If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

[Linux]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

 

[InNomineDomini]

I’m going to put aside the math analogy, if I may.

If I believed there was little or no evidence to support the existence of the Christian God, and if I believed I had thorough education in and access to potential evidence, and if I had no major sins that could possibly be clouding my judgement, and if I had no major problems that could be likewise disabling my judgement, then it would be impossible for me to have a preference to believe in this God anyway.

 

[Linux]

I’m going to put aside the math analogy, if I may.

If I believed there was little or no evidence to support the existence of the Christian God, and if I believed I had thorough education in and access to potential evidence, and if I had no major sins that could possibly be clouding my judgement, and if I had no major problems that could be likewise disabling my judgement, then it would be impossible for me to have a preference to believe in this God anyway.

However, i did not “know” that my judgement was being clouded. So was i being irrational at that moment in time?

 

[Hypnotoad]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

It depends. What was the evidence against God?

 

[Linux]

It depends. What was the evidence against God?

For me personally it was more a matter of God as representative of a particular religion. Evolution was a huge stumbling block for me. I was convinced that it was one or the other.

 

[Qoeleth]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

In fact, the statement “2+2=5” could be true, should the meaning of any of the terms be slightly altered, or the syntax, or the standard of truth. Now, in a mathematics, which is a kind of artificial language, that seems implausible, but a statement in a natural language, especially one using such multivalent and undecidable terms as “God exists”, is of variable truth value. Indeed, the idea of pragamatic benefits could well be the criteria of truth used.

Belief, like language, is infinitely fluid.

Furthermore, why worry if you are being irrational? What grounds do we have for prefering rationality? If we assert rational grounds for prefering rationality, the argument is circular, but if we assert non-rational grounds for favouring rational discourse, the position is self-negating.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

No, you were immanently rational. But I disagree that the evidence against was ever overwhelming. In fact it was always manifestly obvious, as St. Paul tells us.

Linus2nd

 

[Hypnotoad]

For me personally it was more a matter of God as representative of a particular religion. Evolution was a huge stumbling block for me. I was convinced that it was one or the other.

I’m seeing a lot of opinion but still no evidence.

 

[polytropos]

I think continuing to believe while investigating the veracity of your beliefs would be the reasonable course of action.

 

[edarlitrix]

Well, there are two types of rationality: instrumental rationality and epistemic rationality.

"Epistemic rationality is about forming true beliefs, about getting the map in your head to accurately reflect the territory of the world. We can measure epistemic rationality by comparing the rules of logic and probability theory to the way that a person actually updates their beliefs.

“Instrumental rationality is about making decisions that are well-aimed at bringing about what you want. Due to habit and bias, many of our decisions don’t actually align with our goals. We can measure instrumental rationality with a variety of techniques developed in economics, for example testing whether a person obeys the ‘axioms of choice’.
In short, rationality improves our choices concerning what to believe and what to do” (lesswrong.com/lw/7e5/the_cognitive_science_of_rationality/).

You could say you were being instrumentally rational (you chose to continue to believe because it was better at achieving your goal of sanity) but epistemically irrational (you refused to follow the rules of logic and probability theory).

In response to the question posed in the thread’s title (even if it is rhetorical), I would not necessarily ignore the evidence–I would admit that things appear differently than I believe–but I wouldn’t follow the evidence where it leads. I would choose instrumental rationality over epistemic rationality. In fact, I have been forced to do so quite recently to avoid depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I’m seeing a lot of opinion but still no evidence.

See Thomas Aquinas, both Summas, and other works of his. Simply, the universe exists. It cannot account for its own existence. Therefore God exists. That is proof enough for honest folks.

Linus2nd

 

[Aloysium]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

You were actually previously falsely believing that 2+2=5.
Once you chose to submit your mind to God, you chose to surrender to the truth and finally understood that 2+2=4.
Seems to me that modern secular consumer society is telling people that 2+2=5, and many of us are swallowing it hook, line, and sinker.

 

[inocente]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

Imho most people don’t go in for the kind of abstract reasoning about God that’s popular with some on CAF - God is more concrete, personal, someone to trust in.

There’s a direct conflict between trust and looking for evidence, which Paul understood: “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1).

Maybe this alternative mode of reasoning means getting in touch with our feminine side. Alpha males probably call it sentimental nonsense.

