieve that outcome.
You may not like the situation, you may not have been desirous of being in that situation, but when faced with a choice, you made a decision.
All things being equal, I suspect you would rather not have been robbed at all, but that is not the same as saying I wanted to give him my money because I had nothing else to do and he looked like he needed it.
quote:Does not-converting in the face of evidence serve as proof that the reason there is no conversion is because one does not want to?
What if the evidence you percieve is actually evidence of something other than what you might be considering, and you never see conclusive proof for either?
If I hear singing but never meet the other person, how do I know it's not just a broken radio or a bird mimicing what sounds like human singing?
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posted
Poor Mr. Crusoe might have questioned the singing as not being clearly identifiable as being of human origin or, in fact, singing so he was not inclined to use tenuous evidence as the sole basis of his acceptance of another human being in a remote locale where no humans had been found previously.
posted
That was the point I was trying to make earlier:
You did not "want" or desire to be in the situation and given the choice, you would rather be almost anywhere else.
However, we're not discussing how desirous you are of the situation at large.
We are talking about evaluating the specific situation in which you:
Want to not be shot
You evaluate your choices to achieve this outcome
You pick the choice most suited to achieving the desired outcome
Ergo, you want to give him your wallet because of the situation forced upon you, this was deemed the best possible option to achieve your desired objective
posted
But it's fallacious to say I "want" to give him the wallet.
If I could avoid it, I would. I "want" to live. I want to keep my wallet. It's true that I want to live more than I want to keep my wallet. But the point is, I want to keep my wallet. That's the opposite of wanting to give it to him.
posted
Yep. Dag, in the pinch, your desire to not get shot was stronger than your desire to retain your wallet. Ergo, you wanted to give up your wallet precisely because it prevented you from being shot.
If you felt there were some other alternative to giving up your wallet -- like, say, attacking the guy, running away, or yelling for help -- you would have considered those alternatives, and then chosen the one that seemed most likely to produce the desired outcome: you, unshot, with your wallet. If no such outcome seemed likely, you would have had to choose whether retaining your wallet was worth being shot.
Either way, you are the person making that choice, and desirous of a given outcome.
Consider this: I want an ice cream cone. I also want to avoid spending money. If I buy an ice cream cone, having rejected other alternatives (like theft, begging, etc.), I am trading one lesser want for the satisfaction of a greater want. In the case you cite, you are sacrificing the lesser desire for your wallet to satisfy a stronger desire for your life.
quote:I am trading one lesser want for the satisfaction of a greater want. In the case you cite, you are sacrificing the lesser desire for your wallet to satisfy a stronger desire for your life.
Exactly - my lesser desire, not my desire for the opposite.
posted
Then, clearly, you are not choosing wisely, or else want something impossible.
I want ice cream, but I do not want to spend money at any step to obtain this ice cream. I do not own a cow, and have neither milk nor ice. I am too proud to beg. So which is more important to me: ice cream, pride, spending money, etc.? Does it mean that I don't want ANY of these things if I choose one of them? Of course not.
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To bring this back to the specific conversation at hand: Dave may not want to cause problems for his family. However, he wants to believe in the True Church, and knows this may cause problems for his family. Does this mean he does not want to believe in the True Church? No. It means that he must sacrifice his lesser motivation -- keeping his family happy -- for a greater one. At no point has he done something he did not want to do; he simply realized that one thing he wanted was more important than something else he wanted.
posted
Ah. But I also want to hang onto my money. Having money is a good thing, right?
So my want for money is, in this case, of less importance than my want for ice cream. I do not WANT to spend money, but I do want ice cream, so I ignore one want in favor of a more important one.
At no time have I done something I did not want; I just prioritized.
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posted
So you could say that someone who doesn't believe in the face of evidence is not converted because he wants to not believe more.
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posted
If you believe surrendering your wallet will save your life, do you really want to keep your wallet or does the overriding concern for your life eliminate any desire to retain your wallet under the current circumstances?
-Trevor
Edit: Actually Tom, you did do something you didn't want to do, although that particular want was of less importance than the other.
If you want to keep money, you don't want to do anything that contradicts that desire.
posted
But what if I don't WANT to believe surrendering my wallet will save my life?
Dagonee P.S., We're now repeating ourselves. I haven't contended people don't weigh outcomes to make choices. I merely contend that avoiding a bad outcome does not make one desire the consequence necessary to avoid it.
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quote:So you could say that someone who doesn't believe in the face of evidence is not converted because he wants to not believe more.
Or that the whole idea of how the evidence is interpreted is different for different people. You hear singing and you see divine providence, while I hear a bird off in the distance.
