So we are down to what is stupid and what is not, what is relevant and what is not.
The OP would suggest that anything done without proof is irrational which would = stupid/moronic.

Problem 1) what is stupid?
This should be obvious that stupidity being a value judgement canot be rheified and therefore is not within the realm of empirical rationality. To believe someone stupid shows faith in one's own ideology which is also not something that can be rheified. Any value judgment on behavior that doesn't directly show that it is physically "empirically" harmful is an expression of faith in the ideal/biological impulse/cultural norm that spurs the judgment. And some of those actions/beliefs/behaviors that are physically detrimental still may be worth it. See Below.

Problem 2) Cost/Benefit ratio
If we are to set up a cost/benefit chart for all actions, behaviors, and beliefs we are likely to find that depending on what we consider valuable expression of faith may be more beneficial than an expression of some other sort. So the cost of having faith given its payout is minimal in comparison. So in order to categorically state that faith is stupid one must first place faith expressly within the definition of stupid while simultaneously placing faith in the idealology that created the superior value/worth for outward expressions of non-faith.

Problem 3) Biology
There are normal biological imperatives that would defy the common conception of rational. What is rational about anger in the face of danger? In one respect its perfectly rational, anger provides the chemicals required for fighting for something 'worth' fighting for, whereas its totally irrational as well as fighting often presents more of a possibility for bodily harm than fright = flight. Other behaviors and emotions again fall into similar categories, love/monogamy/infidelity, dishonesty/trust, etc... These all can be considered irrational or supremely rational depending upon the value upon which they are judged.

Problem 4) Culture
See above and add those things which aren't biologically imperatives, which we assume are totally rational. Courtesy rituals, conversational topics, entertainment choices and so on. An example that has been in the forum recently is pornography. It is a natural function and empowering blah blah, its demeaning to women and harmful to the family unit blah blah
To have an opinion on this and exercise action on behalf of that opinion shows faith in the non-empirical, in the unprovable ideology one holds.


As the cultural norm changes among the wealthy and/or influential from 'religious' to 'non-religious' in the general scheme of things expression of faith with become more costly than its benefits might be, and that being so, that cultural norm would still be a fairly arbitrary value judgement.

Hmmm..evidence for the metaphysical. Then what do we call the feeling we have when we love someone, or feel sad for someone we may not know or any sensation we may get from just pure joy. Is there nothing spiritual about emotions or relationships? Each of these require some form of faith, anything spiritual requires faith.

People love to gravitate towards male cow feces because it makes them feel better about their existence. They want the world to work how they want it to work and not accept the world for what it really is. It is hard not to step in the male cow feces and I'll admit that I do it, but once I smell it, I am quick to wash myself clean of it. You should ask yourself, did you step in the male cow feces again? Are you walking around spreading male cow feces all over the place?

I generally agree with this, that we believe what makes us feel good. But how can you or I be exempt from this same principle? Are we just too heroically truthful to fall for anything, or did we fall for the myth of ourselves as heroically truthful? Can we escape our own cynical epistemological principles?

Stopped right there. It is impressive/depressive that people try to advocate things they know are wrong.

I guess the question then becomes, if a half truth can provide a positive experience, what is so bad about maintaining them? Well if truth is what you want then half truths will never suffice. If you are fine with half truths then you will be satisfied with them. I personally don't like half truths, I feel you can have even more of positive gains from actual truths.

I'm not so sure that there's much of a difference between half-truths and whole-truths.

Lmao, I was just about to quote the same part as I read the thread.

Well here is the thing. If you're holding onto a half truth but there is an alternate truth which is closer to a whole truth and it cancels out the half truth which would be more preferred?

If your half truths are pinning you down, then being a truth seeker is really not something you can call yourself.

When one acts out of faith, and commits to ones actions, a time comes when the object of that faith is either confirmed or not. A non-religious example would be going to a party at the home of a friend of a friend of your cousin. Your cousin tells you that there will be lots of (whatever you are after) there, and you have faith in what your cousin says, so you commit to going to the party. At the party, your faith is either confirmed, or it is not.

I have faith in the power of prayer and meditation to help me to develop virtues and overcome my faults. I pray regularly, and find that on those days that I neglect to pray, not only am I more likely to get frustrated by things not going how they should, but more things happen to test my patience.

We all have faith, it seems, in the wrongness and badness of faith. I wonder about those guys who take 3-pointers at the buzzer. Is faith the magic that makes nobodies somebodies?

For me, Jesus isn't supernatural, but his or his character's speech on faith remains impressive. Faith as a mustard seed. Faith can move mountains, for no one is going to start breaking rock until the job seems/feels possible in the first place.

