Believers in God are Not logically obliged to accept any Flying Tea Pots, Spaghetti monsters, Elves, Banshees, or Fairies
This is only my third posting in English, and I'd like to explain myself to readers who got here through clicking my comment link on English-speaking blogs, especially those debating atheism and the existence of God.
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One recurring comment from debating foundationalist-atheists, is this classic one:
"The Great Pumpkin", "The Flying Spaghetti monster", and fairies/elves have also not been proven to exist! Why don't you guys believe in those as well?
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Bertrand Russell:
There is also no evidence against a china tea pot revolving about the sun, somewhere between the Earth and Mars! We cannot prove that it's not there somewhere. But should we believe, only because we have no proof against its existence?
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One man who put words to my feelings around these questions, is professor Alvin Plantinga, and this post will mainly be a summary of his article Is Belief in God Properly Basic? (Blackwell Publ. 1981)
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But first, some main expressions:
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Basic belief - not based on any other belief,
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Foundational belief - based on other beliefs "I believe A on the basis of B"
Foundationalist: A person who claims that every belief should be based on other beliefs.
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Proposition - statement, Incorrigible - Unchangeable, Self-evident - obvious, natural
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Plantinga asks himself: "How do we rightly arrive at, or develop, criteria for meaningfulness or justified belief? Where do they come from? Must one have such a criterion before one can make any judgements about proper basicality?"
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Russell's own logical paradoxes say this: Some propositions seem self-evident when in fact, they are not.
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We could consider R. Chisholms little question:
What is the status of criteria for knowledge or justified belief?
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* The foundationalist states:
(1) For any statement A, and person S,
A is properly basic for S if, and only if, A is incorrigible for S, or self-evident for S
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Or, as philosopher Ingemar Hedenius puts it:
"One should only accept statements in which there are good reasons to believe."
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But how could one know a thing like that? What is "a good reason to believe"? Clearly enough (1) in itself, is not selfevident or obviously true.
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Proposition (1) has not been proven.
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A foundationalist finds (1) so appealing that, he simply takes it to be true, neither offering arguments for it, nor accepting it on the basis of other things he believes (= failing his own foundationalist criterion). (1) is self-referentially incoherent i.e. it doesn't meet its own standards.
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You may seem to remember that you had breakfast this morning, and perhaps you know of no reason to suppose your memory is playing you tricks. Then it means that you are justified to take this as a properly basic belief. Of course it isn't properly basic on the criteria offered by the foundationalists, but that fact counts not against you, but against those criteria.
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Plantinga argues that it seems as though criteria for proper basicality must be reached from below, rather than above; they should not be presented as ex cathedra, as dogma from above, but argued to, and tested by a relevant set of examples. But there is no reason to assume, in advance, that everyone will agree on the examples.
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How about what i, as a believer consider meaningless? Am I entitled to consider anything at all as meaningless.? Yes I am, of course. Even though i cannot present some illuminating criterion of meaning, I can quite properly declare (2) as meaningless:
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(2) twas brilling; and the slithy toves did gyre and gymble in the wabe
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I can reject (2) even if i disagree with the verifiability criterion in Language, Truth and Logic (Ayer).
The same goes for the believer; the fact that he rejects the classical foundationalist's criterion of proper basicality does not mean that he is committed to supposing: just anything is properly basic. So, I'm not at all obliged to accept Flying Spaghetti monsters, voodoo, or astrology.
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* The Christian will of course suppose that belief in God is entirely proper and rational; if he doesn't accept this belief on the basis of other propositions, he will conclude that it is properly basic for him, and quite properly so.
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Followers of Bertrand Russell and Madelyn O'Hair may disagree, but how is that relevant? Must my criteria, or those of the christian community, conform to their examples? Surely not. The christian community is responsible for ITS set of examples, not to theirs.
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Thank you all for reading my Plantinga-summary with explanations. I mixed the sections a bit, for the sake of interest and results. I will try and answer your questions as best as I can. Both in Swedish and English.
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