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posted
"So you could say that someone who doesn't believe in the face of evidence is not converted because he wants to not believe more."
Absolutely. Although since we're talking about belief, it's worth noting that belief in the face of conclusive evidence is impossible.
In the likely middle ground you're talking about -- where someone has some evidence that points one way, and either evidence that points the other way or nothing at all -- it does indeed boil down to a conscious decision to say "I want to believe this." Because there's no other reason to do it.
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Like Robinson Crusoe with the singing again (yes, I know he saw footsteps - I'm switching sentences). If Crusoe does not believe the singing means the presense of another human being, then that's his choice. Believing would be just as reasonable, but it doesn't fit in with what he wants.
Your last sentence be true if it ended with "'I want to believe this.' or 'I want to not believe this.'"
posted
Let's take this 'Great Pumpkin' case that people are throwing around.
Linus is the case of someone who didn't follow the above three steps suggested in the treatise, and yet still professes a blind faith, even though time and again it's shown to be baseless.
We're never told where he got the idea of the Great Pumpkin. In case, more than anything, it's hinted he's mixing a couple of ideas together.
-There are no other believers in the Great Pumpkin who have experiences a 'witness' or 'testimony' of the works of the great Pumpkin. IE, nobody appears talk to him who actually has recieved presents they believe are from the great pumpkin. If he has, this is never shown in the forefront of the strip.
-There appear to be no historical prescedence for a belief in the Great Pumpkin. Linus has a story that he repeats ad nauseum, but where did he get it from? Did he make it up? Is, as speculated before, did he make up the idea by confusing the concept of Santa Claus with the idea of carving pumpkings on Halloween, and mesh them into a singular Being? (Much like there are Japanese who have taken originally mutually exclusive religions, such as Buddhism and Shinto, and 'meshed' them together). IE, we appear to have no 'Great Pumpkin Scriptures'.
-Linus has never seen, nor reaped the benefits of the Great Pumpkin. Every single year he sits in the patch, and grabs someone else with him to view the sight he claims will occur, and yet it doesn't. Every single year, without fail.
There is no base, no apparant reason, for Linus to continue in his Faith. He has the perfect right to believe in the Great Pumpkin, but there doesn't appear to be even circumstantial or subjective evidence. There exists merely the desire to believe without any other outside sources backing him up - not even merely the testimony of others.
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Seriously though, the standards by which you apply can and probably would be dissected by Tom, myself or any of the other more outspoken non-believers.
As Jutsa illustrated, one person's human singing is another person's croaking bird.
And just because a lot of people tend to believe the same thing doesn't make it factually accurate - the world hasn't been flat for a long, long time.
And if you'd care to show me any miracle that God has signed and acknowledged to be His work, I'd love to see it. And the deposition.
And for the record, I invoked the name of the Great Pumpkin as a reference we can all identify, more or less.
Like Robinson Crusoe with the singing again (yes, I know he saw footsteps - I'm switching sentences). If Crusoe does not believe the singing means the presense of another human being, then that's his choice. Believing would be just as reasonable, but it doesn't fit in with what he wants.
Your last sentence be true if it ended with "'I want to believe this.' or 'I want to not believe this.'"
Why are you ignoring my replies? If you are not ignoring, why are you talking right past them?
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posted
I've always wanted to wait for the Great Pumpkin.
Justa: I'm not ignoring them - I'm sorry. I was Monorail train of thought and thought there were a couple of conversations going on. Just a second.
quote:You hear singing and you see divine providence, while I hear a bird off in the distance.
Or, I hear singing and decide that's a good case for a human voice existing within ear shot, and you hear singing and since you haven't seen a human, decide it must be a bird because there's no evidence otherwise. Except for the singing. But there's no evidence besides that.
You are choosing to not consider it sufficient evidence.
posted
"You are choosing to not consider it sufficient evidence."
You say this as if it matters. Why does it matter if one words it "I choose to believe that this is sufficient evidence" or "I choose not to believe that this is sufficient evidence?" Either way, the choice is the same; you're only wording it differently, as if the onus of proof were suddenly reversed.
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posted
Choosing not to believe is a choice with consequences as surely as choosing to believe is. You can't stand at the fork forever - that's like deciding to never decide what you will be when you grow up. You'll have grown up and become something whether you actively chose to become it or not.
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quote:Or, I hear singing and decide that's a good case for a human voice existing within ear shot, and you hear singing and since you haven't seen a human, decide it must be a bird because there's no evidence otherwise. Except for the singing. But there's no evidence besides that.
You are choosing to not consider it sufficient evidence.
