Utter nonsense - except if you’re a Cartesian dualist who ignores his own thought experiences. And you haven’t answered any of Mefi’s questions.
Nonsense and yet more nonsense. A hefty arsenal of coercive and psychological techniques refutes you.
So you can know what I think without basing that knowledge in some way on what I say or do? What if I lie?
Could you implement any of those coercive or psychological techniques without infringing on any of my other rights?
Not with today’s technology, but perhaps one day. However, that’s hardly relevant. You know what you yourself believe and would no doubt object to anyone insisting that you’re not allowed to believe as you do. Nor does the privacy of thought and belief make attendant rights redundant. You have the right to engage in various behaviours in the privacy of your home that if practised elsewhere would get you in trouble.
You’re beginning to see the intractability of your stance:
Be that as it may, it’s still your right to believe as you do, just as it is mine to believe that your separation proposal is, for the reasons given, logically absurd – and there I’ve just asserted your right to believe. Nor can you dodge the fact that every argument you yourself present effectively challenges your opponent’s right to believe simply because you seek to persuade them that their belief is faulty.
'Luthon64
Not at all, I would see this as a completely meaningless statement. I cannot change my beliefs just because I’m “not allowed” to believe something. I could however be convinced by rational argument.
But it does make them impossible to defend.
In the privacy of my home I am unlikely to infringe on anyone else’s rights, equally in the privacy of my own head.
I’d rather admit I was wrong than assert a “right to believe”.
Every argument ever presented challenges someone’s “right to believe”. As long as everyone claims this “right” it will be infringed upon every time we argue.
I noticed I am being voted down, so I will attempt to gather all my arguments together in one place:
I am skeptical of this so called “right to believe”, both as it is usually phrased in arguments:
People have the right to believe what they want!
and as it appears in the SA constitution:
Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion.
Lately, when I hear these vague statements my mind fills with questions to which I have not yet received any satisfying answers. Until I do I don’t see why or more importantly how I am to respect this “right”.
Can anyone actually choose to believe something? I’m not so sure if they can, I certainly cannot. I don’t decide to believe things. I listen to different points of view, I look at the evidence and gradually, over time, I find myself believing more, or less, in whatever it is. Now there is no doubt that my own personal biasses are probably involved to the extent that I am not aware of them, but I have no control over those either. If someone is able to somehow choose what they believe, the same way I might choose what to wear, I don’t think that means they should be able to claim special rights and privileges. In fact, I would be rather suspicious of the motives of any individual who made such claims.
Is it actually possible to control what someone believes? I don’t think so. Sure you can debate with them, but they can argue back or choose to ignore you. You could try indirect methods like bribery, blackmail, torture or kidnapping but none of these will necessarily change someone’s mind. In any case, they are protected from these by their other rights anyway. Add to that the uncertainty involved in determining what it is that they actually do believe. If you try to coerce someone into believing something they are far more likely to lie about their beliefs than actually change their minds. But on a nobler note, all those various faithful martyrs who died rather than denounce their beliefs, taking those beliefs with them to the grave, proved beyond all doubt that freedom of belief is a liberty which cannot be denied, an intrinsic ability of all human beings.
Can beliefs even be protected? There are two problems with this I can see. Firstly, the difficulty is in determining what it is that someone actually believes. The protection of one right often necessarily involves the limiting of other rights. If we are going to be limiting someone’s rights based on a belief, we need to be sure that that belief is actually the one being held, and not for instance a belief that others should hold said belief. Which is a very different sort of belief entirely. Secondly, the only way that a belief can be assured of protection from other beliefs is by severely limiting freedom of expression and association of people, the very means by which beliefs are freely transferred.
So I am left with a “right” which cannot be exercised, cannot be limited and cannot be protected. Of what use is claiming such a right?
Other forums where I’ve been discussing this as well:
http://aas.uct.ac.za/forum/viewtopic.php?t=492
http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=103822
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/6778/
Yup, that was me because skepticism means first getting a firm grasp of the best current knowledge about the subject you want to attack. Woo-woo nuts make Jack-in-the-box arguments and judgments about the subject from a naive and speculative sense of unease, not familiarity with the essential difficulties. They never concede a thing. They disregard the background. They duck and dive and make stuff up that they think “defends” their position. They simply ignore the important contrary bits. Yeah, you still have the right to believe that my appraisal is wrong.