How could we have significant intimate relationships without faith both in ourselves and our lover?

First, do you think trust is an important thing to have?

I do not see any fundamental difference between faith and trust except one generally deals with God while the other doesn't.

Even if there is no afterlife, I feel I am getting a return on my investment in God on a daily basis that is immeasurable.

I feel my life is continually enriched through my relationship with God.... so I see no fundamental difference whatsoever.

One is trust in your friends and the other is trust in God. Perhaps one small difference is that faith needs less evidence, however, faith still needs evidence and one does not have faith in something overtly false.

At the same time though, faith implies trust and may in fact be a deeper form of trust.

If there is a difference please explain it to me.

Nope. You can totally get by without trusting anyone. Assume that they will never act, or do as you would think they would. It might not be the smoothest way to live, but it can be done. People do it all the time and some would say that it is a more rational way to live.

Yes and this distinction is important, but are you glossing over it? I see you have made some stride to bring them together although the first time you mentioned this, I think you mentioned trust once. You clearly understand they are different.

In what way?

If god isn't real then all your thoughts or ideas that god is doing something for you, really would just be you doing it to yourself. So how is that an investment?

If you are saying god has enriched your life then by all means, I have no such relationship, I should not be enriched. So am I lacking what you have? Probably not. So your enrichment is totally subjective.

It's different That you believe contrary to any evidence for such existence to be true?

It has been explained.

Trusting yourself is not important? First, define assuming. Isn't assuming nothing more than believing something without proof? Next, I didn't not say trusting people. I said trust in general.And you have yet to explain the fundamental distinction to me. I noted one is trust in A while the other is trust in B, I wouldn't call that a fundamental distinction.Because God has given me confidence, calmness, peace, joy, security, guidance, and has improved my morals and my compassion for other people. I am much slower to anger and much quicker to forgive. I can't even adequately describe all the things I feel God has done for me. In the words of an old friend of mine, "if if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk". IMO, God is real. why would you say that? I do not deny that one can live an enriched life without belief in God, because I think people will fill that void with other things, however, I believe nothing fills that void in the same way or as perfectly as God. there is no evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure why you deny this. I am more than willing to accept that, on the whole, the jury is out but nothing has been proven one way or the other conclusively, I just find it curious that you aren't. There is no unrefutable proof(that everyone will accept) for or against God's existence.I was honest when I was saying please explain the fundamental difference. If it's been explained please forward me to that thread.

Trusting yourself is not important? First, define assuming. Isn't assuming nothing more than believing something without proof?

Next, I didn't not say trusting people. I said trust in general.And you have yet to explain the fundamental distinction to me.

I noted one is trust in A while the other is trust in B, I wouldn't call that a fundamental distinction.

Because God has given me confidence, calmness, peace, joy, security, guidance, and has improved my morals and my compassion for other people.

I am much slower to anger and much quicker to forgive. I can't even adequately describe all the things I feel God has done for me.

In the words of an old friend of mine, "if if was a fifth, we'd all be drunk". IMO, God is real.

why would you say that? I do not deny that one can live an enriched life without belief in God,

because I think people will fill that void with other things, however, I believe nothing fills that void in the same way or as perfectly as God.

there is no evidence to the contrary. I'm not sure why you deny this. I am more than willing to accept that, on the whole, the jury is out but nothing has been proven one way or the other conclusively, I just find it curious that you aren't.

There is no unrefutable proof(that everyone will accept) for or against God's existence.

I was honest when I was saying please explain the fundamental difference. If it's been explained please forward me to that thread.

In fact, it's also my belief that human life is impossible without belief.

We live in a jungle of assumptions that we are not usually ever conscious of.

We step out of bed and expect the floor to be there.

Some beliefs are more publicly justifiable than others. I think humans in assume that the inner experience of others is like there own.

This is a leap of faith.( But here I am assuming that they assume, which shows again the human tendency to assume.) Because their inner experience does not encourage a belief in God, they call such a belief irrational.

I object. You don't need to believe anything to live.

I do agree with this. I notice myself doing it all the time. I assume people have the same basic understanding of certain things almost to a fault. I also assume that everyone has the same ability to reason or learn things that I do, which is totally not the case. I also assume that people view the world how I do, but this is drastically not the case.

If it is not irrational, then belief in gremlins, goblins, and flying pink elephants are also not irrational. If they are not irrational then NOTHING is irrational. Even to say that the sky will turn red tomorrow is not irrational. Or to say that the color red will stop being red and red will disappear from existence would be a rational argument. Are these two examples rational?

