Post
Topic
Board Politics & Society
Re: Health and Religion
by
CoinCube
on 24/04/2018, 08:09:58 UTC

Your argument only works when you are assuming god actually exists but then again, you would have to prove a god exists and you haven't. If we assume a god exists, picking the ''best'' religion is still not that good because, first of all, how would you ever know, right?

Your question gets us into the domain of truth theory. It is a complex topic.

Unless you are an adherent of philosophical skepticism you accept that objective reality aka truth exists and can be known.

The question we must then answer is how do we know something is true? What non arbitrary criteria or metric do we use to determine truth?

The best answer to this question that I know of is the the Coherence theory of truth. Here is a brief description of what this is.

Coherence Theory of Truth
http://mrhoyestokwebsite.com/Knower/Useful%20Information/Three%20Different%20Theories%20of%20Truth.htm
Quote from: Austin Cline
Put simply: a belief is true when we are able to incorporate it in an orderly and logical manner into a larger and complex system of beliefs or, even more simply still, a belief is true when it fits in with the set of all our other beliefs without creating a contradiction.
 
Sometimes this seems like an odd way to actually describe truth. After all, a belief can be an inaccurate description of reality and fit in with a larger, complex system of further inaccurate descriptions of reality, according to the Coherence Theory, that inaccurate belief would still be called “truth” even though it didn’t actually describe the way the world really was. Does that really make any sense?
 
Well, possibly … the reason is because statements can’t really be verified in isolation. Whenever you test an idea, you are also actually testing a whole set of ideas at the same time. For example, when you pick up a ball in your hand and drop it, it isn’t simply our belief about gravity which is tested but also our beliefs about a host of other things, not least of which would be the accuracy of our visual perception.
 
So, if statements are only tested as part of larger groups, then one might conclude that a statement can be classified as “true” not so much because it can be verified against reality but rather because it could be integrated into a group of complex ideas, the whole set of which could then be tested against reality. In this case Coherence Theory isn’t that far from the Correspondence Theory and the reason is that while individual statements may be judged as true or false based upon their ability to cohere with a larger system, it is assumed that that system is one which accurately corresponds to reality.
 
Because of this, the Coherence Theory does manage to capture something important about the way we actually conceive of truth in our daily lives. It isn’t that unusual to dismiss something as false precisely because it fails to cohere with a system of ideas which we are confident are true. Granted, maybe the system we assume to be true is quite a way off the mark, but so long as it continues to be successful and is capable of slight adjustments in the light of new data, our confidence is reasonable.

You are concerned that you cannot prove God exists to your satisfaction. My reply is that your inability to prove God has in this instance absolutely no relevance to Truth of God.

It is important to remember what we can prove.

The #1 Mathematical Discovery of the 20th Century
https://www.perrymarshall.com/articles/religion/godels-incompleteness-theorem/
Quote from: Perry Marshal

Gödel proved that there are ALWAYS more things that are true than you can prove.

Any system of logic or numbers that mathematicians ever came up with will always rest on at least a few unprovable assumptions.

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem applies not just to math, but to everything that is subject to the laws of logic. Incompleteness is true in math; it’s equally true in science or language or philosophy.

And: If the universe is mathematical and logical, Incompleteness also applies to the universe.

Gödel created his proof by starting with “The Liar’s Paradox” — which is the statement

“I am lying.”

“I am lying” is self-contradictory, since if it’s true, I’m not a liar, and it’s false; and if it’s false, I am a liar, so it’s true.

So Gödel, in one of the most ingenious moves in the history of math, converted the Liar’s Paradox into a mathematical formula. He proved that any statement requires an external observer.

No statement alone can completely prove itself true.

His Incompleteness Theorem was a devastating blow to the “positivism” of the time. Gödel proved his theorem in black and white and nobody could argue with his logic.

Yet some of his fellow mathematicians went to their graves in denial, believing that somehow or another Gödel must surely be wrong.

He wasn’t wrong. It was really true. There are more things that are true than you can prove.

A “theory of everything” – whether in math, or physics, or philosophy – will never be found. Because it is impossible.

A priori Truth is mathematically inevitable. God is such a Truth. The religious have a more elegant way of summing this up. They call it the necessity of faith.

You ask why can't I prove God? This is the wrong question. The correct question is can I build an integrated and coherent worldview without God? Can I follow the coherence theory of truth and construct a True worldview without God.

Only you can answer that question for yourself. I will tell you, however, that for me the answer was no.