Since when does a right to believe require that one can choose beliefs?
Yes. Ask a psychologist. Or a school teacher. Or a propagandist. Or an advertiser. Or a publisher. Or a parent. Or a government. Or, or, or…
Yes. Why else would virtually every liberal democracy explicitly entrench the right in its constitution?
I freely exercise my right to believe that you’re slicing anorexic baloney, Petey. Anxious ad-lib spin-doctoring with “clever” post hoc shoot-from-the-hip hopscotch answers is not presenting a coherent argument. I will freely exercise my right to believe I was wrong when you submit a rewrite of this SEP article and it is published. Your rewrite should argue convincingly the redundancy of asserting a right to believe and so pay special attention to Sec 2.1.4 (without compromising the whole of Sec 2.1), and just as much to Sec 5.4.
When you have done that, you can correct legal fraternities accordingly across the globe, followed by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
If you think you know better than the thousands of philosophical, political, legal and sociological minds that have converged on roughly the same ideas throughout recent history then you had better put forward some irresistible arguments that refute their collective position. You always have the right to believe differently though.
Yes, it’s very easy to say that now. By mere virtue of being raised, it has become an untestable proposition.
Surely you joke, Mr Grant! You implicitly assert your right to believe that whatever argument is presented to you fails your standards of rationality – themselves, please note, articles predicated on your right to believe whatever (fluid) tenets actually comprise a “rationality” you would consider acceptable. You destabilise your own argument.
I fail to see the relevance. The possibility of your beliefs, as distinct from your actions, infringing on someone else’s rights was never an issue here to begin with. It has always been about others’ actions infringing on your right to believe, a right you apparently seek to dismiss as superfluous (or maybe as meaningless).
The evidence to hand strongly suggests just the opposite. You believe you are right, no matter what, and you believe you have the right to defend your views by any means, and you believe those means to be justified, as is, in each case, your right to believe.
Yes, that’s a decent paraphrase of what I wrote. Offsetting your and my right to believe differently is that neither of us can claim a right to be not offended by the other’s critique. Yet we each enjoy the right to believe that such critique is downright wrong. Once again: how will you separate a right to believe from the web of other rights?
'Luthon64
I did not set out to attack this “right to believe” at the start. This thread began as a discussion about why r0n1n believes in God. I asked him to provide justification for this belief and he responded that it was his right to believe and proceeded to provide reasons why such a belief is beneficial regardless of its truth value. I find applying skepticism to all ideas and beliefs beneficial, especially those I am not completely familiar with as this leads me to greater understanding. I am not trying to promote any brand of woo or defend any specific position.
One can choose to exercise all the other rights, I just find it strange that one cannot choose to exercise this one.
If true, that’s rather scary. Are there any laws protecting me from them?
Not sure, I’m still trying to figure this out.
The SEP article linked to cites “The Will to Believe” by William James which has already been extensively criticised by Bertrand Russell and others:
The Inquisition rejected Galileo's doctrine because it considered it untrue; but Hitler accepts or rejects doctrines on political grounds, without bringing in the notion of truth or falsehood. Poor William James, who invented this point of view, would be horrified at the use which is made of it; but when once the conception of objective truth is abandoned, it is clear that the question, 'what shall I believe?' is one to be settled, as I wrote in 1907, by 'the appeal to force and the arbitrament of the big battalions,' not by the methods of either theology or science.
I think I am in good company in questioning this “right to believe”.
If I already possessed sufficient knowledge of the matter to do so, I would not be wasting my time asking questions on this forum.
So you think I’m lying? I admit I cannot prove that I am not. All I can do is assert that others have told me before, “You can’t say that!” or, “You can’t believe that!” and I have always found such statements strange.
Only if one assumes I am implicitly asserting some “right”. I am asserting my inability to believe any argument I do not fully comprehend. If the argument is presented in such a way that I can comprehend it, I will have no choice but to agree.
I do not question that other’s actions may effect my ability to believe something. You might through argument convince me that I am wrong and I will have no choice but to change my mind. What I am questioning is whether I have any right to those false beliefs and whether your actions would be an infringement of those rights. I do not think they would.