Anyway, this song explains it quite well:

*Alison Krauss & Union Station - There Is A Reason - youtube.com/watch?v=UWXNm9b6pKs

I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There isn’t any wonder that I fall
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years
There must be a reason for it all

I’ve trusted in You, Jesus, to save me from my sins
Heaven is the place I call my home
But I keep on getting caught up in this world I’m living in
And Your voice it sometimes fades before I know

Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, crying with my need
Depending on Your love to carry me
The love that shed His blood for all the world to see
This must be the reason for it all

Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, a fortress in the storm
When what I wrap my heart around is gone
I give my heart so easily to the ruler of this world
When the one who loves me most will give me all

In all the things that cause me pain You give me eyes to see
I do believe but help my unbelief
I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There is a reason for it all*

 

[Sultan_Of_Swing]

It’s a bit hard to actually comprehend what it would be like to live in a world where the evidence against God was in fact overwhelming, because that would be an entirely different reality from the one I’m living in. I mean, all I have to do is look at reality itself, ask the ‘big questions’, and immediately God springs to mind.

Now, do those reasons satisfy me to believe in God? No. Thinking about it harder, cosmological arguments and other arguments for God provide a lot more reason to believe.

But if you were to strip these away, and say that the evidence was overwhelmingly against God, then that would be like stripping reality away. If I have a dip in my faith, the miracle of reality itself is enough to keep me going, not to mention past experience. To remove all reason to believe in God is to remove reality itself, and such a world I obviously cannot comprehend.

 

[jmcrae]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

Being honest, yes - if it were making a positive difference in my life to believe that 2+2=5, then I would continue to believe it until or unless 2+2=4 became even more important. But as long as 2+2=5 is making me happy, and no one important to me is contradicting that idea, then I would continue to believe it.

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

No. It’s just that your rationale was not of the sort that one normally expects.

 

[Linux]

Being honest, yes - if it were making a positive difference in my life to believe that 2+2=5, then I would continue to believe it until or unless 2+2=4 became even more important. But as long as 2+2=5 is making me happy, and no one important to me is contradicting that idea, then I would continue to believe it.

But isn’t that just like saying the truth does not really matter when it conflicts with our well-being?

 

[Bob_Crowley]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

I’d call this belief in belief. People believe in all sorts of things - Astrology, Lucky Rabbits Feet, lucky numbers, political parties, football teams. Watch the doom and gloom that descends on the football club after match party when their team loses the final. You’d think the world was about to end, despite the fact they’ll all be watching their heroes kick a piece of pigskin around again next year, and the year after that, and the one after that…

Every few weeks, a bunch of alleged psychics set up shop in the local shopping centre, and there’s nearly always a customer sitting down asking questions.

Are the customers (and psychics) being rational? I think they’re being hopeful, not rational. But that doesn’t make them insane. They may well deal with the rest of their lives in a quite lucid way.

The diffence between your postulated belief of 2+2 = 5,and continuing to believe in God against what seems to be counter evidence is that 2+2 = 5 can easily be demonstrated as false, provided we don’t muck around with syntax, maths rules etc. Just put two oranges on a table, plus another two, and count them. They’ll come up to four. Well, they should anyway.

But disproving God is not quite so simple. And if you’ve had supernatural experiences yourself, it’s even more difficult to toss away.

 

[jmcrae]

But isn’t that just like saying the truth does not really matter when it conflicts with our well-being?

Sometimes the truth just isn’t relevant. When it becomes relevant, then it matters.

For example, the rocks on the dark side of the moon are of a particular consistency, but I can be wrong about what that consistency is, because I have no plans to go to the Moon in the near future.

However, if I were planning a trip to the Moon, then it would matter to me, in order to know what kind of moon boots to buy. Then, the information becomes relevant. But I can be wrong about it without it affecting my life in any real way right now, because no one is asking me to go to the Moon. And I can be pleased to think that they are like granite if I want to, because it has no impact on my life one way or the other, at present.

 

[openmind77]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

I am not sure what overwhelming, conclusive evidence against the existence of God you have found. I don’t think there is such evidence. There is plenty of evidence against specific beliefs about God and the type of God (specific to certain religions), but there is not much evidence against the just the existence of such a Being.

It is however impossible to conclusively prove that God does exist - this has been deliberately designed that way by the Creator himself. The problem is that as soon as we can conclusively prove that God exists, than human freewill becomes elusive. If they were sure that a God exists and was watching all the time, humans would be fearful of doing any thing that they believed was wrong.

It is this ambiguity in the evidence of existence of God that ensures human free will.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

If the belief that 2+2 = 5 was keeping you going in life would you ignore evidence against your faith?

There was a time when the evidence against God appeared overwhelming and conclusive, and yet i chose to believe in God regardless because of the pragmatic benefits it had on my mental health.

Was i being irrational?

Do you also believe that 2+2=5 is self evident truth for the smarter than average bears…out there? Or do you also hold that it is ultimately not provable by reason?