This is incorrect. No one actually expects this. The brain doesn't even work this way. You might think it does but it actually doesn't. When you first wake up there is a analyzing of the conscious experience to find it's place in space. Ask a person who has lost their proprioceptors what they assume and they will tell you, they can't sense the ground at all, and to them the ground almost seems to not exist. This usually leaves them without the ability to walk or even sit up.

Do you believe this? Do you believe you are sane? Do you believe in the "laws" of science, that ones (in theory) that keep your roof from falling on you as you read this? Do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow? That you're loved ones will remember your name the next time they see you?

I am not even sure why you brought this up since I was using assuming as a standpoint a person could take for not needing trust. If you assume that nothing will be as one expects then by all means you are ready for anything to happen. Basically I just nullified the need for trust if you always presume nothing will be expected.

It was universal, that trust is not required to function. You don't have to trust anything, people, actions, events, knowledge, wisdom, nothing. You can function completely free from needing to trust these things.

faith is generally used belief that is not based on proofs.
trust is generally confident expectation of something usually backed by proofs.

You build trust, faith is not built. There is no input and output. Trust can be added to or lost. Faith is never given a chance to do that because it does not require input since no proofs are required. That is why faith is inferior to trust. People of faith know this and that is why they try to use trust to describe faith but it is not accurate to call faith, trust.

You believe these things were provided yet you have no way to verify them. I have all of them too, but I don't make the claim that a god gave them to me.

This is something you can learn without the need for a belief in a god. So the question becomes, if you accomplish the same thing without a belief in god, what good is the belief? I would say none if you can reach the same understanding. That is why I can say that I don't require a god to accomplish anything.

How about some words from a friend of mine?

"People have died because they thought a mirage was real."

Yeah I think so to, which like I mentioned before. If you accomplish the same thing then what good is believing?

Conjecture. You can not proclaim this to be a truth. You might believe it to be the case, but you can't verify it. I could just as easily say my life is richer without the belief in god, but would you accept that to be a universal truth? Probably not.

The same reason I don't believe in the existence of goblins or gremlins. Why don't you believe in the existence of Zeus or Amon-Ra? Lack of consistent evidence IS evidence. Despite people trying to make the claim that absence of evidence is not evidence, it is. That statement is a denialist claim to attempt to strengthen a weak argument. I can show you.

The flying pink elephant exists. You can not make the claim the flying pink elephant does not exist simply because there is no evidence that it does not exist.

Yeah but if I believe there is a troll living in my closet, is that a truth? I might even hear sounds coming from the closet, so is that evidence that the troll is real? No. You can make stuff up, you can say there is evidence, but it is all just wishful thinking when it comes to the existence of god.

There is no evidence that even says there might be a god. You can try to claim that the universe is that evidence but I object. If you know anything about quantum physics and thermal dynamics, matter is not created. If matter is not created then nothing was created. If nothing was created then no need for a creator.

My question is, if god exists, what makes you think that you are actually doing what that god wants or intended you to do? Simply because you believe that you are? How can you verify it? You can't, so once again you require faith to assume that you are doing the things that this god wants you to do.

I think his point is that the laws of science (the "real" way the universe works at least, not necessarily our laws of science) are still there even if you don't believe in them. That unlike Tinkerbell, you don't have to clap your hands...
I think the issue here Reconstructo is that your definition of "being human" is more than just living, at least that's what I gather from reading your previous post... is that the issue?

Do you believe this? Do you believe you are sane? Do you believe in the "laws" of science, that ones (in theory) that keep your roof from falling on you as you read this? Do you believe the sun will rise tomorrow? That you're loved ones will remember your name the next time they see you?

I would say that "irrational" is used to some degree as words like "ugly" or "beautiful" are used. To the liberal, the conservative isn't rational, and the reverse. "Rational" is just a word of course, and the "meaning" of a word is its use in the context of social practice, including the practice of using language. Sometimes we use the word "rational" as a synonym of practical. Considering the cultural history of the God-concept and the sophistication of certain theologies, God is indeed more rational than the examples you offer. But that is a matter of taste. I do see what you mean, though.

I grant you such exceptions, but I still think it's a fair (if oversimplified) statement. We do, with rare exceptions, expect the floor the catch us when we step out of bed. We expect our mouths to hold water, to remain solid. We expect our arms and legs to do what they want them to do, excepting the obvious.

We believe they are there independent of our belief, and perhaps they are. But as Hume argued, we assume that the future will resemble the past. But why should it? Because it has? Which is a circular argument.

More later. Thanks for the input.