Or the same event is being perceived differently by two different people. Is that really such a difficult concept to imagine? Since no one can really claim to know who the hypothetical voice belongs to but the original voice, it's all conjecture to begin with, signifying a deliberate choice in deciding what to believe it is. Calling it evidence is only good after the fact. Since I doubt that anyone here is willing to take the step required to know after the fact, dying, I would say that this is the impasse of faith.
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posted
That's a logic game, however. "No one knows what it is except the owner of the voice." I love a philosophical logic game as much as anyone, but faith isn't a game.
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quote:That's a logic game, however. "No one knows what it is except the owner of the voice." I love a philosophical logic game as much as anyone, but faith isn't a game.
It's as much a game as logic. They just aren't the same game. You're the one who mentioned something like the hypothetical voice as the supposed evidence, I was just showing how easy something like that can be, and often is, misconstrued by personal interpretation of the supposed evidence. This is what I mean by a faith impasse, because it there really is no reasonable way to argue past it in any direction.
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posted
Who said it's unsolvable? I surely didn't. I said that unless someone is willing to take the trip necessary to find out what it is, that the rest is conjecture. It's solvable, but even in that it still retains its personal nature. I have a problem with you calling it evidence, but I'm not demeaning it. Instead, I'm pointing out that even what you call evidence can be interpreted differently by someone else as being evidence of something else.
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posted
Someone says they talk with God: is that insolvable ignorance, or not? How do you confirm that they do -- or do not -- speak with God?
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posted
And the original point of the thread is what specific steps would need to be taken - short of absolute voice from the thunders knowledge - to bring you to a place where you would be willing to take on a leap of faith?
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I take leaps of faith all the time. It's part of approaching things intuitively. Placing such faith on the full weight of my soul isn't such an easy thing to answer, and I would wager that just like faith itself, it will vary from person to person. I don't mean that to dodge the question, but to point out that there is likely no one manner to do so.
From what we can tell of the wide range of people with faith, though, is that:
It does not require a surrender of intelligence.
It does not require indoctrination from youth (though it helps).
It does not require any single cultural background.
Much like intelligence, it does not require a lack of education.
It does not necessarily require a great deal of willpower (though living according to the faith usually does).
I do not know of the ingredients that can be used to create faith, though. Perhaps there are general lists, but not all the parts are required for all types of religious faith. Can we first pin down one type and work from there?
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On the subject of Robison Crusoe hearing singing, I propose the following:
Robison is an adult that has likely heard both human and bird voices on many occasions and has the wisdom to judge between the two. It isn't that hard to tell the difference. Birds generally repeat the same sound over and over or repeat specific sounds they have heard (usually clips of which are not long). A human voice will contain nuance that the bird's will not. It should be fairly clear whether or not this is a human voice--if he is being objective.
If Robison hears the voice, if he is being objective and logical, he should consider the possibility that there is indeed another human on that island, even if he doesn't want to believe it. If he does not consider that possibility, he is being foolish.
The possibility (depending on how convincing it is) logically should lead him to want to pursue this to find out which it is unless he is in denial and doesn't want to know, because he is afraid it will, in fact, be a human--in which case he is again acting foolishly. Foolishly in that he is fooling himself, wanting to believe what he wants to believe.
I propose that there are agnostics and athiests who do not wish to believe in God because they don't like the idea of having to answer to a supreme authority. It cramps their style. Therefore, those individuals will deceive themselves rather than pursuing further evidence--or go to great lengths to discount evidence received. I do not say that anyone on this board is of this mindset, only that I believe there exist people who feel this way.
posted
Tom has proposed that we cannot believe something we do not want to believe. If we believe something that we do not want to believe, it is because that thing has become knowledge and there is no need for belief.
Here is an example: There exists a Creationist who has been taught Creationism from birth. He is part of a faith that rejects any form of the theory of evolution. But as he learns and becomes educated, he cannot deny that evolution makes a lot of sense. He has questions and pursues the matter. He does not want to believe in evolution, though, because it would mean being cut off from his family and community. It would mean being alone in many respects, changing his whole life. He believes that as he searches these questions, he will prove Creationism to be true. But such is not the case. More and more evidence points to the fact that he is wrong. Though he tries to deny it for a long time, he finds he cannot lie to himself. He is truly convinced of the truthfulness of evolution.
Does he believe this against his will because it has become knowledge and he cannot deny it? How similar might this be to Dave's conversion? And if it is similar, would you say that Dave doesn't just believe but that Dave has knowledge that what he believes in is, in fact, true?
If the above Creationist-to-Evolutionist example is not typical of believing against want being knowledge, what might be a better example?
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