I do not believe that I am right no matter what. I also do not believe that I have the right to defend my views by any means. I do not think I have the right to lie for instance. What I do have the right to do is express my views and thereby attempt to determine why they differ from yours.
Why not, if this “right to believe” is being infringed upon? Isn’t that what blasphemy laws are all about?
How, what if I am convinced by the critique? How will I go back to believing it is wrong?
I suggested that the other rights would provide essentially the same protection but this does not seem to satisfy. Your question suggests that these rights are mutually dependant, why is this necessarily the case?
Hey, cool synchronicity! I just spotted this on Dawkins’ site:
Bertrand Russell explains why he does not believe in God
Hey Petey, you’re still pushing undiluted kak, dodging critical issues and making arbitrary shit up. Or maybe you’re just a lame reader (another woo-woo nut habit, BTW). E.g., Russell’s criticism of James’s ideas is a reductio ad absurdum directed at James’s contrived “defense” for holding unfounded beliefs. Go read it again. It’s not an attack on a right to believe. If you think it is then go ahead and show us where Russell or any other reputable philosopher/sociologist/legal or political expert overtly questions the validity of affirming a right to believe. (Notice that I even had to supply a credible link for ya. The article’s first paragraph says: “Many philosophers would agree with James that we have a right to hypothesize and to adopt self-fulfilling beliefs without evidence;…” I think that kinda puts a serious damper on your ideas.)
In the meantime you should learn about the basics of rights as viewed from the philosophical angle because it looks like you’re totally stuck in a simplistic one-dimensional mix of anti-power plus Will Theory. Rights are much more than that and the fact that some beliefs are not open to choice doesn’t make non-choosability a universal truth about beliefs.
Then you can see for yourself what a “right to believe” means and how it slots neatly into the greater scheme of epistemic and legal rights.
When you’ve done all of that, the SEP article rewrite still looms. I look forward to being surprised with some proper substance and/or earnest contemplation of these counters.
Irreverend, I guess I should thank you for the links. That last one looks particularly interesting, it almost makes up for all the abuse.
Once I’ve worked my way though all this material I’ll post any further thoughts/questions I have.
Abuse? Interesting, Petey, interesting! Hell, it’s your right to believe that robustly calling blatantly clueless and uninformed BS “total crap” as opposed to “discussion” is abuse especially when that denunciation comes explained, substantiated and exampled. But hey, it’s also my right to believe that–
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persistent neglect to seek out the necessary background info, never mind absorbing or engaging with it;
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“addressing” valid counterpoints with smarmy glibness and evasion in place of due acknowledgement;
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dismissing a SEP article - a SEP article, for crying out loud! - with facile trumped-up handwaving after obviously not reading much of it (that’s no less banal than dismissing an Encyclopedia Britannica article on evolution because it includes a discussion of Lamarckism);
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ignoring reasonable requests for proper definitions and clarifications;
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throwing out insipid deflective off-the-cuff remarks and annotations devoid of significance just for the apparent sake of having something smart-alecky to say;
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failing to provide a single credible reference in support of contentions;
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self-importantly claiming to be open to reasoned persuasion when there isn’t the tiniest whiff of it,
and -
attempting to invalidate an argument on the grounds that it is not understood
–together add up to an unashamedly flagrant abuse of the norms of open debate, and an especially grievous one at that coming from a self-professed skeptic. It does skepticism less than zero favors - that’s the wider implication, the Big Picture of what’s been going down here.
Maybe you’ll learn something from this episode or maybe not. I surely have. That’s up to you too. But you’re deeply mistaken if you think I’m going to sit back idly and shut up out of an irrelevant sense of politeness or fake camaraderie while the intellectual standards we skeptics have undertaken to uphold are repeatedly subverted. I guess that makes me a rude uncompromising asshole and us about even on the “abuse” front. If you still disagree or don’t have a clue what the freck I’m talking about then read my name and my sig. Make of them whatever tickles you, dude.
P.S.: You’re welcome.
Is that the old “a bazillion Chinese can’t be wrong” argument?
You really seem to be getting quite uptight and rude on this issue - is that really necessary? “Petey” to attempt to belittle? Maybe some calm refutations in your own words might help the debate along a bit.
Nah, it’s the old “consensus-of-relevant-experts” argument.
