Reason Not The Only Source of Knowledge
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Is this kid being irrational?
Perhaps not. However, I find your example implausible. Let’s look at it more closely. You originally wrote that a belief in god could be rational if two conditions are both met:
- “[The] belief stems from a sincere effort to explain the world and …”
- “… the believer is ready to jettison his belief if he were to think of some reason why it cannot be true.”
As for 1, a sincere effort to explain the world implies a critical attitude, honesty, conscientiousness/thoroughness, which means subjecting candidate ideas to lots of criticism, following up on counter-criticisms (as opposed to running off and doing something else), etc. A child might prioritize playing in the dirt today, but at some point he will ask questions. A sincere effort to explain anything means he’d rather say ‘I don’t know’ than believe something as silly as god.
God as a concept is arbitrary on its face. It cannot survive even very basic criticism. So it cannot possibly stem from a sincere effort to explain the world.
As for 2, kids ask tons of questions and criticize ideas. They’re naturally curious and conscientious in this way. The problem is that parents beat the god idea into their kids (figuratively if not literally) so that the kids don’t question it. So then those kids are not willing to jettison the idea anymore. Which is why the idea sticks around despite not being a sincere effort to explain the world.
Yeah fair. I'll admit, my example is rather contrived. My hope was to show that one could in principle maintain a belief in god in a rational fashion, at least for a time. However, just because it is theoretically possible doesn't mean that it is at all likely. I agree that this isn't what is usually going with believers.