P1: The degree of belief/disbelief in any proposition must map to the calculated balance of relevant confirming/disconfirming evidence as assessed by the epistemic agent for that belief/disbelief to be deemed rational.
P2: A human epistemic agent accesses the world subjectively, and therefore is necessarily limited to subjectively obtained relevant confirming/disconfirming evidence when entertaining a proposition (rather than having an objective view and understanding of the totality of all the confirming/disconfirming evidence).
P3: For a human epistemic agent, the calculated balance of relevant confirming/disconfirming evidence for a given proposition necessarily falls on a continuum inside the poles of absolute confirmation/disconfirmation to qualify as rational. (P1 & P2)
P4: Any rational belief/disbelief of a human epistemic agent in a non-tautological proposition necessarily falls on a continuum inside the binary poles of absolute certainty. (P1 & P3)
P5: Any source that promotes binary and absolute belief/disbelief for human epistemic agents is promoting irrationality. (P3 & P4)
P6: The Bible promotes binary and absolute belief/disbelief for human epistemic agents. (Acts 16:31 / Acts 8:37 / Romans 10:9 / John 3:16 / Mark 11:24)
CONCLUSION: The Bible promotes irrationality. (P5 & P6)
Filed under: Faith's Failure
[...] P1 Any source that promotes binary and absolute belief/disbelief for human epistemic agents is promoting irrationality [Phil Stilwell, bold mine] [...]
I have previously written on another blog “Any source that promotes binary and absolute belief/disbelief for human epistemic agents is promoting irrationality.”
This statement is clearly wrong. It only holds for the largest subset of statements based on empirically-derived evidence.
1. For a small subset of statements that that contain logical contradictions, the belief can be as binary and absolute as the certainty in the consistency of logic. This is what is being demonstrated in the syllogism above.
2. For logically consistent statements statements, the degree of the certainty in a belief must map to the degree of the evidence.
I’d be pleased if anyone can demonstrate that either of these statements do not hold.
(It’s nice to see people are calling me out on any faulty statements. We must follow truth wherever it leads. The context of my statement does not matter. It is wrong. That’s something you might keep in mind should someone suggest you believe in a holy book that states both that no one has seen god at any time (John 1:18), and actually mentions people who have seen him (Genesis 12:7; 17:1). Such book is wrong. Don’t allow the same people who don’t allow me to invoke context to invoke context for such contradictions.)