Nope, “concerned” would be a whole lot more accurate.
Yep, and for the reasons given. I get a little bit twitchy when a mind in the right place insists on deploying woo-woo tactics. If nobody much likes or sees or understands my methods, principles and/or reasons that’s cool too. I’m pretty used to it. FYI, I console myself with what GBS had to say about progress and the “unreasonable man”… That, plus acquaintances’ recognition of Irreverend’s “good bloke” status. 
Not if the common norms of open debate were stuck to.
Huh? It’s how I play this game if you’d care to check my posts.
Tried that before and see Mefi’s posts that do the same. It’s useless in the face of an obstinate refusal to do the necessary homework and a happy readiness to play cerebral hopscotch. Aimless batting around for the sake of making a noise is pointless (cf. “theology”). Either you have a properly informed point to make and a genuine interest to find out where it might fail or you’re farting around just trying to make the biggest noise. The latter is what defines woo-woo nuts.
I must agree unreservedly: The greater context of scepticism is at least as important as the often-piffling details of specific disagreements.
'Luthon64
I find it interesting that Google has seen fit to adorn the top of this discussion with a banner advertisement for scientology.org. Perhaps they know something we don’t?
To make a properly informed point in a world as specialized as the one we live in, you have to be an expert, an academic, or at least thouroughly well read. To demand this level of expertise before posting seems unecessarily elitist. Is that really in the spirit of this forum? For most of us it will be a tall order to get fully acquainted with the subject matter and still participate in a spontaneous and off the cuff manner that I assumed is a hallmark of our discussions.
So unless we actually start publishing scientific papers on this forum, I think we should be forgiven for posting an occasional stupid idea. Part of the fun is to be be able to cast a currently held meme, however silly, into cyberspace and seeing what the great minds on this forum will do with it: the excitement as it gets blown apart, praised or ridiculed, and the disappointment if it is simply ignored. And that’s how we learn, that’s how we get convinced otherwise, and that is scepticism.
The moment somebody calls himself a sceptic, it means he abandons ego, and relies on evidence as his sole means of persuasion. If I post rubbish, and you do not convinced me otherwise, its simply because the evidence for my loony idea, at least in my head, still outweighs the evidence that you presented.
For sure.
Mintaka
I strongly doubt that such a strict reading of “properly informed” is merited. Rather, it is especially incumbent on us sceptics to engage in an adequate exploration of what the current orthodox thinking on an issue is, and what the reasoning is behind that thinking, before we initiate a discussion that challenges the status quo. That is, the burden of doing basic homework falls squarely on the sceptic. You yourself provide the reason for this a priori responsibility: “a sceptic … relies on evidence as his sole means of persuasion.” In these days of the Internet, a veritable glut of credible resources for just about any topic is not hard to come by. Now have a look at what went on in this thread, specifically at who it was that posted most of the evidence and who posted none at all. Clearly, the sceptical imperative was simply cast aside as an inconvenience, and this lapse then compounded with all manner of slipperiness.
Upon careful review, I think there’s been altogether too much focus on the rhetoric and virtually none on the actual message. As sceptics, we would not accept such approaches, methods and styles of argumentation as seen here lately if presented us by a woo merchant. How, then, is it okay all of a sudden just because it comes from our own side of the fence? Cast in a different metaphor, if one sets out to play a game of chess, one has an ethical obligation to abide by the rules of the game of chess. It is not in the spirit of chess play to invoke an opportune rule of draughts, rugby and/or tiddlywinks whenever the state of play starts going against one. Doing so will mean that very soon one will find oneself playing chess all alone.
I for one laud the insight and courage of drawing attention to the underlying hypocrisy, no doubt driven by a concern for the betterment of sceptical interaction and discourse. And while on the subject of hypocrisy, I am somewhat dismayed and not a little baffled to note among the critics one who regularly meets woo-woo proponents with cutting sarcasm but who baulks at the prospect of another who with comparable gusto dares call a spade a spade.
'Luthon64
If it is my client, poor little rwenzori, you refer to, he pleads guilty as charged. In mitigation he admits to being clueless about the discussion of rights, and was overcome by the prevailing sentiment of the “Season of Good Will”. He undertakes to call a spade a fucking spade in future, where appropriate, except in Harlem.