When I say dig for reasons, the digging has to end somewhere. Anything which is presented as an argument needs to have a reason. I have to reach some 'premise' which is acceptable by all (or most). What would be that premise?
I 'believe' what I can sense from my sensory organs. What i can see, hear, touch, smell (that too only if it coincides with what others sense) . And what I feel, what comes from within me. I might feel I like music. I might feel I hate somebody. I might feel I want something. Only these things form the basis of my arguments. (And I (we) argue only for things that I believe or disbelieve.)
(Some people 'feel' God. I found out that the 'feel' God because they 'believe' in God. It should be the other way round!)
And one more thing. Facts based on experimental analysis. If something has happened 90 out of 100 times, it has to be accepted as a fact. If I prayed for 10 days for a different thing everyday, and all 10 wished came true, and any other reason doesn't seem valid, then I would start believing that prayers help.
(And it surely is not a matter of perspective or opinion. Perspective also brings reasons with it. Perspective comes when the premises differ. It is the case where no further argument can be made and neither side wins.)
I ask a simple question. 'Do you want to believe the truth or not?'. I say I 'want' to, and if you say that you are not interested in that and you can believe anything you want, then this argument ends! No further argument can be made. But if you say yes (which everybody i have asked, does), this means that the premise is same. But still our final arguments differ. (say, about the existence of God. We want to believe in truth, and you believe in God. But I don't see any reason to, so I don't believe in God.). This means either one of us has made a mistake in reasoning between the premise and the final argument. To find out that flaw, we argue. Whichever side finds the mistake in its argument has to change its final argument. (though i don't see that happening :P)
I'd like to cite a simple example. Suppose it rains, but we didn't know that clouds strike and stuff and that causes rain. We'll try unlearn some stuff and assume, that before somebody proposed that God of water (jal devta :D) is causing the rain, somebody else proposed that there are aliens outside this planet. They live somewhere else and they are there to 'help' us. They have plenty of water, and they are donating that water to us.
Doesn't this explanation seem fine? Its weird, and stupid, but matches the current arguments.
(we now discard that the God is causing rain, we say that air is moved by the God, which moves clouds, and then rain happens due to collision of clouds.) We have 'aliens', some'body' to take care of us in our times of need. It gives us hope, and we don't mind if it is false hope. So. from now on we'll believe that aliens cause rain. Can you do that? (I have been hearing that unlearning is a bigger problem than learning. Now I think that's true.)
Fire was God before we knew about friction. Why? It helps us in making food, and it scares us because it burns us. Every such thing had been a God. But now that we know of friction, we call ourselves 'non-superstitious' and this boils down to 'god is one', and fire is not one of them.You are still superstitious. (as if you care :D)
Either some people have decided what is good for us to believe and have passed on those things to us, or some people wanted to control other people (as says ayn rand in the fountainhead), that's why they made us believe the stuff they wanted us to believe.
I don't think we want anybody else to decide what's good for us, neither do we want anybody to control us. So, why believe?
I 'believe' what I can sense from my sensory organs. What i can see, hear, touch, smell (that too only if it coincides with what others sense) . And what I feel, what comes from within me. I might feel I like music. I might feel I hate somebody. I might feel I want something. Only these things form the basis of my arguments. (And I (we) argue only for things that I believe or disbelieve.)
(Some people 'feel' God. I found out that the 'feel' God because they 'believe' in God. It should be the other way round!)
And one more thing. Facts based on experimental analysis. If something has happened 90 out of 100 times, it has to be accepted as a fact. If I prayed for 10 days for a different thing everyday, and all 10 wished came true, and any other reason doesn't seem valid, then I would start believing that prayers help.
(And it surely is not a matter of perspective or opinion. Perspective also brings reasons with it. Perspective comes when the premises differ. It is the case where no further argument can be made and neither side wins.)
I ask a simple question. 'Do you want to believe the truth or not?'. I say I 'want' to, and if you say that you are not interested in that and you can believe anything you want, then this argument ends! No further argument can be made. But if you say yes (which everybody i have asked, does), this means that the premise is same. But still our final arguments differ. (say, about the existence of God. We want to believe in truth, and you believe in God. But I don't see any reason to, so I don't believe in God.). This means either one of us has made a mistake in reasoning between the premise and the final argument. To find out that flaw, we argue. Whichever side finds the mistake in its argument has to change its final argument. (though i don't see that happening :P)
I'd like to cite a simple example. Suppose it rains, but we didn't know that clouds strike and stuff and that causes rain. We'll try unlearn some stuff and assume, that before somebody proposed that God of water (jal devta :D) is causing the rain, somebody else proposed that there are aliens outside this planet. They live somewhere else and they are there to 'help' us. They have plenty of water, and they are donating that water to us.
Doesn't this explanation seem fine? Its weird, and stupid, but matches the current arguments.
(we now discard that the God is causing rain, we say that air is moved by the God, which moves clouds, and then rain happens due to collision of clouds.) We have 'aliens', some'body' to take care of us in our times of need. It gives us hope, and we don't mind if it is false hope. So. from now on we'll believe that aliens cause rain. Can you do that? (I have been hearing that unlearning is a bigger problem than learning. Now I think that's true.)
Fire was God before we knew about friction. Why? It helps us in making food, and it scares us because it burns us. Every such thing had been a God. But now that we know of friction, we call ourselves 'non-superstitious' and this boils down to 'god is one', and fire is not one of them.You are still superstitious. (as if you care :D)
Either some people have decided what is good for us to believe and have passed on those things to us, or some people wanted to control other people (as says ayn rand in the fountainhead), that's why they made us believe the stuff they wanted us to believe.
I don't think we want anybody else to decide what's good for us, neither do we want anybody to control us. So, why believe?
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